LORNA... THE EXORCIST: First Look at the Mondo Macabro DVD

The new Mondo Macabro DVD is a careful reconstruction and full restoration of the longest yet version of Jess Franco's most controversial film. It's a 1.66:1/16:9 anamorphic transfer from a variety of vintage negative [according to the back cover] and other elements with rare, select scenes included from other sources which were painstakingly tracked down. The source elements vary from excellent to acceptable but as a package it flows together beautifully while retaining a vintage venue appeal. A few lime green scratches during some of new, unearthed scenes actually add to the Grindhouse appeal. And that's exactly where versions of this film played theatrically back in the 1970s, but it was even censored for those theatrical venues. 

A highly disturbing tale of diabolical possession and Faustian fatality I place LORNA...THE EXORCIST [onscreen title aka LES POSSEDEES DU DIABLE, SEXY DIABOLIC STORY, LINDA]...

Rare English language track included...

Mondo Macabro does it right!

More disturbing than...*

in the top 5 of the director's extensive oeuvre. One of Franco's best acted films, Lina Romay, Guy Delmore, Pamela Stanford and Jacqueline Laurent (SINNER) are well cast in their roles. There's a palpable, destructive, unearthly magnetism within the cursed ensemble. I'm not giving any of the plot away since this best works when one simply sits back and watches as it slowly, hypnotically, inexorably unfolds. The emergence of the crustaceans from Laurent's private parts is certainly an image which burns its way into your unconscious. You might want to banish it from your mind, but you won't be able. This is 1000 proof Jess Franco, as subversive, transgressive and historically significant (mid 70s sexual anxiety has never been more thoroughly explored) as UN CHIEN ANDALOU was in its era. Look out for a wild eyed Howard Vernon as a thuggish retainer. 

Franco's blocking has never been more subterranean and a truly creepy musical score featuring a hellish, tortuously repetitive, high pitched guitar theme and rumbling chords makes it as effective as an audio as well as visual experience.

The French language version is presented with easy to read, highly literate English subtitles capturing the poetic flavor of the phrases.

Then I watched the rare  English  language version. Pretty strange experience. The voice sync, casting and dialogue are jarring but it's fascinating to program it with the Eng subs on to see the variances in dialogue between French and English. That's what makes this a must have DVD. It plays more like a strange near-hardcore mid-70s melodrama but is very much worth seeing against the French version. 

A number of deleted and extended scenes are included. Most significantly two completely new scenes: a tense family dinner and post dinner discussion among the Mariel family about Patrick's possible motives for changing the location of the family holiday (he has to follow Lorna's commands) and Chapter 10, which is the first time the "initiation" of Linda by Lorna (who has emerged through the wall) into her supernatural web has been seen totally uncensored on any video format. I'm not going to describe this scene. You probably already know what it entails but seeing it after hearing about it for a quarter of a decade was a seminal experience for me. A still from this scene is included in the 1993 publication OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO. It's the stuff nightmares are made of, mythic, dreamlike, delirious and sinister. And indelible. With these additional scenes (I've collected about half a dozen video versions  from around the world all lasting no more than 82m) it now runs nearly 100m.

Numerous pertinent extras include text notes which explain the fumetti influence in the film along with the importance of the location shooting in the architecturally bizarre structures at La Grande Motte. An interview with editor Gerard Kikoine and some words from Stephen Thrower on the film are also included among other extras. This is a must-have DVD, certainly in the running for the best ever Jess Franco DVD presentation. This masterwork of erotic horror can finally be seen as the director intended. I'll have more to say about this in future blogs. 


*And I do indeed find it more frightening and  soul disturbing than THE EXORCIST (1973), which made me physically ill when I first saw it theatrically. It's a very well made film and I got the chance to discuss it at length a year later with director William Friedkin, a gracious, talented gentleman. But I still have grave doubts about that film and don't really want to revisit it. 




I give this new Mondo Macabro LORNA THE EXORCIST DVD **** across the board. Four stars: my highest rating in the Film, Video, Audio, Extras categories. 

