#FF – Franco Friday (part 2)

Okay, so I do love the film writings of Roger Ebert. I love his book “Your Movie Sucks” and some of his film reviews – specifically for Eyes Wide Shut, Blow-Up, and 2010: The Year We Made Contact, helped me to understand the multiple sub-levels of cinema and its beautiful language, and how that language is used to communicate, and at times, to mess with an audience. But I was, admittedly, slightly dismayed when I inadvertently came across a review Roger Ebert had written on Umberto Lenzi's 60s giallo-thriller Paranoia, in which he describes Lenzi's film as the “second worst film” he'd seen that year – the film in first place for worst of the year...? Jess Franco's Succubus. Okay, also admittedly, I could see where Ebert might have been coming from at that point in time, and at that place in the cinema culture of Chicago's movie theatres... Ebert had stated that “Only the haunting memory of 'Succubus' prevents me from naming 'Paranoia' the worst movie of the year... 'Succubus' was a flat-out bomb. It left you stunned and reeling. There was literally nothing of worth in it. Even the girl was ugly. The color looked like it had been scraped off the bottom of an old garbage boat. The acting resembled a catatonic state. The script (ha!) had the flair of a baggage tag. It was possibly the worst movie of all time. So no wonder it's in its fifth week in neighborhood theaters, after rolling up record grosses in its first run. No matter what the censor board thinks, the Chicago proletariat knows what it likes.”

I would think that given some time to reflect back on this review (impossible now), that the usually intelligent and insightful critic would cringe at his remarks on the “ugly girl” starring in Succubus, who happened to be the androgynous and striking beauty Janine Reynaud (Two Undercover Angels; Kiss Me, Monster!). Also, clearly lost on the cinematically critical mind of a young Roger Ebert in the 1960s was the whole idea and cinematic concepts of European arthouse genre cinema; which is striking unto itself, although I'm admittedly reflecting on this with the distance of decades of swimming and rippling changes in cultural and artistic representations and acceptances that have come between the now and the original American release of one of Jess Franco's artistic masterpieces. 

#JessFrancoFriday

Running Amuck!

88 Films, a wild distributor out of the UK, has continued to do an unprecedented job of curating, restoring, and releasing cult Italian genre films onto blu-ray, from obscure and cult gialli to zombie and jungle-cannibal gut-munchers to lost Lamberto Bava action flicks. At the time of this writing, 88 Films has restored and released over 30 Italian titles that genre fans have been hungry for on HD (or sometimes, on any post-VHS format). Of course, being a huge giallo fan, it's easy to guess which of their Italian blu-ray releases I've been the most attracted to; there are films to die by from giallo mavericks Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci, and the aforementioned Lamberto Bava. Throughout my 22 years of giallo obsession (I'd call myself a giallo aficionado, I'd like to call myself that; alas, obsessive is far more an appropriate description. You'd only have to see my culture-strewn living room to understand that this is true). Through these years, there was one particular giallo, that while available for a limited time prior to 88 Films' blu-ray release, still had eluded me – Silvio Amadio's Amuck! 

 

Amuck! starred Barbara Bouchet and Rosabla Neri, two of Italian Cinema's most gorgeous and prolific genre starlets. (So why, then, had Amuck! eluded me for so long?) Right from the moment a lower-budget distribution company had seen fit to release a limited number of DVD copies in the early 2000s, Amuck! was found itself surrounded by disappointingly average reviews. Even within 88 Films' own blu-ray insert booklet, author Calum Waddell casually describes the film as a “'lowbrow', quickly-turned-out cheapie”. However, after having finally experienced the film last night – and within the first few seconds being grateful that had waited this long, the prize being that my first experience with this film was an amazing HD widescreen transfer – I did not think that Amuck! looked like a “cheapie”, nor did I think that the film was too average to not be included in the top of Italy's giallo cannon. That being said, those more attuned to the bloody grand guignols of Dario Argento or Lucio Fulci could be disappointed here, as the violence is massively understated, yet the conspiracy and eroticism (tropes to any Italian giallo) remain in ultra-high gear, nearly crossing the lines into exploitation cinema – dropping short of that thanks to the beautiful cinematography, the performances of all of the actors, and the stunningly fantastic score, which seemed to come out of nowhere, because I'd never heard anyone talking about the music of Amuck! before. Silvio Amadio's film also utilizes a series of subtly crescendoing flashbacks, something that giallo maestro Dario Argento would start turning into a trope within the stylistic storytelling of his own films several years later. Amuck! concerns the character of Greta, played by Barbara Bouchet, who is staying at a friend's house in Venice while searching for a missing friend (the subject of Amuck!'s flashbacks), and soon finds herself the target of murder and a conspiracy that seems to be going on between her friends and hosts (including Rosabla Neri). Meanwhile, many sexual and erotic shenanigans are taking place, both in reality while Greta is drugged by her hosts, and within Greta's own dreams. Through these scenes, Amuck! is constructed as almost the archetypal giallo; which is another thing I'd never heard any review talking about.

