The Jess Franco Marathon, 7 of 8

“Sexy Sisters” **1/2

As much as I might be embarrassed to admit this, I have to say that the lengthy sex and abundant nudity was actually starting to get boring. There is a story in here somewhere, but like Love Camp, Barbed Wire Dolls and Blue Rita, the emphasis is on the explicit sex – only without the kitschy art dec of Blue Rita, the camp of Love Camp, or the charming fallibilities of filmmaking in general from Barbed Wire Dolls, and without Lina Romay. So what’s left for Sexy Sisters? Not much that we haven’t seen before…

That is, however, until Sexy Sisters finds its own groove more than halfway through. That’s when an actual story starts to pop up (pardon the pun – or don’t), and we see a little low-brow double-cross in the works. The story is about three sisters, two of them trying to screw over the third by forcefully twisting her sanity (by turning her into a hallucinating nymphomaniac, of course) and hence making her ineligible to receive a huge inheritance when she turns twenty-one. As her caretaker, the oldest sister would then receive the inheritance, with which she intends to use for herself and her doctor/lover. There are actually a slew of characters involved in this plot, and a few of them have their own double-crosses going on, and it’s at this point in the film where things actually start to get interesting, and Sexy Sisters begins to play out like one of those old sixties drive-in cheapo paranoid thrillers (think William Castle on heavy aphrodisiacs). It takes Franco only twenty minutes to tell the story of this convoluted heist; the rest is left to flesh and sex. Much, much sex. But it’s obvious that the intention of the whole thing is good fun – interesting then, that the back of the DVD keep-case warns us of “shocking scenes of horror”, and if they meant the hilarious scene where a gigolo has a heart attack while fucking the nymphomaniac sister, then there’s not much to brace for. Otherwise, I can (and will) assume that the warning was a misprint, probably copied over from one of the other Anchor Bay DVD covers.

I’ll make a new admission, embarrassingly or not this time (and I suppose that one’s up for speculation), that in the end Sexy Sisters had me charmed.

All puns intended.

-V.

The 2009 Jess Franco Marathon, Part 6 of 8:

“Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun” **1/2

...Well, I guess it can’t be all Jess Franco all of the time. It was a longer delay between Franco installments than expected, though I’d tried to give “Love Letters” a spin earlier last week, but alas, was interrupted by other cinematic going-ons. I did manage to get the gist of the plot-thrust, nevertheless… A young man and young woman are frolicking innocently through the woods when a mean old Catholic priest from St. Vincent's happens to take offense at witnessing such frolicking. He takes the girl back to her mother and basically manipulates the mother into giving consent for her daughter to be taken to the St. Vincent's nunnery, and then he proceeds to try to extort a “dowry” for the church’s inconveniencing. When it’s clear the mother is too poor to pay, he then threatens her with action from the Inquisition. He gets his way and the girl is off to become a nun, where she’s immediately subjected to a highly suspect examination of her virginity. It’s there, all right… but for how long…?

Things inevitably go from bad to worse as the young virgin discovers that St. Vincent's Catholic Church is actually just a cover for wholly Satanic goings-on and copious amounts of nudity and Earthly masochism. While this all might sound like a truckload of fun in its Euro-Nunsploitation context, and the inclusion of some off-kilter humour not withstanding, the whole thing nosedives into completely predictable melodramatic boredom with half an hour of the running time left to go, and it's at about this point the sex and nudity tapers off, too, leaving nothing much to keep the doldrums from setting in. Too bad, because this was the first Franco film I'd experienced where I thought he'd really have something socially subversive to say; Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun initially looked like it was one of those infamous films that caused the Catholic Church to declare Franco one of “the most dangerous filmmakers” to Catholicism. It's undeniably blasphemous, almost more so than the demon from The Exorcist, but perhaps the church should've watched this one all the way to the end.

Till next time...

-V.

The 2009 Jess Franco Marathon, Part 5 of 8:

“Love Camp” **

This exploitation quickie opens up with two working girls who must've stolen their boots from the Blue Rita set; they're minding their own beeswax when they're suddenly taken captive. This scene is immediately followed by the kidnapping of another half-naked girl, right out of her own bed, and quickly thereafter a fourth victim, a bride on her wedding night, is stolen right out of her hotel room from in front of her husband! After the re-digitized opening credits we see a team of soldiers towing a line of tied-up gals through the jungle terrain, where one of the women asks, “Where are we going?” and the soldier retorts, “You'll find out soon enough!” I suppose we will...

The female prisoners are led into a room where the “Number 1” soldier is waiting to greet them and to explain the reason behind their abduction, presumably for both the girls' and the audience's benefit. It appears they're there to volunteer their services to the soldiers of the revolutionary army. “Well, we should soon see an improvement in our men's morale!” Number 1 exclaims. And the plot thickens... “They need the the kind of relaxation only a woman can provide!” Well, there's nothing like a straight-forward storyline.

Unfortunately, the voice-over actor handling the dubbing duties on Number 1 sounds like he's reading the pages on the fly. Thankfully, though, this introductory/exposition scene is promptly followed by the obligatory group female shower scene.

Post-shower scene, we have yet another introductory scene, this time it's the lioness blond Directress of the “Camp” spewing a 'Welcome to the Revolution' speech to the new girls. Mid-speech, one of the girls tries to make a break for it, the Directress springs into action and the girl is swiftly decapitated (below the bottom of the frame – I guess the production was unable to spring for a severed head or two). At this point in the film, I think it's fairly safe to assume the new girls now know exactly what they're in for.

