PINOCCHIO VS PINOCCHIO – OR, DEL TORO ORIGINAL VS DISNEY REMAKE

 

Publicity poster and soundtrack album for Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio and Walt Disney's Pinocchio live-action/CGI 2022 remake respectively (© Guillermo Del Toro/Mark Gustafson/Netflix Animation/Double Dare You!/ShadowMachine/The Jim Henson Company/Taller del Chucho/Netflix / (© Robert Zemeckis/Walt Disney Pictures/Depth of Field/ImageMovers/Disney⁺ – both images reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Few children's novels have proved as popular and ageless as Pinocchio (or The Adventures of Pinocchio, to give it its full original title), written by Italian author Carlo Collodi and first published in 1883. It famously tells the story of how a puppet carved from pine by lonely, childless woodcarver Geppetto and dubbed Pinocchio by him is magically brought to life as a wooden boy by a kindly fairy, who promises Pinocchio that if he proves himself brave, truthful, and unselfish, he will one day become a real flesh-and-blood boy. Pinocchio promises her that he will do, but he is soon led astray, falling into bad company and suffering all kinds of misfortunes as a result. Yet whenever he is challenged about his bad behaviour, Pinocchio invariably attempts to defend himself by telling lies, but every time he does so, his nose grows, and the bigger the lie, the longer his nose becomes. Eventually, however, Pinocchio redeems himself by rescuing his ever-loving creator/father Geppetto from the belly of a huge fish (or whale in certain later reimaginings) at the cost of his own life – at which point the fairy intervenes, transforming him as promised into a real boy.

Down through the decades, there have been numerous movie versions of this highly imaginative and in parts quite frightening but emphatically moralistic story. However, the most famous and best-loved is unquestionably the classic 1940 Walt Disney animated feature Pinocchio, widely deemed by movie buffs to be one of the best animated films of all time – if not THE best (and certainly one of my all-time favourites) – with its principal song 'When You Wish Upon A Star' winning an Academy Award as Best Original Song and going on to become the unofficial theme song of the entire Disney movie empire. In my film collection, I have over a dozen different big-screen interpretations of Collodi's literary legend, but in 2022 a couple of major new film versions were released, each of eminent cinematic heritage, but very different indeed in both style and storyline from one another. Having now watched both of them, one the creation of celebrated Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro, the other Disney's live-action/CGI remake of its very own 1940 animated masterpiece, here are my own personal thoughts and opinions of how well, or otherwise, they shape up.

 

 

The extraordinary electric-blue chimaera-like entity representing Death, the sister of the pale-blue Wood Sprite who gave Pinocchio life, in Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (© Guillermo Del Toro/Mark Gustafson/Netflix Animation/Double Dare You!/ShadowMachine/The Jim Henson Company/Taller del Chucho/Netflix – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO

On 15 November 2022, I watched Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, the great Mexican director's first foray into musicals and movies for youngsters, and I found it absolutely captivating, even though the songs were, with a single exception, entirely forgettable. Del Toro co-directed the film with Mark Gustafson, as well as co-producing it, co-writing its screenplay, and co-writing most of its songs, and it was released by Netflix in October (UK)/November (USA).

As one would expect from a Del Toro movie, his vision of the Pinocchio plot veers considerably from Collodi's, resetting the story in Fascist WW2 Italy, amid fighting, and bombing (plus a brief but highly comical appearance from a midget Mussolini). During one novel but notable back-story incident taking place early in the movie, Geppetto's original, human son, Carlo (a character not present in Collodi's book but named after him), is killed by a stray bomb, leading Geppetto to carve Pinocchio as a substitute.

However, the movie does also feature various more traditional Pinocchio themes, such as a talking cricket (voiced by Ewan McGregor and named Sebastian J. Cricket), Pinocchio (Gregory Mann, who also voices Carlo) being led astray and kidnapped by a shyster puppeteer (Count Volpe, voiced by Christoph Waltz), and Geppetto (David Bradley) being swallowed by a huge sea monster.

