Director Danny L. Zialcita [as "DLZ"] Producer “BZ” [believed to be Danny's father Dr Benjamin Zialcita] Cinematography Mars Rasca Music Demet Velasquez Editor Teofilo de Leon Sound Supervision Luis Reyes Production Manager Max Rivera Assistant Director Fred F. Castro Special Effects Silvano Baligas Makeup Artist Rosita Dizon Unit Manager Emilio Ay-Ay Assistant Camera Jun Rasca, Arnold Alvaro Field Soundman Sebastian Sayson Chief Laboratory Technician Johnny Fornoles Printer Simeon Amado Assistant Editors Benigno de Leon, Ike Jarlego Jr Stillman Alejandro Forno? Titles Bert Nepomuceno
Cast Bernard Bonnin (Philip Monteverde), Marlene Dauden (Veronica de Villa), Liberty Ilagan (Emily Verzosa), Ben Perez (Dr Hernando Marquez), Vic Salayan (Judge Dante Soriano), Alfonso Carvajal (General Dan Moreno), Martin Marfil (Telesforo), Vic Andaya (Allan Alindogan), Maria Hernandez (Matilde Africa), Eddie Arenas (“Rusty”/Rustico), Jack Davis (Jonathan Dreyfus) [also referred to as “Rayfus”], Eddie Fernandez, Perla Bautista, Nancy Roman, Elvie Gonzales, Eddie Mercado, Nel dela Ysla, Baby Alvarez, Paquito Benitez, Douglas Prieto, Bert Asuncion, Bert Samonte
THRILLER
Review by Andrew Leavold
[Special thanks go to SOFIA's Teddy Co and Monchito Nochon for providing a copy of the film, and to Video 48's Simon Santos for the poster and screen captures]
One of my favourite Bollywood films from the Sixties is the 1965 murder mystery Gumnaam, a rip-roaring plundering of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians bathed in saturated Mario Bava-esque lighting and featuring a butler with a Hitler moustache (the late, great comedian Mehmood) and a musical number every twenty minutes. It’s not the first time Dame Agatha’s plot has been adapted by enterprising producers inside and out of the English-speaking film world, as it’s a hoary, occasionally effective device - a group of strangers with hidden pasts are brought together in an isolated environment, and are killed off one by one until the killer is ultimately revealed – which demands limitations budget, cast and locations, often requiring little more than a single studio set. For a competent filmmaker, a considerable amount of tension and any number of unexpected narrative twists can be wrung from meager resources.
Such a filmmaker is former cause celebre Danny L. Zialcita, a writer-director whose career trajectory bears more than a passing resemblance to the revered Celso Ad. Castillo. Both graduated in the public’s mind at some point in the Seventies from gifted, gimmicky populists to genuine auteurs. Like Celso Ad. Castillo, he started in the pulps, directing spy thrillers and lurid bomba dramas; his 1965 debut, a Bond riff titled Lady Killer, kickstarted a whole series by Zialcita which propelled Romano Castellvi to stardom, and he also helmed two popular spy films with Bernard Bonnin as secret agent Hammerhead (Hammerhead and Incognito [both 1967]). And like Celso, his films from the Seventies and Eighties were more of a Happening, in the Sixties’ sense of the word, than just a premiere. Celso’s peak has long passed, and it’s no doubt due in part to his relentless self-promotion that long-unseen films like Nympha (1971) are recalled with such clarity. Not so Zialcita, who only recently emerged after years of self-imposed exile (due, word on the street tells us, to a decades-long drug problem), and whose name continues to slip under the radar of many cineastes.
