Film Adaptation of Gogol's "Viy"

[David Powelstock]

Okay, enough kind people have written to me offline to inform me about the
1967 Soviet film of "Viy" that I feel obliged to draw everyone's attention
to the fact that the film I'm speaking about is Italian, filmed in 1960, and
named not "Viy" but "Bloody Sunday" (in US release) and "La Maschera del
Demonio" in the original Italian. I suppose I wasn't clear enough. I still
would like to hear from anyone who has seen this Italian film.
 
But also, thank you to those who wrote me with your opinions of the other
film!
 
Cheers,
David


 
 On Apr 10, 2007, at 4:59 PM, David Powelstock wrote:


Dear SEELANGers,

I just read in the NY Times today about this schlocky-sounding 1960 horror
movie that is based on "Viy" (see the info on the director pasted in below).
Has anyone seen this? Probably of very limited instructional value, but it
could be a real hoot for the students as an after-hours amuse-oeil. [more
info by searching "Black Sunday" on imdb.com]

Cheers,
David

P.S. I just watched the delightfully lurid trailer at netflix. Not sure if
you need to be a netflix member to see it.

David Powelstock 
Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures 
Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies 
Brandeis University 
GRALL, MS 024 
Waltham, MA  02454-9110 
781.736.3347 (Office) 

<snip>
The son of Eugenio Bava, a cinematographer whose credits go back to Giovanni
Pastrone’s 1914 “Cabiria,” one of the first great epics of Italian cinema,
Mario Bava was himself a successful cinematographer, with a reputation for
saving troubled international co-productions, when he was invited to direct
a project of his own. The result, based on a story by Nikolai Gogol and
influenced by the new line of Gothic horror films being produced by Hammer
in Britain, was “La Maschera del Demonio,” starring an unknown British
actress, Barbara Steele
<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=67811
<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=67811&inline=ny
t-per> &inline=nyt-per> , whose burning black eyes immediately made her one
of the very few women to achieve stardom in horror movies. Released in the
United States as “Black Sunday” by American International Pictures, it
became, Mr. Lucas says in his detailed commentary, the highest grossing film
in that company’s tawdry history, and a new career was born for Mr. Bava. 
<snip>



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Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387  
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu





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