This post started out being about seeing Vicky Christina Barcelona this weekend (it's very, very good, and I really want to write something about Woody Allen very soon), and how I was struck by the unusually large number of vanity logos we had to sit through at the top of the film. Not only did we get the MGM lion and The Weinstein Company logo, we got a tag for something called MediaPro. Then, once the movie proper started--the usual Allen white-on-black credits--not only did the Weinsteins and MediaPro take additional credit, but so did seemingly every international financier who put any money into this: A Gravier Production in association with Antena 3 Films & Antena 3 TV of a Dumaine Production.
Having to sit through credits like that--which makes you feel like you're watching a business deal, not a work of art--got me to thinking about how old school international producers like Dino DeLaurentis and Carlo Ponti no doubt cobbled together financing for their pricey continental epics from a consortium of shady international investors, but back in the day, it never occurred to anyone to give screen credit to moneymen. It just said "Dino DeLaurentis presents" and that was it.
So doing the minimal amount of research necessary to write about DeLaurentis and Ponti--which is to say, looking them up at the IMDb--I was delighted to discover that, in between producing masterpieces for Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni, Ponti had produced the sleazy Italian slasher picture Torso, the TV commercials for which produced many a sleepless night for me.
The best part of this spot for me isn't the half-hearted attempt to link this grindhouse epic to Doctor Zhivago but the way the voice-over guy doesn't even try to sound ominous, almost cheerfully chiming out, "Torso!" over and over again. Sure, this ad promises carnage, but weirdly chipper carnage. With a pedigree!