I first heard of Silvio Amadio's film when it was released on that first limited DVD in the early 2000s for two reasons: 1) Barbara Bouchet, as she had also starred in one of my all-time favorite gialli, Don't Torture a Duckling, directed by Lucio Fulci; and – 2) XploitedCinema.com had been carrying that limited DVD for quite some time. XploitedCinema.com (or Xploited Cinema) had by that time already been doing business in online DVD importing and shipping for a couple of years – in fact, my first-ever online purchase was through Xploited Cinema, for a Jess Franco DVD titled Exorcism. Following this, I only ordered DVDs from Xplited Cinema a couple of times, but the online-DVD-ordering company had started to become a mecca for genre DVD fans online. Xploited Cinema would order genre movies from around the world and ship them out to Canada and the United States. Many of these DVD would be region-locked for other international territories, prompting fans of these films to seek out the best in region-free DVD players, so that they could finally watch the never-before-available films of Umberto Lenzi, Walerian Borowczyk, Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, and Lucio Fulci.

At some point in 2007-2008, Xploited Cinema announced that they would no longer be bringing in new titles. Their online store would remain open, until the last of their stock had sold out. I wasn't sure why this was happening at the time, but clearly in hindsight, the announcement from Xploited Cinema had spelled out the warning that DVD sales were on the decline, despite the support from genre fans. Sometime niche cannot support a business, despite the idea that the opposite can be true. But when the niche market can gradually turn to corporate business like Amazon to fulfill their niche needs, then that can only spell trouble for small retail companies like Xploited Cinema.

At this point in time, I had still not moved ahead with purchasing the limited DVD copy of Amuck!, and despite the fact that the title (signed, even!) was still available on Xploited Cinema's website. I waited so long that Xploited Cinema finally ceased to exist. I still have the DVD copy of Jess Franco's Exorcism on my shelf, my first-ever online purchase. I'm not entirely happy to say that I've been an eager and avid participant in Amazon's online retail establishment for years now – wherein I happened to purchase 88 Films' new blu-ray release of Amuck!

Rolls Royce Baby vs. Cecilia

Face value: Both Rolls Royce Baby and Jess Franco's Cecilia look like they might have been cut from the same cloth coming from (or inspired by) the internationally-successful Emmanuelle trilogy of erotic films. Structurally, all of these films share a very basic similarity, which is that they feature the exploits of the sexual-adventures of a female protagonist as portrayed in an energetic vignette-style plotting, taking us from sexual escapade to sexual escapade, usually with a single through-line based on the changing morals or personal discovery of said protagonist. But, as I first discovered both of these Jess Franco films in the last couple of months, there is no hiding that there are drastic and fundamental differences between the two Franco erotic-cinematic offerings. The first and most notable is that Jess Franco did not even direct Rolls Royce Baby, which starred his wife Lina Romay in the leading and titular role, as an experimental and adventurous nymph who is a photographic model-by-day; yet it was Franco himself who is rumored to have really directed many of the scenes within the film, which was directed by collaborator Erwin C. Dietrich. Rolls Royce Baby was more of a direct and immediate cinematic-response to Emmanuelle than the seven-years-later Cecilia, and Rolls Royce Baby shows the considerably more fun side of those erotic films. Also, Rolls Royce Baby does go into some full hardcore scenes, yet everything is consistently kept light and comedic, and it's overtly more interested in maintaining the voyeuristic aspect as an engaging plot characteristic as opposed to the character depth offered in Cecilia.