Masquerade, a 1967 mystery “inspired” by Ten Little Indians, is an odd duck, appearing at a time in Pinoy cinema during an avalanche of spy films, westerns, war films, karate actioners, Hollywood parodies, musical comedies and both teen and mature weepie dramas. Zialcita hides here behind his eponymous “DLZ”, as does the producer “BZ” (his rich father, perhaps?), and rounds up an impressive cast of top-shelf Pinoy names and character actors to play eight strangers tempted to a masquerade on secluded Diablo Island by an unseen benefactor known only as Mr X, and his enigmatic American proxy Mr Dreyfus (Jack Davis), a strange bird complete with brolly and bowler hat. Hammerhead’s Bonnin plays dashing celebrity and man-of-few-words Philip Monteverde; glamour comes in the comely shapes of Marlene Dauden as the manipulative Vera, and a lovely, if somewhat bedraggled, Liberty Ilagan as boozehound Emily. Veterans Vic Salayan, Alfonso Carvajal, Martin Marfil and Vic Andaya help round out the list of suspects which include a judge, a General, a nightclub singer, a doctor and industrialist playboy. None of them suspect a connection between each other; they are more interested in Mr Dreyfus’ offers of money, women and sport (and for more than one character, the three are inseparable).
As the ferry leaves the island and the eight guests are trapped in a sprawling mansion along with Dreyfus and two bemused servants, they all find themselves unwilling participants in, as one puts it, “a Masquerade…of DEATH!” One suffocates in a glass-topped coffin and another lands a cleaver in the face, while their hidden host plays upon each of their insecurities, suspicions and paranoias. No-one has been judged innocent, it appears, and their killer has stacked eleven funereal wreaths in the basement and published their death notices in the previous week’s newspaper. Eventually the characters are whittled down to just two, and still there’s no sign of an easy resolution. “Who could it be?” demands the narrator, as a ragged yet effective recap of the film’s murders swings the footage into negative stock. “You have been given ample time. Now be prepared for a SHOCK!”
Zialcita attended a 2010 screening of the film’s only surviving print from its distributor, JE Films’ Joseph Estrada, and during a Q&A session afterwards trashed his efforts as “short of rubbish”. I can understand why – I’m sure he prefers the post-bomba films he’s more famous for, in which he had found a far less forced voice, and a maturity in theme, form and technique. On the evolutionary scale of a filmmaker, Masquerade is the showy, self-conscious attempt by a young auteur-in-waiting at breaking out of the restrictions of local storytelling and attempting a more sophisticated, deliberately European-influenced or Welles-ian work. A telling sign is that almost half of the dialogue is spoken in English (delivered at a leaden pace for those less familiar with the language), which immediately sets the film apart from its Tagalog contemporaries. It’s also in the noir-ish lighting from below casting shadows on ceilings, in the deliberate framing, and perspective tricks. The film is certainly impressive for a young director working within such a rigid star system, audience expectations and formulaic genre, but Zialcita’s stylistic ploys are often forced and aggressive, and cry out for attention. It’s far from “rubbish”, however, and Mr Zialcita is either being unnecessarily humble or self-critical to the point of self-immolation. Masquerade is not great and, despite the nods to Welles, can in no way be considered his Citizen Kane. Instead it’s “clever” (and I mean that with no disrespect), zippy and intriguing, and crammed with shadows of films to come.
Bernard Bonnin (Philip Monteverde)
Marlene Dauden (Veronica de Villa)
Liberty Ilagan (Emily Verzosa)
Ben Perez (Dr Hernando Marquez)
Vic Salayan (Judge Dante Soriano)
Alfonso Carvajal (General Dan Moreno)
Maria Hernandez (Matilde Africa) and Martin Marfil (Telesforo)
Director Leody M. Diaz Story Napoleon Labrador Screenplay Henry Cuino Music Demet Velasquez
Cast Tony Ferrer (Tony Falcon, Agent X-44), Sofia Moran, Lynn Roselle, Liza Vergara, Romy Diaz, Rolan Montes, Omar Camar [as Boy Camar], Larry Esguerra, Romy Luartes, Alex Flores, Jun Santos, Che de Guzman, Ben Perez, Ven Medina, Renato del Prado, Sim Jorge, Jing Caparas, Edwin Perry, Arsenio Cudia, SOS Daredevils, Thunder Boys Stuntmen, Tom Calma, Tony Poblete
SPY/ACTION
NOTE: This is number 29 or 30 - most probably 29 - in a long-running series of Agent X-44 films starring Tony Ferrer. For a full filmography and detailed article on the X-44 series, click HERE.