(C) Robert Monell 2011

Franco's 80s actors: ÁNGEL ORDIALES

You’ve seen that full scraggly beard, sharp nose, long dark hair and receding hairline in several Jess Franco films from the director’s period of association with Antonio Mayans. A stills photographer and assistant to DP Juan Soler Cózar, Ángel Ordiales was, like Soler Cózar himself, willing to perform on both sides of the camera: it figures that both men were cast as filmmakers in Oasis of the Zombies (1981). Ordiales’s other roles include one of two rapists in Las orgías inconfesables de Emmanuelle (1982), the randy gardener in the ridiculous El hotel de los ligues (1983), a dying man in Sangre en mis zapatos (1983), Perico “El Bosé” the beggar in El siniestro Dr. Orloff (1984) and “Beardo” the fisherman in El lago de las vírgenes (1987). According to Antonio Mayans, Ordiales “went on to become a dentist and died at a very young age”.

(Mayans’s statement is taken from the interview with the actor conducted by Ferrán Herranz and Francesco Cesari and published in the 2010 symposium book Il caso Jesús Franco, coordinated by Cesari).



Text by Nzoog Wahrlfhehen

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF: Intervision Picture Corp. DVD

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF [INTERVISION PICTURE CORP.

COLOR/1973/76m 12s/Fullscreen]

R0 NTSC

16 Chapters

Amaray Case

Street Date: 2/8/11

Fiske Manor, Barcelona: Melissa (Monterrat Prous) has been a paraplegic since birth but has recurrent nightmares that she walked one night as a girl through the dark corridors of the family estate and discovered her father (Jess Franco) bleeding to death from an assault by an unknown assassin. The father's blood drips on the girl's legs as she wakes up screaming. Mellisa's half-sister (NIGHT OF THE SORCERER's Loretta Tovar) and Lady Flora (NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS' Kali Hansa) are concerned enough by Melissa's mental state and her self imposed isolation to call in the eminent psychiatrist and old family friend, Dr. Orloff (KEOMA's William Berger). But the Doctor as well as Melissa's relatives have hidden, and conflicting, agendas which will result in a series of brutal murders.

Filmed in the spring of 1973 by Films Manacoa P.C.*, Franco's own production company, this is quite different in style and impact from the first two Jess Franco branded DR. ORLOFF titles, GRITOS EN LA NOCHE (1961) and EL SECRETO DEL DOCTOR ORLOFF (1963),  THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF is in color rather than the gothic-style B&W of the earlier films, and that makes all the difference along with the fact that the direction and photography are much more sober and realistic. One could almost call this conservative in approach with less of the compulsive telezooming of Franco's early 70s oeuvre (cf DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN), more conventional blocking and an overuse of dialogue to telegraph plot, character and thematic exposition. A rather artificial mix of dysfunctional family melodrama, inheritance thriller and old, dark house murder mystery (cf LAS NOCHE DE LOS ASESINO, also from 1973) it is distinguished by generally good acting, especially by Berger, Prous and Jose Manuel Martin as the family servant who attempts to save Melissa from the Family Plot (Hitchcock pun intended!). 

GRITOS EN LA NOCHE is, of course, a classic while EL SECRETO DEL DOCTOR ORLOFF is a worthy follow up, replacing Howard Vernon (Orloff remains his signature role) with an able Marcello Arroita Jaurrgui (the villain in Franco's dleightful 1967 Eurospy send-up LUCKY, THE INSCRUTABLE). Vernon would return to the role in the 1982 EL SINIESTRO DR. ORLOFF, my favorite of the series. Berger looks rather physically beat but that might be understandable considering that he had just been released after being held in an Italian prison for over a year on narcotics charges. Berger's wife died while also incarcerated on the drug charges after being denied medical attention. The actor manages to exude the gravitas it takes to play such a character and his performance is boosted by being effectively voiced by the Spanish dubber/actor Jose Guardiola (HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB).* *

Prous is the correct physical type for the role of the endangered, seemingly helpless Melissa and this, along with her role as the victimized title character in Franco's SINNER: THE INTIMATE DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC (1973) represenent her best work of the seven JF  titles in which she appeared. 