So, conversely then, Cecilia, which was made by Franco seven years later in 1982 for the Eurocine film company, is a much more serious affair, delving into the character's motivations and sexuality and even their insecurities as motivations for their sexual escapades. This film concerns a well-to-do housewife who finds a sexual reawakening after engaging in a somewhat uncomfortable threesome with her next-door-neighbour brothers. It's quickly revealed that the action that took place was actually a story she was relaying to her husband, with the confession that she found him even more sexually attractive after the incident; which leads them on a journey of sexual exploration through different partners. Played up with the aforementioned more serious tone, Cecilia as a piece of erotic cinema is nevertheless far more successful than the more cutesy-poo Rolls Royce Baby; and, in my opinion, even more successful than Emmanuelle. There are two reasons that struck me with this conclusion as I watched what I'm gladly willing to call Jess Franco's erotic masterpiece: the first is the previously-uncharted depths that Franco, as an erotic filmmaker, was willing to plunge into in so many aspects of the story – the characters, the photography and locations (the locations are just as striking as those used for the backdrops of his films She Killed in Ecstasy, How to Seduce a Virgin, and Countess Perverse), and the ramifications of the characters' actions in the story. The second most striking thing about Franco's Cecilia is how closely the photography and the plot resembles the amazing work of Franco's favourite erotic artist, the late Guido Crepax (whom incidentally created his own graphic-novel adaptation of the character of Emmanuelle and one of Jess Franco's other explored subjects, Venus in Furs). To watch Cecilia is to experience, as a viewer, the most cinematic and literal insight into Franco's own inspirations (of Crepax's works). As erotic slices of the cinematic world, both Cecilia and Rolls Royce Baby are very successful, although each maintains its own personality – and to be fair (or at least to clarify some production information), each of these films was produced in a different decade and close to ten years apart. But while both films succeed in the erotic-film arena, it's Cecilia that really knocks it out of the park as Jess Franco held his artistic inspirations firmly throughout the film and managed to deliver it with confidence, creating sexually-charge surreal set-pieces while expertly maintaining an engaging and believable down-to-earth framework.  

 

The Naschy/Franco Mondo Macabro Double-Feature

The Mondo Macabro retro-DVD distributor may have come late to the game in the Blu-ray arena, but when they arrived, it was with fanfare and fireworks for fans of the nearly ultra-niche genre film world. Knocking it out of the park with their The Fan and Symptoms blu-rays and their Greek-giallo double DVD releases, lately, Mondo Macabro have gone back to focus on a pair of utterly epitomic Euroshock filmmakers – I'm (obviously) talking about Paul Naschy and Jess Franco. For the latter, Mondo Macabro released onto blu-ray one of his lesser-known 80s sleaze-thrillers entitled The Night Has a Thousand Desires, which stars Franco's then-aging starlet-wife as a psychic who through several sexual encounters is the erotic and fetishistic vehicle for a story involving an elaborate con/scam that ultimately winds up being incredibly cheesy, although not for lack of trying – one can clearly see Franco's passion for telling this heist-sex-comedy story (perhaps unintentionally comic?) even though really, and in true Franco fashion, none of these thematic expectations, other than the sex, pays off successfully, and the whole affair ends up culminating in a barely-more-than-amusing conclusion. While it's clearly evident that Franco had loftier ideas for the film and the story, the gorgeous cinematography and Franco's affection for kitschy and vibrant set designs, and his hardwired knack for filming his muses in sexually explicit situations, all contribute to the memorable visual content of this nearly-lost minor gem. Overall, it's a curio-run-amuck in Franco's immense catalogue of films, and despite the fact that it's no Female Vampire, it's well worth checking out, especially for die-hard fans of the lovely Lina Romay.

