robertmonell.blogspot.com|By Robert Monell
robertmonell.blogspot.com|By Robert Monell
↧
A Tribute to Jess Franco: link
↧
Coming this Summer
Redemption has signaled this stylish 1972 Jess Franco female vampire film will be released on Blu-ray this summer in the UK and US. I await this with much anticipation since it fits in perfectly with two other micro-budgeted horror rallies he made with Britt Nichols back-to-back in 71-72, DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN, in which she played another vampire, and THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, in which she was the intended Bride of Frankenstein.
All three films, which were Robert De Nesle co-productions, were shot with similar supporting casts on Portuguese locations. Alberto Dalbes plays the male authority figure/nemesis of the monsters in each title.
It would be nice to eventually have this delightful trilogy in HD. I know that Jess Franco considered DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN one of his most personal and successful attempts to make what he termed “a horror-cartoon.”
Ms. Nichols is by turns touching, frighteningly unpredictable, perverse and mysterious in the role, which seems tailor made for her.
A big plus is news that a commentary track by Video Watchdog and OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO co-author Tim Lucas is included. This is a most welcome release. DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN next, please?
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
↧
LA CASA DE LAS MUJERES PERDITAS (1982)
One hundred percent Jess Franco and one of his absolute masterworks this raucous and melancholy chronicle of the destruction of a dysfunctional family living on a remote island is essential viewing for a full understanding of the director’s filmography. More later…
↧
Jess Franco/Richard McNamara/Britt Nichols/Roman Polanski
Cap of prolific English language dubbing director/voice artist, Richard McNamara, in Roman Polanski’s 1972 sex comedy, WHAT? Several interesting Jess Franco connections here. First, McNamara is the credited English language director of Franco’s 1972 monster rally DRACLULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN.
![Robert Monell's photo.]()
McNamara had a folksy delivery and voices Dr. Seward in the readings of his “Diary”, a track which is heard only on the US English language version. Seward is played by Alberto Dalbes. McNamara arrived in Italy with the American Army at the end of World War II, staying there to work in the film industry until the end of his life. He started dubbing films in Rome even before the equally prolific Ted Rusoff and Nick Alexander. He died in 1998.
Roman Polanski originally wanted Britt Nichols, who played in a number of early 1970s Franco films (THE DEMONS, DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE DAUGHTER OF DRACULA, THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN), to play the lead role in the film, an American tourist who is pursued by a group of sexual deviants in a Mediterranean villa. He contacted Franco to inquire about contacting the actress, but her husband refused to let her take the role. Polanski later cast Sydne Rome.
The villa in which most of WHAT? was may have been the same Carlo Ponti villa where scenes in Franco’s VENUS IN FURS (1969) were lensed serveral years earlier. The cap is taken from the new SEVERIN FILMS Blu-ray. The film looks absolutely gorgeous in this presentation, which is highly recommended.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
LA CASA DE LAS MUJERES PERDIDAS (1982)
Beyond the realm of reason….
“Nothing of him that doth fade. But doth suffer a sea-change. Into something rich and strange.” William Shakespeare, THE TEMPEST (1611)
One hundred percent Jess Franco and one of his absolute masterworks, LA CASA LAS MUJERES PERDIDAS is a raucous and melancholy chronicle of the destruction of a dysfunctional family living on a remote island. Although it has softcore erotic interludes it’s not really focused on sex as most of his Clasificada films are. It could almost be described as a Douglas Sirk style melodrama which is both amused and horrified by its characters who are pathetic enough for tragedy as they cling to negative behavior in this downward spiral. Essential viewing for a full understanding of the director’s filmography.
Over the course of 90 minutes the film doesn’t so much tell a linear story as detail the accumulated failures, fetishes, outrages acted out by exiled actor Mario (Antonio Mayans) and his extended family, Dulcinea (Carmen Carrion), his exotic looking, ill tempered lover, his sex-obsessed daughter Desdemona (Lina Romay), who spends considerable time masturbating with various objects in between trying to seduce her father and abusing her physically disabled, mentally disturbed sister, Paulova (Susan Kerr) , who is subject to frequent. screaming fits. Paulova is also abused by Dulcinea, who viciously whips her into submission. They are all broken people, trapped in a cycle of denial, role playing and brutal mind games. Nothing is real in this house of fantasy. The dysfunctional matrix is eventually shattered with the arrival of a poacher (Tony Skios), a hunter in search of the truth about the corrupted family.
Opening and closing with images of waves crashing onto the shores on the isolated island, the film is almost symmetrical in structure. The sea could be read as representing the unconscious mind, a glittering sea of personal fantasies in which these characters have drowned. Franco punctuates the inaction with longshots of fishing boats bobbing in the distance. Ships at sea are a familiar image in his filmography, one of his “secret codes” or ongoing conceits which appear more and more frequently in his 1970s and 1980s films, as if he were reaching out, with his telezoom lens, toward the heady freedom these crafts represent. They act as something more than a tourist’s snapshots of boats. Ships and boats seem to exercise a magnetic pull which draws his eye, which is represented by his camera, toward them and away from the land-bound characters and stories they are acting out.
