Years ago we briefly discussed the Marisa Mell thriller Una sull’atra and shared an Angelo Cesselon poster made for its Italian run. Well, we're back to the movie today with a poster made for its Spanish run under the title Una historia perversa. The illustration was painted by Francisco Fernandez Zarza-Pérez, who signed his work as Jano, and was one of Spain's more prolific cinematic illustrators. We put together a small collection of his work a while back and you can check that out here. Una historia perversa made its Spanish premiere in Barcelona today in 1969.

We like to make fun of the movie Perversion, aka Nathalie: Escape from Hell, but one thing that can’t be denied is that it has interesting art. This Italian locandina style poster doesn’t quite stand up to the nightstick-licking promo we showed you last year, but it’s weirdly funny in its own way, with Patrizia Gori on the receiving end of some corporal punishment from oversexed dominatrix Jacqueline Laurent. Both posters are by unknown artists, but as always we’ll keep digging—someone out there was probably credited at some point, and if they were, they have no more chance of escaping than poor Nathalie. And on the subject of digging, we’ve located some good promos of Patrizia Gori and we’ll share one a bit later.

Later has arrived: the photos below show Gori in all her loveliness from the year 1979.

This amazing Italian poster is for a cuddly little piece of nazisploitation called Perversion, which was originally made in France as Nathalie rescapée de l'enfer, and known in the English speaking world as Nathalie: Escape from Hell. A poster like this cries out for us to watch the film, and luckily we were able to track it down and screen it. The art pretty much nails it. A French farmer’s daughter is captured by the Nazis and sent to a castle brothel, where she endures the usual sexploitation degradations—gropings, whippings, and uninvited advances from a domineering, leather-clad queen bee named Helga Hortz. A love connection develops between Nathalie and a German officer, and when the affair comes to light Helga decides it’s time to hortz poor Nathalie. This is a really bad movie. It’s the type of flick that includes lengthy sequences of the villains going Mwah hah hah hah hah hah! All it needed was Monty Burns rubbing his gnarled hands together and intoning, “Smithers, release the hounds.” On the plus side, star Patrizia Gori gives it her all, and the supporting cast includes Barbara Moose and Brigitte Lahaie. Perversion aka Nathalie rescapée de l'enfer premiered in France today in 1978.

Sigh. How on Earth did I end up in this clusterfuck of a movie?

I once did Molière at the Comédie-Française. That was a great summer.

Oh God, who am I kidding? That was the best summer of my life.

This is my agent’s fault. I’m going to push him off the top of the Sacré-Cœur.

Shit—did I remember to put cat food in the bowl this morning?

Well, it’ll have a short, deeply embarrassing run in cinemas, and then maybe I’ll spend a few years in Canada, and when I get back this abomination will have been forgotten forever.

Wait—so this internet thing you’re talking about will be globally available and filled with every shitty old movie ever made?

This evocative poster is for the 1975 thriller Perversione, which was originally made in Spain as La encadenada, and for its U.S. release was retitled Diary of a Murderess, or Diary of an Erotic Murderess. Spoiler alert: there’s a murderess in this film. Marisa Mell is nurse to a rich widower’s mentally disturbed son, but she turns out to be a grifter intent on liberating some of the family knick-knacks. She's especially covetous of an antique chalice that resides in a safe. At some point, she finds a diary left behind by the widower’s dead wife, and in its pages the departed plots the murder of her husband, writing her plan in helpful step-by-step detail. Mell decides follow the diary’s instructions, all the better to get hold of that chalice.

But nothing is as it seems here. The chalice is actually the Holy Grail, Mell has actually failed to ditch her terrible husband, and a few other surprises pop up to keep viewers guessing. Director Manuel Mur Oti has crafted an atmospheric piece here, but we recommend it for giallo fans only, because it’s a bit slow off the starting line. Also, we suggest watching the original version, because we’ve heard that the American cut is several minutes short on nudity. It may not matter though, because the movie may be impossible to find. We located our copy online, but the links have since died. Not that we’re recommending any illegal downloading. Us? Never. Perversione premiered in Italy today in 1975. Below, just because we can, we’ve posted an image of Mell at her lovely best, and you can see another one of great interest here. 

This poster for Una sull’altra, aka Perversion Story, was painted by Angelo Cesselon, and the film was directed by Lucio Fulci, who would later become one of Italy’s grandmasters of cinematic gore. This flick is eerily similar in plot to Vertigo, complete with the death of the love interest and subsequent reappearance of her double. It’s even set in San Francisco like Vertigo, but the difference is Fulci notches the ’60s psychedelia up to the max, and offers up lots of Austrian actress Marisa Mell’s naked flesh. Mell had starred in the camp classic Diabolik the previous year, and here she is getting groovy again, particularly in one motorcycle striptease that’s probably worth the time spent watching the rest of the film. As a side note, you’ll see Jean Sobieski here, who happens to be Leelee Sobieski’s dad. Una sull’altra opened in Italy today in 1969.