As a side-note, the actress who played the Nazi-loving warden in Barbed Wire Dolls is on the other end of the stick in this film, playing one of the prisoners. She actually does quite a good job here as one of the more (loosely) complex sympathetic characters, quite the antithesis to her campy domineering warden character from the first movie. Now that the new girls are all safely locked up in their cell, it's time for Number 1 to make his re-entrance in search of his nightly “entertainment”, swaggering into the prison cell looking like a jungle version of Zap Brannigan and checking out the girl in the bed closest to the cell door: “There's nothing entertaining about that skinning kid! I need a real woman!” ...And believe me, there's way more awesomeness where that came from.

But the trouble really starts when Number 1 and the pep-talking Directress both fall for the same female prisoner. And when the counter-revolutionary doctor tries to smuggle a communique into the camp via the female prisoner's vaginal “examination”, he too becomes the subject of yet another off-screen decapitation!

And just like that, the first sixty-five minutes of Love Camp has flown by in a blur of female nudity and lesbian sex with the occasional disciplinary whipping, with a scant ten minutes left to introduce new plot turns and wrap the whole thing up in a pretty amusing finale. Fun? Yes. Funny? You bet. Worth the seventy-five minutes? If you can appreciate non-stop female nudity, then absolutely! A good movie? Well... I guess that would really be a matter of taste, or turn-ons, or some kind of non-cinematic consideration... A good movie compared to say, The Godfather? No, not really. Compared to Barbed Wire Dolls, or She Killed in Ecstasy? Well, close, but truthfully, no cigar here, either. Love camp was fun for what it was – Camp, plain and simple. I'd still recommend it even if you're mildly curious. Hell, it's a Jess Franco film! As Texan film critic Joe Bob Briggs would say, Check it out!

Till later this week...

-V.


P.S. Yes, the documentary on this DVD was again a repeat of the earlier ones. I'm going to just go ahead and assume that the rest of the DVD documentaries are likewise, and will now cease to comment on them unless something different is otherwise discovered.

The 2009 Jess Franco Marathon, Part 4 of 8:

“Jack the Ripper” ***

Jack the Ripper is the fourth DVD in this Edwin C. Dietrich-produced Jess Franco Collection, and the fourth – and last one – that Franco's both written and directed.

In the documentary on the “Blue Rita” DVD, Dietrich surmised that Jack the Ripper was one of Franco's lengthier cinematic obsessions, he believed that Franco had wanted to bring this story to the screen for some time before he'd approached Dietrich with the concept. This would make this something of a more personal obsession for the Spanish filmmaker. Dietrich also mentioned that most of Franco's fans find Jack the Ripper atypical of his body of work, but I'd counter that these fans might not have had the chance to appreciate the likes of Ilsa, Blue Rita, Venus in Furs, or The Blood of Fu Manchu.

But on the atypical point of view, Jack the Ripper opens with a very Argento-esque murder scene. A prostitute leaving a popular pub exchanges a few words with a blind street person before winding through the labyrinth of foggy back-alley streets (it's actually Zurich dubbing for London, but it looks quite good), and ultimately falling victim to the Ripper, and witnesses by the blind man who was hiding back in the shadows. Surprisingly, the following scene has Jack bringing his kill to Frieda, the female janitor of the botanical gardens, who asks Jack, “Is this my doll?”. Without a doubt, this is going to be Franco's own twisted vision of the ripper legend.

And in that vain, a lot of this film was populated with female characters to be seen as symbols of the ripper's mindset. In this, Franco's Freudian character study of the famous serial killer, we have Frieda, playing the ignored companion, The Lovely Whore, The Overbearing and Degrading Mother, and even Lina Romay's cliché Female Victim, which may provide more emotional subtext that one might see at first glance. (At the very least her death is the most spectacular).

While the whole of Jack the Ripper is competently shot and directed, there's a lot that was presented without much flare, and the film ultimately is not what it could have been. But there were still more than just a few impressive moments, and those at least appeared consistently throughout half the film. As examples, there's a memorably humorous scene where a fisherman visits the leading Inspector of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad with his catch of the day – and earlier in the film, we have an inspired kaleidoscopic dream sequence featuring the image of Jack's prostitute mother, taunting him in his dreams and memories. This nightmare actually prompts Jack to go out into the night for a little more stalking and slashing, when he's suddenly caught and subverted by his chatty (female) medical assistant who also happens to have a crush on him – and so here's another example of the pivotal roles the female characters are plying in this film, underlying the mind of the killer/leading man. When Jack finally manages to get away from his assistant and her unappreciated advances, his next victim is the aforementioned Lovely Whore.

The film really does pick up its rhythm after the first half hour, and by the time we get into the third act, the style of Franco's film is heading back into Hitchcockian/Argento territory again, with another Aregento-esque plot turn that has the Scotland Yard Inspector's dancer-girlfriend taking it upon herself to go undercover as a prostitute in London's underbelly in order to help the Inspector catch his killer, especially as the Inspector has been receiving public criticism for not having been able to snare the ripper yet.

As he did with “Ilsa the Wicked Warded”, Jess Franco has provided another solid script with which to base his direction from, and Jack the Ripper is indeed revered by a lot of his fans as some of his best work. But as solid as this film, Ilsa, and Blue Rita all were, I find myself yearning, just a little bit, for the wild imperfections of “Barbed Wire Dolls”; it was films like that that really exuded a cinematic charm that only Jess Franco had, but only in the midst of the competent filmmaking can we see the joy and entertainment in those (so many) imperfect films of Jess Franco.

I'm very curious to see what the next four films in the collection have to offer, “Love Camp” will be the first one Franco collaborates his directorial efforts with another script writer, Manfred Gregor (who is credited with writing the last four films in the set).

Like the earlier DVDs, Jack the Ripper's boasted documentaries are actually repeats of the ones displayed on Barbed Wire Dolls and Blue Rita. A shame, but I have hopes for the next couple of films, regardless. I'm such an optimist.

Till next time...

-V.

