IMAGE DVD: Franco's cut of Welles' DON QUIXOTE

From the IMAGE site:




Orson Welles' Don Quixote
ACTORS/ARTISTS: Francisco Reiguera, Akim Tamiroff
DIRECTOR(S): Orson Welles






SUB-GENRE: Drama
Year: 1992
Rating: Not Rated
CAT#: ID4150JQDVD
Country: Spain SRP: $24.98
Release Date: 08/19/08



LENGTH: 115 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
AUDIO FORMAT: Dolby Digital 1.0 L/R
DISCS: 1
FORMAT: DVD
ASPECT RATIO: 1.33:1

[It looks like Jess Franco's controversial version of Orson Welles' legendary unfinished project is finally going to get a US DVD presentation. No word on any extras but there has been some speculation on the wellesnet forum where I've been involved in a discussion about Franco and his involvement with Welles' CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1965) and DON QUIXOTE. Some fans and most Welles scholars are very unhappy about what Franco did in post-production with the footage. But I think it's more good news than bad that it's getting a DVD release here. The footage Franco was given to work with was in very poor condition and I don't know if anything has been done to improve the results.]

John Phillip Law's Eurotrash Masterpiece...

John Phillip Law had a special talent for projecting a youthful masculinity with an other-worldly edge, especially in his roles as the blind angel in Vadim's BARBARELLA and the mysterious costumed fumetti super villain in Mario Bava's DIABOLIK. I remember first seeing him in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING during its initial 1966 theatrical run when my parents took me to it because it seemed like a clean-cut comedy alternative to the horror movies I had been obsessively seeking out. Several years later I managed to catch BARBARELLA at the drive-in (definitely not a "family values" movie) and and he seemed to be sprinkled with superstar dust as he flew away with Jane Fonda. If he never achieved that status he was certainly what could probably be called a "cult" actor whose striking presence would front European genre films during the 70s and 80s in between supporting roles in mainstream US films.

I'm choosing to salute him on his passing last Tuesday with this brief appreciation and lurid video cover box for my favorite of his film performances, his out-of-the-park hit as the demented Van Gogh-obsessed painter Charles Saint-Simone in Sergio Bergonzelli's 1988 BLOOD DELIRIUM (DELIRIO SANGUE). This is a jaw dropping blending of LUST FOR LIFE, COLOR ME BLOOD RED with such value-added extras as necrophilia, human-flesh eating dogs, ghosts and Gordon Mitchell doing things you've never seen him do in his other European roles. Law is joyously over-the-top and you just can't keep from smiling while watching him let it rip as the mad artist who daubs human blood on his canvases with a lusty passion. He really seems to be enjoying himself in this classic of European Trash cinema. I wonder if he would want it to be remembered. But I remember it and how much I enjoyed him in it and always enjoyed his committed intensity in whatever film he happened to be in.

If you ever get a chance to catch BLOOD DELIRIUM (outside of grey market videos/DVD-Rs it has had a legit release on any US video format as far as I know, although there was a Greek video around) don't hesitate to indulge yourself. It's the kind of outre, under the radar Italian horror film which bobbed to the surface decades after it was made to the delight of connoisseurs of the truly bizarre.

I would also like to see another obscure JPL film, the 1977 Italian thriller L'OCCHIO DIETRO LA PARETE, which also doesn't seem to be out on US video. If anyone knows of any English language video versions available of this please note it in the comment area.

(c) Robert Monell, 2008

WANTED: ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS DVD!

The immortal Eddie Constantine in his signature role of Secret Agent Lemmy Caution pursues Anna Karina in Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 science fiction/noir/Eurospy classic, ALPHAVILLE. One of the templates for ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS...

Here's one of my archived reviews of Jess Franco's delightful 1966 Europsy spoof CARTES SUR TABLE, a French-Spanish co production featuring the legendary singer-actor Eddie Constantine. I've only seen it via a dub of a Video Yesteryear video (from an ancient, battered 16mm source) in its US English language export version, ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS. That version seems to be cut and the English language translation omits/obscures numerous Franco homages and in-jokes.