Some of his most personal films, LA COMTESSE NOIRE, MACUMBA SEXUAL, GEMIDOS DE PLACER, LA COMTESSE PERVERSE, A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD, AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO, are filled with images of ships, speedboats, yachts, all kinds of sea craft on which his inquisitive lens regularly zooms in.
A 1915 depiction of the tempest features a woman on a lonely beach looking toward a ship at sea….
One also thinks of the island and trapped characters in Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST, with Mario as a delusional Prospero. And THE TEMPEST has frequently been alluded to as a tragicomedy, a masque and an example of commedia dell-arte, all of which might apply to LA CASA…. . And if THE TEMPEST can be interpreted as illustrating the death of the rational mind and the death of the author, then so can Franco’s film, which might also be seen as ushering in his 1980s attempts at serious dramas, with complex characters involved in tragic scenarios (cf BAHIA BLANCA). The names Desdemona, Dulcinea also reference Shakespeare and toward the end Mario says to his daughter, “Get thee to a nunnery, Ophelia!” quoting HAMLET, a play about a character who must act the part of a madman to expose the truth.
Mario is gradually exposed as a mentally ill fraud, a pathological lair as Duclinea calls him. He speaks of his past as a prominent actor in Argentina who was run out of the country on moral grounds, but all his talk may be just that. He seems to live a free-floating fantasy realm of his own creation, a made-up past words become a protective shell against the rude intrusions of outside reality. His memory is also failing and he often gets the details of cities, theaters, actors and countries mixed up.
“Let’s see how the world is doing,” Mario muses as he reads from a gossip magazine about the affairs of actors, celebrities and political figures. A pilgrimage to Fatima, a Vatican affair and the adventures of a Trappist monk are mentioned a la Bunuel. In fact Franco compared this film to Bunuel’s THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972). Qualifying that his film dealt with the petit bourgeoisie. Desdemona masturbates as she watches him read the absurd stories aloud (“Margaret Thatcher gets married in Washington.”) This is only the first scene in the film. Later, Desdemona smokes a cigarette by inserting it in her vagina and inhaling. Where have we seen that before? Only in a Jess Franco film, probably.
Strange, absurd-sounding radio commercials are heard over the various intra-family sexual encounters. Food and automotive products from Argentina. What is it with Jess Franco and Argentina? The South American country is regularly mentioned as a place where unique characters and intrigue abound in his films. Another in-joke/secret code? Incest constantly hovers in the fetid atmosphere as daughter lusts after daughter and father while stepmother violently seduces step-daughter as an advert for “Heston Turbo” automobiles plays in the background.
Finally, Mario has had enough after spying on the hunter making love to Dulcinea, who then leaves the island with the poacher as the failed actor prepares his final performance. He dresses as a “Captain from Flanders” looking at himself in another Jess Franco iconic mirror, summing up his flaw, “Because of a single defect, all other virtues, no matter how good, are worthless in the realm of reason.” He exits this realm by performing before an audience which exists only in his mind, spouting gibberish for the invisible theater patrons as he performs ritual suicide on the beach as his mental audience applauds.
Later Desdemona is left pushing Paulova in a wheelchair along the still lonely beach, realizing she will never leave the island and will be a prisoner of her self and her past for the rest of her life. The international jetliners which used to fly overhead reminding her of the freedom of the outside world are no longer there. The airport has closed. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Franco languidly zooms into the endlessly crashing waves as if to invite us to drown in the sadness of her situation. The composition SONATA INVERNAL, by Jess Franco and Rebecca White gives voice to the mood. It might have been appreciated if seen, felt and heard by the Douglas Sirk of WRITTEN ON THE WIND and IMITATION OF LIFE.
Most importantly LA CASA… presents life as a series of performances for various audiences, family, friends, enemies, impassive gods. The final performance ends in death, as life always does, with no guarantee of an afterlife, beyond what one has created. Perhaps Jess Franco’s obsessive use of the zoom lens is his way of attempting to break through the facades, the insistent ilusions of life which block the view of the realms beyond.
Jess Franco would remake this film in 1999 as BROKEN DOLLS, featuring Paul Lapidus in the role of the actor, which concludes with one of the most fantastic scenes of the director’s career. That film will be discussed in a future blog post.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
↧
COMING FROM DORADO FILMS!
These two early 1970s Jess Franco directed thrillers are being prepared for Blu-ray+DVD release by Dorado Films, a company with which I’m familiar for their very good Eurospy/Eurowestern DVDs over the past decade or so. They will be in their original Spanish language version, with English subtitles included and will be Region Free. Good news. More Jess Franco/Spanish horror double bill discs are being planned by the company. I’ll be reviewing these releases here if possible in the future.