The main problem with this film is its verbose script and static (for Franco) direction. It looks rather rushed and has to depend on Franco's own highly atmospheric musical score for most of its suspense. Written under Franco's frequent David Khune beard the music harks back to the experimental Pagan/Franco cues in GRITOS EN LA NOCHE. This time the score is driven by jarring, low organ notes atonally clashing with dissonant piano chords, rattling percussion, an eerie whistling and other odd instrumentation. There are few of the iconoclastic camera angles the director became noted for although the intercutting of sudden close ups of Orloff's visage into the murder scenes in rather effective. A corny folk song ("open your eyes again") sung in English by Robert Woods' Davey Hutchison character (this is not the real voice of Woods) doesn't really provide the intended counterpoint and seems a rather mawkish device, especially when used as a way to provide a uplift as the final credits roll. Edmund Purdom (THE CAPTAIN IS 15 YEARS OLD, PIECES) is totally miscast as the local detective on the case and appears noticeably uncomfortable in the role. His role probably should have went to the able Spanish character actor Joaquin Blanco (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD) who appears as his assistant here. And although some of the director's recent DV work may be criticized for having too many overlong sex scenes included THE SINISTER EYES... could definitely have used an infusion of eroticism to perhaps enliven the proceedings at certain intervals. 

The INTERVISION PICTURES CORP. disc is the film's North American DVD debut as well as one of the maiden releases, along with Franco's most recent PAULA-PAULA (2010), of this company, or at least the new incarnation of it since CEO Larry Gold Sr. has reportedly been a VHS pioneer and claims to have many more upcoming releases to unleash. Opening with an obviously vintage VHS-sourced INTERVISION logo (complete with a glitch, I guess to give it a Grindhouse tip of the hat; at least I hope it was intentional) the feature itself appears to have been sourced from an ancient PAL master. Mr. Gold himself mentions that "...Jess stepped up with a rare 1-inch master, culled from his vault in Malaga..." in a press release available on the INTERVISION website. A press released dated Dec 22. 2010 states that the original negative was sold to a "competitor" by Franco in 1973 "who promptly butchered its distribution, losing the negative in the process."  If that's what indeed happened then what is "lost" are the original elements rather than the film itself, which has been available for decades on Spanish VHS {Sogepaq Video} and DVD [VELLAVISION]. I have a dub of the Spanish video which has a consistently better video quality than this DVD in terms of clarity, sharpness, detail, luminosity and definition. Whatever element they used does have brighter, more present colors than the somewhat pale colors of the Spanish VHS, with saturated reds and greens, but this plus is spoiled by the overall transfer, which can best be described as fuzzy. The closeups are soft while most long shots go into a rather unsightly blurring mode. To add to the list of afflictions there is also an unfortunate tendency for the presentation to exhibit a kind of motion artifacting which is most apparent when the characters or camera suddenly move. Whatever merits the original cinematography by Antonio Millan might have had are cropped by the fullscreen presentation.

This is the also the first English subtitled presentation of this title, which helps because of the film's complicated, talky scenario but the subs are rather small  and awkwardly placed (I'm told this may be an encoding issue)*** and sometimes disappear altogether, most disastrously during the crucial scenes showing Orloff's first encounter with the police, where he is revealed to be a liar, and the subsequent, very important scene where he details the reasons for his resentment against Melissa's father and outlines his future plans to eliminate the rest of the family. I hate to include these spoilers but you won't see this information laid out in the English subtitles, as it should be! The subtitles pick up toward the end of his rant but it's too little, too late. There's also an audible hiss on the soundtrack which never goes away. All told this is one of those problematic PAL to NTSC conversion which results in numerous playback issues. 

