Turkish Pop Cinema

The Deathless Devil – Dr Satan to his friends and enemies – isn't a nice guy. No, he's your regulation issue evil genius with megalomaniac designs on world domination. This time his plans entail using the Professor's top-secret long-range remote-control device to create an army of unstoppable robots.

Fortunately for Istanbul and beyond one man stands in Dr Satan's way, the masked crime-fighter Copperhead. Or, to be exact the son of the original Copperhead, a young Turk who has just discovered his true heritage and inheritance…

Hun-Turk warrior Tarkan recovers from a Viking raid to find Atilla's daughter Yonca and the other women kidnapped, the place burning and the men and children dead. The thing that bothers him the most, however, is that the Vikings have also killed his faithful wolf companion, Kurt:

"You were my everything. No human being could be as kind, as loyal and true as you were… But I will avenge you… May the whole world know. Blood will flow and no Viking head will be safe from my sword…"

Thus begins an epic quest, to be complicated by the presence of some Chinese agents – played, as with everyone else, by the same Turkish performers – led by the foxy Lotus; a group of good female Vikings valkyries – will Tarkan aid or kill them? – and the giant man-eating octopus that inhabits the sea beneath the Viking's castle…

Watching this double bill of Turkish cult cinema the overwhelming impression one gets – besides being enormously entertained and being left helpless with laughter – is of how utterly bizarre and outlandish the form is to English-speaking sensibilities.

Points of orientation are certainly evident, such as the cliff-hanger serial in the case of The Deathless Devil and the comic book and peplum for Tarkan vs the Vikings.

But the main form and content of both films, with their combination of seemingly adult oriented material – exposed skin, sadism and violence – and a rudimentary grasp of narrative and film techniques that anyone over eight years old could likely find fault with, makes for a frequently delirious viewing experience.

While both films can thereby safely be classified as psychotronic cinema, Tarkan is, for better or worse, the closer to conventional standards.

The fourth film in a seven film series, it was clearly well enough budgeted to allow for some large scale sets and set pieces, with director Mehmet Alsan also striving to capture the feel of his comic strip source material in his mise-en-scene through frequent dramatic close-ups and set-ups.

On the downside, the film thereby also risks coming closer to the middle ground of the conventional peplum, being neither a truly inventive triumph of imagination over poverty of resources, as with Mario Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World , nor a parodic playing up of its own inherent absurdities, as with Jess Franco's Maciste's Sex Adventures on Atlantis .

Still, any film where everyone wears fake furs dyed in garish Muppet-skin shades and the Turkish Vikings all sport plastic horned or winged helmets complete with flowing blond or red tresses like Swedish football supporters has to get an unreserved two thumbs up.

The Deathless Devil, meanwhile, is an experience that just about defies any and all attempt at rational analysis. The most disarming thing about it is that everyone concerned seems to be taking it seriously rather than as a quasi-Situationist prank.

There seems no other way to explain the presence of a leering Andy Kaufman look alike dressed up as Sherlock Holmes except for as comic relief. Not coincidentally, this character, Bitik, is one of the few things that doesn't work as far as a psychotronic viewing is concerned, precisely because he is meant to be funny.

Likewise, you have to wonder how, when the film was released in the US, they somehow decided to rename the lead actor from Kunt Tulgar… to Kunt Brix.

Otherwise the experience is akin to watching Fritz Lang's 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse as if directed by Ed Wood, on an even lower budget and with even less grasp of basic filmmaking techniques like continuity, match cutting, the line of action and so forth.

For instance, one incident early on sees Bitik, under the control of Dr Satan via one of his own explosive charge bearing remote control monitoring devices, arrive to kidnap the Professor and his daughter. Thankfully the igcognito Copperhead arrives on the scene, out of the view of Bitik's chest-mounted camera, and signals to his friends that he has a plan.

So far so good, except for when we now cut to Dr Satan viewing the scene on a video monitor at Satan HQ it is shown not from the subjective position of Bitik's chestcam but from the same angle as some of the 'objective' shots from before.

And we haven't even mentioned the robot in all its cardboard and silver paint glory…

Likewise while both films use borrowed cues from other films and stock library music, The Deathless Devil again has the edge as far as sheer in(s)anity goes.

Tarkan vs the Vikings at least seeks to deploy its cues consistently with an underlying scheme: dramatic entrances tend to be underscored by Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra motif from 2001 and (would be) tense action scenes are accompanied by Ennio Morricone spaghetti western cues, for example.

With Deathless Devil, however, the cues are dropped in as if almost at random, the listening experience perhaps akin to John Zorn having being commissioned to provide rescore Jean-Luc Godard's Histoires du cinema using the music of Carl Stallings – I'm clutching at reference points, but hopefully you get the idea.

Miraculously, while these two films might seem like extreme examples, the accompanying DVD supplemental materials on Turkish pop cinema suggest they were more or less the norm for the 1960s and 70s.

The thought of an industry making 300 or so films like this a year is both terrifying and exhilarating. Goodness knows what other wonders lie rotting in the vaults awaiting rescue, rehabilitation and rediscovery…

Although both films on Mondo Macabro's Region 0 NTSC DVD are preceded by a warning/disclaimer as to the relatively poor condition of the films given the lack of consideration afforded archiving and preservation of Turkish pop cinema generally, they are in perfectly watchable condition and certainly better than many a grey market release I've seen graded as a B.

Of the pair Tarkan looks marginally the better visually, with a sharper, more defined image and brighter colours, with Deathless Devil looking a touch more video-like. Both films are presented with their original recorded-in-a-toilet style audio but are much the more authentic for it, with English subtitles legible throughout and seemingly accurate and error free.

Turning to the extras, we get the familiar Mondo Macabro trailer reel, informative essays by the ever-reliable Pete Tombs and a 24 minute documentary on Turkish pop cinema.

Giving a broad overview of its main trends from 60s rise to early 80s fall, the documentary also includes some truly awe-inspiring clips – many also serving to show how good the condition of the films here is compared to what could have been the case – and interviews with contemporary critics and major players from the time, including Cuneyt Arkin of The Man Who Saves the World / Turkish Star Wars fame.

In the process the documentary also serves to highlight one of the biggest problems likely to face the distributor who wants to make more of these titles legitimately available in the west: that so many of them are basically unauthorised rip-offs of Hollywood product which, despite their undoubted Mystery Science Theatre 3000 appeal, are likely not legally defensible as intentional parodies.

But, even if Mondo Macabro prove unable to bring us the Turkish Star Wars – another demented, delirious experience – Exorcist – actually a fairly staid and faithful rendition of the original – Star Trek or Wizard of Oz, there seems little doubt that numerous other gems like Dracula in Istanbul – a Turkish take on the guy who's modelled on the Romanian guy who fought against them just has to be interesting – could still be released.

The only way we'll know for sure is surely to support Mondo Macabro, go out and buy this disc and prove there's a market for Turkish pop cinema…

Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005

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