This week on If This, Then That, Cinekong focuses on an actor with more than 270 credits on his IMDB page, the legendary Udo Kier. His latest
film is My Neighbor Adolf.
Directed by Leon Prudovsky, My Neighbor Adolf is the story of a lonely
and grumpy Holocaust survivor (David Hayman) living in the remote
South American countryside, playing chess and tending his beloved rose
bushes. One day, a mysterious old German man (Udo Kier) moves in
next door, whom he suspects may be the former Führer. (Click here to read our review)
With that many credits on his acting CV, from the role of Wedding
Planner in an arthouse film like Melancholia (2011) to playing a
villain named Curly in the hilarious big-budget trashfire called Barb
Wire (1996) it would seem an almost impossible task to select one
‘must see’ movie from the list. But it’s not.
Our pick is the infamous Mark of the Devil from 1970, which the IMDB
describes the story of a witch-hunter’s apprentice having doubts
about the righteousness of his profession when he witnesses “the
brutality, the injustice, the falsehood, the torture, and the arbitrary
killing that goes with the job.” It’s probably better known from the
marketing campaign developed by the US distributor of this film,
Hallmark Releasing, which claimed Mark of the Devil as “guaranteed to
make you sick,” and backed up the claim with thousands of vomit bags
featuring the film’s logo.
I remember going to the Leroy Theater in Pawtucket RI to see the film,
already in a sweat because of the gory details my friend’s older
sister tried to scare us with as she drove us to the theater. The
moment that she guaranteed would make us pee our pants, depicted on
the vomit bag, is when the Church inquisitor pulls out a girl’s tongue
using giant tongs.
We stare at the screen at the pretty girl strapped into the chair, her
mouth painfully clamped open.. The crazed inquisitor approaches with
his brutal iron tongues held menacingly in his hand, He sticks them in
her mouth. Grabs her wriggling tongue and…
Hundreds of inflated vomit bags explode in the darkened theater followed by hundreds of kids laughing and cheering.
Like a lot of films from that time period, Mark of the Devil hasn’t aged well, even if you don’t have a vintage vomit bag to pop with the tongue. Is it one of Kier’s best? No. His worst? Debatable. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun and something to think about when you watch My Neighbor Adolf.
Trivia: Though it is obvious that Udo Kier spoke his lines in English,
they were overdubbed by another actor.
Other Udo Kier options: The Andy Warhol-produced double feature of
Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula.
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