How to Seduce a Virgin (more awesome Franco locales)

I wasn't going to write about this until the end of the week, but damnit, it was actually one of the best Franco films I've seen in a while -- so obviously, I couldn't resist. The story is one set in the world a Jess Franco sub-sub genre -- it's a heist-style film told as an erotic thriller, much in the vein of Nightmares Come at Night (a film recently released on Blu-ray that will hopefully be arriving in my mailbox very soon). Okay, that might be a bit of a mislead, as there's no heist, per say, it's more of an intricate-come-convoluted plot devised by Franco, concerning a wealthy couple and their attempts to seduce their virgin neighbor for their own erotic and homicidal means and ends. The satire and subtext in this film (yes, I said subtext) alludes to some criticisms on the mental health profession at the time, and the treatment of patients - or rather, the perfunctory treatment of ill patients. The cinematography, again of the vérité-style, (much like "Sinner" and "Female Vampire"), is some of the best, though I was surprised to see the film presented as 1.33:1 (4x3), yet it does look very nice. The locations, once again, add to the cinematography and overall atmosphere, and with the participation (also once again) of the lovely Alice Arno and Lina Romay, it makes an amazing companion piece to Franco's   Countess Perverse (also available thanks to Mondo Macabro DVD). The lovely and charming Tania Busselier plays the virginistic neighbor, Alice Arno stoically plays the Countess, and Lina Romay plays the part of the deceptively simple-minded woman-child and sort-of-slave to the wealthy couple -- Romay who, by the way, gives one of the best, understated, and still most bizarre performances of her long career with director Franco. This film is extremely long on sex and has style in abundance (sometimes seeming to offer a little nod to Jean Rollin as well as the French La Nouvelle Vague, it also maintains Franco's artistic obsession with mannequins), it's quite simply one of the most engaging and mesmerizing film of the late Jess Franco's that I've seen in recent memory.

(Thanks to AV Maniacs for some of the stills)

Diaries of nymphomaniacs

I was actually intending to write something about this topic last month (May), alas, time continues to bleed away from me - often profusely. At any rate, it turns out that a post this month regarding cinematic nymphomania might be timely after all, as Lars von Trier's Nymph(o)maniac double-shot comes out on blu-ray soon. This is not an ad for that movie, I only mention it for the timely reference. No, you'd do much better with the Mondo Macabro release of Jess Franco's take on what's pretty much the same damned story. In Franco's film, "Sinner", or, if you prefer, "Diary of a Nymphomaniac", he also explores the emotional depression of our lead charachter, our nymphomaniac, who in this case was somewhat tricked into her lifestyle at the beginning of the movie. With a lot on hand-held camerawork and fantastic locations, the movie itself is more of a cinéma vérité style, even more so than that of Vampyros Lesbos or She Killed in Ecstasy (in my recollection of those films). Also, this film, Sinner, is done with a far more sensitive approach to the characters and with a celebration of the art of film (even if unintentional) over von Trier's epic meandering of pretension and the simplistic form he (von Trier) takes in trying to reach for some sort of human understanding. Unfortunately, von Trier's attempt to explore human beings seems to come from a filmmaker who has all the initial understanding of human beings of a young child, or perhaps one going into adolescence. Upon the release of von Trier's earlier Antichrist, I'd read one review branding him and the film "misogynistic". At the time I did not agree, I was not seeing Antichrist in that light. Nor did I see his follow-up, Melancholia, in that light... But after experiencing nearly (or over?) 5 hours of Nymph(o)maniac last month at the Vancouver Film Centre, and in the wake of his (finally) complete (and self-described) "depression - trilogy", I have no choice but to see clearly what von Trier thinks of women: crazy, whiny, teasing, whores. Never mind what he thinks of men. No, he's not misogynistic, von Trier is pretty misanthropic all around. I realise some will argue the art of von Trier is in him trying to explore depression, mostly his own, through his cinematic characters. I'll go back to Jess Franco as an argument then: Diary of a Nymphomaniac. This is also a film about depression, despair, and sex addiction in a far different context than von Trier's glossy offering. Diary, or "Sinner", is a good film, even though it's still rough around the edges, like most of Franco's films. And yes, it's dark -- and in some ways it's a more serious offering than Nymph(o)maniac -- and yet through the darkness of the drama there's a charm., there's some light, creating its failure to be pretentious on the same level (scratch that, the same planet) as LvT's Nymph(o)maniac.