There is one significant extra, the new 18m interview with Jess Franco, THE SINISTER ORIGINS OF DR. ORLOFF, wherein Jess reveals, between luxurious puffs on his omnipresent cigarettes, that the name Dr. Orloff originated in his filmography not as a homage to the 1939 British Edgar Wallace adaptation, THE HUMAN MONSTER, where Bela Lugosi plays a very sinister Dr. Orloff but rather from one of Jess' Capitol Records collections, which credited a "Eugene Orloff" as a violinist on an album's label. Since Jess is a known world class music buff, collector and film composer/musician in his own right, this is credible. More relevantly he discusses how he considers the Dr. Orloff character in GRITOS EN LA NOCHE to be a rather understandable villain since he is attempting to save his daughter with his crimes. He obviously considers the character somewhat sympathetic, an aspect which he would expand upon in the aforementioned EL SINIESTRO DEL DR. ORLOFF. He also affirms his respect for the late Berger whom he also directed in THE CAPTAIN IS 15 YEARS OLD, JUEGO SUCIO EN CASABLANCA (1984), GOLDEN TEMPLE AMAZONS (1985) and in Berger's very last role in the unreleased JUNGLE OF FEAR (1992). Berger collapsed during the shoot of JUNGLE and later succumbed to bone cancer. Describing Berger as a "sensitive" actor  Franco obviously considered him a close friend and valued colleague and is visibly moved when discussing his imprisonment, dedication as an actor and fatal illness. Also very interesting is Franco's detailing of how the Spanish authorities as the time rated this film as "1B" instead of "1A" because it was produced in Barcelona, a city which the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco disliked and wanted to punish because he didn't find much support there. He terms the Spanish authorities as "Motherfuckers" who damaged his career, his film and held back the future career of Montserrat Prous, who ended up as a comedienne in local theater. The director sums up his feeling about the film by admitting that he had some problems communicating his intentions to the cast and didn't really succeed in making a fully realized version of the film he had envisioned.

Franco scholars, myself included, should be intrigued by these revelations but there is also a big drawback here. Franco speaks in heavily accented English and since no English subtitles are provided at least 50 percent of his comments are incomprehensible on an initial listening. Subtitles should have definitely been provided in this case. It should also be noted that along with the above mentioned problems with the feature's subtitles are some glaring grammatical/usage errors. At one point a character is described as "degenerative" and one of Orloff's lines is translated as "Your family has played a stupid system."

So, with all these issues and a few distinct pluses, should you spend your $19.99 on this DVD presentation? . I guess if you really really want a DVD with English subs of this and want to hear some of an interesting JF interview, go for it. Some people want to collect any and all JF DVDs and can't get enough of the man. For me the film is second, if not third tier Franco and this is not in any way a definitive presentation. It may also make a future defiintive NTSC presentation less likely. 

To end on a positive note, the original Jano artwork which graces the front cover and disc is a definite plus. 

RATINGS:

Film: **1/2

Video: **

Audio: **1/2

Extras: ***

NOTES:

* Robert Woods gave me additional information on the making of this film when I interviewed him in 2007. He noted that it was filmed in late spring of 1973 just before the aborted RELAX BABY from a 50 page script which was expanded on during the shoot. "The title on the script was THE STRANGE EYES OF DR. ORLOFF, in Spanish. We filmed it in less than two weeks." Woods confirmed that it was filmed outside of Barcelona but didn't travel to the Canary Islands for that part of the shoot.

Thanks to Robert Woods and Michael Casati.  

**Thanks to Mirek Lipinski and Nzoog for the additional information on the VHS/DVD history of this title and the Spanish dubbing. 

*** Additional thanks to Eric Cotenas.

NOTE: THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF [onscreen title: LOS OJOS DEL DOCTOR ORLOFF] is a story Jess Franco had told before (the "human killer-robot" theme would reoccur in such significant titles as EL SECRETO DEL DOCTOR ORLOFF, MISS MUERTE, NECRONOMICON/SUCCUBUS, CARTES SUR TABLE, THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU, FUTURE WOMEN, NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT, MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE among many others) and would tell again, specifically in the 1983 remake of this film, the far superior SOLA ANTE EL TERROR with a "Dr. Orgaf " {Ricardo Palacios} replacing Dr. Orloff and Lina Romay (who appears in a minor role in THE SINISTER EYES...) as Melissa.

Lorna The Exorcist (1974 / Jess Franco / DVD)

Lorna The Exorcist (1974 / Jess Franco / DVD)

Franco's 80s actors: RICARDO PALACIOS

The Cantabrian-born, Madrid-based actor Ricardo López-Nuño Díez, better known as Ricardo Palacios, may be familiar to many from numerous Spaghetti Westerns, as well as much of Franco’s output from the early eighties. Born in 1940, he was a personal favourite of Antonio Margheriti, who used him in several films, even when there was no Spanish co-production involved, but it was Jess Franco, however, that gave him his first key role, as the bandit chief in The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968). This was the last time Franco and Palacios were to work together in a long time.