The 2009 Jess Franco Marathon, Part 3 of 8:

“Ilsa the Wicked Warden” ***1/2
Pre-Viewing Note: Although there are three or four entries in this Nazi-female-exploitation series of films, this will be the first one I've seen. In North America, Anchor Bay Entertainment released an “Ilsa” box set a few years ago. I saw the box set at a slashed price in a Virgin Megastore in San Francisco, and I was afraid that the severely reduced price was indicative of the titles going on moratorium. My concerns were soon proven to be correct, only a couple of weeks later the titles were no longer available to purchase. As the titles have all gone out of print in Canada and the US, I have since found them released not-quite-legally online, and I did download copies of them (for my personal and educational use, of course), but I never did wind up watching them, fearful only of the reduced quality in which I'd be watching them. So far, the DVD transfers in the Anchor Bay UK Collection of Franco's films appear to be pretty tip-top, so I'm happily going into this viewing with some positive anticipation. I guess we'll see what's in store.

(Eighty-seven minutes later...)

Post-Viewing: Well, this was it, the original bona fide cult classic starring Dyanne Thorne, Lina Romay and Jess Franco himself. What year was this baby shot, anyway? The opening-scene jailbreak and subsequent hunt through the jungle totally reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark! Then again, maybe it was the three beers I'd have for lunch... At any rate, the jungle scene leads us into the house of Dr. Arcos, a political humanitarian, played by Jess Franco and overdubbed by some French-accented voice actor, which leads into some entertaining off-screen narration. This then logically leads into the plot proper, concerning a young woman (Tina Busselier) who gets Dr. Arcos to fraudulently sign her into the prison so that she might undo the Wicked Warden (Dyanne Thorne) and uncover the truth about her sister, who went missing from the prison. Turns out the young lady was ill-prepared for the corruption, torture and degradation behind the prison walls. There's time enough near the beginning of the story for a couple of choice Franco one-liners, like just before the young lady is hosed down upon her entrance into the prison, “I'd rather remover my blouse myself,” to which the stocky female guard retorts, “I'd rather you kept your mouth shut!” And then post-hosing-down: “I'd like to have some panties,” and again, the stocky guard: “Not here, you don't! Go bare-assed!”. Sweet.

Again, I'll have to put the kidding aside, because this is actually one of the best Franco films I've seen so far. Indeed, Ilsa lived up to my anticipation and expectations. Deceivingly, Ilsa almost doesn't seem as explicit as Franco's “Barbed Wire Dolls”, but I believe that's because Ilsa is more in the style of Johnathan Demme's own exploitation classic “Caged Heat”. I think, also, that this is probably one of Franco's most professionally presented and confidently shot films. Even the writing is good, with extremely well-drawn characters played by Thorne, Romay, Franco, and Busselier. Yes, without a doubt, this is by far one of the best films (if not the best) in Franco's impressive repertoire.

This classic example of seventies exploitation, more than deserving of its own cult status (and then some), leads up to a third act that is surprisingly inspired by the likes of the old EC comics and comes to a pretty show-stopping finale. I'm definitely going to be giving this disc a second spin in the near future.

There's a documentary included on this disc as well, but disappointingly, it's a repeat of the film restoration doc on the Barbed Wire Dolls DVD! I guess the documentaries were designed for the single-disc releases, not the inclusive box set. Too bad.

Till the next one...

-V.

The 2009 Jess Franco Marathon, Part 2 of 8:

“Blue Rita” ***

I was knocked right back in the first few seconds with the funky, porno-chic opening of Blue Rita, a film which also boasts some of the best music in a Jess Franco soundtrack since Vampyros Lesbos.

Paris exteriors not withstanding, Blue Rita is without a doubt one of Franco's most visually striking and cinematographically appealing films, despite a lot of it being shot in mid-to-close-ups (which in fact works well with the movie and its off-the-wall color scheme... and yes, there's a color scheme). Blue Rita also has just the right amount of weirdness (a lot) to go with its kidnapping and extortion/revenge plot – not to mention the global spy-network James Bond-esque subplot and its sci-fi overtones.

Alright, I know, enough about the damned plot and the cinematography, what about the sleaze factor? (Or, pardon me, the erotic factor). Once again, amidst classic dialog like “I told you the green magic potion would make him hornier than ever before!” there are a number of erotic scenes that do work on various levels: art, erotica, sleaze, set dec (and speaking of set-dec, this one's as kitschy as ever!), this could very well be Franco's “Barbarella”.

The film is dazzled with science-fiction art dec and costuming, but the plot is not exactly all-out sci-fi (except for the magic green sex potion, of course). The plot concerns Blue Rita, obviously the title character, who is running a brothel/strip-joint/nightclub and is simultaneously entertaining her notions of vengeance against the intelligence organization who had sent out a couple of thugs to mutilate her womanhood with a “hot iron”. (I don't know, her pussy looked perfectly fine to me). Ironically, the new girl Blue Rita has just hired happens to be an undercover Interpol agent, and she turns out to be a real fly in the ointment concerning Blue Rita's plans for revenge. Counterpointing the plot thrusts are the signature Franco girl-writhing-on-floor performance art, which in this case is more explicit than either of the dance numbers from “Diabolical Dr. Z” or, more famously, “Vampyros Lesbos”. The man definitely has a fetish for naked women squirming about themselves on the floor, as much as he does with transparent inflatable furniture, it seems... But getting back to the cinematography, this 16x9 anamorphic transfer actually look a little tight at the top – I think maybe this film would've been happier with a 1.66:1 transfer instead.