Here's hoping for a deluxe Eurospy double bill DVD of the two Eddie Constantine Eurospy adventures Franco made in 1966, CARTAS BOCCA ARRIBA and the more serious, sober RESEDENCIA PARA ESPIAS, in OAR, from good original elements and with multiple language track options.

(a.k.a. CARTAS BOCA ARRIBA; CARTES SUR TABLE; KARTEN AUF DEN TISCH; JAMES CLINT SFIDA INTERPOL)
Retired secret agent Al Pereria (Eddie Constantine) is called to action by his former employers to investigate the worldwide disappearance of people who share the Rhesus-0 blood type. One of the victims, musician Yves Barriel, is subsequently spotted on a beach in Alicante, Spain. Pereria arrives there as unsuspecting bait for the kidnappers, having been used by both his employers and Chinese agents as a means to infiltrate and destroy a secret group of politicians, scientists, and killers. Pereria learns these terrorists use an army of brainwashed assassins, controlled by radio signals via electronic receivers implanted in eyeglasses.
Pereria finds Barriel. A fight ensues and Al ends up with the glasses, which leads him to a seaside villa which is the headquarters of the scientist (Fernando Rey) who created the robots. Lady Cecilia Addington (Franciose Brion) attempts to seduce Al, but is killed by Rey. Then all hell breaks loose, as the robots turn on their creator as the Chinese attack the villa.



ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS is a Spanish-French co-production made by the same creative team responsible for THE DIABOLICIAL DR Z (1965). Both movies were given a tremendous boost by the imaginative screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere (who had worked for the great Luis Bunuel on many of his French productions). This perhaps explains the sarcastic French-style humor in ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS, which differentiates this from the more slapstick orientation of Franco's later Eurospy efforts (such as LUCKY THE INSCRUTABLE and KISS ME MONSTER). For instance, the opening assassination scenes include the murder of an ambassador and then a high church official, scenes that are staged with a slightly absurd, surreal touch which anticipates similar scenes found in future Carriere-Bunuel projects, THE MILKY WAY (1968) and THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (1972).



ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS, though, is not an art house film in any sense of the term. It was Franco's attempt to establish himself as a commercial contender in the action-picture sweepstakes. The results are charmingly naive by today's standards, and the film was probably too dingy-looking (the low budget really shows) to make a dent in the international exploitation market, which was already glutted with spy movies.
Franco's producers apparently prevented him from making the action more sexy and violent, and the US ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS edits out some tame nudity. Also, the undistinguished black-and-white cinematography gives the film a flat, unappealing look (or it must may be the video of old 16mm print I've seen). Compare it to the bright, comic book-style frames of the eye-popping LUCKY THE INSCRUTABLE, filmed the following year.




Despite its flaws, ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS is one of the director's most consistently entertaining romps, due to the always droll Eddie Constantine, as well as above-average performances by Fernando Rey and Franciose Brion as the villains. They are enormously helpful in maintaining suspension of disbelief in light of the sometimes tacky sets and awkward action scenes. (Al's escape from Lee Wee's opium den is a typical, clumsily-filmed example. But it's a Jess Franco film and we expect confusion and technical mistakes, don't we.)


There are some neat science fiction sequences, briskly staged on obviously cut-rate but imaginative sets, involving the creation of the robots using a giant test tube thing charged with electricity. This device proves especially handy to our hero during the hecticly rendered final showdown. Jazz fans will find the big-band style score of Paul Misraki a warm bath of nostalgia.



RESENDENCIA PARA ESPIAS, another 1966 Eddie Constantine vehicle, which brought Franco to Istanbul for location shooting for the first, but not last, time, is also highly recommended. It's out on a watchable Spanish language DVD from DIVISA.

(c) Robert Monell, 1998-2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESS FRANCO!