About a decade and a half later, Palacios’s close friend Antonio Mayans wheedled him into acting for Franco at the time when Mayans had become the filmmaker’s main assistant. During this period, Franco roles played by Palacios include that of the big mobster in Juego sucio en Casablanca (1985), the militarist prison warder in Furia en el trópico (1985), and Dr. Orgaz (a Hispanised Orloff) in Sola ante el terror (1986), a remake of Los ojos siniestros del Dr. Orloff (1983). Prior to this, his growling voice had appeared, minus his bulky presence, dubbing the butler in El hundimiento de la casa Usher and narrating Los blues de la calle Pop (both 1983).

Palacios had graduated in both acting and directing at the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografía (EOC) but it was not until precisely his spell as a Franco regular that he also realized his dream of taking up directing. His directorial debut, Mi conejo es el mejor (1982), was an S/M softcore film, in which Franco had no participation, although the leads were Lina Romay and Emilio Linder (taking over from the originally intended Mayans) and the supporting cast included Carmen Carrión. His next, more ambitious project was the Civil War comedy ¡Biba la banda! (1987), which was produced by Franco (who also did second-unit work) and featured Juan Soler Cózar among the actors, along with Mayans (also the film’s production manager) in a bit role. Palacios himself drifts in and out of the film, in the unresolved character of a Valencian landowner, one of several details suggesting that the film’s troubled history affected the final result. Palacios is on record as blaming Franco and Mayans for the production problems it encountered, although actors Alfredo Landa and José Sancho are agreed in finding Palacios himself somewhat disorganized.

Whatever the truth, Franco was fired from his own production and Palacios ceased to be on speaking terms with Franco or Mayans. The head of the Arcofón sound studios took over as producer and the film, despite all the trouble, opened to a good response. A sequel was intended but failed to take off, as did another film project of Palacios’s dealing with the Civil War. Palacios, however, found himself much in demand as a writer and/or director on Spanish TV. Ten years after the making of ¡Biba la banda!, the film served as the basis for La banda de Pérez (1997), a comedy TV series written entirely by Palacios and directed between himself and Josetxo San Mateo. At this point, Ricardo Palacios had largely abandoned his career as a screen actor, mostly concentrating on his work as a dubber and, especially, as a TV writer and director. This activity was enough to earn him enough money to gradually withdraw from show business in the wake of health problems he encountered in the late nineties, to the extent of necessitating surgery. There appears to be no information on film or TV work of his after the year 2002. He appears to be retired and still living in Madrid.


On the whole, he has acted in dozens of feature films and TV shows, performing under the direction of people as disparate as Roberto Rossellini, León Klimovsky, Ignacio F. Iquino, Paul Naschy, Juan Antonio Bardem, José María Zabalza, Juan Logar, José María Forqué, Richard Lester, José Luis Merino, Eugenio Martín, Sergio Leone, Rafael Gil, Juan Bosch, José Antonio Nieves Conde, Jaime Chávarri, Pedro Lazaga and Vicente Aranda. As for his work as a dubber, he can be heard as the voice of a sailor in Amando de Ossorio’s Serpiente de mar (1984) and that of Michael Berryman in the Spanish-language version of Sylvio Tabet’s Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991).

Most of the above information is taken from Carlos Aguilar’s valuable book Ricardo Palacios. Actor, director, observador (2003), a lengthy interview in which the actor talks about his life and career. The son of a prison governor, he spent much of his childhood in expensive boarding schools (which he hated), and later, in his adulthood, following a spell with the right-wing Carlists, he subsequently joined the Spanish Communist Party. Roberto Rossellini, Eddie Constantine, Fernando Sancho, Juan Logar and Ignacio F. Iquino do not come off too well in the account he gives of his encounters with several notable people; Rafael Gil, Nieves Conde, Bardem, Lazaga, Frank Braña, Klimovsky, Margheriti, Leone and Merino are viewed more favourably. He also talks about his film interests: his favourite director is John Ford.

Regarding Franco and his 80s films, he says: “I went through outrageous situations during that period. For instance, I was left behind as a hostage in a hotel, along with the rest of the crew, because the money had run out and Franco and Mayans had gone to Madrid to look for more”. Regarding the man himself, his words are: “One thing I can say about Jess is that he’s got this wonderful capacity for ignoring what’s right and what’s wrong if it serves the purpose of making his film. Jess Franco is neither a good nor a bad person, he just wants things to be done his way and couldn’t care less about the rest of the universe”.