1964 – Back Door To Hell (Lippert Inc/Medallion Films Inc)
[US production filmed in the Philippines]
Director Monte Hellman Story Richard A. Guttman Screenplay Richard A. Guttman, John Hackett Producer Fred Roos Executive Producer [uncredited] Robert L. Lippert Associate Producer Ronald Remy Cinematography Mars Rasca Music Mike Velarde Editors Fely Crisostomo, [uncredited] Monte Hellman Sound Juanito Clemente Production Manager Nilo Saez Makeup Artist Nita Sol Cruz Camera Operator Ricardo Remias Production Assistant Walter Phelps
Cast Jimmie Rodgers (Lt. Craig), Jack Nicholson (Burnett), John Hackett (Jersey), Annabelle Huggins (Maria), Conrad Maga (Paco), Johnny Monteiro (Ramundo), Joe Sison (Japanese Captain), Henry Duval (Garde), Ben Perez (Mayor Arming Parillo), Vic Uematsu (Japanese Prisoner)
WAR
NOTES by Andrew Leavold: Filmed back-to-back with another feature directed by Hellman and written by and starring Jack Nicholson, Flight To Fury (1964), reviewed HERE. My interview with Monte Hellman about the making of both films appears HERE.
REVIEW by Andrew Leavold
By the time Jack Nicholson appeared in two movies shot back-to-back in the Philippines in 1964 by maverick director Monte Hellman, he was already an aspiring writer, not to mention hungry actor, and had collaborated with Hellman a number of times. Most notable was the notorious Roger Corman quickie The Terror (1963) on which a total of five directors worked, with only Corman receiving credit. Executive Producer Robert Lippert had seen The Terror and, stunned by its sheer economy but completely in the dark over which filmmaker did what, asked for either Francis Ford Coppola or Monte Hellman to make his next two pictures in South East Asia. Coppola was busy, so Hellman got the ticket; he took a slow boat to Manila alongside a busy Jack Nicholson who was hammering out the script for Flight To Fury, and John Hackett attempting to nail the second feature Back Door To Hell. Of course Coppola would end up in the Philippines recreating a small corner of hell with Apocalypse Now, but that’s another story altogether…
Under the watchful eye of Lippert’s producer Fred Roos, Hellman shot both films starting with Back Door To Hell with, predictably, very little money, a back-breaking schedule and the inherent chaos of the Philippines to contend with. Not surprisingly Hellman fell deathly ill with an unnamed tropical malady and was unable to supervise the first cut of Back Door… while almost dying daily on the set of Flight To Fury. As a result, Hellman has little to say about his low-rent Philippines adventures, but it does explain the grit, grime and purposeful nihilism in every frame. Add Nicholson’s memorable dialogue and a growing awareness of his strengths as an actor, and you have two perfect low-budget, almost no-budget, micro-masterpieces.
Back Door To Hell is a taut World War Two drama with a similar look to the other black and white war films made in the Philippines at the time by Eddie Romero and American B actor George Montgomery. Unlike those films, however, there are no selfless heroics or rousing gung-ho speeches here; it's made clear from the start these men, much like the director himself and Francis Ford Coppola after him, are slowly falling to pieces in the Filipino jungle. In Hellman’s case, the Apocalypse starts RIGHT now.
