ALLELUIA: The Honeymoon Killers (1969)

The story of the real-life Honeymoon Killers--Raymond Hernandez and Martha Beck--is chilling, while the story behind the movie The Honeymoon Killers seems too unbelievable to be true.

 Director Leonard Kastle was an "opera composer, librettist, and director" and the film was his first and only foray into cinema. It wasn't the first acting venture for the two leads, however.

Tony Lo Bianco was on TV shows like Get Smart before The Honeymoon Killers. As compelling as Lo Bianco's performance is as Raymond Fernandez, it's Shirley Stoler as Martha Beck who steals the movie. She's sassy and savage and everything in between, like a John Waters character who hadn't yet been invented. And she was 40 at the time of the film's release, an unheard of age for an actress to make her film debut (then and now).

In 1970, The New York Times' Roger Greenspun said of The Honeymoon Killers:

"Unusually seedy in all its particulars, utterly unflattering to all its characters, sufficiently horrible (but never gratuitously shocking) in the details of its murders, Kastle's film succeeds as a kind of chamber drama of desperate attraction and violent death."

That's a terrific encapsulation of a film that feels as real and uncomfortable as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre but with almost no gore and little suspense. Its success derives from its languid, sinister atmosphere and the way that Stoler and Bianco are both lusty and dispassionate. The murders are shocking in how mundane yet gruesome they are. Stoler's Martha poses as Lo Bianco's sister, which makes his seduction of other women even more unsettling, especially when she's right there while it's happening. It's made more uncomfortable when she poses as a nurse, one wearing the traditional white uniform and cap, a figure who's supposed to be an symbol of comfort but is more like a cinematic precursor to Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

The Honeymoon Killers remained in semi-obscurity, despite cult and critical status, until the Criterion release in 2003. Sadly, Kastle never directed again, despite having written several screenplays. Lo Bianco went on to be in movies like God Told Me To and The French Connection and is still working; his latest role was in 2013's Send No Flowers. Stoler had a lengthy career and was even nominated for a Foreign Language Academy Award in 1976 for her performance as a Nazi prison commandant in Lina Wertmüller's Seven Beauties. She died in 1999 but her legacy lives on.

How does Fabrice Du Welz's interpretation of Raymond and Martha Beck add to this legacy? You'll have to watch Alleluia to find out.

ALLELUIA screening times:
Thu., Sept 11th, 3:00 PM, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Sat., Sept 13th, 9:15PM, SCOTIABANK 13

ALLELUIA: The Lonely Hearts Killers.

Love hurts. It really, really hurts.

Fabrice Du Welz' intense new film Alleluia is based on the true life story of Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, the Lonely Hearts Killers.  Fernandez and Beck were convicted for three murders, though there are estimates that they killed between 17 and 20 women between 1947 and when they were arrested in 1949. They used used personal ads in letter-based "lonely hearts" services to lure their victims, lonely women with assets looking for love. Fernandez had gotten his start as a grifter, answering personal ads, taking the women on fancy dates and stealing what he could from them before disappearing. He claimed he used voodoo, which he said he had learned from a Haitian cell-mate, to help him to gain power over women.

Things changed when he met Martha Beck through her ad. Martha was born and raised in Florida.  And she was a neighbor of Truman Capote, who mentions her in this 1957 interview at The Paris Review:

 Once I ran away with a friend who lived across the street—a girl much older than myself who in later life achieved a certain fame. Because she murdered a half-dozen people and was electrocuted at Sing Sing. Someone wrote a book about her. They called her the Lonely Hearts Killer. But there, I’m wandering again.

 Martha had been abused by her mother, who actively chased off anyone romantically interested or who even seemed interested in Martha. At her trial, she said had also been sexually assaulted by her brother. Martha had a glandular disorder that didn't help things any. She reached physical maturity by age 10 and she became obese. She was harassed not only by her mother, but by strangers over it. She had training as a nurse, but could only get a job preparing bodies at a Pensacola funeral home. She worked briefly as a nurse in California, but returned to Florida after becoming pregnant. The father wanted nothing to do with her, so Beck concocted an elaborate story that her husband was a Naval officer in the Pacific. For good measure, she arranged the husband's death while she was back in Florida. She had another child with a local Pensacola man, Alfred Beck, but the marriage didn't last. It's no wonder that lonely and damaged, she fell for Fernandez and his charms when he answered her 1947 ad in "Mother Dinene's Family Club for Lonely Hearts."

Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez in court sitting with two police officers.

Fernandez' parents were Spanish and he was born in Hawai'i and raised in Connecticut. He moved to Spain when he was 20, married and had a child. In World War II, he worked as a spy for British Intelligence. On his return to America, he was struck on the head by a hatch cover and afterwards he was a completely different person. He was arrested for a theft he couldn't explain and was incarcerated in Tallahassee for a year, which is where he said he learned voodoo, though he also had books like the sketchy and pretty much outright racist  Haiti or the Black Republic (1884) and Magic Island (1929).

