“Barbed Wire Dolls”
(aka Frauengefangnis) **1/2
I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce the German title of this Franco film, let alone know what it means by translation...
It's Night One of The Cracking of the UK Franco Collection, and held within the shrink-wrapping we have eight of Franco's German-shot productions. Since the DVDs in this Anchor Bay UK Collection are packaged in alphabetical order, that's exactly how I'll proceed...
Barbed Wire Dolls starts off like any old 1970's drive-in WIP-flick, so right off the bat you know you're going to be in for some kind of exploitation extravaganza. As per the norm, this one stars Lina Romay, Franco's muse (who came along after the upsetting death of Soledad Miranda circa 1970). Shot in the German language and absolutely hilariously dubbed into English, we North Americans are now privy to such smacking dialog as, “Sign here... for your shock treatment!” and “Your clothes... Remove them!” This, only moments after the Nazi-ish female warden of the prison camp enters the front office to greet the new arrival (Romay) wearing her appropriately German-esque monocle and her crack-pinching super-short-shorts. Of course, this is how female prison wardens would likely dress, so our suspension of disbelief hasn't quite been strained to the breaking point, and we can sit back and enjoy the ride.
Much like the “Female Vampire” R1 DVD, “Barbed Wire Dolls” looks to be a specifically non-X-rated version of a possibly longer (pornographic) cut of the film. My suspicions on this are based solely on one strange cut that occurs near the beginning of the story, in which a sex scene looks conspicuously about to head into explicitly X-rated territory before cutting to a mirror, then abruptly to an already-out-of-focus shot. Of course, this is a Franco film, so strange cuts can by no means be considered hard evidence of anything. But all rumors aside, this monikered “Director's Edition” still has plenty enough skin and raunchiness on display, and some of it stylishly so (though a lot of the stylish flare is confined mostly to the scenes of Lina Romay's shock treatment). None of the female cast members wear any pants at any point in this film, and again, much like “Female Vampire”, there are plenty of zooming muff shots to go around. Before I even got past the ten-minute mark of this puppy, I couldn't imagine, even in the slightest, that Jess Franco was making this movie with any kind of serious consideration. It was all just too looney tunes! Of course, my theory completely juxtaposes the seemingly intentional tone of doom and torture and serious political dialog. (Or would that mean that my theory would ironically compliment the tone...? Ach, my head hurts. That's what you get for tying to dissect a German grindhouse flick from the 70's).
Truthfully, it took about 25 minutes (or one-third of the actual running time) before I found myself completely involved with the shenanigans, which was about at the point where the warden was kicking back in her high heels, immersing herself in a paperback of which I can only assume would be translated as The Power of the Third Reich. There's a jaw-dropping dream sequence soon after, which tells the backstory of why Lina Romay is in prison in the first place – and the whole sequence is ACTED in slow motion! ACTED in SLOW MOTION! It was too ludicrous to accurately describe the giddy confusion I was feeling at watching the sequence play out – I guess Franco's DOP didn't mention that they could have just SHOT the scene in slow-mo by speeding up the film. And there's really so much more... rubber rats, cheesy plot twists, the constant re-usage of the exterior footage (same shot!) of the prison guards, which I guess was to make them look busy and extremely focused.
But crazy filmmaking aside, each of these Anchor Bay discs includes a pretty lengthy documentary on the restoration of these particular Jess Franco films, and I have to say I was stunned. It looks like the movies went through a Star Wars-like cleanup & restoration process, and it appears that Jess Fracno's films are far more revered in Europe now.
Till tomorrow...
-V.
I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce the German title of this Franco film, let alone know what it means by translation...
It's Night One of The Cracking of the UK Franco Collection, and held within the shrink-wrapping we have eight of Franco's German-shot productions. Since the DVDs in this Anchor Bay UK Collection are packaged in alphabetical order, that's exactly how I'll proceed...
Barbed Wire Dolls starts off like any old 1970's drive-in WIP-flick, so right off the bat you know you're going to be in for some kind of exploitation extravaganza. As per the norm, this one stars Lina Romay, Franco's muse (who came along after the upsetting death of Soledad Miranda circa 1970). Shot in the German language and absolutely hilariously dubbed into English, we North Americans are now privy to such smacking dialog as, “Sign here... for your shock treatment!” and “Your clothes... Remove them!” This, only moments after the Nazi-ish female warden of the prison camp enters the front office to greet the new arrival (Romay) wearing her appropriately German-esque monocle and her crack-pinching super-short-shorts. Of course, this is how female prison wardens would likely dress, so our suspension of disbelief hasn't quite been strained to the breaking point, and we can sit back and enjoy the ride.
Much like the “Female Vampire” R1 DVD, “Barbed Wire Dolls” looks to be a specifically non-X-rated version of a possibly longer (pornographic) cut of the film. My suspicions on this are based solely on one strange cut that occurs near the beginning of the story, in which a sex scene looks conspicuously about to head into explicitly X-rated territory before cutting to a mirror, then abruptly to an already-out-of-focus shot. Of course, this is a Franco film, so strange cuts can by no means be considered hard evidence of anything. But all rumors aside, this monikered “Director's Edition” still has plenty enough skin and raunchiness on display, and some of it stylishly so (though a lot of the stylish flare is confined mostly to the scenes of Lina Romay's shock treatment). None of the female cast members wear any pants at any point in this film, and again, much like “Female Vampire”, there are plenty of zooming muff shots to go around. Before I even got past the ten-minute mark of this puppy, I couldn't imagine, even in the slightest, that Jess Franco was making this movie with any kind of serious consideration. It was all just too looney tunes! Of course, my theory completely juxtaposes the seemingly intentional tone of doom and torture and serious political dialog. (Or would that mean that my theory would ironically compliment the tone...? Ach, my head hurts. That's what you get for tying to dissect a German grindhouse flick from the 70's).
Truthfully, it took about 25 minutes (or one-third of the actual running time) before I found myself completely involved with the shenanigans, which was about at the point where the warden was kicking back in her high heels, immersing herself in a paperback of which I can only assume would be translated as The Power of the Third Reich. There's a jaw-dropping dream sequence soon after, which tells the backstory of why Lina Romay is in prison in the first place – and the whole sequence is ACTED in slow motion! ACTED in SLOW MOTION! It was too ludicrous to accurately describe the giddy confusion I was feeling at watching the sequence play out – I guess Franco's DOP didn't mention that they could have just SHOT the scene in slow-mo by speeding up the film. And there's really so much more... rubber rats, cheesy plot twists, the constant re-usage of the exterior footage (same shot!) of the prison guards, which I guess was to make them look busy and extremely focused.
But crazy filmmaking aside, each of these Anchor Bay discs includes a pretty lengthy documentary on the restoration of these particular Jess Franco films, and I have to say I was stunned. It looks like the movies went through a Star Wars-like cleanup & restoration process, and it appears that Jess Fracno's films are far more revered in Europe now.
Till tomorrow...
-V.
1 comment:
"I guess Franco's DOP didn't mention that they could have just SHOT the scene in slow-mo by speeding up the film."
Actually, that was done because they didn't have the film to burn to do proper slow-mo.
Your suspicions about the disc being cut are probably correct (though I haven't seen BARBED WIRE DOLLS). Those are UK releases--it's likely there isn't a single film in the set that isn't hacked to pieces.
"It looks like the movies went through a Star Wars-like cleanup & restoration process, and it appears that Jess Fracno's films are far more revered in Europe now."
The discs in the set are edited reproductions of Erwin Dietrich's Swiss DVD releases; they're all beautiful prints.
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