Incidentally, other notable thespians voicing characters include Ron Perlman as a Fascist government official who makes Pinocchio become a soldier, Cate Blanchett as Count Volpe's ill-treated pet monkey Spazzatura who becomes an ally of Pinocchio, and John Turturro as the village doctor.

A major new addition to the story is Pinocchio dying on three different occasions and visiting the After-Life where Death turns out to be the sister of the pale-blue four-winged seraph-like Wood Sprite (both sisters voiced by Tilda Swinton) who originally gave life to him. Death herself takes the phantasmagorical form of an electric-blue chimaera-like entity with eyed wings recalling those of the Angel of Death in Del Toro's earlier movie Hellboy 2.

Overall, therefore, this telling of the Pinocchio tale is very different from any previous one, to the extent that it is virtually an entirely original story in its own right, but no less entertaining. The stop-motion animation is superb throughout, with Pinocchio himself being both surreal in appearance (inspired by the artwork of Gris Grimly) but sweetly child-like in behaviour – loving, ultimately loyal to Geppetto, yet also wilful and carefree, his naivety inciting many of the dramatic situations in which he finds himself and those who care for him embroiled.

The movie's ending, contrasting Pinocchio's never-ageing immortality (bestowed upon him by Death in order to honour an earlier wish-granting pledge by her to Sebastian J. Cricket) with the mortality of his father and friends, is extremely poignant, as are the final words, spoken by the now-deceased cricket: "What happens, happens, and then we are gone". Yes indeed, that says it all so succinctly about life and its ending, for all of us.

And the single exception to this film musical's otherwise unmemorable collection of songs? 'Ciao Papa', co-written by Del Toro, and wistfully sung by a conscience-stricken Pinocchio as he slips away from Geppetto to join the puppet show in order to earn money for his father and prove himself worthy of his love. I see this as a major contender for a Best Original Song Academy Award nomination, even though some of its lyrics are decidedly bizarre (why would seeing a camel cry be something that Pinocchio aspires to experience one day??). Anyway, if you click here, you can view and listen to an official musical video of it on YouTube, and judge for yourself.

In short, I found Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio to be a truly magical movie, dark and even heart-rending in places as one would expect of any film from this director, but thoroughly enthralling throughout. And if you'd like a sneak preview of it, be sure to click here to watch an official trailer on YouTube.

UPDATE: Sadly, 'Ciao Papa' did not receive an Academy Award nomination (which surely IS enough to make a camel cry!). However, this surprising omission was more than adequately compensated for when at the Academy Awards ceremony held in March 2023 Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio did win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature - and deservedly so!

 

 

The redesigned multi-winged Blue Fairy in Disney's 2022 live-action/CGI Pinocchio (© Robert Zemeckis/Walt Disney Pictures/Depth of Field/ImageMovers/Disney⁺ – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

PINOCCHIO (Disney live-action/CGI 2022 remake)

On 10 December 2022, I watched the Disney live-action/CGI remake (hereafter referred to for convenience as Pinocchio 2022) of its beloved 1940 animated classic, Pinocchio (hereafter referred to as Pinocchio 1940), released in September 2022 on Disney⁺. Yet in spite of its being directed by the legendary Robert Zemeckis, who also co-wrote its screenplay, what a travesty this remake is, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Succinctness is replaced by endless monologues (yes, Blue Fairy, I'm thinking of you!), with sweetness usurped by vulgarity (what precisely was the reasoning or purpose behind Pinocchio – voiced by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth – paying rapt attention to a decidedly large, fly-attracting horse turd on the road to school?). And who on earth at the Disney studio thought that it might be 'edgy' when Pinocchio escapes from his evil grasp for the Coachman (Luke Evans) to exclaim loudly and unmistakeably a word that is a notable expletive, especially in the UK, and which horrified the parents of children whom they'd allowed to view this movie in the not-unreasonable expectation that it would be as wholesome as its enchanting predecessor? (Just to confirm that my ears weren't playing tricks on me regarding the swear word in question, click here to read a major UK newspaper article about it.) As a Welshman, Luke would certainly have been able to inform the American film makers of its less than salubrious British connotation, so surely there can be no excuse for their including it?

