All language subtitles for The Polselli Factor - Interview with filmmaker and film historian Luca Rea (2023)

(upbeat rock music)

- Renato was born in
Arce, a really small town,

very, very small town.

He had this great passion of writing

and he went to Rome.

He said to me that when he
went to Rome as a young boy,

he found there was at
that time many publishers

that used to do what we call in Italy,

we call them gialli,

crime novels, pulp novels,

that he wrote under various pseudonyms,

and he was paid probably 100
lira for each page he wrote.

He started this way by
writing those pulp novels

and he approached the Italian cinema,

which was, at that time,
very different from today.

Quite soon, he was able to
direct his first movies,

a bunch of Neapolitan movies,

because there was a big market, mostly

related to South Italy
and Neapolitan area,

and he made a bunch of
these, which went good.

After those, he made his first horror,

because he went to see, probably,

he said to me that he went
to see Horror of Dracula,

the Hammer movie with Christopher Lee,

and so he thought that the vampire theme

was an exploitable theme,

and they made The Vampire
and the Ballerina,

L'Amante del Vampiro.

(vampire breathing heavily)
(eerie music)

(ballerina screaming)

He went on doing movies of any kind.

He made war movies, dramas,

such as Ultimatum alla Vita,

and he made comedies,
such as Aventura al Motel,

which was sort of gag movie,

movie with many episodes, with many gags,

with various comedians,
including Franco and Ciccio,

which were very popular at that time

and which were very friendly with Renato.

Renato was very friendly
with Franco, Ciccio,

and he was very friendly
with Tano Cimarosa.

Tano Cimarosa, which was
a great supporting actor

and a great actor, too, in
the history of Italian cinema,

and he was very, very
friendly with Renato.

At the point when Tano was
very old and had some problem,

I remember one day I was
in a famous bar in Rome.

I was with Renato

and I remember that Tano was there, too,

and at a certain point,

Tano had to take a taxi, and
Renato said to me, "Wait."

And he took Tano, and
literally taken him by hand.

He took Tano at the taxi on
the other side of the street,

and it was a sweet scene to see,

but they were very old at that time.

He also worked a lot as an
organizer for other movies.

He worked a lot for Titanus.

He was behind the scenes

forAntonio Margheriti's
Io Ti Amo and many others.

Then, at the end of the '60s,

he worked a lot with the Brazzi brothers,

Oscar and Rossano Brazzi.

Rossano was a very, very
famous actor in Italy,

and not only in Italy,

because he starred in a
lot of American movies

and international movies.

And his brother, Oscar,
was a producer, organizer,

and at the end of the '60s,

he tried to cash in by directing

a bunch of exploitation movies,

maybe the very first
exploitation movies in Italy,

anticipating for a while what was going

to happen in the '70s in
a larger scale in Italy.

And Renato participated to almost any

of those movies by Oscar Brazzi,

except for ll Sesso del Diavolo,

aka Trittico,

which was a giallo starring Rossano Brazzi

and entirely shot in Turkey.

At a certain point, I don't know,

I don't remember if Renato
ever told me, exactly,

but at a certain point, they split,

and Renato took with him his part of money

that was his co-production for this movie

that he decided not to co-produce,

and with this part of money,

he made his first G.R.P.
exploitation movie,

The Truth According to Satan,

which was originally titled,

The Gospel According to Satan.

Rita Calderoni was almost

in any of his exploitation
movies from now on.

Rita was in Delirio Caldo Riti Magie Nere.

La Verita Econdo Satana was the first one,

and she was also in
Torino Centrale del Vizio,

which was the last classic Polselli movie.

She met Renato in the very moment

when he was changing completely
his way to make movies,

because The Truth According to Satan

was quite close to the
early exploitation movies

that Oscar Brazzi was doing at that time,

but probably Renato
wanted to go even further,

and it was almost a porn
movie for that time.

(ominous music)

(people laughing)
(ominous music)

This Dutch tape reflected
the American version,

the famous Vietnam version
of the Delirium Caldo.

It's a version where you
have a prologue and an ending

that were made only for
the American market.

When they tried to justify

the madness of the main character,

because he was a Vietnam veteran,

and you have a scene in the
beginning, the prologue,

that Renato told me that he shot entirely

in the backyard of his house in Arce.

(people moaning and groaning)
(ominous music)

I think one of the weird
things about Renato

is that he's very recognizable,

extremely recognizable.

I mean, he made those movies
with very low budgets,

and they tell stories
that are absolutely...

you can find those kind of stories

maybe only in some B-grade
comic book of that time.

And so everything makes you think to,

of course, trash cinema,

but for some reason,

you can tell this is Renato Polselli

after probably 10 seconds
of dialogues in a movie.

There was someone that some way

tried to do some Renato Polselli movie.

I may mention Filippo Walter Ratti

for I Vizi Morbosi di Una Governante,

or especially Paolo
Solvay for Nude for Satan.

Nude for Satan,

which also stars Rita
Calderoni in its cast,

is absolutely a Polselli
movie made by other people.

But in any case, you see the difference.

If you see Nuda per
Satana, Nude for Satan,

you are able to say, This is not Polselli,

even if it's totally a Polselli
movie because of the plot,

because of the characters,
because of the actors.

There is everything that
is inside a Polselli movie,

but you say, "No, this is not Polselli."

In fact, it's not Polselli.

It's Paolo [indistinct].

So I think this is quite weird,

because in this kind of cinema,

exploitation and very low-budget cinema,

it's very rare to find a style.

I think this is something
that has to be considered

when you talk about Renato,

even if it, of course,

is more easy to talk about
the weirdness of his titles

and plots and so on.

(water running)
(ominous music)

- Look over there, inspector!
- No, wait! Freeze!

Oh, my God!

Of course, there is a marketing purpose,

because he made those
movies not only something

that has to do with inspiration.

I think he was inspired.

I think he was inspired.

I think he wanted to do
these kind of movies.

These are comic book-like movies

and I don't find this

to be something bad to say for a movie,

but he also wanted to save himself

from the industry at that time,

because he was no more the young director

which had in front of him the
possibility to do new movies

and trying to become a name.

He had to do money.

And so the exploitation
cinema was also made

for making money, of course,

because he lived from this, from cinema,

and I find nothing wrong in this.

I How many times .r

I We're told .r

I How many times I

I Will can never see I

I How many people understand I

I What's inside the heart of man I

I All the secrets will give way I

I All the words we never say I

(pop rock music)

I How many times I

I We're told don't talk or wait I

(funky wah-wah music)