It was also interesting for me to discover that "Sinner" was a film shot between the muses. We'd just lost Soledad Miranda, and Jess Franco had shot Sinner after her death but before he would find his next muse, Lina Romay, which actually makes this film a little more important in the history of Franco's filmography. (This is all spoken about on the Mondo Macabro DVD). Fine actress Montserrat Prous steps into the leading role here, doing quite a good job of it. She's also worked with Franco in his films The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff and The Lustful Amazons in the early-to-mid seventies. Her female lover in "Sinner" is played by Anne Libert (probably most known for Otto, der Pflaumenpflucker), who is also very attractive and engaging in this film. So, I've tacked on a cool still from Pflaumenpflucker for your viewing pleasure, too.

Mondo Macabro released this movie on DVD a little while ago now, and as usual, the extra interviews and documents on this disc really go towards making this a whole Jess Franco experience - which is something MM has always been so good with in their releases. Thanks to them for putting this little gem out for us to see!

Locations, Locations, Locations

View from the Burrard Street bridge, West side.

 * * *

Lorna (Lina Romay) and friend...
Pamela Stanford.

Vancouver is very nice in the spring and summertime. Near where I live there are several beaches, a long sea-wall, and countless '70's apartment buildings. Very inspiring, actually, and walking around this part of the city, almost without fail, makes me think of Franco's films. If you want to see some seriously exploited and unexplainably awesome 70's locations, you need to check out a couple of these fairly recent releases from the amazing Mondo Macabro:

 

1. Lorna the Exorcist

Great kitschy interiors and exteriors from 1970's Europe... And of course, great looking actresses, too! Lina Romay plays a somewhat insane woman who may or may not be the target of some Satanic goings-ons... Takes place in France.

2. Countess Perverse

(or: The Perverse Countess)

 Again, lovely actresses (including Lina Romay again), and you die a little at huntress Alice Arno running naked through the Spanish beaches with a bow & arrow. Not exactly for the Hunger Games crowd, this little piece of gorgeous exploitation was shot on and around some very impressive water-surrounded locations in Spain.

A huge thanks and acknowledgments go to The Bloodshot Eye and The House of Self-Indulgence, where most of these awesome pictures were found. Check out their articles on these Franco film... and more!

Remembering Anchor Bay (US/Canada)....

...Anyone still have any of these? I replaced mine a few years ago with the Blue Underground re-releases, but I now wish I'd hung onto them.

Euro fun

 After getting back to Canada from a European trip, in which I'd acquired a few Cinematic finds (that were now piling up in my to-be-watched home video stack), I figured I'd best get to some of these flicks before the dust started accumulating. I threw on a lengthy (2 hours & 20 minutes) Austrian/Ukrainian film titled Import/Export, which was gorgeously shot (apparently by the cameraman behind Erin Brockovich) - and it made me realize a couple of things...

1.) A movie should have more to it than just looking gorgeous. As spring begins to bloom I can see many a gorgeous thing just by looking out a window or stepping outside.

2.) I think I'm done with Euro neo-realism for now. Yes, I am definitely more in the mood for things along that titillating line of the fantastique. I need me a little Franco! Good thing some of the late auteur's works were also in that aforementioned dust-gathering pile.

I yanked Redemption's new-ish blu-ray of A Virgin Among the Living Dead right out from the middle of that stack. I think I may have written about this movie in the past, I remembered liking it when I first experienced it in that Image Entertainment four-film "Jess Franco Collection" DVD box set (Jesus, that was years ago!), the very version that had been (ahem) co-directed by Jean Rollin. 

