008: Operation Exterminate

(A 008: Operazione Sterminio)

Written and directed by Umberto Lenzi, Italy, 1965

Ingrid Schoeller (German actress) as MacDonald, American Agent 008

Alberto Lupo as Frank Smith, British Secret Service Agent 606

"The British Secret Service sends agent 606 to Cairo to collaborate with an American colleague in searching for a stolen anti-radar device. Arriving in Egypt, he finds that agent A008 is actually an attractive female...Ingrid Schoeller plays what is quite possibly the first attempt of international cinema to create a female James Bond-type character: she is beautiful, curvaceous, sweet, intelligent, armed with gadgets, expert with a gun, and can handle herself in a fight without needing a man to rescue her (as she proves in a daring escape from an enemy-riddled beauty saloon)." (IMBd).

Bonus

Black Tigress (Lola Colt)

Co-written and directed by Siro Marcellini, 1967

(A bit cheesy but rare to find a heroine among Spaghetti Westerns)

The Strange Woman

 Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and Douglas Sirk, 1946

Starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward

"In 1820s New England beautiful but poor and manipulative Jenny Hager marries rich old man Isaiah Poster but also seduces his son and his company foreman..,Beautiful Jenny Hager finds she can always get what she wants from the men in the 1820's port of Bangor, Maine. Freed by his death from her drunkard father she soon manoeuvres herself into a position to marry a middle-aged monied local businessman. Though she often uses his money to do good, she continues to consider all other men fair game." (IMDb).

 

 

 

Recommended

The Strange Woman (1946)

The Strange Woman (1946): Take Hold on Hell

Hedy Lamarr Biography

Hedy Lamarr

Secret communication system

'Most Beautiful Woman' By Day, Inventor By Night

Vengeance

Spaghetti Western directed by Antonio Margheriti (Italy)

Starring: Richard Harrison as Rocco, Claudio Camaso as Mendoza and Spela Rozin as Jane

A man tracks down the five outlaws who murdered his brother, all the while being shadowed by a mysterious Pinkerton

Bonus

The Moment to Kill

Directed by Giuliano Carnimeo, Italy, 1968

Walden

By Henry David Thoreau, 1845

Selected passages read (beautifully and hypnotically) by Archibald MacLeish, 1968

Man Who Cried for Revenge

Directed by Mario Caiano, Italy, 1968

Original title: Il suo nome gridava vendetta

Starring Anthony Steffen as Davy Flanagan

 

www.imdb.com/title/tt0144626/

 

 

John the Bastard

Original title: John il bastardo

Directed by Armando Crispino, Italy, 1967

Winter Academy

Billy MacKenzie

From the posthumous album Beyond the Sun, 1997

Ex-Associate Billy Mackenzie was working on the tracks which comprise Beyond the Sun when he committed suicide. The Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde, among others, completed the demos for release.

I've heard around

That you've been crying

All over town

They say you're buying

Cheap thrills with hearts

You couldn't care for

Cheap thrills with hearts

But I know different

Till the Winter Academy

A gift to flowers

Needless to say

We spent these hours

All around town

These young pretenders

So jagged the crown

Breakfast remembered

When I close my eyes I think of you

When I close my eyes

See all of you

When I close my eyes

I see you for what you were

Before the autumn came

But life itself is strange

Night and day

Written by Kenny Brady (who was in The Fall) from Edinburgh

'squashed again' by wandering bohemian

The Torture Never Stops

Frank Zappa, 1976

 

Flies all green and buzzin'
In this dungeon of despair
Prisoners grumble and piss their clothes
And scratch their matted hair
A tiny light from a window-hole
A hundred yards away
Is all they ever get to know
About the regular light in the day

And it stinks so bad the stones been chokin'
Weepin' greenish drops
In the room where the giant fire puffer works
And the torture never stops
The torture never stops

Slime and rot and rats and snot and
Vomit on the floor
Fifty hill billy soldiers man
Holdin' spears by the iron door
Knives and spikes and guns and the likes
Of every tool of pain
And a sinister midget with a bucket and a mop
Where the blood goes down the drain

And it stinks so bad, the stones been chokin'
Weepin' greenish drops
In the room where
The giant fire puffer works
And the torture never stops
The torture never stops,
The torture
The torture
The torture never stops

Flies all green and buzzin'
In this dungeon of despair
An evil prince eats a steamin' pig
In a chamber right near there

He eats the snouts and the trotters first
The loins and the groins are soon dispersed
His carvin' style is well rehearsed
He stands and shouts
All men be cursed (4x)
And disagree, hell no one durst
He's the best of cause of all the worst
Some wrong been done
He done it first

And he stinks so bad his bones been chokin'
Weepin' greenish drops
In the light of the iron sausage
Where the torture never stops
The torture never stops
The torture
The torture
The torture never stops

Flies all green and buzzin'
In the dungeon of despair
Who are all those people
That he's locked away down there
Are they crazy
Are they sainted
Are they zeros someone painted
That had never been explained
Since at first it was created
But a dungeon like a sin
Requires not much lockin' in
Of everything thats ever been
Look at her
Look at him
Thats whats the deal we're dealin in
Thats whats the deal we're dealin in
Thats whats the deal we're dealin in

Frank zappa (guitar)
Captain beefheart (harmonica, vocals)
Napoleon murphy brock (saxophone)
Bruce fowler (trombone)
Denny walley (slide guitar)
George duke (keyboards)
Tom fowler (bass)
Terry bozzio (drums)