Tom Hanks's Geppetto is a masterclass in over-acting, Stromboli the malevolent puppeteer (Giuseppe Battiston) is much weaker here in Pinocchio 2022 than was his literally volcanic Pinocchio 1940 counterpart, and the tentacle-wielding Monstro (or Monstrum as he is superfluously renamed here) resembles the outlandish outcome of a bizarre coupling between a sperm whale and the kraken. Some of Pinocchio 1940's most delightful songs ('Little Woodenhead' and especially 'Give a Little Whistle') are replaced by a vastly inferior copycat composition in the former case, and in the latter case by the interminable exposition of the redesigned multi-winged Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo).

Three new characters are also introduced – a friendly young puppeteer named Fabiana (Kyanne Lamaya), her girl puppet Sabina (Jaquita Ta'le), and seagull Sofia (Lorraine Bracco). Sofia obligingly transports Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in times of need, just like a huge dove transported Pinocchio in Collodi's novel, and the presence of Fabiana enables a catchy yet infuriatingly brief new song to be included. Otherwise, however, their impact is minimal. Also: performing on stage in Pinocchio 1940 the song 'I Got No Strings', when Pinocchio sings its final line 'I got no strings on me' he finds himself with delightfully humorous irony hopelessly entangled in the strings of all the stringed dancing puppets on stage with him, but no such entanglement occurs when he sings that same line on stage in Pinocchio 2022, thereby rendering the whole purpose of that line, and song, worthless.

Speaking of Jiminy, he still serves satisfactorily here as Pinocchio's Blue Fairy-appointed Conscience (albeit a little less prominently than in Pinocchio 1940). And the slick spiel and patter of the sly fox Honest John (Keegan-Michael Key) is just as entertaining (if not even more so) this time round, working in some hilarious 21st-Century psycho-babble references, plus a very funny, expertly-delivered line that Chris Pine would never work as a stage name for Pinocchio – wonderful! Interestingly, just as in Del Toro's movie, there is a poignant back-story here of how Geppetto once had a real son who died young. And the CGI animation is absolutely stunning throughout, as one would expect from any such Disney movie.

But overall, and despite being already familiar to viewers who have seen Pinocchio 1940, the plot as presented here in Pinocchio 2022 doesn't gel at all. This is due in particular to what I perceive to be two major flaws with it.

Firstly: Pinocchio is not being actively tempted by characters and events here, but is instead merely being passively, innocently, led on by them, through no active fault of his own. All of this jars fundamentally with the original Collodi novel's storyline, in which Pinocchio is unequivocally wilful, uncaring, and impetuous, and also with the admittedly more toned-down plot in Pinocchio 1940.

Secondly: at the very end of Pinocchio 2022, Pinocchio's turning into a real boy is not even readily seen to occur – it actually DOES occur, but only in the briefest of blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments – instead of being the immensely moving, joyful, inspirational, crowning scene of the entire movie that it was in Pinocchio 1940 and should have been in this film too. Consequently, instead of ending on a massively uplifting high, it closes with a thoroughly uninspiring, deflated anticlimax. As a result, it made me wonder what the purpose was of the Blue Fairy's loquacious litany at the movie's beginning about what it will take for Pinocchio to become a real boy, and, in turn, what the purpose was of this entire movie, for that matter, because the fundamental raison d'être of Collodi's Pinocchio story was how a wooden puppet boy could become a real flesh-and-blood boy.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on Pinocchio 2022. Perhaps its doom is that it is forever fated to be directly compared to its exceptionally illustrious Disney predecessor, and what animated feature, of any kind, by any studio, stands any chance of shining amid the radiant perfection of Pinocchio 1940? Perhaps Pinocchio 2022 might simply have been judged on its own standalone merits and demerits had it not been irrevocably linked to the infinitely superior Pinocchio 1940. Nevertheless, it IS linked, so I personally dread to think what Walt Disney would have made of Pinocchio 2022 – although if he'd been here, I feel sure that it wouldn't have been made. End of story. However, you may think differently, so why not click here and here in order to watch two different official trailers for this movie and make up your own mind concerning it?