Watch to the end to hear who the undercover Interpol agent is sent off to meet next. After the movie, there's another great documentary included on this disc; I though it was going to be another film restoration piece, but instead we have producer Edwin C. Dietrich paying tribute to Franco and the fifteen films Franco shot for Dietrich's production company throughout the seventies and early eighties. Dietrich is really an engaging and genuine-sounding speaker, making the half-hour segments a breeze to watch (he also had a lot of input in the Barbed Wire Dolls restoration documentary). And the film Blue Rita only goes to prove one of his more hilarious points regarding Jess Franco: “Each film is different, not all of them are blurred... In some, he even used a tripod!” Awesome.

And I myself may jest, but I truthfully jest with genuine affection. Till the weekend...

-V.

The 2009 Jess Franco Marathon, Part 1 of 8:

“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.

The off-the-top-of-my-head list.

My favorite post-summer Franco flicks...

1. Exorcism

2. Nightmares Come at Night

3. Eugenie de Sade

4. Killer Barbys

5. Female Vampire

6. The Diabolical Doctor Z.

On an interesting note, while compiling this list, I finally discovered (infinite thanks to allmovie.com) that "Nightmares come at Night" and "Sex Charade" are in fact two entirely different films, despite my earlier suspicions to the contrary.

I'll tell you, that is a load off my mind!

-V.

Post-Halloween, 2009...

I love the fall. As much as summer reminds me of a good Jess Franco flick, the fall does as well. That frosty leave-falling void between Halloween and the guilt-infused family Christmas get-togethers is perfect for the likes of Killer Barbys or Eugenie de Sade.

This fall, I'm going to finally get through The Jess Franco collection Volume 2 if it freakin' kills me.

Unfortunately, I've seen some of my recently purchased PAL DVDs through my component set-up to the television set, and it's a blurry, mashy mess. Ugh. I would've loved to have watched Álex de la Iglesia's Dance with the Devil in some kind of clear version, but I assume that was not meant to be.

Perhaps the Jess Franco films will fare better as they've been released by Anchor Bay UK, so we'll see. I'll be getting on this one as soon as the Halloween Marathon has come to a close, and I'm hoping for the best...

-V.

Bloody Moon

Okay, although I'm finally reviewing this glorious Spanish slasher, it's been nearly a year since I've actually watched it. Seriously, it's been that long, not only since I've watched a Jess Franco film, but also since I've really had any time to blog. I'm thankful to Severin Films for making this available on R1 DVD, though it's not Franco's best film, it's pretty bloody and entertaining. It's mostly what one would expect from a Franco slasher, and also some one wouldn't expect. There is a a fairly standard 80's slasher-style prologue that kicks the films off, and it becomes something of a coda father down the plotline. As acceptably requisite as this storytelling technique is, the sheer competency of it is actually a bit of a drawback in this Franco film -- Franco's at his best when it comes to sex and exploitation, and rest assured, there are those scenes in Bloody Moon, along with some awkwardly-executed yet much appreciated violence (another Franco trademark), and though it might be redundant to delve further into the plot of a slasher film (a string of nice-looking girls get murdered one by one until the reason for the serial killings are revealed at the end -- see? -- redundant.) all in all it's a successfully entertaining flick from the man who just received the lifetime achievement award from the Spanish film industry's Goya Awards (Spain's version of the Oscars), and with Penelope Cruz cheering him on, no less!

-V.

On Another Note...

I've been visiting the UK for the last couple of weeks, specifically on the search for more Franco and Rollin flicks that might not be available in the region 1 area. I couldn't believe it when I came across Anchor Bay UK's eight-disc Franco box set in HMV for £15 - I nearly died. Of the eight discs, I actually didn't own any previously, the set included Blue Rita, Ilsa the Wicked Warden, Barbed Wire Dolls, Love Camp, Sexy Sisters, Jack the Ripper (with Kinski) -- utterly rad. Speaking of Kinski, both of the Anchor Bay (UK) Herzog and Herzog/Kinski box sets were also around £15. With the currently high Canadian dollar, that's about $23.00 -- and the tax is included in those prices, so there's no additional charge. I also saw tons of Italian, Spanish, Japanese, R1 Criterion and exploitation DVDs (region 2, mind you) for £5 to £10, £10 to £20 for the box sets. I started to wonder yesterday if we were completely getting screwed over through retail pricing in Canada. I've paid well over $25 for several of those titles from Blue Underground and Shriek Show. Ah, well, what's done is done, and I have eight new Franco flicks to play with now. On top of that, I've been on the hunt for Blu-rays unavailable in our home region, as well -- and I did find a few, including the previously-reviewed "Welcome to the Jungle". Purchasing this little gem, it got me thinking about the counter-Hollywood style of the film's writing and execution (by Die Hard 3 scripter & Punisher writer/directer Jonathan Hensleigh). A hell of a lot of chatter and getting-to-know-you intermittent with some building suspense up to a gory, bloody third act. Much in the style of the Italian cannibal-horror sub genre, with films like Cannibal Holocaust and Man from Deep River (to name only a slight few). In addition, this got me thinking that Tarantino's own Death Proof more closely followed this writing format, and I actually consider it now closer to the Italian Cannibal genre as opposed to the Tarantino-described slasher genre (Tarantino even credits Dario Argento at the end of Grindhouse -- maybe it should have been Umberto Lenzi). Yes, I'm comfortable with viewing Kurt Russel's death proof machine as an allegory for a tribe of Cannibalistic mountain natives, the sets of girls only lost wanderers in the jungle. Regardless, when I get back to Canada, it's going to be all Wicked Wardens and London rippers for this kid. Eight discs is a thick stack to conquer. But first, I must visit Bloodbuster in Milan as the travels and the search for more Euro treasures continue.

-V.