LOS OJOS DEL DR. ORLOFF (1973) is the third film in Franco’s series featuring the sinister Dr. Orloff, who this time around is involved in a mind control plot to wipe out a family so he can steal their fortune. The late cult actor William Berger plays the title role and easily steps into the role which was created by Howard Vernon in Franco’s 1961 classic GRITOS EN LA NOCHE [THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF). This film is a locked room mystery which opens with the murder of the father (played by Jess Franco) of the heroine, who witnesses the crime, but is unable to name the killer. The twisting, turning plot, use of fog and subliminal editing in the murder scenes, gothic style music and quite effective performance of William Berger as the criminal doctor make this a unique addition to the Orloff series, with an atmosphere all its own and somewhat similar to MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE (1982), a remake of his 1970 NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT. Curiously, the onscreen title is LOS OJOS DEL DR. ORLOFF, differing from the above title on the Jano poster.
UN SILENCIO DE TUMBA (1972) is a rarely seen obscurity which is quite an effective and atmospheric thriller due to Franco’s taut direction and a captivating performance by Lina Romay lookalike Montserrat Prous, who also is featured as the female lead in LOS OJOS DEL DR. ORLOFF. She’s one of Jess Franco’s most memorable performers of his early 1970s period. It’s a “dark-and-stormy-night” Agatha Christie style mystery in which a group of film people trapped in a remote villa are killed one by one. Who is the assassin?
This is a very welcome surprise release and it’s always good to have more Jess Franco films in HD from original elements with English subtitles. Dorado Films promises to consider more Jess Franco double bills in HD for the future.
(C) Copyright Robert Monell, 2016
↧
LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS (1982)
Antonio Mayans as a cheap detective in search of Nazi gold. Note the presence of production lights behind the actor. Accident or avant-garde touch?
********************************************************
LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS can be literally translated into English as THE NIGHT OF THE OPEN SEX, implying a specific display. But given that this is a Jess Franco film, the title may have a double meaning. The secondary one being a sarcastic put down of the entire explicit genre, particularly the hardcore genre, which this film never drifts into, despite a harrowing scene of genital torture visited upon a female agent by two other agents. The search is on for Nazi gold hidden in a remote villa. A search for Nazi gold set in the Canary Islands also formed the plot of a very different early 1980s Franco film, LA TUMBA DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES (1981), aka OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES.
ABOVE: Nazi zombie attack in LA TUMBA DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES. Interesting factoid: Canarian actor Albino Graziani plays Von Klaus, a contact who holds the key to whereabouts of Nazi treasure in both LA TUMBA… and LA NOCHE… . Graziani plays villain roles in such other Canary Islands shot Franco films as OPALO DE FUEGO (1978), MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD (1982) and MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE (1982).
Some of the Las Palmas desert locations recall Franco’s LAS TUMBAS DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES (1981). Only that was a typical Nazi zombie horror film. Franco would often return to shoot entire films in the Canary Island during the early 1980s (MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD, MACUMBA SEXUAL), often using the stark desert-scapes and wind whipped palms to create an eerie atmosphere. LA NOCHE… is composed in a quite different key though. It’s slyly humorous, fast moving (for a Jess Franco film) and full of typical Franco in-jokes, such as the director appearing as the abused Count Dejardins, whom Crosby keeps bound in his behind a couch in his apartment. It’s also likely that the production received a tax break by filming in the Canaries, which was a picturesque low-cost popular location for European tourists. The fact is that LA NOCHE … manages to satisfy the requirements of CLASIFICADA S/work for the raincoat crowd, as well as acting as a self-satirical, stylistically experimental genre piece. The core genre being what the director called his “Black Cinema” = Film Noir. Planning it as a film filled with as much simulated sex as possible just gave him an immediate market in Spain at the time.
Coming Soon!
I first became familiar with LA NOCHE … via the above KING HOME VIDEO Spanish VHS. It wasn’t subtitled but there isn’t much dialogue and I could easily follow what I thought was the plot, but what one thinks the plot is in a Jess Franco film is often just a ruse for something else. Jess Franco never showed much interest in linear plotting or airtight narrative structures.
LA NOCHE…. is a particularly fluid exercise in multi-genre cinema from a maestro of Euro-bis. Style is everything in this film, the plot resembles a sexy comic book about spies, strippers, PIs and Nazi gold. Of course comic strips and cartoons are the main inspiration in such key Franco titles as LOS BLUES CALLE POP… LUCKY, THE INSCRUTABLE, KILLER BARBYS VS. DRACULA, THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN, DR. WONG’S VIRTUAL HELL, THE GIRL FROM RIO and many more.
It opens with an exercise in parallel montage as the nighttime drive of Al Crosby up the coastal road is intercut with Moira’s striptease as she also drives a prop car in the nightclub. This bravura opening credits sequence is scored with a bossa nova beat by Pablo Villa, Jess Franco and Daniel White, a Portuguese language chorus singing over her act at the club. Also heard is the laid back rhythm of singer “Carloto Perla”, who may or may not be a beard for the Tenor voice of Jess Franco. Perla is also heard moaning in voodoo-style rhythms in LA ESCLAVA BLANCA, MACUMBA SEXUAL, the Spanish language track of LA TUMBA DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES and DEVIL HUNTER.