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

NIGHT TRAIN TO VENICE (aka TRAIN TO HELL) – OR, THE CURIOUS CASE OF TWO MOVIES IN ONE!

 

Official DVDs for Night Train To Venice and Train To Hell (© Carlo U. Quinterio/International Video Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Last night I started by watching one movie but ended by watching two – except that they were both the same movie, but different. Confused? So was I, and here's why!

Directed by Carlo U. Quinterio, and released in 1995 by International Video Pictures, the movie in question has been released with two different titles – Night Train To Venice (its original title) and Train To Hell – but as I was soon to discover to my great surprise, that is by no means the only difference appertaining to it.

 

I owned this movie on DVD under its Train To Hell title, which I duly watched, but its plot was so ambiguous, with so many loose threads and unexplained subplots, that it made very little sense, so that by the end of its 70-minute running time I was thoroughly exasperated. In fact, the only good thing about it for me was that it contained some interesting songs, so after spotting their titles and performers in the end credits I then went onto YouTube in the hope of tracing them to download onto my iPod as MP3s.

In fact, it didn’t take me long to find the entire movie on there, and free to watch too, but this time it was entitled Night Train To Venice. So I began scanning through it to locate the songs – and in so doing I made a remarkable discovery.

To begin with, this version on YouTube was a full 28 minutes longer in running time than my Train To Hell version on DVD was, and I swiftly realised, from the very first scene onwards, that it contained a considerable amount of footage absent from my Train To Hell version, but not just any old footage. On the contrary, the editing or, to be more accurate, abridgement, of this latter version had been very selective, so much so that I decided to watch the movie all over again, but this time the longer Night Train To Venice YouTube version.

It turned out that the extra footage in Night Train To Venice explained many of the unexplained subplots and ambiguities present in Train To Hell. Moreover, the Night Train To Venice version also actually omitted certain superfluous, repetitive segments present in the latter, such as numerous external shots of the train on its overnight journey, as well as reducing the play length of some of the songs.

 

So when you take all of this into account, Night Train To Venice is in essence even lengthier than Train To Hell by more than its extra 28 minutes running time would suggest. Or, to put it another way, had the external train shots, the full song versions, and also some minor examples of additional dialogue (clearly out-takes from the Night Train To Venice version) not been inserted into Train To Hell, evidently in an attempt to conceal where significant footage had been expressly deleted and also to pad its total length out a little, this latter cut's running time would have been even less than 70 minutes.

Keeping all of the above in mind, let me now present a detailed coverage of this bizarrely divergent movie's plot (as presented for the most part in the much more comprehensive Night Train To Venice cut), and, in particular, reveal why the many, greatly selective edits in Train To Hell made it and Night Train To Venice so dramatically different from each other. Naturally this plot retelling will contain significant SPOILERS, so if you don't want to read them, go no further!

Our story begins in an ornate library where young Scottish writer Martin Gimmle (played by an equally youthful Hugh Grant in one of his earliest leading film roles) is phoning a Venetian publisher, Inferno Editions, who have shown an interest in his newly-completed book on modern-day Neo-Nazi uprisings, to confirm that he will be arriving in Venice the next day to meet with them, journeying there via an overnight train journey on the Orient Express. The well-spoken Inferno Editions representative on the other end of the phone line confirms to Martin that they will be waiting for him.

What the blithely-unsuspecting Martin does not realize, however, but the movie's viewers do, is that the supposed person in publishing whom he has been speaking to on the phone is actually a leather-jacketed skinhead with a very large winged skull and crossbones tattoo on one hand… Martin is clearly being lured into a trap, a very dangerous one.