Erotic winter and that bloody, Bloody Moon

Man, have I ever neglected this blog – and there have actually been things to revere from Franco’s persistently released repertoire. Great things from Blue Underground, yet I’m waiting, waiting for that damned Bloody Moon release from Severin Films… The Franco slasher I’ve yet to see. Being both a Franco fan and a slasher fan, I’m trying hard to keep my expectations in check and let that first viewing experience speak for itself. Anyhow, I digress as usual, and what the hell am I bitching about, anyway, I still haven’t written about that killer Eugenie de Sade DVD Blue Underground released last spring! Now, that was some kind of treat – one of the best Euro-erotic thrillers I’ve seen, and while Faceless will probably remain Franco’s most skilled cinematic outing (Eugenie does have its raw, rough edges – and what was with the editing in the death scene?), I would certainly go so far as to say Eugenie de Sade is his best film. Yes, there, I said it. I’m comfortable with that. Eugenie de Sade is the sexiest, most classically erotic and one of the most compelling stories Franco’s put to celluloid. While some of the sexual shenanigans come off as a bit kinky (not a bad thing), the goings-ons never really reach a feeling of full-on exploitation, despite its likely otherwise intentions. It’s constructed like a thriller, if I may be so bold to say, in an atypical way as Eyes Wide Shut is also a thriller, though the ideas are more of exploring the sexual beings of the film(s). Setting the film across a winter backdrop, whether by design or by serendipitous accident (no pun intended), was probably the main advantage for the gorgeous photography. But at the end, that little bit of climactic bloodshed was honestly a few seconds of utter crap that could have easily been fixed with some minor editing. Which brought me to think about films like Female Vampire, where vampiress Lina Romay walks towards the camera in the opening shot, closer, closer, closer, until we see her physically bump into it. Why not cut that shot a few frames earlier? I have a creeping suspicion that the flaws in many of Franco’s works are editorial (not to take anything for the directorial effort, mind you), but they are things that could have been fixed, and were not. Was this a decision by director Franco? The producers? The editor? Who exactly had final cut here? Judging by the plethora of “official” versions of Vampyros Lesbos, probably nobody. It’s not to be unexpected that Franco would have speedily left his films in the dust on the word wrap, as he dashed from project to project, creating what is probably a world-record Filmography.

Check out below – a representation of the original out-of-print DVD cover released by Blue Underground (white), and the current official and inexplicably switched cover (black). Note that the black cover actually utilizes a still from the film The Devil Came from Akasava, not Eugenie de Sade. --V.

Summer Style

After much rain and record-low temperatures, it finally looks like summer’s come overdue to the city. Bright, sunny days like this, walking around and staring appreciatively up into the sky brings many pleasurable images flashing through my melding-pot mind, and of course, being the obsessive cinema maniac that I am, a lot of the pleasing images that are melding with the ocean, beaches, bikinis, beers on open patios and ex-smoker’s reminiscences, are scenes from some of my favorite films. When I was younger, I took a two-week visit to the Kaman Islands and most of the hours in my day were splashed with mental clips of Romero’s Knightriders and Argento’s Tenebre (which Argent self-described as his only “sunny” film). Today, years later, I am surprised that the images that flash through the overworked grey matter in my skull (or overcooked, depending on your disposition) were from Blade Runner and John Carpenter’s short Cigarette Burns. The latter made a little bit of sense to me, at least, as it was shot around the neighborhood where I live. The former, I suppose, came to mind as last week I’d caught a few minutes of Blade Runner on Showcase, and then was reminded of it in the opening pages of this month’s Rue Morgue magazine, and then coming across a novel-length book on the making of Blade Runner at the local Chapters yesterday, which prompted my to finally pick up the most recent “final cut” DVD, which I popped into the player last night. So, I can only surmise that this would be why such a dark and stylishly brooding post-modern film noir would be flashing crazy imagery through my brain on such a wonderfully warm and sunny nearly-summer morning.

Now, what the hell would all this have to so with Jess Franco, one would sanely be pondering; and what the hell is it doing hanging out on a Jess Franco fan blog? Well, blame it on this summer Sunday if you will, or the laid-back attitude of the West Coast, but trust me, I am getting to the point, just in a possibly annoyingly and leisurely way. As we (I) speak, the sun is still slashing through the apartment windows and I’m staring at a gorgeous view of the lush-green University property across the wavy water, so pardon me if life seems a little leisurely at the moment. However, one thing that has always reminded me of summer in this city - and as well, this city’s sunny days have reminded me of - are a few of the more funky films from Jess Franco. The sunny and kitschy She Killed in Ecstasy and Vampyros Lesbos, specifically – but also to a lesser degree Two Undercover Angels, The Devil Came from Akasava, The Girl from Rio, 99 Women and Euginie also come to mind. I remember sitting an apartment in the city a couple of summers back, blasting the sounds of the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack (or: the Sexadelic Dance Party) through the window and over the balcony while the sun slowly descended in it’s distinctively Canadian way and the rays turned golden on the street below, reminding me vividly of the images filmed for Vampyros Lesbos, and the exquisite Solidad Miranda. In 2004, this was doubtlessly the inspiration that would become realized in the short film Sex & Death: 1977 one year later. I don’t know if it was the way the film stock looked, the raw practical daylight filming, the European locales, or the style and kitsch coupled with Miranda’s beauty that would forever cement these images as associations to summer in the city, the beaches, and the ocean -- but whatever the genesis, beer on an open patio, bikinis and Vampyros Lesbos will always have a warm and sunny place in that overworked grey matter of mine.

While Euginie de Sade still (sadly) sits unopened on my living room bookshelf and Bloody Moon awaits its release this very summer, there is more Franco for me to discover in the hot days to come. So here’s to sunny days and the Sexadelic Dance Party. (Crack beer open now)

-V.