The approaching headlights of the cars on the highway and the phosphorescent colored lights in the club bathe the sequence in a delirious, candy colored glow. The film has unique aesthetic, a hallucinatory visual style and an unpredictable sense of humor. One extended strip club performance features Moira writheing around on the club floor, licking porno shots from a slick magazine, accompanied by a singer blasting the lyrics “taste, taste, taste, taste, taste of your sperm”! The wildly enthusiastic strip club audience shouts “Mas, mas, mas” as she strips. She’s good at her job but she’s also a double agent who helps Al figure out the linguistic code which will lead them to the gold. This element seems to refer to Poe’s THE GOLD BUG, which the director filmed several times, including the abortive JUNGLE OF FEAR.
Musical and linguistic codes play a significant role in the Franco filmography. Secret codes, in-jokes, arcane references and deeply buried subtexts are embedded throughout his 6 decade filmography. Moira has to play Liszt’s LIEBESTRAUM on the electric organ to trigger the mechanism which will open the wall enclosure, hidden behind an abstract painting, containing the gold. The codes may be classical or modernist, depending on the director’s mood of the day.
LA NOCHE teases the eye, the mind, if not the libido, with its insistence on both its allusive density while celebrating its own triviality as a spy/noir film. It closes as Al and Moira copulate while stimulating themselves by staring at their new found cache of gold bars. Franco does one final telezoom into Moira’s private parts as the ultimate image, over which the final credits are printed. The “money shot” and final payoff in the Black Cinema of Jess Franco.
↧
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESS FRANCO (1930-2013) RIP
↧
Another Jess Franco Double Bill in HD
Dorado Films is also considering doing these two 1980s Jess Franco films as a Bluray+DVD double bill in the future. These are two of Franco’s better neo noirs from that period. CAMINO SOLITARIO is another entry into the director’s career spanning series featuring his favorite PI, Al Pereira, which started with the 1966 CARTES SUR TABLE and was most recently updated with the still unreleased REVENGE OF THE ALLIGATOR LADIES, completed after his passing by his longtime collaborator Antonio Mayans, who plays the leading role. CAMINO SOLITARIO focuses on the detective’s relationship with his young daughter as he becomes embroiled in a complicated criminal scheme involving a femme fatale (Lina Romay). It’s a gritty, stylish exercise in crime cinema, which the director termed a “black film” (film noir). JUEGO SUCIO EN CASABLANCA is a North African set crime drama which focuses on the plight of an alcoholic writer (William Berger)who hires a one of his poker playing partners to kill him as a way of committing suicide. Silvia Montez (Muriel Montessey) co stars as his glamorous wife who may be involved in a devious plot of her own. An exotic score featuring some African rhythms enhances the film’s ambience. William Berger gives one of his best performances in this downbeat thriller. Written by Santiago Moncada (A BELL FROM HELL), this is an atmospheric remake of Tulio Demicheli’s 1975 JUEGO SUCIO EN PANAMA. Beside being the Bluray debut of these films this will also be the home video debut of both films in North America, as neither has ever had a VHS/DVD release here. Both features will be transfered from 35mm elements and include new English subtitles with the original Spanish language tracks. Dorado Films has just announced their plan to release this Bluray package as a follow up to their LOS OJOS SINIESTROS DEL DOCTOR ORLOFF and UN SILENCIO DE TUMBA HD double bill. (C) Robert Monell (2016)
Posted from WordPress for Android
↧
↧
THE GIRL FROM RIO versions
FUTURE WOMEN
Hard to find Liberty Home Video / VCI VHS
aka Rio 70/La Ciudad Sin Hombres
1969 – Dir: Jess Franco
There are a number of alternate versions of this 1968 Jess Franco-Harry Alan Towers crime/spy/adventure, shot in Rio and and Spain, featuring Richard Wyler, George Sanders and Maria Rohm. The BU Blu-ray is probably the best looking alternative but I actually prefer the shorter German version with alt footage not in the English language versions, including an opening Armored Car heist which is one of the best action scenes Franco ever directed. It also has alt credits and score. I’ll be posting more on the various version here in the future, along with some caps.
Thanks to Bill Knight…
C Robert Monell, 2016
↧
Podcast: Dorado Blu-ray release of Jess Franco double bill!
This week on the Dorado Films Podcast, we phoned writer/blogger Robert Monell (“I’m in a Jess Franco…
doradofilms.libsyn.com
↧
EL SEXO ESTA LOCO
Sex, Science Fiction, Satire, “S”
Sex is crazy cinema in this freeform fall into experimental erotica … A science fiction comedy which only Jess Franco could have made.