I imagine sorcery aside, he seemed sophisticated and wordly to many of the women he conned. And someone with Beck's background must've thought she'd lucked out, especially since she was reportedly a fan of Charles Boyer. For his part, Fernandez liked Beck's devotion and submissiveness. Beck sent her children away and moved in with Fernandez in New York and helped Fernandez with his con. Beck would pose as his sister or sister-in-law, overjoyed to see her brother affianced. Then they would steal what they could and sometimes even kill the women.

Though Fernandez confessed to many more murders while in Michigan, he and Beck were found guilty of three: Janet Fay in Long Island, New York; Delphine Downing and her daughter, Rainelle, in Byron Center, Michigan. It was the disappearance of the Downings that led the police to track Beck and Fernandez down. They went to the movies after the murder of the Downings, but they didn't go down like Dillinger. Instead, despite trying to stay in Michigan, which does not have the death penalty, they were executed at Sing Sing by the State of New York on Mar. 8, 1951.

(I used Crime Library, Wikipedia and The Paris Review in writing this. Check out any of those resources for more--and there is much more-- or a variety of books).

ALLELUIA screening times:
Tues., Sept 9th, 10:00 PM, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Thu., Sept 11th, 3:00 PM, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Sat., Sept 13th, 9:15PM, SCOTIABANK 13

ALLELUIA: Director Profile + 5 Questions with Fabrice du Welz

Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Liege and at INSAS, a film school in Brussels. But his deep, abiding love of horror movies might be more relevant to his work as a filmmaker than any formal training. A look at his career is definitely in order since his new film Alleluia will be playing at the Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard programme.

Laurent Lucas wonders how he's going to get all that mud off his clothes.

With his explosive, controversial debut film Calvaire (2004), Du Welz was unfairly lumped in with the subgenre of "torture porn" by a few unimaginative critics. Strongly influenced by both Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Calvaire is a "very strange fairy tale," a dark, grotesque psychological thriller that defiantly transcends genre conventions. In it, Laurent Lucas portrays Marc Stevens, a traveling chanteur who finds himself trapped in the midst of the lonely Belgian countryside when his van breaks down a few days before a Christmas gala at which he's scheduled to perform. Unfortunately for Marc, the people who come to his aid have some serious unresolved issues and he suffers unimaginably as a result.

Emmanuelle Béart wonders if Laurent Lucas has any laundry tips.

Although Du Welz's second feature, Vinyan (2008) is far less gory than Calvaire, it is still dark and psychologically disturbing. Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart play Paul and Jeanne Bellmer, a couple who lost their only child, Joshua, in the 2004 tsunami. While watching a video of children being held captive in Burma, Jeanne becomes convinced that one of them is her son. She and Paul embark upon a dangerous mission to find him, and in the process their sanity unravels. Vinyan is a stunning accomplishment with incredible production and sound design and a gorgeous score from François Eudes (À L'Intérieur).

Du Welz's latest, Alleluia, is his cinematic interpretation of the lives of real-life murder couple Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, but set in Brussels. Like he did in Calvaire, Laurent Lucas stars. We wanted to find out what inspires du Welz, so we asked him.

Probably not a laundromat.

1. You've said that your first love is horror, but that you don't like the mainstream Hollywood horror movies or those horror movies that "close doors." What are some of your favorite recent horror films that you feel allow the audience to explore their imaginations?

Honestly, with time it's very difficult for me to be surprised and thrilled about modern horrors films today. Last time I've been impressed by horror was with Kill List by Ben Wheatley, Antichrist by Lars von Trier, or Under The Skin by Jonathan Glazer. Those films provoke you and I love to be challenged by films. [All of these films screened at TIFF!]

2. The director of photography on Alleluia is Manu Decosse, who filmed Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's Amer and The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears. Are you a fan of the Giallo genre and if so, which movies are your favorites?

I love Bruno and Hélène's films. They are friends. Manu Dacosse is a very gifted DOP and he'll be very present in the future. Of course I love the Giallo genre even though my cinema is very different from B&H's work. Some aspects of Alleluia could be related to Giallo but it's not Giallo.

Black hides bloodstains very well.

3. As a director who believes in strong characters in films, who are some of your favorite film characters and why?

I always prefer strong female characters. We have so much to learn from women... I do, at least...

4. Are there any films that people might be surprised to find out that you like or which have influenced your own work?

So many films influenced my personal work. Before being a filmmaker I am a cinephile. I had always watched loads of films. I cannot mention here all the films I love. All I can say is during Alleluia's production I watched and rewatched Zulawski's Possession a lot... 

It's not blood, it's raspberry preserves, I swear!

5. Alleluia is part two of your Ardennes trilogy (with Calvaire being part one). What are your plans for part three?

Yes, we have plans and Vincent Tavier and I are working on the script at the moment. I cannot tell you more right now.

There's just enough time to catch up on du Welz's cinematic influences as well as his own filmography before Alleluia premieres, so head to your favorite cool local video store and get some popcorn ready.

ALLELUIA screening times:
Tues., Sept 9th, 10:00 PM, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Thu., Sept 11th, 3:00 PM, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Sat., Sept 13th, 9:15PM, SCOTIABANK 13