Someone recently asked what gives me pleasure these days. I guess it’s a valid question during a time when there seems to be light ahead but everything still feels stuck in place. I have to say what fills me with great happiness these days is Ray Lovelock. The handsome Italian cult star of such films as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man and scores of other films, whose career spanned decades. From the interviews with him on the Blu-ray extras for his films (still handsome with white hair and constantly smoking) he just seems like a great guy. Modest, funny, self-depreciating, he tells great stories about the making of his films and you just fall in love with him. I think it was a mixture of things that caused me to dust off all my Lovelock Blu-rays and re-watch them recently. Recent releases of really rare Lovelock films like Queens of Evil made me want to screen every disc with him I owned. And, I have to say, watching this handsome, talented man in scores of genre films has kept me in a state of bliss.
Lovelock always said he never aspired to be an actor. He was more into football. But he started doing commercials from an early age which brought him into contact with people who suggested him for movies. One of his earliest screen appearances is playing one of the Prince’s son in the film Darling (1965) starring Julie Christie.
I’m not about to a write a bio on Lovelock’s life. I’m just going to handpick a few of the many highlights from his versatile career which you should seek out. Especially the film that was a big break for him, the bizarre and controversial “spaghetti western” Django Kill….if You Live, Shoot! (1967). It also was the beginning of a great friendship with actor Tomas Milian who became his lifelong pal. Milian stars in the film as the “Stranger,” a half-breed bandit buried alive and left for dead who crawls from his grave and ends up in a town without pity called “The Unhappy Place.” There are two rival gangs- a saloon owner and his crew and the other- a savage, deviant posse which wear black leather and engage in drunken orgies with each other. Milian joins up with two renegades to thwart a full-out massacre. Ray Lovelock plays the angelic, saloon owner’s son who is captured by the gay gang and sexually abused. He is almost a Billy Budd-like figure and his demise sends Milian’s “Stranger” into full attack mode. Directed by Giulio Questi, it’s so depraved and violently over-the-top you can’t believe it. Milian, as always, is sensational and Lovelock really makes an indelible impression. Lovelock admits that he always came to Milian for advice on what movies to accept.
Milian also asked Ray to join his band, where Milian would capitalize on two songs he recorded and Lovelock would do the rest. Lovelock loved writing songs in English because they helped him learn the language and there are several movies he starred in where he sang the theme songs that he wrote. He became a huge cult figure in Japan with his golden-boy looks, and he cut many records there.
Now the thing about Lovelock is that he was a real natural on screen. It’s impossible to find a director or fellow actor ever to say an unkind word about him. He had an innate glow about him. He was just a decent guy and the screen captured that. You immediately were smitten with his good looks and how he radiated such likability on screen. That quality also worked well when he played a shit too. You almost didn’t want to believe that someone that good-looking could be such a creep.
The Violent Four (1968). This starts like a faux-documentary about a violent bank robbery and its aftermath. “What do you think you are, Federico Fellini? Federico flatfoot,” someone wisecracks about the camera crew. Ray Lovelock plays “Tuccio,” a soccer-playing apprentice for a wood-working business owned by the father of one of the bank robbers. One day Tuccio finds a hidden stash of weapons and says, “Don’t worry, I can keep a secret.” The three robbers decide to add him to their crew as a lookout outside the bank they’ve decide to rob. The robbery ends in a high-speed chase and shoot-out with cops and results in the accidental killing of random strangers along the way. A mob rears up to exact their own vengeance against the killer crooks. This movie was a giant hit at the box office and a big boost for Lovelock’s career.
Plagio (1969) Here’s a film I have not been able to track down. Set during the student uprisings in Bologna, Italy in 1968, Lovelock stars as Guido, who rescues Massimo (Alain Noury) after he is beaten up. Massimo movies in with the wealthy Guido, but their tight friendship (and love for each other) is threatened when Massimo romances a girl (Mita Medici). They eventually fall into an ill-fated menage a trois. In film clips I’ve seen from the movie, Ray exhibits an alluring sexual ambiguity. Lovelock was very proud of the film when it played the festival circuit.
Queens of Evil (1970) A rare, wonderfully weird film about a hippie drifter- David (played by a gorgeous Ray Lovelock), who, riding his motorbike along the countryside, sleeps for the night in a woodshed and wakes to find he is on the grounds of a lakeside house owned by three beautiful, mysterious, sisters. Like sirens of sort they seduce him into staying and eventually he beds all three of them. But there’s an element of supernatural; a hint of horror; a satanic spin on social order that simmers beneath each frame. Haydee Politoff, Silvia Monti (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) and Evelyn Stewart (The Sweet Body of Deborah) play the siblings. Director Tonino Cervi plays this like a twisted fairy tale, with Lovelock as the naïve Goldilocks and the gals are like the three hungry bears. On the Blu-ray there’s a 26-minute interview with still-handsome Ray Lovelock from 2012 (sadly he passed away in 2017) where he talks about his early film roles, his recording career (he sings two songs in English in this film), and his fandom in Japan.