Hellman doesn’t even waste the credits, plunging straight into the action. Lieutenant Craig (Jimmie Rodgers) is a US Army Intelligence officer leading a three-man squad towards a Japanese radio tower. The mission: broadcast vital information to the invading forces about to recapture the Philippines. Compared to his forceful appearance in Flight To Fury, Jack Nicholson is sorely wasted here as Rodger's second banana playing the sardonic Burnett, a foil for the comparatively soulless killing machine Sergeant Jersey (co-writer John Hackett). Naturally as Hellman’s two main writers they get the most meaningful exchanges… Jersey: "We're all gonna die anyway - tomorrow, next week, thirty years from now. Did that little thought ever penetrate your thick skull?" Burnett: "Yeah, once when I was a boy, but naturally I dismissed it as being too outrageous."
The Americans team up with Paco (Conrad Maga), an embittered Filipino resistance fighter whose survival instincts lead him to mistrust both sides; tired of sacrificing his men for his liberators, he's introduced as the man who has interrogated Craig's contact to death, just in case... In fact, torture is Paco’s preferred modus operandi, as evidenced by his treatment of the captured Japanese Captain played by Joe Sison (a well-worn Filipino goon, also in Eddie Romero and George Montgomery exports) and his terrified grunt of an underling (Vic Uemetsu). "Interrogating a prisoner is like cooking a goose..." says Paco, almost salivating at the prospect; he’s a lot more comfortable with the dirty business of torturing and killing than the closet humanist Craig. Into this circus of cynics waltzes classic Filipino kontrabida Johnny Monteiro in a gloriously over-the-top performance as Raymundo, a bandido posing as a freedom fighter who is more concerned with bargaining for the Americans’ radio than the liberation of his country.
Stripped of most of its military hardware and pyrotechnics, Back Door… is more a claustrophobic deconstruction of a war film, an exercise in rapid-fire montage filled with simple, cost-effective visuals and quiet flourishes, such as an incredible 360-degree pan from the Japanese Captain's point of view, and a modest character study of men pushed to the brink. The tacked-on newsreel footage towards the end showing the liberation of Luzon, inserted against Hellman’s wishes by the distributor to make the film more “war-like”, is gratuitous and unwelcome.
Hauntingly pretty Filipina actress Annabelle Huggins adopts a perpetually pained expression as Paco’s love-worn partner Maria, but when you read about how her brief movie career in the mid-Sixties came out the publicity surrounding her infamous rape and kidnap case (details are on the Video 48 blog here) only a year before Back Door… was shot, it leads you to suspect she’s not really acting at all. Also surprisingly good in his role as Lieutenant Craig is Jimmie Rodgers, the easy-going folk-rock singer (and, according to some sources, Back Door…’s co-financier) who had a mildly successful career until a drunken incident with a policeman in 1967 left him with a fractured skull and a legacy of brain-related complications. Hellman himself would eventually recover from his harrowing Philippines experiences and collaborate with Nicholson once again on two westerns, Ride In The Whirlwind and The Shooting (both 1967), which can only be described as “existential". Frankly, the same term can be applied to Back Door To Hell.
...and unknown actors (please contact us if you can identify them)
THEATRICAL
USA – distributed by 20th Century Fox and released as a second feature,October to November 1964
UK – released as a second feature, 1967-69
AUSTRALIA – released as a second feature, September to October 1965
OTHER TERRITORIES [unconfirmed, but listed on the IMDB]: In West Germany as “Hintertür Zur Hölle”, in Spain as “Escapatoria Al Infierno”, in Peru as “Comando Suicida”, in Brazil as “Guerrilheiros do Pacífico”, In Poland as “Tylnymi drzwiami do piekła”, in Bulgaria as “Задната врата към ада”, and in the Soviet Union as “Задняя дверь в ад”
DIGITAL
USA– DVD release via 20th Century Fox
AUSTRALIA – DVD release via 20th Century Fox
FRANCE – DVD release via 20th Century Fox [in English with French subtitles; includes a 20-minute featurette “Back Door To Hell, Jungle Western” by Olivier Père, director of Cinéma d’Arte France]
SWEDEN – DVD release via Noble [in English with several Scandinavian subtitles]