Moreover, the telephone conversation scene is intercut with shots of Neo-Nazi skinheads savagely accosting someone – but only in the Night Train To Venice version (in Train To Hell, these are replaced with additional phone dialogue by Martin and shots of the library's interior). Indeed, as I was soon to discover, despite the main theme of the movie turning out to be Martin being actively pursued both on the train and in Venice by vengeful Neo-Nazi skinheads – and their ferocious doberman dogs (it is revealed that Martin has a major fear of dogs) – due to his book's exposé of their activities, in Train To Hell almost every scene featuring the skins engaged in violence has been excised, with only two absolutely crucial scenes remaining (one on the train, the other in Venice).

The result, preposterously, is that with Train To Hell we have a movie that is supposedly about Neo-Nazi skinhead violence but in which such violence is conspicuous only by its almost complete absence – as is, therefore, the principal plot thrust of the entire movie!

Anyway, Martin clambers aboard the Orient Express just as it is pulling away from the platform, and upon which a disguised skinhead named Udo (Robinson Reichel) has purposefully secreted himself and bribed one of the train's ticket-collector conductors to permit him to share Martin's single-person compartment, much to Martin's chagrin once he finds out.

Udo's gentlemanly attire had recently been acquired when he and four other skins had viciously attacked a man in one of the railway station's toilets and stripped him of his clothing (all of which is of course missing from Train To Hell). Udo has also stolen some keys from the conductor that enable his skin comrades to board the train in secret and gain full access throughout.

Once he is on the train, Martin swiftly encounters the two other lead characters of this film. One is a youthful actress named Vera (played by Tahnee Welch, daughter of iconic actress Raquel) who is travelling home to Venice with her young daughter Pia (Rachel Rice). Vera soon becomes the love interest for Martin, especially after he helps her look for Pia who has temporarily gone missing aboard the train.

The other lead character, the one who actually finds Pia and returns her unharmed to Vera, is pivotal to the movie on account of his enigmatic, malevolent, and seemingly supernatural ability to visualize and influence the content not only of a person's dreams but also, at least in the interlinked example of Martin and Vera, their entire lives, and is the reason why I chose to purchase and watch this mystifying film in the first place. (Click here, incidentally, to access my review of Shadow Hours, another intriguing movie with a comparably ambivalent lead character, this time played by Peter Weller.)

Credited only as the Stranger, and unequivocally strange throughout, he is played by the one and only Malcolm McDowell, who is nothing if not well-versed in portraying enigmatic, malevolent and, if not supernatural, certainly iconoclastic, characters, and he does not disappoint here – or at least he does not disappoint in Night Train To Venice. In Train To Hell, conversely, his role and appearances are greatly truncated, replaced instead, and somewhat bizarrely, with very odd-looking slow-motion shots of his threatening, glacially blue-eyed stare, but which are played at their normal speed in Night Train To Venice.

In the latter, lengthier movie version, the Stranger is shown to be a veritable Phantom of the Opera, complete with Venetian mask (although not worn by him when on the train, as unlike the Phantom he is not disfigured), inasmuch as he has held Vera in thrall right from a youngster, guiding her to become an actress.

Moreover, after one embarrassing occasion when she forgot her lines as Juliet in a stage performance of Romeo and Juliet and was loudly heckled by the audience, he tells her that if she is to succeed, she needs a great love. The movie then cuts directly to a scene featuring Martin, clearly revealing, therefore, where this plot is going, except in Train To Hell, that is, in which this entire scene is missing!

So too is a scene in which the Stranger talks in further detail to Vera about this necessity, and also reveals that he was once the mentor of another traveller aboard the train – an older, much more famous Russian actress/dancer named Tatjana (Evelyn Opela) who has also played Juliet in her time. Consequently, a key subplot, revealing both The Stranger's Phantomesque influencing power and also a principal reason behind Vera's attraction to Martin, is never unmasked (so to speak!) in Train To Hell.