An Ideal Place to Kill (1971) Ray Lovelock and Ornella Muti play an amoral, free-wheeling couple on the run from the law (for selling pornography). They break into the villa of a wealthy woman (Irene Papas) and she unwisely lets them stay for a while. It all evolves into a murderous plot, but against who? This clever Italian thriller is directed by Umberto Lenzi, who was the master of these kind of “giallo” films. This at first seems like a remake of his own film- Orgasmo (aka Paranoia) starring Carroll Baker, who also played a wealthy woman besieged by an evil young couple. But this film (also known as Oasis of Fear) is even more deliciously twisted.
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) the acclaimed film version of the hit musical about a peasant (Topol) in pre-revolutionary Russia trying desperately to marry his five daughters off by following “tradition.” His third daughter Chava (Neva Small) is guided by her heart when she elopes with a Christian boy (Ray Lovelock), which causes her father to disown her. This was a big budget project for Lovelock and he is just perfect in the role as the gentle gentile in love.
Emergency Squad (1974) A brutal crime drama starring the always riveting Tomas Milian as a ruthless, stogie-smoking, cop out for revenge when his wife is gunned down during a robbery. Ray Lovelock plays the get-away driver for a heist that is cleverly disguised as a movie-shoot, but is accidentally killed by one of the gang 30 minutes into the film.
Almost Human (1974) Umberto Lenzi’s (Cannibal Ferox) 1974 hardboiled cop drama about a weary, hardened police chief (Henry Silva) tracking down a sadistic psychopath (Tomas Milian) who has kidnapped a rich man’s daughter. One of Lenzi’s best “Poliziotteschi” crime film- it oozes sleaze and violence. Milian is astonishingly loathsome here- it’s a wildly impressive performance. He’s truly frightening. (In an extra on the Blu-ray director Lenzi said that Milian “shot almost every scene under the effect of cocaine or vodka”). Ray Lovelock plays a sweaty, nervous partner in crime who becomes more disturbed as Milian’s character spins ferociously out of control. He also is morally opposed to murdering the hostage after they get the money. It doesn’t end well for him. (Lenzi adored Lovelock and did 5 movies with him, “we became good friends. Our wives used to hang out together.”) It’s hard to describe how surprisingly nasty this movie get.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974). Also knows as Living Dead at Manchester Morgue; Breakfast at Manchester Morgue and Don’t Open the Window, this sensational gut-munching ecological shocker by Spanish director Jorge Grau is about a marauding band of living dead stalking the English countryside. A long-haired, bearded Ray Lovelock (with a dubbed Cockney accent) plays George, traveling by motorcycle to a weekend getaway in Windermere. When his bike is backed into by a car driven by Edna (Cristina Galbo) at a gas station, he ends up traveling with her to South Gate, leaving the bike to get fixed. The Department of Agriculture has leased the town an experimental pesticide control machine utilizing ultra-sonic radiation. But it has a curious side effect. It raises the dead. Contact with contaminated blood only causes more flesh-eaters to stalk an old crypt and a hospital. A bigoted, narrow-minded Sergeant (Arthur Kennedy) attributes the bizarre deaths to a hippie devil cult and keeps accusing George of having something to do with it. This was a giant hit that played for years on Times Square and made Lovelock a beloved cult figure all over the world.
Autopsy (1975) This strange, fascinating Italian thriller concerns a rash of suicides in Rome one summer (it’s blamed by the press on sun spots). Mimsy Farmer stars as a sexually frigid medical student dealing with an arrogant race-car-driver boyfriend (Ray Lovelock) and a priest (Barry Primus) trying to get to the bottom of his sister’s brutal murder. Filled with plenty of disturbing imagery, this twisty thriller was directed by Armando Crispino. A bearded Lovelock really plays an arrogant prick in this one. When his girlfriend (Farmer) is sexually attacked at the hospital by an orderly he laughs it off, practically blaming the victim.
At Last, At Last (1975) A punishing Italian sex comedy about a newly-wed couple- Valentina (gorgeous Edwige Fenech) and Giovannino (a mustached Ray Lovelock), who haven’t consummated their marriage due to Giovannino’s erectile dysfunction. There’s a horny uncle who would love to free Valentina of her virginity and a doctor who shows Giovannino muscleman photos to see if he’s gay. Carroll Baker plays Valentina’s attractive mother Lucia, who ends up curing Giovannino of his impotence when they get stranded together during a rain storm. It’s great to have three cult legends in the same movie but this is agony to sit through.
Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976) One of my favorite Ray Lovelock films- he plays Tony and Marc Porel plays Fred. They are two cops with such criminal tendencies they are recruited to a special squad to prevent crimes from happening. Both ride around the city on a motorcycle and when they see a pair of purse snatchers they will go to excessive lengths to chase them down (and even kill them). Those dangerous chases around Rome on screen are breathtaking and outrageous. When one of their team is ambushed and killed they go all out for revenge with their own brand of crazed justice. The chemistry between the two lead actors is terrific. Watch the opening credits with both riding on one motorcycle. Porel sneakily tries to block Lovelock’s head, but Ray just calmly weaves back and forth into frame. Director Reggero Deodato said that Lovelock was so amiable and good-natured he took no notice of Porel’s actorly antics and they both got along fine. One of the most bonkers of the Italian “Poliziotteschi” films (not surprising coming from the director of Cannibal Holocaust).