- Jesús Franco – The Film Director
- Antonio Mayans – Baxter/Mr. Martinez/Martian
- Antonio Rebollo – Flanagan/Mr. Gutierrez
- Lina Romay – Mrs. Foncesca
Jess Franco must have had a lot of fun directing this high spirited satire of the Clasificada “S” sex film genre in which he was working, science fiction scenarios (STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, INTERRUPTED JOURNEY), which is filled with practical jokes, bawdy humor, strange sexual situations, silver skinned aliens, group marriage and a film-within-a-film being made by The Film Director (Jess Franco). Cyclical rather than linear, the film opens with hordes of nude aliens grouping in an elaborate mirrored space with a glittering glass ball overhead. A naked female on a pedestal calls out directions to the aliens who have brought in a human abductee (Candy Coster aka Lina Romay). A male alien “Pito One” mates on the stage with the abductee producing an alien offspring in a matter of seconds. Electronic sounds and a voice informs us that this is how birth is accomplished on the planet Goyas.
It’s then all revealed to be a performance staged for a group of monstrous aliens who look like they have wandered in from the space saloon sequence in STAR WARS. But wait, there’s more…
Then Mrs. Fonseca, the lead performer, the abducted woman in the show, is seen in her dressing room being massaged by her parrterner Flanagan (Tony Skios aka Antonio Rebello) as we see Jess Franco and his camera crew in the mirror photographing the film we are watching. Is the director breaking the fourth wall or is it another film he is making? Just one of the many questions this film leaves open. Mrs. Fonseca is then drugged by Flanagan, who takes off. Waking up from the drug’s effects Mrs. Fonseca tracks him to the Europa amusement park where she locates him in a card game run by…. Jess Franco. She is then tied to a chair and tortured under the director of Mr. Martinez (Antonio Mayans) by nude Argentinian exotic dancers. And all this is only the first part of this multi-section conundrum. This is all revealed to be Mrs. Fonseca’s dream as Jess Franco enters the frame to give a line reading to Mrs.Fonseca and another lover, Martinez (Mayans). Lynn Endersonn, an accomplished comedienne, enters this phase as Flanagan’s new partner. All four players are then married by the film’s DP Juan Soler. They all spend time in bed together reading comic books. And then there are the appearances of Rosalinda , who is identified as the producer’s girlfriend. It all results in the emergence of the cult of Cucufati, which demands the sacrifice of Mrs
Fonseca. Finally the aliens arrive in a giant silver spaceship and it ends as it began. One of Jess Franco’s most personal and entertaining films which fulfills the requirements of the S circuit and the director’s private agendas. My favorite scene shows Jess Franco executing one of his trademark telezooms reflected in a mirror…(C) Robert Monell 2016
↧
Jess Franco does Edgar Wallace
This is a fun, micro budgeted affair, supposedly based on the writings of Edgar Wallace. 
Since I haven’t read SANDERS COME FROM THE RIVER, the Edgar Wallace story on which this is supposedly based, I can’t vouch for its relation, if any, to the novel. It may be that Wallace was more of a general inspiration, than a specific source for the various Franco films which claim to be adaptations. I also have not read the book on which THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA (1970) was based. That zoom powered adventure featured the very last performance of the late, lamented Soledad Miranda. The script for that one was credited to Ladislas Fodor, who adapted some of the German Artur Brauner produced Wallace films. The script here is by Franco (written in the early 1960s, according to Alain Petit in THE MANACOA FILES*), and has notable similarities to AKASAVA. Lina Romay is a nightclub performer who is pursued by agents on the trail of plans for a nuclear device. Of course, in AKASAVA Soledad Miranda was also a nightclub performer, but investigating the theft of radioactive materials from a mine. Both films also feature Howard Vernon in a prominent role. In this film Vernon is Professor Von Klaus, who has fled the USSR with the plans, which he plans to hand over to a European contact. A musical code is also involved in the complicated narrative, recalling the musical codes in such films as KISS ME, MONSTER and LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS. Jess Franco loves secret codes, especially if they are musical. Antonio Mayans plays agent Carlos, who teams with Romay as she flees an unfriendly agent (Daniel Katz). There’s some, maybe too much, comic relief, such as agents hiding in Romay’s small apartment, in the style of a 1940s Bob Hope-Bing Crosby ROAD movie, etc.
There’s are some entertaining close calls and a final scene in which our heroes are menaced with an aircraft attack from the heavily armed counter agents (cf NORTH BY NORTHWEST). Of course, Jess is not Hitchcock, but the scene is briskly staged and leaves one smiling. Breezy, unpretentious, fast paced and in the Eurospy vein which Franco returned to so often. Antonio Mayans and Lina, Franco’s favorite acting team of that period, seem to be enjoying the ride here. Stylishly shot by Juan Soler, the brightly colored, luminous compositions are easy on the eye and this is a minor but appreciated delight. Franco’s other mid 1980s Edgar Wallace adaptation, VIAJE A BANGKOK, ATUAD INCLUIDO, also with Howard Vernon, is also very visually entrancing, maybe more so, but remains a rather talkative, murky affair, more of a color remake of CARTES SUR TABLE (1966).