The Way We Were: Forever Young in 1967...



Walking the lonely path as "El Sadico" in 1979...



Still at work in the 21st Century!




The mask...



The legendary smoker enjoying a cigarette...



With submarine friends in 1980...



The man in the mirror: as "the writer" in EXORCISM (1974)...



At Prayer in 1970...



What's he thinking?




The Professional...




Discoursing in the Golden Years....



As secret agent Tino Celli in 1970...



Interrogating Lina in 1977...


Many happy returns to Jess Franco on his birthday and may he have many more and give us many more of his special movies. After over 200 films, counting alternate versions, he's still in the midst of intensive production activities in his native Spain. Thanks for the memories, Jess. Here's a look at him and his films over the years...


(c) Robert Monell, 2008

Spanish DEMONIAC?

Have any of our Spanish or European blog readers acquired/seen this DVD? I'm curious about the exact content. Is this the 1974 EXORCISM/EXORCISME ET MESSE NOIRES* or the 1979 remix EL SADICO DE NOTRE DAME aka DEMONIAC (edited US variant, released by WIZARD VIDEO)? It could possibly be the hardcore variant, SEXORCIME (1975). This is not the Spanish Manga DVD, EL SADICO DE NOTRE DAME, which is the 1979 composite of EXORCISM with new scenes involving Jess Franco's character added. Or could this be yet another, unique cut?

Also any reports on technical specs/video/audio quality would be welcome. The artwork is rather fascinating and I've never seen any version packaged this way or under this title.

*Released on US DVD in 2001 by Synapse Films.

SHANGO/STEFFEN/FRANCO

A review with a vintage fotobusta for the 1969 Edoardo Mulargia Spaghetti Western SHANGO, LA PISTOLA INFALLIBILE is now up on CINEMADROME, just click on the link at the top of the sidebar at left and go to the most recent post on the 100 SELECT EUROWESTERNS folder.

Quiz Question: What did Jess Franco say in an interview about the prospect of directing Anthony Steffen in a Eurowestern? [Hint: He wasn't a Steffen fan]

DAS BILDNIS DER DORIANA GRAY (1976)

Enter a hushed parallel world of Sex and Death...


Strange shadows in empty rooms. A bleak mise-en-scene...


DAS BILDNIS DER DORIANA GRAY/DIE MARQUISE DE SADE/DIRTY DRACULA/EJACULATIONS:
SWITZERLAND/WG-1976, 76m.
I'm still looking for the non-hardcore version of this which Francesco Cesari says he has seen. I think this film would work a whole lot better without the distraction of the closeups mechanics of all that just as LA COMTESSE NOIRE (1973) works best without the hardcore footage, which really drags it out and down.

As with LA COMTESSE NOIRE Franco made this film as a hardcore female vampire film with the main character sucking the "essential liquids" from her victims and also as a version without the XXX action inserts. But I don't know of any version of DORIANA GRAY which has traditional vampire scenes of the main character sucking blood from her victims, as the EROTIKILL version of LA COMTESSE NOIRE has. This version was distributed by Force Video in the mid 1980s in the US and lasts just over 75 minutes and is cropped at 1.33:1, which takes much of its impact away.

Many critics have complained about the numerous out of focus shots and seeming technical "errors" in LA COMETESS..., like Lina Romay bumping into the camera lens during the credits sequence. But I find these moments part of the film's uniquely dreamlike quality. To paraphrase the late Henri Langlois, sometimes Franco's failings become his greatest strengths.


It opens with one of the most stunning images in Franco's extensive filmography and justs get better as it goes along. An almost dialogue-free film the impressionistic and low level sound mix is very appropriate to the theme. DORIANA GRAY tells the same story as LA COMTESSE NOIRE with the same characters but in a slightly different key. An lonely female vampire leading a life of quiet desperation in lavishly appointed isolation. Adding a Conradian "secret sharer" in Doriana's torment, her twin sister, separated at birth, who suffers hidden away in the clinic of Dr. Orloff. First seen in a mirror sing songing a macabre nursery rhyme Doriana's twin is one of Franco's most haunting creations, a pathetic creature, a sexually addicted victim of her predatory sister's erotic experiences. She thrashes about having the climaxes denied to Doriana, who telepathically, or somehow, transfers the orgasms to her imprisoned sister who is almost always seen either sexually stimulating herself in between Doriana's transmissions.