Also aboard the train is a drag queen singer named Pedro (Samy Langs), who performs a couple of songs in a cabaret act for the other passengers – or attempts to. After singing Edith Piaf's immortal chanson 'La Vie En Rose' to rapturous applause at the end, he launches into 'Mon Méc Á Moi', but only completes one verse before the skinhead gang bursts in on the scene, creating havoc, with one of the skins hurling foul insults at Pedro before throwing a dish of trifle or some such foodstuff directly in his face, causing him to flee the scene in tears, taking refuge in a toilet to wipe the mess off his face. The Stranger then appears, tells Pedro that he has something to do, and we then see him lacing a couple of glasses of champagne that he promptly gives to an unaware Vera and Martin, ostensibly to thank them for their appreciation of his performance, before walking away.

The above paragraph describes what you will have seen if you were watching Night Train To Venice. But if you were watching Train To Hell, there is no interruption to Pedro's second song by the skinheads. Instead, it is sung through in its entirety, though Pedro is not seen singing it beyond the first verse, the remainder of it being accompanied by a montage of segments featuring Martin and Vera dancing, an obligatory external train sequence, and so on. Nor will you see Pedro spiking their drinks afterwards- which leads us to another significantly divergent scene.

In Night Train To Venice, the Stranger sips champagne while staring directly at Martin, who is doing the same and returning the Stranger's gaze. Suddenly, Martin experiences a frightening, surreal dream or fevered hallucination, featuring savage doberman dogs, plus a series of sinister boy choristers dressed in white who walk down a series of steps, each holding a candle, amid a majestic heavenly chorus, and two angelic figures in white, a woman and a young boy, watching the proceedings (these two figures appear at key junctures throughout the movie but their presence and purpose are never explained). All in all, this scene looks very like a sub-standard Jim Steinman music video – or it would if it was included in Train To Hell, but – surprise, surprise – it's not.

Before the train journey is over, the four skinheads not only kill their fellow skin Udo (though I'm still not sure why) but also the hapless conductor, whom they throw out of the train through an opened window. They also confront Martin with similarly murderous intent, but he escapes into Vera's compartment, locking himself inside and spending the rest of the journey in a much more enjoyable, intimate manner with her instead. By now, I'm sure that you won't be remotely shocked to learn that much of the above-described skinhead aggression is missing from Train To Hell, with only a brief version of their altercation with Martin still present.

Arriving in Venice, Vera invites Martin to stay with her in her somewhat palatial home, which he gladly accepts. During their canal journey there, we are treated to some spectacular views of Venice. and it also happens to be Carnival time there, so all manner of exotically-dressed Commedia dell'arte-themed Venetians adorned in colourful, exquisite masquerade masks are visible, yielding a lengthy yet visually splendorous scene in Night Train To Venice, but only a greatly shortened one in Train To Hell.

Having now reached his ultimate destination, Venice, Martin loses no time in keeping his appointment with Inferno Editions, and sets off to meet with them, only to discover to his considerable shock that their offices are empty and derelict. Going inside, Martin finds the few items still remaining there covered in dust (including the telephone from where he'd supposed the original call to him at the library had been made), all evidently long-abandoned. Then he spies some footprints in the dust on the floor that look fresh, but canine, leading to an upstairs room, which he approaches with great trepidation.

Cautiously opening the door, Martin sees four dobermans inside, devouring great chunks of raw meat, or flesh. The total horror in his eyes, intense even allowing for the presence of the dogs, indicates that the origin of the meat, or flesh, may be human. And indeed, Martin also spots some clothes hanging up next to the dogs that look just like those that the skinhead Udo had been wearing directly before his four supposed compatriots had murdered him on the train. Consequently, Martin swiftly runs back down the stairs, only for the selfsame quartet of skinheads to arrive in a van, their evil plan to lure him here with the phone-call having succeeded, as he finally realizes this terrible truth, and the horrific situation that he is now in, especially as the skinheads are also the owners of the four flesh-eating dobermans that begin chasing him after a fifth skin blows on a whistle.

