The Vampire Happening / Gebissen wird nur nachts - das Happening der Vampire (1971)

“To have Clarimonde was to have twenty mistresses; ay to possess all women: so mobile, so varied of aspect, so fresh in new charms was she all in herself – a very chameleon of a woman, in sooth.” – Theophile Gautier 

I came across The Vampire Happening originally, about ten years ago, because I was interested in seeing more films made by Aquila Film Enterprises, the same company that produced one of my all-time favorite Jess Franco films Succubus (1968), as well as Adrian Hoven’s Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968). However, Jess Franco was not involved in The Vampire Happening. This time, I was instead following the co-producer of Succubus Pier A. Caminnecci, who I thought seemed like an interesting guy, based on some of the backstory Jess Franco gave on him during an interview included on the old Blue Underground DVD release of Succubus, which included an interesting anecdote about Franco finding inspiration after coming across what he referred to as the Necronomicon at Caminnecci’s house. During the interview, Franco also said that Caminnecci was “…very rich…” and “…refined but sometimes insufferable because of his pretentious airs.” At the time, Caminnecci seemed surprisingly young for a film producer. He was the wealthy son of Harras Ursus Caminnecci Siemens, and he also co-founded Aquila Film Enterprises with actors and directors Adrian Hoven and Michel Lemoine.  

Caminnecci did seem to like to have cameos and bit parts in the films he co-produced. He makes a brief appearance during the opening to The Vampire Happening in an “adult movie” scene-within-a-scene with his wife Pia Degermark that is being shown to a mixed audience of passengers, with various jokey reactions, on a commercial airplane.

Degermark and Caminnecci married the same year The Vampire Happening came out, and I cannot help thinking that the film was intended as a starring vehicle, or perhaps even a sincere gift, from Caminnecci for Degermark to be elevated and fondly remembered by the world, as she was the beautiful lead and main attraction to the film in a dual role as actress Betty Williams and her undead ancestor Clarimonde.

Succubus / Necronomicon (1968)

During an interview included on the 2006 Blue Underground release of Succubus, Jess Franco spoke of a sixteenth century book he had come across on a bookshelf entitled Necronomicon that had belonged to a wealthy actor and film producer Pier A. Caminnecci, who had invited Jess over to his house to indulge in his extensive jazz collection, as the two were mutual jazz fans. Jess read a short story from this particular book that was so extraordinary he had to make it into a movie. Of course, this incarnation of the Necronomicon was most likely an imitation since this popular mythical tome came entirely from HP Lovecraft’s imagination in the early twentieth century, but it’s still fun to think that Jess may’ve been influenced by the actual ‘book of the dead’ written by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred. Jess blended the material from the book with a script for a horror movie he had previously worked on, and the result is one of his most provocative films.