Meet Him and Die (1976) (aka Risking). Ray plays Massimo, taking care of his invalid mother. One day he goes out and commits a dumb robbery of a jewelry store where he is immediately arrested and thrown in jail. Turns out he is an undercover cop who is assigned to get friendly with another inmate- a crime kingpin Giulianelli (Martin Balsam), so he can uncover the heads of the drug smuggling empire. He also wants to get revenge on the hoods who crippled his mother. Massimo, the mob boss and a cellmate bust out of jail and Massimo makes himself indispensable to Giulianelli. This is a great role for Lovelock– as impossibly handsome as he is you don’t doubt for a second he couldn’t hold his own in a prison fight or a high-speed chase and shoot-out. “A man-eating tiger- that’s what you’ve become,” the police Inspector warns him. Elke Sommer shows up later as a gangster’s moll who takes a shine to him. The movie has some great action sequences but is ultimately a little unsatisfying. Lovelock, however, is just incredibly charismatic and terrific in it.
The Cassandra Crossing (1976). All-star disaster movie aboard the Trans-Continental Express train from Geneva to Stockholm where a man accidentally exposed to a deadly bubonic plague sneaks aboard and infects the train. With Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Ingrid Thulin, John Phillip Law, Martin Sheen and O.J. Simpson as a suspicious priest). Ray plays a guitar-strumming hippie traveling with his sexually unsatisfied girlfriend and singing along with a group of troubadours. The infected man sneaks into their cabin bathroom. Ray gets to go all “heroic” during the tense finale, fighting off killer soldiers aboard the train.
Last House on the Beach (1978) This Italian sleaze thriller is about a trio of ruthless bank robbers (led by Ray Lovelock). While on the run, their car breaks down and they force their way into a seaside home where a nun (Florinda Bolkan) and five teenage girl students are holed up rehearsing Shakespeare. In no time things turn dark and violent and you wonder when the nun is going to drop the habit and pick up a gun to get revenge on the brutal wolf pack. Directed by Franco Prosperi and called La Stettima Donna in Europe this is arty and sadistic and pretty insane.
To Be Twenty (1978) I have to be careful not saying too much about this great Italian shocker by director Fernando Di Leo. It’s about Tina (dark-haired beauty Lilli Carati) and Lia (blonde, sexy, Gloria Guida), two swinging gals merrily hitchhiking across Italy in the 70s in revealing outfits. “We’re young, beautiful and pissed off!” is their mantra. They stop for a while in a hippie commune and that’s where Lili hooks up with handsome Ray Lovelock (when she first sees him he is leaning up against a tree, passed out, tripping). Lovelock is really terrific as the guy who would rather get stoned then have sex. Lili wakes his libido up eventually. All this plays out like a goofy, Italian sex comedy, complete with a bubbly musical score. Until it doesn’t. The end is like suddenly being hit in the head with a sledgehammer.
Play Motel (1979). Lovelock plays an actor who, for fun, decides to have an afternoon tryst with his wife in a seedy motel. Driving home their tire goes flat on the highway they find the body of a dead woman in their trunk. After they contact the authorities and come back to the car the body is missing. The dead woman does shows up much later behind the wheel of an abandoned car and the police enlist Lovelock and his wife to help with the investigation and bring down a sordid blackmail racket. Lovelock knew he was making an erotic “giallo” but what the director and cast didn’t know was that two versions of the film were released- and one had hardcore inserts included. Lovelock discusses on a Blu-ray extra how incredibly “unfair” that was to the actors.
Murder-Rock: Dancing Death (1984) This later film by Lucio Fulci, set in New York, is certainly less graphic than Fulci’s The New York Ripper. It’s a “giallo” set at the “Arts for Living Center” school where many of the break-out female dancers are being systematically chloroformed and killed with a jewel-encrusted hat pit. The music by Keith Emerson is beyond horrible, as is the Flashdance-like aerobic musical numbers. (In some places this film was known as Slashdance). Ray Lovelock plays a once-prosperous male model fallen on hard times, living in a seedy Times Square hotel and drinking heavily. He is made to look like the main suspect through most of the movie. They genuinely did some location work in New York and it’s cool to see Lovelock driving by the Broadway theater showing Dreamgirls. This movie gets a bad rap from cult fans, and while it’s certainly nowhere near the dark genius of Fulci’s The Beyond and House by the Cemetery, it’s stylish and silly fun.
From the 1980s on, Lovelock appeared in many, many Italian TV mini-series. His work on TV went right on until a year before his death in 2017 of cancer. I’m pleased he got to see many of his films- from westerns, cop dramas and horror films- become such lasting and beloved cult favorites. He is on many Blu-ray extras commenting on his varied films with the same wonderful quality that draws you to him and his movies. He was a beautiful soul.
He was so handsome!
wonderful looking but I’d rather see Dennis Dermody heading toward Pearl St. and Commercial St. in Provincetown, Massachusetts.