However, there is a motorbike parked outside, so Martin leaps onto it and rides speedily away, hotly pursued by the cursing skins in their van. Suddenly a lorry appears, which Martin is able to swerve round in his flight, but the skins are not so lucky, crashing headlong into it, with both lorry and van bursting into flames and exploding, killing the lorry driver and all of the skins. As this scene is absolutely crucial to the story, it appears in both versions of the movie, including the momentous climax to it, which, I feel, reveals the true nature of the Stranger.

 

Throughout the movie, he appears inexplicably wherever Vera and (especially) Martin are, so it will come as no surprise to see him standing close by where the lorry and van collide, but which Martin succeeds in evading, albeit only narrowly. What will come as a surprise, however, or at least it did to me, is what happens next.

Suddenly, with a powerful sweeping gesture, the Stranger points his horned devil-headed walking cane directly at Martin as he speeds by, and although it makes no physical contact with either, both Martin and the bike instantly crash to the ground, rendering Martin unconscious with facial and other injuries. It was at this point when in my mind it became undeniable that the Stranger genuinely is a supernatural, diabolical entity, determined not to allow Martin to escape unscathed (in hindsight, an early hint supporting this identity for him is presented via the name of the Venetian publisher supposedly interested in Martin's book – Inferno Editions).

Martin is rushed to hospital (presumably some onlookers or passers-by alerted an ambulance) where he is operated upon. One of the doctors informs a greatly-concerned Vera that the operation was a success. However, the immense trauma that Martin suffered has afflicted him with total amnesia. He has no memory whatsoever of his own life, nor of Vera, who is now a total stranger to him, and as a result is someone he no longer finds himself physically attracted to. Worse still, we then discover that nothing has changed for him a year later, though he has continued to live with Vera in her Venetian home.

One evening, however, while out for a walk alone, Martin experiences a brief but vivid flashback, in which he remembers stumbling one night in Germany upon a feral gang of Neo-Nazi skinheads chanting Nazi slogans around a bonfire and attacking some Jewish youngsters. Keeping himself carefully concealed, he watched the terrifying scene in mounting horror, but then a vehicle drove up, and who should step out of it but a man that Night Train To Venice's viewers will instantly recognize as the Stranger, giving the leader of the skins a big attaché case filled with money, to the delight of the gang.

The suggestion, therefore, is that the Stranger is funding their activities, which would in turn give him an additional reason for persecuting Martin. Needless to say, however, viewers of Train To Hell will be unable to draw any such conclusions, because this entire scene is missing from that version of the movie.

The end of the movie comes quickly and unexpectedly. The day after his flashback, Martin is sitting with Vera outside at a café near Vera's three-storey house, still deeply depressed at being unable to recall his previous life (other than that one short flashback), when a flock of white doves, common in Venice, suddenly flies up in front of him, as if in alarm. Looking up towards where they'd been, Martin is horrified to see Pia walking along the narrow ledge of the balcony outside the third storey of Vera's home where Pia lives.

This event has been foreshadowed throughout the movie with several scenes showing Pia's predilection for attempting such feats of balance, but at which she had always been successful. Now, she is doing the same yet again, but in a much more dangerous location this time, and to make matters worse she is also clutching a large heavy doll given to her by Vera back when they were on the train together a year previously.

In Train To Hell, we then see Pia simply losing her balance and falling downwards, with her fall partly broken by a canopy, and with Martin, underneath it, catching her safely after chasing there immediately once he'd spotted her on the balcony. In Night Train To Venice, however, we are shown the reason why she lost her balance and fell.

One of the skinheads' dobermans had somehow found its way up onto the third-storey balcony and had made a lunge at Pia's doll, snatching it out of her hand and running off with it, which caused Pia to overbalance and lose her footing, tumbling off the balcony ledge and plummeting downward – to be caught, mercifully, by Martin when she plunges through the canopy.

As this was such a vital part of the scene, why was the doberman's actions entirely omitted from Train To Hell. Once again, it makes no sense to do so, whereas it would have made a great deal of sense, and in every sense, to have retained it.