 

Following this release, Mondo Macabro also saw fit to unleash a film from another prolific Spanish filmmaker, Paul Naschy – Inquisition – to my knowledge, this had been one of Naschy's harder-to-come-by films with an early DVD release relegated to the country of origin, Spain, and some evidence of an earlier European box-set release. But Naschy's 1976 film holds the same engaging tributes of his (in my opinion) most successful films, like Panic Beats and Dracula's Great Love – which is to say that Inquisition is brimming with unfolding plot and story elements, creating a twisty maze of double-crosses and doublebacks as it goes along, and hence elevating what could have been a generic revenge-scenario plot by placing it in the politically volatile world of religion and leadership politics of the Spanish Inquisition. Exploitation soars (with loads of nudity with women at the peril of the tortuous witch-hunt inquisition) while the movie's plot twists and an inspired defiance of genre convention and expectation propel one of Naschy's most under-appreciated genre films to the top of his prolific canon. Huge kudos to Mondo Macabro for digging this one up and unleashing it (and The Night Has a Thousand Desires) out into the sadly diminishing hardcopy jungle of North America.

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Check out CINEMAFANTASTIQUE 3 - The international genre film festival in Vancouver on Saturday, August 26th, 2017! Many special guests in attendance! See the FB EVENT PAGE

 

Franco & Soledad & Lina & Maria & & Alice & Stephen Thrower

Soledad Miranda: July 9, 1943 - August 18, 1970.

The lovely Soledad Miranda has been on my mind all week, I will assume that subconsciously I had somehow retained the fact that she's passed away this week, 44 years ago at the age of 27. Consciously, I can honestly say I didn't remember that at all, or at the very least, the fact that this was the week of her death was nowhere near the front of my mind. Certainly not one of Franco's more prolific muses, due only to her horribly untimely death in 1970, Soledad Miranda nonetheless remains likely the most remembered of his actresses. Having done bit parts in American film productions in the 1960's, it's her work with the late Jess Franco that she will forever be widely associated with. Their collaborative efforts were standouts not just for Miranda's magnetic beauty and mystery, but also for the kitschy, dreamy, surreal and gorgeously erotic qualities these collaborations brought to the world of Jess Franco's cinema in a short period of time.  

I had stated, a few posts ago, that I was considering  -- in fact, looking forward to -- a re-watching of Vampyros Lesbos, which is probably the pair's most famous creation together. And I certainly did give it a re-watch; however, only to discover that my own imagination had built this film up into an (understandable) iconic representation of the Miranda/Franco collaborations... when in fact, I think now that while still enjoyable, it ranks as one of the lesser-realized of the collaborative efforts. The abundance of potential was ultimately exhibited in far more creative, engaging ways, in their other works together.

That being said, nearly all of the Miranda/Franco films have remained steady personal favourites of mine within Fracno's enormous film repertoire. It cannot be denied that the man easily knew how to film the most of one of his favourite subjects... Soledad Miranda.

Personal favourite #1: She Killed in Ecstasy ...This was also a fairly recent re-watch for me, solidifying its place in my heart and mind as my all-time favourite Franco film, and in actual fact one of my favourite films ever made. Soledad's best performance, and some of the best surreal cinematography in Franco's career. Amazing locations and highly kitschy sets, to boot.

Favourite #2: Eugenie De Sade (De Sade 2000) ...Truthfully, another one of my top favourites overall, lush cinematography and it really felt like Soledad Miranda was starting to own these films. It's a lurid little thriller set in the wintertime. 

#3: Nightmares Come at Night ...Although this was at the beginning of the Miranda/Franco cycle, and so the actress was relegated to a very minor supporting role in this erotic/heist/double-cross dream-thriller, she often easily outshined her leading costars. Very sexy and less reveling than in her other Franco films, Miranda is really the reason I hold such a high regard for this movie -- although the erotic-surreal plot is pretty engaging, too. Pieces of this film were cut into another Franco/Miranda/Eurocine collaboration under a three-picture deal the trio was putting together, which included Sex Charade and De Sade 2000. Sex Charade is a film steeped in rumour and mystery -- historically speaking, there was a release of this film, which was rumoured to be nothing more than a re-edit/mash-up of previous footage shot for Eurocine, a practice the production company would become notorious for in the following decades (70's and 80's). The Paris Cinematheque has claimed to film historians (See the "Nightmares Come at Night" Blu-ray) to have a pristine print of Sex Charade, yet it has to this day never actually been seen or confirmed by anyone -- perhaps because it really was just a money-grab release using recycled footage and outtakes of other Franco films, but perhaps, too, because it was never really intended to exist (or to be remembered, and therefore, exist) -- it is not listed in the Eurocine catalogue.