Alright, so A Virgin Among the Living Dead was hardly a collaboration. Instead, Jean Rollin shot a bunch of Zombie insert-shots and the movie was marketed as a zombie/horror flick. But now, thanks to the awesome folks at Redemption, Kino Lorber, and Eurocine in France, (of course), we have Jess Franco's original version scanned from its original 35mm film negative. This official version, titled Christina, Princess of Eroticism, is Franco's 79-minute no-zombie vision, brought to life again! Watching it in this incarnation, I actually felt a bit giddy. I'd forgotten that this film had some very cool locations and wonderfully lush exterior shots, and to boot, Franco's simpler story of a woman, Christina, visiting her family mansion that may or may not be haunted - is actually quite charming. There are sexual situations and erotic photography, to be sure, and thankfully the bizarre and needless 5-minute softcore insertion of a lame front-lawn orgy was not restored back into Franco's original version

(although it is available to view as a supplemental feature on the blu-ray). The story spirals down into a multiple-twist final act that comes off more dreamy than actual thriller, very much in true Franco style, as far as I'm concerned. Matched with some truly inspired photography, either by Franco or his cinematographer, this is actually a nicely engaging little piece of the director's repertoire that shows while he may not have been a genius, the man was truly an artist.

As a side-note, the beautiful (and still dusty & scratchy) presentation of Christina, Princess of Eroticism brought to mind one of Redemption/Kino's earlier re-releases: Female Vampire, with the late Lina Romay. The blu-ray for that film is highly recommended, I felt like I was watching it for the first time! Check these things out!

-V.

New Franco

Well, it's been nearly a year since the start of my blogging hiatus, and while I maintain that the internet certainly doesn't need another cinephile (or Francophile) leaking cinematic opinions all over Blogger.com, I do find that after almost 11 months' rest I'm being pulled back into it, through a little feeling of joy and inspiration from the inside of my heart and deep within my guts somewhere... It's not that ever I intended to leave the blogging of Jess Franco's massive filmography in my past forever, I suppose at this time last year I was feeling quite bogged down with the amount of work (and jobs) I'd been taking on at the time.

However, thanks to Mondo Macabro, Kino/Redemption, Severin Films, among other distributors of world films & cinematic erotica, there has been a constant and inspiring flow of Franco films released just over the last year and a half!

I am looking forward to some late nights in the near future, where I can kick back and get the kitsch back on with Macabro's Lorna the Exorcist & Countess Perverse, Redemption's blu-rays for Exorcism, Female Vampire, and A Virgin Among the Living Dead, and Severin Films' the-first-I've-ever-heard-of-it Hot Nights with Linda... And to this end, I look forward to (now) continuing with this blog, and I'm shouting out a thank you to the followers this little blog has generated.

I have also just finished cleaning up thousands of spam comments, and I've chained the comment settings so that only registered users (or those with open IDs) can comment, I'm trying to keep the pages clean and junk-free for everyone. 

Looks appropriately kitschy. 

-V.

R.I.P. Jess Franco.

What sad news today (Or yesterday, now, as I'm writing this). I wish I could have crossed paths with you at some point, but I will celebrate your films, in my own way, for the rest of my life. There have been a few bloggers writing some very great things about the Spanish auteur, and I don't really feel like adding more at this time, nor do I think it's necessary for one more blogger who never actually got the chance to meet the mad genius to throw in his two cents -- but I feel that these two certain reflections (linked below) closely sum up my own feelings about this creative man and his body of work, and are the best written pieces I've seen all night.

RIP, Jess Franco, you will be dearly missed. And thank you for all the films.

http://www.brutalashell.com/2013/04/rip-jess-franco-1930-2013/

http://www.straight.com/movies/367666/wild-spanish-filmmaker-jess-franco-dead-82

The end of two blogs… indefinitely.

I have been thinking about how to approach this post for the last week and a half. In truth, the indefinite stop to my two literary/film blogs seems inevitable. And unfortunately, I've decided not to finish off the “52 weeks of Films” blog-roll I'd started last year on Creepy Six Tales. Getting further and further behind, these posts are now weeks behind as time continues to get away from me these days. This blog-roll should have been wrapped by next month, instead I still have 10 films in the queue and three 300-word posts written – but not posted.