It's a world without love, only compulsive sexual behavior, frustration and screaming release for the sister. Punctuated by the cries of birds and set to the minimalist sitar score of Walter Baumgartner the film is clinical, remote and deeply disturbing. The reduced, but luminous, color scheme which lights the way to world of shadows is rigorously explored by Franco's drunken camera.

Designed in slate greys and eye popping pinks (Doriana's see-through robe), set within a castle perched above a jungle (Portugal, probably), much of the run time is taken up with Franco zooming in to study the architecture of the estate. The endless rains pour from the mouths of gargoyles onto the hard tile floors of the mansion while Doriana slowly walks through pillared patios and down long, mysterious hallways to her next deadly assignation. Like Irina Von Karlstein she dies in private bath evoking the last lines of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." It works as unique version of Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, while evoking Ingmar Bergman's THE SILENCE and Kieslowski's THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE.

Having re watched the 2003 VIP DVD from producer Dietrich's ELITE FILMS, taken from original camera negs and superbly restored, I find it somewhat technically flawed with some motion glitches, unless there's been a replacement transfer since then.
The English language track grates due to distracting voice casting. I do wish for a new English subtitled NTSC disc which ideally would contain both the non-hardcore version as well as the XXX one.

1976 was a rather amazing years for Jess Franco in that he managed to turn out three of his best films, all in different genres (erotic vampire; nunsploitation; gore/true-crime thriller) and styles: DORIANA GRAY, LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN and JACK, THE RIPPER.

(c) Robert Monell, 2008

EUROPEAN FILM SCORE SITES!

John Mansell's excellent UK based discussion board focuses on scores for Italian genre films along with other Euro film music.




Visit John Bender's US based discussion board on the music and maestros of your favorite European genre films of the last 50 years! A lot of lively chat here.


I highly recommend these two discussion sites on European Film Scores and the Maestros who composed them. Both were created and are moderated by world-class experts on European Film Scores, John Bender and John Mansell.

Links will soon be added to the blogroll on the left sidebar.

EL SEXO ESTA LOCO (1980)

Peformance Art: the horror of alien invasion by the silver skinned beings from the planet Goyas who need women to populate their dying world, "From dust to childbirth in 9 seconds."

Upon awakening the nightmare becomes a reality, but it's all just a film... or is it?


Jess Franco, Robert Foster, Lynn Anderson and Tony Skios pretend to play cards as they plot sexual torture to learn the whereabouts of the plans for the submarine in the film-within-the-film. But it's all just a dream within a nightmare as they await a Close Encounter of the Third Kind in Jess Franco's cyclical film, a blend of THE MYSTERIANS, MARS NEEDS WOMEN and Luis Bunuel's THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY. Are you ready for it...?

This is a film which defies conventional synopsis and criticism but does invite amused speculation. Remember, it's a comedy. But Jess Franco's comedy is always self referential and deeply encoded. What follows below is a structural breakdown of the main elements which could be endlessly recycled:


Prod: Joaquin Dominguez Triton P.C. Madrid
Direccion: Jess Franco

A glittering mirrored ball overlooking the mirrored stage area:

THE SHOW: "Pito 1, Pito 2, Pito 3...begin system production acceleration."

BACKSTAGE: the performers.
Take #1
Take #2

MEET ROSALINDA: the producer's girlfriend

HOTEL MONACO: Flanagan bastardo!

EUROPA PARK: On the riverboat-Jess passes; the nude Argentinians; torture.
"The plans for the submarine, stupid!"