Text by Nzoog Wahrlfhehen

sex and boredom at LA MANSION DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES...

A quartet of giggling, hotpants-wearing, Beethoven-singing German waitresses arrives at a Canary Islands hotel in search of a good fuck. Eventually they get it - courtesy of some cursed living dead monks - and the viewer gets just about fuck all out of this thinly-plotted, quickly-shot GOLDEN FILMS INTERNACIONAL production.


While the concept of hooded skeletons somehow bonking brainless babes is so ridiculous and trashy as to be near-irresistible for a cult film fan, the actual film is a chore to sit through.
Jess edited LA MANSION... himself, leaving in tons of unnecessarily long cutaways and random 'characters walking about' footage. Yes, some of these shots are highly atmospheric. Yet the overall effect is not that of poetic deliberate pace but of desperate padding. Would Franco bother to sit through this movie nowadays? At his age that would be a sorry waste of time, that's for sure.


Extended sequences of unattractive simulated sex kill whatever little atmosphere the shots of empty hallways accompanied by wind wailing on the soundtrack manage to conjure up. Clearly, the director had neither the resources nor the inclination to develop the admittedly fascinating concept into anything more than just a throwaway little film. The four waitresses are given extremely poor, banal dialogue. Some lines are repeated ad absurdum, suggesting that the filming took place from just a basic outline with actresses possibly ad-libbing stuff asthey went along.


Many shots look hastily set-up and executed, adding to the sense of a rushed job which keeps the viewer from immersing himself in the absurd proceedings. Indeed, certain technical sloppiness has been a kind of a trademark of post-Towers Franco cinema but it couldn't hamper his truly personal work (DOWNTOWN, EXORCISM) which, although extremely roughly made, has distinct inner drive.


Had there been less filler sex and just a tinsy bit more substance, LA MANSION... would have occupied a more prominent position in Franco's mega-filmography. Still, there's something enjoyable to be found here. Antonio Mayans gives a surprisingly intense performance as Carlo Savonarola, the hotel receptionist. Scenes between him and a demented woman whom he keeps chained to the wall in one of the rooms are genuinely fun stuff, as is his final 'liberation'. At the end of the day, LA MANSION... is a film that's more fun to read about and look at screengrabs from than to actually watch.


Reviewed by Alex B.

Jess Franco's War

R.W. Fassbinder's Nazi era musical melodrama

"Lilli" Strauss (Alexandra Erlich) and Karl Holbach (Ramon Sheen) reluctantly go Nazi in LA CHUTE DES AIGLES (1990)

Director: Jess Franco

Artistic Direction: A.M. Frank

Lillian Strauss entertains wounded Nazi soldiers during World War II more out of a sense of decency and patriotism than any sympathy with Hitler's Nazi empire. The daughter of the wealthy Walter Strauss (Christoper Lee) she doesn't have to do this but she is a romantic at heart. She even has a music box similar to the one at the opening of Franco's equally dire cannibal epic, MONDO CANIBALE (1980). Then she ends up in CABARET drag doing numbers for Nazi officers, including Peter Foelich (Mark Hamill!), an unabashed Nazi fanatic. Look for long time Franco collaborator Daniel White as her pianist.

It opens with stock footage of Hitler raving and marching Nazi troops then cuts to the glossy opening credits image of a rose and a German officer's cap on an elegant table top. Also beware of more stock footage from Alfredo Rizzo's 1971 I GIARDINI DEL DIAVOLO*,  L'EST DE BERLIN and other Eurocine acquisitions. I think the latter also may have been used in ZOMBIE LAKE. This is a soberly directed and lit film and has a good supporting cast, including the estimable Craig Hill (ESMERALDA BAY-1989) and Teresa Gimpera (LUCKY, THE INSCRUTABLE). The Parisian villa representing the Strauss family estate was used by Eurocine as a backdrop for the nasty doings of Mathis Vogel in EXORCISM (1974) and Robert Ginty in MANIAC KILLER (1988)! Christopher Lee is very good, cast against type, as the conservative, aging banker and Hill would prove very effective in Franco's next  feature, LA PUNTA DE LAS VIBORAS (the underrated DOWNTOWN HEAT-1991). Franco was headed for big changes with the disastrous reception of his DON QUIJOTE (1992) and his re emergence with the digital era titles.