Welcome to the Jungle

I’m constantly amazed at the quality and consistency of Blue Underground’s Franco output on affordably-priced DVDs. I’m so looking forward to next month’s release of one of the Miranda-Franco collaborations I’ve yet to see – Eugenie De Sade. But in the meantime, BU has treated us fans to a slightly oddball Franco flick. (I realize “slightly oddball” could be taken as a completely redundant understatement in reference to Franco’s catalogue raisonné, but bear with me here…)

Cannibals, a 1980 film where Franco delves into the typically-Italian horror sub-genre of jungle survival in the face of man-eating headhunting tribes, is not so much the in-your-face gorefest one would expect when seeing the names “Franco” and “Cannibals” on the same DVD box, instead, this is a surprisingly restrained and quick-paced search & rescue adventure half-baked with a lot of cheese, where a university professor leads an expedition (with the help of his lover played by Franco’s wife Lina Romay) into Cannibal territory to save his daughter who was kidnapped by the tribe several years ago and is now hailed as their White Goddess. Only problem is that when he finds her, she doesn’t want to go back with him. There are just enough charming exploitation elements to keep things interesting and the finale does boast some amusing and well-executed gore set pieces. Sabrina Siani, the actress paying the white goddess, doesn’t say much and is at times charmingly awkward, but is actually very magnetic in her role; and the whole affair, overall, comes of as a satisfactory and more-than-amusing entry in this bizarre sub-genre.

I was surprised to see that another and far more recent movie by Hollywood filmmaker Jonathan Hensleigh (The Punisher, Die Hard 3) takes the Cannibal Holocaust idea and brings it kicking and screaming into the digital age. Welcome to the Jungle (or “Cannibals”, as it’s known internationally) is an extremely well-written adventure suspensor that is, in my opinion, miles beyond what The Blair Witch Project was trying to do ten years ago. (Shit, I’m getting old). Don’t be surprised if the sight of any flesh-eating jungle tribes eludes you for the first fifty-five minutes, but clocking in at just under 80, Hensleigh’s film is extremely well-paced and the characters are impressively rounded and amiable, even when they’re at each other’s throats. Of course, the finale pulls out all the stops and there are some damned impressive effects on display.

And if jungle adventure’s your game, then I might also suggest Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, an eye-popping story of courage, survival, and a prison break in the middle of the enemy’s jungle.

Till next time, with Eugenie…

-V.

Six Franco flicks that changed my life.

I just finished posting a blog on my MySpace page…
http://myspace.com/vincedamato
…Where I’d listed 20 movies that changed my life (or at least somewhat changed my outlook on Cinema and/or its various genres). So to that end, I thought it might be appropriate to list off a few infamous Franco flicks that had some kind of profound reworking on my psyche… for better or for worse. Well, here goes…

1. She Killed in Ecstasy – This is, I believe, where I fell in love with Soledad Miranda. It took me a while to warm up to both this film as well as Vampyros Lesbos, but I have to say it was the lesbian-death-by-inflatable-pillow that slam-dunked this one.

2. Succubus – I have to admit, I didn’t get much out of this one until Blue Underground’s new film transfer/DVD reissue. Definitely the best rediscovery of the lot.

3. Venus in Furs – Another Blue Underground DVD release, this one starring Maria Rohm (love her too) in a twisty jazz-laded psychedelic supernatural romp along the beaches of Spain. Also stars Klaus Kinski!

4. Two Undercover Angels (Sadisterótica) – Boasting one of Franco’s favorite explorations; two women in a campy Bond-esque entanglement. For more of the same, you can also check out Kiss Me Monster, with the same two lead actresses, and the same go-go striptease in the middle of the film(s).

5. Exorcism (Exorcism and Black Masses) – A trippy, raw, voyeuristically clunky Catholic-based murder-mystery that involves a sociopathic Priest and a female newspaper reporter (Lina Romay) who moonlights as a stage performer who puts on sarcastic presentation of black mass ritualistic murders, grand guignol style. This is purportedly one of the films that got Franco into hot water with the Catholic Church in Europe, prompting them to label the sleaze auteur one of the most dangerous filmmakers to the Catholic Church. Go figure.

6. Female Vampire – I hated, hated this movie when I fist saw it. Then I didn’t hate it so much, after letting it fester for a while, and then even later I came to find it rather charming… It’s so inept and overtly voyeuristic, how could you hate this movie? Of course, it’s so inept and graceless, how could you love it? Or not love it? Ah, just find yer own copy and decide. (And by the way, it’s a way better deal to get the Jess Franco box set that includes this flick plus three others, for about the same price as this one DVD back on the original DVD release.)

-V.

Doom, Gloom & Zoom

Jess Franco’s Count Dracula is nothing of not strikingly faithful to Bram Stoker’s original material. Is it a good movie? Well, it lingers somewhere between great and okay, but good…? There are certainly good points. Point number one: Incredible casting. The classic Christopher Lee as the titular baddie, Herbert Lom as Van Helsing, Franco femme fatale Maria Rohm as Mina, Klaus freakin’ Kinski as the whacked-out Renfield, and the seminal role for cult icon Soledad Miranda as Miss Lucy Westenra.

As outlined in the DVD essay on Dark Sky Film’s new reissue of this Franco twist, Count Dracula was an extremely important film for Soledad Miranda’s performing career, having launched her into a brightening spotlight. And if sordid auteur Franco knows anything, he knows how to shoot this woman. She’s stunning, and Franco’s loving close-ups (mostly while she’s being bitten in the neck by Lee) exude a quiet and hypnotic ecstasy that is unlike anything else I’ve seen. What’s slightly peculiar is that the casting really works having Maria Rohm playing the heroine as opposed to the more captivating Miranda. (Maria Rohm is good, no doubt, though her role may serve musings of her other, better leading roles – like in Venus in Furs). Meanwhile, Kinski is the real scene-stealer in this outing, playing up the soul & mind-tortured Renfield, locking in his padded cell and eating flies while going madder with homicidal cerebral intrusions by the Count.