The supposedly completed, but unreleased VOCES DE MUERTE (1984) was an adaptation of Wallace’s THE CASE OF THE FRIGHTENED LADY, which was capably made by Alfred Vorher in 1963 with Klaus Kinski, but remains to be seen. Franco spoke of remaking this project again toward the end of his career. VOCES DE MUERTE was shot in the striking Ricardo Bofill structures which were the setting for the director’s essential EUGENIE, UN HISTORIA DE UNA PERVERSION (1980) and ranks high on my most wanted list of unavailable Jess Franco films.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
↧
Jess Franco Does Bryan Edgar Wallace
Jess Franco as a knife throwing specialist called in to find a killer in DER TODESRACHER VON SOHO, a 1971 adaptation of a Bryan Edgar Wallace story previously filmed in 1962 by Werner Klingler. Artur Brauner’s CCC company produced both films. DER TODESRACHER …was filmed in Spain and Germany, and was co-produced by Arturo Marcos’ Fenix Films, Madrid.
Below: 1962 version. This version was mostly shot in England and features an atmospheric score and photography. The story involves a knife throwing killer, features Senta Berger, and leads to the exposure of a gang making an illegal drug in a secret factory. Neither this version nor Jess Franco’s follow DEATH PACKS A SUITCASE, the Bryan Edgar Wallace novel closely, which is more of an espionage thriller. It was the first of BEW’s “Bill Tern” novels. Thanks to Nzoog for this information.
Franco’s version, set in London, is in color and notable for its stylized camera work with wide angle lenses, striking compositions and atmospheric lighting in the nightclub scenes. Fred Williams (COUNT DRACULA) is the Scotland Yard investigator. Dan Van Husen, Barbara Rutting and Horst Tappert appear as villains, and their presences add a lot to the atmosphere. Tappert was also in Franco’s Edgar Wallace adaptation, THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA (1970) and Rutting appeared in a number of German Krimis of the 1960s. Tappert would go on to fame in Germany as a detective in the hit television series, DERRICK.
Elisa Montes (99 WOMEN, THE GIRL FROM RIO) is the female lead, a role Soledad Miranda probably would have played if she had lived. This is more carefully made and engaging than Franco’s THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA. The German DVD I saw for review was not English friendly. Both versions are worth seeing.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
Posted from WordPress for Android
↧
THE NAKED SUPERWITCHES OF THE RIO AMORE/ORGIA DE NINOFOMANAS (1980)
AKA DIE NACKTEN SUPERHEXEN VOM RIO AMORE; LINDA; THE STORY OF LINDA; CAPTIVE WOMEN (US Video)
I first saw this film on VHS around 1990 after renting it out of an extinct “Mom and Pop” Video store. It was part of the “Captive Women” VHS series. Each was numbered. I think this Jess Franco Women in Peril film was CAPTIVE WOMEN 5. There was also Eurocine’s FRAULEIN ELSA SS, with Pamela Stanford, which was CAPTIVE WOMEN 4, if I recall correctly. The box credits were minimal and I wasn’t even sure at that time if this was indeed a Jess Franco film. It’s very difficult to find a complete version, even in today’s DVD/Blu-ray market.
Several versions, including the Dutch and US DVDs, omit some minor transitions and entrances along with the opening pre-credit sequence depicting the attempted escape of a woman from the Rio Amore, a white slave op
eration, ruthlessly managed by the lethal Madame Sheila (Raquel Evans), hiding behind an upscale hotel resort of the island of Madeira. There aren’t any super witches as the German title indicates, but Sheila could certainly be termed a jealous, tyrannical, vindictive Super Bitch.
The pre-credit scene, which is in the old CAPTIVE WOMEN VHS as well as the Spanish video, shows the woman (SADOMANIA’s Andrea Isabelle Guzon) being chased along a deserted beach by a jeep containing several thugs who force her into the vehicle and return her to the brothel. The exclusive club features erotic group sex shows in mafu glass cages filled with tranquilizing gases (cf FUTURE WOMEN/THE GIRL FROM RIO, DAS FRAUENHAUS), whippings, disco scored erotic displays and other adult entertainments for upscale male clientele.
BELOW: Funchal airport, Madiera. Ursula Buchfellner in the mafu cage.
This is a strangely bifurcated film, telling two separate narratives about sisters Linda (Katja Beinert) and Betsy (Ursula Buchfellner), the former a runaway from an all girls school run by an order of nuns, the latter an employee of an exclusive resort hotel. Shot partially on the island of Madeira, the setting of Franco’s 1973 erotic vampire masterpiece, LA COMTESSE NOIRE, this is a sometimes visually entrancing film, especially in the Rio Amore love drug episodes involving caged women who are being officially “punished” by Sheila, the the queen bee of the brothel. Much of the film is taken up with her troubled relationship with hotel employee Ron (Antonio Mayans), who is carrying on a secret affair with Besty. When Sheila discovers this she has Betsy kidnapped and forced to work in as a white slave in the Rio Amore. At times the action resembles a racy version of any number of US cable TV series of the era.