TALKING FUNNY

WAKING UP: "They're fucking!"
The Director explains.

ACTION: Group sex.

GROUP MARRIAGE: the foursome in bed together read Spanish comic books.

ROSALINDA FAKES AN ORGASM

CAFE DE PARIS: Ice cream!

MORE SEX: Buenas Noches

THE DIRECTOR IN THE MIRROR [Jess Franco zooms in on himself operating the telezoom]

VIDEO: Puta! "Women are lips. Just two pairs of lips."

THE TOAST

CAUGHT IN THE ACT: Puta!

THE SECRET SOCIETY: Cucfat! The ritual-sacrifice of the Puta

WAKING UP: Lina's Masturbation. "It's all an illusion."

Antonio and Lina pick up Rosalinda.

ALIEN ABDUCTION

THE SHOW: Aboard the Spaceship. "Begin production acceleration." Applause.

Deposito Legal: M-10-697-81


(c) 2008, Robert Monell

HELL: THE JOYS OF TORTURE

Teruo Ishii made my day in 1968 and is still amazing me forty years later...


This in the morning; 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in the afternoon!




Japanese Hell / Hell
地獄
Jigoku-1999*

Don't look into the karma-mirror, you might not like what you see...


Thanks to Teruo Ishii (1924-2005) for introducing me to STARMAN/SUPER GIANT, via a feature film compilation of several episodes he directed for the 1950s SHINTOHO series, Saturday morning TV airing, on the same day in 1968 when I went to see the original theatrical showing (in 70mm) of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. A double bill I'll never forget. I still like them both more than ever, but for very different reasons.

I finally caught up with the late Teruo Ishii's penultimate film last night via International Movies on Demand and my mind is still reeling. A dire warning to sinners on what awaits them in the afterlife it begins with Miss Rika being visited by the Bitch of the Inferno who narrates in front of a kind of backward waterfall of electric hues. The young woman, an Aum sect devotee, is taken on a guided tour of Hell, where the rest of the cast will soon end up.

Inspired by the 1960 classic, also titled JIGOKU, this is actually a remake which for once actually justifies itself by transposing the idea and imagery onto our own age's anxieties while remaining very much in the ero-guro tradition of Ishii's 1960s work (cf THE HORROR OF MALFORMED MEN, which you need to see immediately if you already haven't; go out and buy the superior Synapse DVD without hesitation!). But Ishii's HELL isn't based on Rampo. Rivaliing the excesses of Jose Mojica Marin's ESTA NOITE ENCARNAREI NO TEU CADAVER (1966)it was partially inspired by an actual event, the Aum sect's gas attack on the Tokyo subway.

Mixing in other stories and episodes concering the corruption of power brokers, the seduction of the naive, contemporary fears about serial predators, referencing contemporary conspiracy theories as well as Dante's INFERNO, and demonstrating Ishii's obvious compulsion to continue his surrealistic vision through severely minimalist techniques due to budgetary and logistical restrictions. The subway incident, for instance, is staged without a single special effect, without any location shooting or any kind of sets whatsoever, just a few actors seated in front a black curtain foaming at the mouth as the camerawork becomes unhinged in the style of Andy Milligan.

You won't know where this film is going and will be left wondering exactly where it's coming from. Unpredictability and compelling ambiguity are high attributes as far as I'm concerned and this is exploitation of a very high order which makes us question the world we live in.

And watch out for those darting rat-sized insects which can seen to represent Ishii's personal brand of noir humor.

In a way, he ended up where he started, with the delightful, penny pinching SUPER GIANT series, creating a roiling alternate universe out of next to nothing. Bathed in noxious blue light the nude, dancing damned await transport across Styx. Don't be one of them!

Just don't compare this film to the 1960 version and you might enjoy it as much as I did. Enjoy is probably not the proper word, though, for the tongue pulling, limb sawing, skin peeling, decapitation antics on display in full arterial splatter mode.
Actually, some of the blindingly intense colors and eye-assaulting visual s