Adapting Bram Stoker’s sexually-charged piece of horror fiction would at first glance appear to be right up Jess Franco’s alley. Strange, then, that he would shoot the story as a mostly conversationally-motivated motion picture (a tad tedious in the first half hour as this takes place inside a drab castle decked with bricks and empty walls), and aside from the amorous close-ups of Miranda’s eyes and lips, there is no flesh or fetish on display at all in this Euro presentation. This being said, it is still of much higher quality and far, far more attractive than Franco’s luridly-titled “Killer Barbys meet Dracula”. (And not to worry too much, it does pick up after the initial half hour).

I remember years ago finding a clam-shelled VHS copy of Count Dracula in a ma-&-pa video store that was closing out. I purchased the tape with another Franco-on-VHS titled “Against All Odds” – which was actually a black-and-white version of The Blood of Fu Manchu – and how weird is that, to actually desaturate the color from a movie for the North American release? Anyway, I got these movies home, and wile I watched Count Dracula right away, I actually never watched the desaturated Franco movie, ever, finally watching Blood of Fu Manchu when it was properly released (in full color) on DVD. But those years back, the Dracula film had left me somewhat unimpressed. I actually didn’t really expect to like Dark Sky’s fancy new DVD a whole lot either, but after it was all said and done, I have to say that the fantastic film and audio transfer made a world of difference. I still can’t say the film is great while retaining a clear conscience, but I will say that the new DVD is indeed a great package from Franco collectors.

Check it out!

-V.

Wicked Women

I was reading this month’s issue of Rue Morgue, and somewhere hidden inside I saw an advertisement for the new triple-DVD sets coming out from Shriek Show (Media Blasters) right around Christmastime. Now, if you’re a fan of cult/horror movies and you don’t know about Shriek Show’s recent foray into multi-packaging, then I suggest you do some cramming on the subject – they’re retailing these triple-packs for about one quarter of what the original (and individual) DVDs cost as separate purchases. I know this, because I saw that the MSRP for the “Wicked Women” set was about 19 bones, and I hauled out close to 68 bucks total for each of these suckers when they were released only around eighteen months ago. Anyway, this Wicked Women Triple-Pack features the Italian exploitation flick Werewolf Woman, a surprisingly sexy little flick disguised as a horror movie – but it’s a really well-shot slice of Euro-sleaze. The next one is the Shriek Show-produced Flesh for the Beast, which is also fairly erotic (but this time it really is also a horror movie), though it’s nothing more than a very entertaining spin on an old premise – a group of paranormal researchers spend a night in a haunted mansion. The last one in the set is Jess Franco’s Nightmares Come at Night, which includes the participation of the gorgeous Soledad Miranda – and despite the top-billing, it’s really more of a glorified cameo. Out of the three films, I actually remembered Franco’s film the least. I remembered that Miranda was not in it that much – I remembered the print looked pretty bad – and I remembered it was some kind of heist-thriller, though I couldn’t recall the particular details of the entire affair.

Throwing this over-expensive disc into the player for a little memory jog, this is what I’ve concluded – That Soledad Miranda is indeed as gorgeous as I’d thought, though she’s in the film far less than I’d remembered. The print itself is better than I’d thought. Actually, the Shriek Show film transfer is pretty good – it’s the camera lens that appears to be the actual culprit here. Not surprising for a Franco film shot back in the late 60’s, the cinematography is filled with soft lights and softer focus. In the dark scenes, the lens actually looks dirty and reflective and there’s a relentless L-shaped scratched on the left side of the frame – probably from having to continually wipe all the Vaseline off the lens. Anyway, I got a re-grip on the plot, which is basically a stripper named Anna (Diana Lorys) and her female lover/roommate (played by Colette Giacobine, something of an economy-style Brigitte Bardot) and Anna’s doctor, caring for her as they suspect Anna has something of a mental condition that needs to be treated – she awakes in the middle of the night from sexually hallucinogenic night terrors, imagining that she’s murdered one of her lovers. She then confronts the doctor about this, and the first hour of the film segues into a flash-back telling of the story up to the point of the murder, which is really just an excuse for several sexual encounters while Lorys performs the majority of the scenes (both sexual and expository) in the buff. The subsequent half hour (where we finally see a couple of nice scenes with actress Miranda) turns the whole thing into a straight-forward thriller with a murder/robbery plot, an impressive corkscrew twist and a somewhat shocking finale. All in all, not too shabby. I even liked the freeze-frame opening credits, which really sets the mood as an erotic thriller – and one of the most elemental Franco films I’ve had the pleasure of watching.

Upon further reflection, I recall that Shriek Show had announced the release of Franco’s “Sex Charade” back in the summer of ’04, and then it was suddenly dismissed from their slate only days before the release date. Merely a couple of months later, they released Nightmares Come at Night. I have suspicions that these two films are one in the same – though I can’t find any information online to support or denounce this theory. The only clue I had to go on was that I’d (years ago now) read an in-depth essay on the works of Franco and Soledad Miranda, where it was revealed the pair had produced a total of six completed feature films together: “She Killed in Ecstasy”, “Vampyros Lesbos”, “Eugenie de Sade”, “Count Dracula”, “Devil Came from Akasava” and “Sex Charade”. No mention whatsoever of Nightmares Come at Night, and in fact, I’d never even heard of this movie until Shriek Show released it... Two months after the aborted Sex Charade release... Both of which were originally produced in French in 1969 and started Soledad Miranda, both crediting her with the stage name Susan Korda. Hmm…

-V.