The story of Linda opens in Germany with footage from Hubert Frank’s VANESSA (1977), a softcore featuring Olivia Pascal, the final girl in Franco’s gory US-style “slasher” epic. Pascal doesn’t appear here, but VANESSA, LINDA and BLOODY MOON were all German co-productions with Erich Tomek’s LISA FILMS, Munich. In fact Tomek is listed as the scriptwriter of ORGIA… on the Spanish video credits and he hid under the name “Rayo Casablanca” when he wrote Franco’s BLOODY MOON.
When Linda finally arrives on Madeira she sports a black Mickey Mouse T shirt, the negative of the white Mickey Mouse shirt she wore in Franco’s much more personal 1980 Sade adaptation, EUGENIE, HISTORIA DE UNA PERVERSION. Both films are indeed opposites in terms of tone and atmosphere. ORGIA… being a simple WIP, while EUGENIE … is an oppressive, dark, obsessively detailed study in madness, incest, murder and fetishism. ORGIA… registers as a kind of Jess Franco fable of Sacred and Profane love, with happy endings for Linda, Betsy and their lovers. Sheila is a literal Jess Franco scorpion woman, who unleashes the stinging insects on Ron (cf Pamela Stanford in LORNA, THE EXORCIST-1974) before a disgruntled employee bursts in, finishing her off. Evans, born in Santiago, Chile in 1956 as Arlene Guevara Gatica, was a well known Clasificada “S” performer at the time and she manages to act up a storm as the manipulative femme fatale, constantly keeping an eye on her slaves, meting out punishments and even doing an erotic dance number accompanied by a disco vocal included in the fun Gerhard Heinz score, which is available on CD. Evans also appeared in Vicente Aranda’s 1980 erotic thriller, THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN PANTIES, Ignacio Iquino’s EMANUELLE AND CAROL (1978) and Manuel Esteba’s crime-sleaze thriller, SITUACION LIMITE (1982). Bea Fiedler has an amusing turn as Mitsy, the “Champagne Girl” who is desperate to bag customers before the other women can and attempts to seduce DP Juan Cozar, who cameos as a nervous John. German actor (BLOODY MOON)/producer/director (BABY STRICH IM SPERRBEZIRK-1982) appears as the lead bouncer-thug of the brothel.
Not a bad Franco Women In Peril effort, but far from tier one consideration. It mainly lingers as one of numerous international softcores of that era. Obviously it kept the director busy fulfilling his German co-production deal which also included DEVIL HUNTER and SADOMANIA (both 1980). Franco is credited as “Jack Griffin” on some prints of this and the other German co-productions. Some versions also cut some of the sadistic torture material.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
LUCKY, THE INSCRUTABLE coming on Blu-ray!
LUCKY, EL INTREPIDO aka LUCKY, THE INSCRUTABLE, a delightfully inventive, satirical 1967 Eurospy epic directed by Jess Franco, is finally getting a HD release in Germany. It’s in its original Scope ratio, which is essential because it has a vintage Pop-Art visual design featuring eye popping colors and dialogue in comic book style balloons. It stars cult actor Ray Danton (THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND) as a tricky secret agent who delivers rapid fire quips and is a loving homage the 1960s Eurospy craze. One of Jess Franco’s most beautifully crafted, entertaining genre items. With a killer score by Bruno Nicolai.
In Italian, with German subtitles. Hope to see a North American Blu-ray of this with an English language track asap.
[http://www.pidax-film.de/…/Lucky-M-fuellt-alle-Saerge…]
![]()
Lucky M. füllt alle Särge: Ab 09.09.2016 bei uns! Actiongeladener Eurospy von von Kult-Regisseur…
pidax-film.de
↧
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SOLEDAD MIRANDA: R.I.P.
ABOVE: Soledad Miranda in SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY (Jess Franco, 1970).
Go to Amy Brown’s excellent, informative Soledad Miranda website for essays, information, pictures, videos and to order Soledad Miranda songs, albums, videos, photos, links and more. Link BELOW…
The late, great Soledad Miranda would have been 73 years old today. Her life was cut short by a tragic automobile accident on 18 August, 1970. She was about to sign a multi-picture contract with the tyro German producer Artur Brauner, who was very impressed with her in the successful Jess Franco films (especially VAMPYROS LESBOS) he co-produced.
Her last film role was as a secret agent posing as an exotic dancer in Jess Franco’s THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA (1970), not one of her best films or roles but she had an intoxicating presence in her slow motion performances, the kind of thing she and Franco excelled at. She had worked as a skilled dancer on stage and screen in Spain since the beginning of her career.
My favorites of her Jess Franco roles were as the female leads in Franco’s EUGENIE DE SADE and SHE KILLS IN ECSTASY (both 1970), in which she proved she could express a wide range of rapidly changing emotions with flawless timing and skill. She really didn’t need words. She would have been perfectly at home in silent era pictures, in which the players had to telegraph emotions with their faces, eyes and bodies. She makes quite an impression in the Portabella documentary, CUADECUC, VAMPIR (1971), a black and white, dialogue free experiment, shot during the shooting of Franco’s EL CONDE DRACULA. She is shown preparing and playing her role as the doomed Lucy and is as totally transfixing as she is in Franco’s full color commercial feature starring Christopher Lee. Her haunted eyes and despairing body language eloquently replacing the conventional dialogue.
