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BLUEBEARD
Remember
the old folk tale about Bluebeard, the psychopath who married, murdered and then
preserved the bodies of several beautiful women? It seems unlikely material for
a multi-million dollar spectacular, but that’s just what mega-producers
Alexander and Ilya Salkind attempted with BLUEBEARD, a ludicrous but enjoyable
camp-fest that provides enough unintentional hilarity for a dozen Ed Wood
movies.
The Package
The Salkinds are
among the world cinema’s foremost shlockmeisters, having turned out more than
four decades’ worth of overbudgeted no-brainers. Certainly they’ve produced
some legitimately good films, like Orson Welles’ THE TRIAL and the first couple
SUPERMANS, but those seem accidental. More typical are disasters like SANTA
CLAUS: THE MOVIE, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY and the 1972 film under
discussion.
BLUEBEARD’S gimmick was to showcase the “charms” of
seven screen sexpots, including Raquel Welch (who also appeared in the Salkind
produced THREE MUSKETEERS), Joey Heatherton, Sybil Danning and Virna Lisi, who
play Bluebeard’s wives/victims. Despite the vintage setting, the gals were
meant to replicate various late-sixties “types”: the frivolous art lover, the
radical feminist, the repressed lesbian, etc. The late Richard Burton, then one
of the world’s biggest stars, was cast in the title role (and appropriately so,
considering the actor’s well-publicized bimbo addiction). Puzzlingly, the
veteran filmmaker Edward Dmytryk, one of the “Hollywood Ten” blacklist victims
of the fifties and director of classics like MURDER MY SWEET and THE CAINE
MUTINY, was tapped to direct. BLUEBEARD was to be one of the director’s final
films, closing out a highly auspicious career on a decidedly low note.
The Story
Anne, a naïve
American dancer, unwisely consents to marry Baron Von Sepper, an eccentric
Austrian aristocrat with a blue beard. Anne doesn’t realize that she’s in fact
his seventh wife, and that his past brides have all met with suspicious
deaths--that includes his previous wife, who died in a hunting “accident”. Anne
grows suspicious of her husband’s distant manner, and the fact that he won’t
have sex with her. Her friends, meanwhile, are all killed in various
“accidents.” One night while Bluebeard is out Anne discovers a golden key that
she uses to open a secret door concealing a large freezer in which the bodies of
Bluebeard’s ex-wives are interred. The Baron returns home shortly thereafter
and Anne confronts him with her discovery; he decides its Anne’s turn to meet
her maker, but she manages to forestall her death by convincing him to describe
his previous marriages.
Flashbacks fill us in on the lurid details of Bluebeard’s marital history,
in which, he claims, he killed his wives only because they were all annoying in
one way or another. There was an opera singer who sang too much, and so he
guillotined her. Another of his wives he caught romancing another woman, and
enjoying the experience far too much, so he impaled both with a specially
equipped chandelier. Another was an ex-nun who talked incessantly, leading him
to suffocate her in a coffin. When a masochistic feminist got to be too much,
Bluebeard drowned her. Finally, there was a frivolous art lover who was so
obnoxiously carefree he sicked his deadly falcon on her.
Listening to all this, Anne figures out the real reason for Bluebeard’s
murderous behavior: he’s impotent! She cacklingly reveals this bombshell, which
prompts Bluebeard to lock her in his freezer. Can she escape? Will Bluebeard
get his just desserts? Who cares?
The Direction
If there’s any
one movie that defines camp, BLLUEBEARD may well be it. It contains all the
requirements: outrageously hammy performances, wildly overdone art direction and
an atmosphere so suffocatingly humorless it can’t help but inspire laughter.
It’s often difficult to believe the filmmakers weren’t making an intentional
comedy, and, to be fair, maybe they were: in Richard Burton’s published diaries
he revealed that he was trying for a Vincent Price-like approach here that mixed
humor with drama. Well, the humor definitely registers but the drama does not!
Bad movie fans know Burton was one of the hammiest actors on the planet in
flicks like HAMMERSMITH IS OUT and THE EXORCIST 2, but he outdoes himself here.
Not that any of the gals who play his wives are much better, as none were
apparently cast for their acting ability.
One technical aspect that does manage to impress is the gorgeous,
Dario Argento-esque Eastmancolor lighting by cinematographer Gabor Pogany, which lends
the film its one and only bit of class (unsurprisingly, blue is the dominant
shade). Much condemnation has been leveled at the filmmakers’ treatment of the
female cast, all of whom get manhandled in various gruesome ways (through
various tacky special effects), but criticizing the film in such a manner is, I
believe, taking it far more seriously than it deserves.
Vital Statistics
BLUEBEARD
Cinerama Releasing
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Producer: Alexander Salkind
Screenplay: Edward Dmytryk, Ennio Di Concini, Maria Pia Fusco
(Based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault)
Cinematography: Gabor Pogany
Editing: Jean Ravel
Cast: Richard Burton, Joey Heatherton, Raquel Welch, Virna Lisi, Nathalie Delon,
Marilu Tolo, Karin Schubert, Agostina Belli, Sybil Danning, Jean Lefebvre,
Mattieu Carriere