Jack Palance, RIP

Sadly, Jack Palance passed away this last Friday. Being a kid of the late seventies and eighties, I remember first seeing this acclaimed actor as the host of the quirky Ripley’s… Believe it or not “reality” television series. As time went on, of course, I became more familiar with Jack Palance as I saw him as the bad guy in Tango & Cash and the mean cattle rustler in City Slickers. He always had a great screen presence and was able to make any character he played an absolutely memorable one – and in some cases, making his character the most appealing one in the entire film, as in both of the aforementioned movies. While this great actor had this kind of Hollywood schlock to deal with, I never thought I’d see him in the kind of schlock titled Deadly Sanctuary – a film I discovered in the foreign section many years ago when I was working at a Blockbuster Video store… Believe it or not. I still remember it was packaged in one of those over-sized cardboard VHS boxes. He shared star credit with Klaus Kinski, and I was immediately curious. Taking it home that night, I made it only part way through the murky pan & scan print of this censored hack job that had rendered a perfectly good exploitation film incomprehensible. Of course, it would be several years before I realized that this was indeed a perfectly good piece of exploitation filmmaking…

Reissued on DVD a couple of years back as Marquis de Sade’s Justine on Blue Underground’s gorgeous DVD, I was finally able to rediscover this Franco classic in all its glory. And Jack Palance does do a fine job, though it is admittedly somewhat unnerving to see him in this kind of film, where he plays a twistedly sadistic monk… However, since the release of Justine, I’d discovered that Jack Palance was no stranger to either European or American schlock (including Spaghetti Westerns), having witnessed performances in films like The Sensuous Nurse, an Italian sex comedy from the 60’s which also starred bond girl Ursula Andress, and the stunningly effective (and underrated) 80’s horror-slasher Alone in the Dark. Scores of his even lesser-known credits, according to the IMDb, include Without Warning, Gor, Cocaine Cowboys, Hawk the Slayer, Angels’ Brigade, Mr. Scarface, Welcome to Blood City, and A Bullet from God.

RIP, Jack. The only 87-yer-old who still looked like he’d kick your ass.

-V

The Diabolical Dr. Z and the sensuous Killer in Ecstasy

Jess Franco’s comic book stylized The Diabolical Dr. Z is a very weird, oblique essay in revenge, where mad scientist Dr. Z succumbs to a fatal heart attack after being lambasted by his peers for his unorthodox experiments in mind control through spinal surgery. With the fire of vengeance in her belly, his daughter, played by actress Mabel Karr (who could be a precursor to the Ilsa character later directed by Franco in The Wicked Warden chapter of the cult WIP* series) goes about exacting her revenge on her father’s scientific peers, and she makes no bones about going about it the long way, which entails her killing a female hitchhiker and burning the corpse in her car in order to fake her own death, becoming disfigured by the fire she’d set and then having to perform cosmetic surgery on herself (!) before kidnapping and performing the mind-controlling surgery on an innocent go-go dancer named “Miss Death” so that she may use the dancer to seduce men into her murderous trap – wherein Miss Death proceeds to slash the victims across the neck with her two-inch-long fingernails while intermittently slinking through the film in various see-through costumes – and despite the fact that Dr. Z’s daughter already has a housemaid and a serial killer under her cerebral control. Huh. This needlessly complex revenge scenario become a little ridiculous even for Franco, but the great thing is that the whole thing almost comes off looking like Russ Meyer got a hold of a Hitchcock script that had been re-worked by Wile E. Coyote somewhere along the way.

*Women in Prison

I should also mention that Miss Death’s spider-dance performance sequence (opposite a mannequin) seemed the obvious basis for a re-working into Soledad Miranda’s famous Vampyros Lesbos mannequin striptease dance five years later (1971). Within that same time period, actress Miranda would also star in Franco’s own remake of Dr. Z - 1970’s She Killed in Ecstasy…

Conversely, in this much-pared-down remake, the adored Soledad Miranda stars not as the mad scientist’s daughter, but rather as his wife; who this time goes on her own vengeful rampage, essentially letting what sparse bloodletting there is splatter on her own hands (and don’t get too excited, I’m just being figurative - there’s not really any red to speak of in these films). She Killed in Ecstasy has two major points going for it; first of all, there’s a lot of nudity and eroticism from our leading lady, and secondly, the story is really a hell of a lot tighter and to-the-point with Miranda doing her own dirty deeds here. Gone are the endearing comic-book sensibilities of Dr. Z, and in is the overloading of full-color Euro kitsch, which this film boasts almost to the point of absurdity! This, in all honesty, is just another reason this particular Franco film is so endearing.

Unusually, there wasn’t any of that on-screen nudity in The Diabolical Dr. Z, even for the time it was produced (1966) Franco usually displayed a little female flesh in his cinematic forays. But Dr. Z from a technical standpoint looks far superior. Part of the accumulated kitsch that makes up She Killed in Ecstasy comes from Franco’s signature overuse of the zoom lens and utilization of long, sketchy camera movements in place of actual coverage and competent editing, which was pretty much his standard filmmaking technique in the early 70’s. Not to say She Killed in Ecstasy is a bad-bad movie (well, it is if you don’t like bad movies), in fact I find it a lot more charming than the earlier black & white Dr. Z version - though speaking of Dr. Z, the final showdown between Miss Death’s boyfriend and the daughter’s personal serial killer is pretty cool, and the conclusion is weirdly James Bond-esque. But what makes She Killed in Ecstasy special is the leading femme fatale in this one, though she’s considerably more sexy than menacing.

The Re-Issues…

While Image Entertainment has more recently re-issued She Killed in Ecstasy with a reportedly much finer print transfer (2004), and as much as I do love this film, I felt that my scratchy, efficiently bare-bones Synapse Films version (2000) was just fine for this movie. On the other hand, the Mondo Macabro release of The Diabolical Dr. Z showcased some amazing extras, including a kick-ass 15-minute Franco documentary and comprehensive and insightful biographies on the talent.

-V.