She was credited in most of her Jess Franco films as Susan/Susann Korda or, as in EUGENIE DE SADE, Susan Korday. She also had roles in such unfinished Franco projects as JULIETTE (1970) and the lost SEX CHARADE.
ABOVE: With Paul Muller in EUGENIE DE SADE…
According to the IMDB she appeared in 36 projects , including such Euro-westerns as SUGAR COLT (1966) and 100 RIFLES (1969), in the latter she played a hot blooded Hotel Girl opposite Burt Reynolds. Some filmography writers credit her as being in the William Shatner shot-in-Europe western WHITE COMANCHE (1968), but I haven’t been able to spot her in the film despite numerous revisits.
Early roles include her first, an appearance as a dancer in Jose Maria Elorrieta’s musical comedy LA BELLA MIMI (1960), and a cameo in Jess Franco’s musical comedy, QUEEN OF THE TABARIN CLUB (1960), which was her first appearance in a Franco film. According to Franco, Soledad was part of the entourage of the film’s star Mikaela [Wood], which is how he discovered her. She remains uncredited for her very brief appearance. Beside all this she was a singer, recording artist, dancer, stage performer and a popular figure in Spanish fan magazines during the 1960s. Thanks to Amy Brown and her Soledad Miranda website for additional information.
It’s difficult to speculate on what would have happened to her had she lived. But she was on an upward spiral when she passed away nearly 46 years ago. And in many ways, through her films and legacy, she is more alive than ever.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
↧
EMMA COHEN (1946-2016) R.I.P….
A sad loss earlier this week of a fine Spanish actress who appeared in Jess Franco’s EL CONDE DRACULA and was magnificent in her award winning lead role in AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO (1973), one of the director’s key films. She also was memorable as the battered victim in Joaquin Romero Marchent’s violent Spanish western, CUT-THROATS NINE (1972). She also appeared in Eloy de la Eglesias’ CANNIBAL MAN and THE GLASS CEILING, Carlos Aured’s HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (1972) and many other Spanish films. She appeared in numerous Spanish features, television episodes and directed, wrote, produced videos.
ABOVE: Emma Cohen in AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO, CANNIBAL MAN and CUT-THROATS NINE.
She passed away July 11, 2016, in Madrid.
(C) Robert Monell, 2016
↧
DAUGHTER OF DRACULA in HD!
Coming Oct 4 2016 on Bluray from Redemption Films. French language with English subtitles, audio commentary by Tim Lucas, alternate footage and original theatrical trailer. ………. The 1hr 22 m announced runtime is several minute longer than any versions I’ve seen. Hope they do a HD release of DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN at some point.
Posted from WordPress for Android
↧
Guest Review: VENUS IN FURS
Thanks to Michael Blanton for allowing us to reprint his recent review of this Jess Franco classic. Let’s hope it gets a Blu-ray release asap.
Michael Blanton 
watching Venus in Furs (1969 Franco film).
This review may contain spoilers.
“A guy like me without a horn is like… well, a man without words.”
Certainly, one of Franco’s most surreal, trippy, dream-like films, even more so with its dissolves, montages, filters, zooms, super-impositions, slow-mo, heat-wave distorted cinematography, Venus in Furs (1969) is the story of Jimmy (James Darren), a jazz trumpeter – and also the narrator of the film, done with a hipster patter – who discovers the half-nude body of a dead, tortured woman, washed up on an Istanbul beach, whom he realizes he has seen before. Jogging his memory, he realizes that her name was Wanda Reed (Maria Rohm) and he had witnessed her – in between sets at a jazz club – being whipped by a woman, Olga (Margaret Lee) as two men Ahmed (Klaus Kinski) and Kapp (Dennis Price) looked on. Disturbed by the events, the nonplussed Jimmy heads to Rio, via stock footage of Carnival, with his girlfriend, and singer, Rita (Barbara McNair). To his utter amazement, Wanda also shows up in Rio, at the jazz club where he and Rita are performing. Unable to control himself, Jimmy embarks on a torrid affair with Wanda and does nothing to hide it from Rita, and he heads back to Istanbul at the insistence of Wanda, who unbeknownst to Jimmy, has had an agenda of her own which commenced as soon as she arrived in Rio and will continue once they return to Istanbul. Filled with supernatural moments, Venus in Furs is chock full of ambiguities and dead-ends, with an ending that will throw you for a loop. Look for Franco, playing trombone in one of Jimmy’s combos and piano in another. Franco regular Paul Muller -uncredited – also has a significant role as an impresario of a jazz club. Fans of Kumel’s Daughters of Darkness, Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad, the films of Robbe-Grillet and David Lynch’s films since Lost Highway should find much to engage them in one of Franco’s best films.
(C) Michael Blanton, 2016
↧