#4. The Devil Came from Akasava ...Well, this hurt me, just a little, to place this in ranking order over Vampiros Lesbos. It is not a better film -- but for the intents and purposes of this list (namely Soledad Miranda), I was forced to push it over Vampyros Lesbos simply because Soledad Miranda's screen presence in this one is simply to melt over. As the French like to say in English, You'll die a little. If De Sade 2000, Nightmares Come at Night, and Sex Charade was the Franco/Miranda trilogy for Eurocine, well, Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstasy, and The Devil Came from Akasava are certainly a trilogy of their own, as well -- all three latter films were shot back-to-back and feature the same amazing jazz score of The Vampires' Sound Incorporation.

#5 Vampyros Lesbos ...Of course, this film was still going to be on the list, while it might not be the best of stories (probably just slightly better than Devil Came from Akasava) -- and ranking lowest in the still-perfectly-mentionable section of the list -- we can absolutely not ever forget the human mannequin and candelabra & mirror fetish stage show that is really the feature of this whole film, with Soledad Miranda showing us her erotic, bizarre, hypnotically charming moves. The stage show is the film, if you're going to watch this one for any reason at all, the other scenes pale easily in comparison. Luckily for us Jess Franco knew exactly what to exploit in these movies.

 

A little somethin' to tide you over...

The Devil's Dues

I recently re-watched a German-language video of the Jess Fracno/Soledad Miranda collaboration The Devil Came From Akasava, one of the trio of back-to-back productions that involved Soledad Miranda, Ewa Stromberg and The Vampires Sound Incorporation (the soundtrack). I had watched this flick years ago and was actually pretty bored, and got rid of my region 1 Image DVD back in 2011. Now, this DVD goes for over fifty bucks on Amazon, so I was compelled to make sure I hadn't made a mistake in purging my Jess Franco collection of this title. And the verdict on that? Well...

The thin-yet-convoluted crime-plot of The Devil Came From Akasava is basically a bunch of people double-crossing each other to get their hands on a metal briefcase, obviously (oh, so painfully obviously) a take on the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly. Yes, Jess Franco goes 70's-noir with this one, but The Long Goodbye this certainly isn't. The film is jazzed up by the recycled soundtrack from Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed In Ecstasy, but it simply doesn't fit quite as well in this film, and doesn't do the job of carrying it through (although it is still a blast to listen to). The plot is a little all over the place, and unfortunately, still boring, so I wasn't all that upset about letting my original DVD go. However, there is one soul to this film that does carry it through, and that is (perhaps also obviously) supporting actress Soledad Miranda. Almost as good as her leading performance in She Killed In Ecstasy, and even more alluring than her turn in the sexy Vampyros Lesbo, Soledad takes off with the entire film in various states of dress and undress and a thorough a hypnotically engaging dance/performance stage routine. Actually, it wasn't even that the dance routine was incredibly choreographed -- in fact, it's pretty simple -- Soledad is mesmerizing through every piece of this film she's in. In The Devil Came From Akasava, Soledad engages us during her many scenes with her screen presence, movements, and beauty, it's just that thing she has that you can't teach, buy, or give to anyone. Someone just has to have it and Soledad was one of those rare few performers who had it. For this reason alone I am upset at having sold off my DVD, however, it is these traits of the film that will remain in my mind, and I don't feel the need to sit through the rest of the otherwise boring plot and so can't really justify a re-buy.

I suppose the verdict would be that if you don't already have a copy of The Devil Came From Akasava, then you don't really need to spend fifty-bucks-plus on what is currently a collector's item. It will be re-released at some point, I'm sure, and in the meantime, we can still enjoy the German version...