key player
in the “Christensen Quintet” as they became dubbed due to an
off-hand remark by Ulysses Reale's bass player, a real cut-up called
Ondine Jackson. Jackson's epithet was hardly appreciated by Nels, but
it stuck. Nels had recently invested a great sum of money in film
production and distribution, and wanted foreign films as well as
cheapo American flicks on his slate. Nels befriended an Italian
producer whose young nephew, Luca Stenoretti (b. 1923), was honing
his craft as a cinematographer. Nels flew to Italy to see Luca's
latest work on a film called The Sirens of Pallas, a period
adventure film with mythological elements (this at that time had not
yet coalesced into the genre we now know as peplum, or “sword and
sandal” flicks). This was the first film Stenoretti directed
himself (and shot as well).

Stenoretti wielded asecret
which kept Javier installed as as the “fifth banana” in the
Christensen Quintet. Luca's mother, Isabella Clerici, was Javier's
daughter; hence Biazel's granddaughter. Luca admired his charismatic
grandfather and knew he was a practitioner of “black magic”
(though Javier always told him it was “grey magick”), and was
amazed that Javier looked younger than he himself. Javier agreed that
he and his grandson would not go public with their relations. But
Luca resolved that his films as a director would always be suffused
with horror or the occult, even in his lower key thrillers and
westerns. Later, Luca's half-brother Blasco Clerici, would work on
Luca's films and also join Biazel's order (which Luca refused to do,
as did Javier).

III. “The Others”

The second group of regulars
that helped define the club, and caused some controversy in the
media, was all African-American and