Above you see a Mario de Berardinis poster painted for the Italian spy thriller Agente segreto 777 - Operazione Mistero, known in English merely as Secret Agent 777. The plot of this revolves around a doctor's cell regeneration process—i.e. he can bring people back to life, a miracle somehow made possible through nuclear physics. No, it didn't make sense to us either. But all you need to know is that basically Agent 777 is a low rent James Bond rip-off with a touch of updated Frankenstein mixed in.

It's as silly as it sounds, and has too many problems to enumerate, but we did enjoy the Beirut setting, and it rather amused us when a character spoke of going to the “Portuguese colonies to find his fortune.” Back then that meant going to Angola or Mozambique and extracting something of value that rightfully belonged to the local people—oil, antiquities, jewels, anything. The sequence struck us because at the time Agent 777 was extracting something of value from us—our patience. It premiered in Italy today in 1965.

Help! I'm trapped in this terrible film and I can't get out!

We’ve shared the work of Italian poster illustrator Mario de Berardinis several times and thought today would be a good day to revisit him. De Berardinis began painting movie posters in the late 1940s, but most of his output seems to have occurred during the 1960s and 1970s, when he created scores of brilliant promos, including the iconic Barbarella poster you see above. He usually signed his work Mos, or sometimes Almos, but some pieces bear his full name. He worked until his death in 1977, and his posters today are collectible and expensive. You can see three of our previous posts on De Berardinis here, here, and here.

Jesús Franco’s Paroxismus was an Italian erotic mystery known in the English-speaking world as Venus in Furs. Basically, an American jazz musician in Istanbul goes to a party and there sees a woman involved in sadomasochistic sex. Later he finds the same woman’s body on a beach, and at that point flees to Rio de Janeiro. In Rio he plays with a jazz group, but one night sees the dead woman from Istanbul walk into the club where he’s performing. Or is it her? Whoever she is, she seems intent on exacting revenge against those who killed her. Or didn’t.

Jesús Franco is a polarizing filmmaker, but if you’re ever going to like one of his films, this may be it. It’s dark and surreal, beautifully shot, has an interesting score, and a compelling cast that includes James Darren, Maria Rhome, and the always arresting Klaus Kinski. The late-1960s hepcat dialogue may amuse or repel, depending on one’s sensibilities, and those hoping for a linear plot or Hollywood ending should give up before even settling into their seats, but as a whole we thought it was quite entertaining.

In terms of understanding the film, it helped when we learned that a chance comment by the jazz trumpeter Chet Baker had been the inspiration for the script. We also discovered, on an unrelated note, that the lead as originally written was supposed to be a Miles Davis type guy, which is to say black, but Franco was shot down because American audiences were thought to be unready to see a black man and white woman in bed together. This led to the ethnic reversals of the lead role into a white jazzman and the character of Rita into his black girlfriend.

Too bad for Franco he wasn’t allowed to make the film the way he wanted, but it’s impossible to be bummed with the casting of Barbara McNair as Rita, despite the circumstances. Impossible to be bummed about the art, either. The above promo poster was painted by the awesome Mario De Berardinis, who signed his work MOS, and we also have an ultra-rare alternate poster below, painted by unknown. Paroxismus premiered in Italy today in 1969.

Here’s a rarity—a western film for which we can’t find an official English translation, which of course means it likely never played on American or British screens. The film in question is the Italian sex comedy Giro girotondo... con il sesso è bello il mondo, which loosely means something like “wander wandering… with sex it’s a beautiful world.” Or something. Whatever it means, the unwieldy title surely would have been changed for a run Stateside, which is why we’re pretty sure that never happened. But the title isn’t the reason we’re sharing this poster. The reason is it’s by the Italian genius Mario De Berardinis, who we discussed last year. This effort is actually copied from a photo of 1973 Playboy centerfold Cyndi Wood, one of the magazine’s most popular models. And we’d show that image to you, but one thing we are sure of after working at that company is they’ll sue you in a second. So here’s a link to the shot. Did that make your day? Giro girotondo... con il sesso è bello il mondo premiered in Italy today in 1975.

Even though we found no Greek pulp, we do have a related item we want to share with you. The above poster is for the Italian movie Lesbo, which is partially set in Greece. We shared two versions of this promo way back in 2009 and had no idea about the artist. Now we know that the person behind this is Mario De Berardinis. As it happens, we’ve collected other pieces of his and a few appear below. You can see the other two Lesbo posters here, and if you haven’t seen the top notch Italian poster art we’ve already shared, have look at Mafe, Symeoni, Nistri, and Aller.

Here we have a lovely soundtrack sleeve from the 1971 film Bubù di Montparnasse, which is a drama starring Antonio Falsi as a man who forces his girlfriend Ottavia Piccolo into prostitution. Singer Giorgio Gaber is listed alone on the front cover, but there are actually three vocalists on the vinyl, performing what you might call lounge music, with that special Italian flair. As for the film, Bubù discovers it’s a boo-boo to pimp out his girl. Ché sorpresa! The art here is by Mario de Berardinis.