Between Creepy Six Tales, The Jess Franco Blogspot, the Creepy Six Films official site (and its blog), the new Brivido Giallo site, and the Shivers Film Society blog, there is just not enough time to keep up with the ever-changing content as well as the continuous need for new content on both of the aforementioned literary blogs (Creepy Six Tales and The Jess Franco Blogspot, to be clear). Nevermind the fact that I now have a Tumblr account that quite literally has digital tumbleweeds lazily rolling through it as it sits abandoned somewhere in cyberspace, and a Twitter account that is run by a wonderfully automated online system called Twitterfeed. Facebook? I don't even have the interest to go down that side-street of a time vacuum. The decision to stop blogging (indefinitely) is not a light one by any means, the Jess Franco Blogspot in particular has been very good to me. But those posts too have been growing farther apart, and let's be honest here, the idea for the 52 Weeks of Films I've Never Seen was really just a one-year filler for me while I thought of something really good to write - like the 52-part Tales of The Plumber I'd managed to do in 2011. Okay, maybe that wasn't great literature, either, but damn, I had a blast doing that one, and really took to the challenge of writing a connective series of short stories (or chapters) every week for one year. I'd love to have the time to do something else like that in the future. The 52 Weeks of Films... suffered due to a lack of real inspiration, and the fact that I've now (finally) realized that writing and blogging are two vastly different art forms that require quite different variants of, shall we put it, a talent for concentration. I no longer have the luxury of a full-time job where I can steel an hour of The Company's Time to duck out at a computer console rapping away at a new and insightful post every month, let alone once a week. When I do set aside my ever-increasingly precious time for writing, my mind automatically triggers the need to channel that inspiration into the work I'm truly excited about, which is, at the time of this writing, working on the next two screenplays for Creepy Six Films and the new Brivido Giallo production companies.

Running three independent films companies is a daunting enough task, in this day and age I find that I need to do that with a full-time gig on top of it, and at the same time I'm becoming more and more interested in quality time with my friends, family, the new Jess Franco blu-rays that have been sitting in my closet, unopened, for the last two months, and even the odd Stephen King book. While I don't have a mass following on Creepy Six Tales or The Jess Franco Blogspot, and while I doubt one more internet film blogger will really be missed (indefinitely), I hope that this re-focusing of my concentration and efforts will reflect positively for Creepy Six Films, Brivido Giallo, and the Shivers Films Society, which I do intend to keep running – indefinitely – and with the great gusts of enthusiasm as I've always had for those companies that are really close to my heart and mind. So goodbye, blogs, (for now), and I thank all of the readers and supporters that have been with me so far - I'll see you cinephiles and wonderful supporters of indie films at the cinema! The few that are left, anyway. But that's a whole other blog waiting to happen...

Very truly,

Vince.

From 2010 in San Francisco...

Finally... HD

Just as corporate scientist are working hard to bring us SUPER-HD, Jess Franco gets some long-awaited notice on blu-ray... although the people at Twitch don't seen very impressed... "Redemption Films deal with Kino has produced a great number of gems ripe for rediscovery, films that would never have made it to HD without the clout of a venerable company like Kino behind them. The question now becomes, is it really worth it?" I'd say of course it's worth it, for the simple fact that this prolific director already has a cult following. Is Twitch saying that becuase Franco's work is way outside of the mainstream that his fans don't deserve - or that, it really doesn't matter if they do - to see his work in the best presentation possible (that is to say, as close to a cinema experience as we're likely to get with Franco save for seeing a retrospective at a Parisian cinematheque every half-decade or so)? I'm just stoking the proverbial fire because, no, that's not what Twitch was saying, obviously, but I'd dare point out this lack of thought put forth in the brief blurb preceding the actual review of the Female Vampire blu-ray -- due out in just a few days. You can read about it here. And actually, it's a really good review, and I have to say I do agree with pretty much everything else post-blurb. Also, European retailer/distributor 1Kult has some hi-res Franco goodies this month, too... One thing Twitch did mention within the blurb in question that is obviously close to being right... the apocalypse does seem to be upon us now.

Check it out!

-V