With Pia safe once more, Martin, Pia, and Vera, who had chased after him, collectively embrace, and then, with no clue as to when (if ever) Martin regains his memory, the movie ends, albeit as ever in two different ways.

In Night Train To Venice, the movie's theme song plays it out, accompanied by some tasteful soft-focus snippets of Martin and Vera making love, for the first time since he had lost his memory, and then the end credits roll.

In Train To Hell, conversely, many of the beautiful panoramic shots of Venice that had been excised from the scene when Martin and Vera first arrive there off the train are now presented (scene-shuffling to keep a semblance of a cohesive if not a coherent storyline occurs a lot in Train To Hell, as you'll discover if you watch both versions), with only a very brief series of amorous snippets included directly before the screen goes black and the end credits roll.

So there you have it, the somewhat torturous, disentangled tale of two movies that in reality are one and the same, but with one of them so butchered that it is scarcely recognizable or comprehensible.

Since watching both versions, I've read a fair few viewer reviews online, most of them highly dismissive. However, it is clear that quite a number of them are based solely upon Train To Hell, because of their mentions of the numerous external train shots and the bizarre slo-mo shots of the Stranger's frigid facial glares, neither of which occur in Night Train To Venice, as already mentioned. Bearing in mind how the many significant cuts to Train To Hell have rendered the plot all but indecipherable, it is little wonder, therefore, why such reviews are so derogative.

True, the plot is far from lucid throughout in Night Train To Venice either, but by and large the latter version does make much more sense and thus is far more enjoyable. In addition, the scenes of Venice and its Carnival pomp are absolutely gorgeous – I've been to Venice, so they brought back many happy memories for me.

What puzzles me is why such a severely redacted version as Train To Hell was ever made in the first place. One might assume that the removal of all the skinhead violence and Neo-Nazi coverage was to ensure that a blander version of this movie existed, one that could therefore gain a less prohibitive age-rating than the uncut, uncompromising Night Train To Venice, which carries an 18 rating here in the UK.

 

But no, to my amazement I noticed that my official DVD of Train To Hell also carries an 18 rating! So, like much else concerning Train To Hell, its rating remains a mystery.

Incidentally, if you're wondering why I haven't said anything about the performances of the actors and actresses in this dual-version movie, the simple reason is that there isn't much to say. Grant and Welch play their roles adequately enough, as do its other stars.

 

But thanks to his investing his character with truly manic, soul-searing, laser-like stares and glares, not to mention his rictus grins and grimaces, this was always going to be McDowell's movie, and so it proved to be.

 

One more thing: the motorbike that Martin steals to make his getaway upon was a classic black-and-gold four-cylinder beauty - none other than a Honda CB500 Four, in fact, which I have always coveted but never owned.

So when I saw the splendid example in this movie purposefully destroyed in order to produce the scene in which the Stranger blasts Martin off it, causing both him and the bike to crash very forcibly to the ground, I could have cried, literally!

 

Martin's classic but ill-fated stolen getaway Honda CB500 Four motorbike as featured in both versions of this movie (© Carlo U. Quinterio/International Video Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

In conclusion, if you're going to watch this movie, be sure that the version you watch is Night Train To Venice, which I do recommend, if only for its oddity value and its sumptuous scenes of Venice (and despite Hugh Grant claiming in a 2002 radio interview that it's the worst movie he has ever made!).

Give Train To Hell a very wide berth – unless you want to listen to its songs in full, its only redeeming feature (other than its colours being a little more vibrant than in Night Train To Venice), and the sole reason why I have decided to retain its DVD in my collection, rather than discarding it, as I'd originally planned to do after watching Night Train To Venice.

Speaking of which: if you want to watch Night Train To Venice in its entirety and free of charge to boot, you can currently do so on YouTube if you click here.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

NB – All of the Venetian masquerade masks portrayed here are from my personal collection, and all of the photographs of them included here are © Dr Karl Shuker.

 

Who is that masked man?? (© Dr Karl Shuker)