In FALL OF THE EAGLES we essentially are left with an epic scenario realized on a budget scale. Don't expect any impressive battle scenes. And Alexandra Erlich is no Liza Minelli or Hanna Schygulla.

Fassbinder and his Lili Marleen in Berlin.

Fassbinder directs.LILI MARLEEN (1980).

Typical Nazi Exploitation.

Note the that the top two images are from R.W. Fassbinder's LILI MARLEEN which bascially tells the same story in a different context. Both films are worth seeing and make a fascinating double bill. What they share in common is the attempt to invoke the social class lure of Nazism, seeing it as a matrix of conformity rather than perversion (cf Visconti's THE DAMNED), downplaying combat while considering "performance" as a means of personal/political discourse. What I'm getting at is that Franco's intentions seem more in line with Fassbinder's than FRAULEIN ELSA SS or CONVOY OF WOMEN or any of the other Eurotrash Nazi exploitation of the era. But the film was so unsuccessful that it is perhaps time for a reconsideration, or at least a fair viewing.

According to OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO the film had serious post production issues concerning the soundtrack and was eventually taken out of the director's hands. Hence, the mysterious "artistic direction" credit.

I'm still looking for an English friendly video/DVD which might allow me to upgrade my rating. 

Thanks to Francesco Cesari for helping me see the French Video.

*Not that I'm complaining since I used that ancient standard as stock footage for my own 2010 web series RETURN OF THE BLOODSUCKING NAZI ZOMBIES (Mathis Vogel), but as a reference point/homage not in the representational mode. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF coming in Jan. 2011 from INTERVISION

Intervision Pictures, a newly formed DVD company founded by Larry Gold Sr., will release Jess Franco's LOS OJOS SINIESTROS DEL DOCTOR ORLOFF (1973) along with his most recent erotic thriller PAULA-PAULA on DVD this coming January 11, 2011. These will be the first US DVD presentations of these titles.

I'll be reviewing these releases here as soon as I get screening copies.

We'd also like to welcome Nzoog to our administrative team. 

UN PITO PARA TRES: The FERVI series

We've already taken a cursory look at the notorious EL OJETE DE LULU (1985) one of the series of mid 1980s hardcore quickes which Jess made for Fernando Vidal Campos' FERVI Films, Madrid. Before examining LULU'S PACIFIER [EL CHUPETE DE LULU] (1985) we next present his "Pitos" titles: ENTRE PITOS ANDA EL JUEGO (1985) and UN PITO PARA TRES (1984), both "Candy Coster" films actually directed in collaboration with JF. Thanks to Nzoog for the photos and additional information.

Jose Llamas in the 1986 FERVI Films hardcore, PARA LAS NENAS...LECHE CALENTITA. According to Nzoog, Jess Franco said in 2002 that Llamas had died in London from AIDS. But we haven't been able to find any date or independent confirmation of this. I cannot locate any credits for him after 1992.

Jose Llamas in the scatological spy saga UN RAJITA PARA DOS (!982), yet another FERVI hardcore. The review in OBSESSION notes the use of puns in the credits.

They both feature the late, mysterious "Jose Llamas" and employ an intricate "code" which I've examined in my essay published by the Italian magazine NOCTURNO: n. 60, Anno XII,  Luglio 2007, EL CODICE SEGRETO DI JESUS FRANCO, which will be the title of a chapter in my upcoming Jess Franco book THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR: THE WORLD OF JESS FRANCO, hopefully one of three Jess Franco books to be published next year.
 

Jose Llamas aka Paco Jones | Luigi | Bruce Lyn | Luige Montany | Pepito Tiesez | Pepito Tiésez appeared in over 20 Jess Franco titles between 1982 and 1992. The above image of him is from the 1983 hardcore LILIAN (La virgen pervertida), an Al Pereira neo-noir which started out as a softcore but was had hardcore inserts added when the Spanish laws suddenly changed mid-production. Note that LILIAN... is a Golden Films Internacional production, not a FERVI film. It appears to have had a healthier budget and a more relaxed production schedule than the Fervis and the photography (by Juan Soler Cozar) is a notch superior to the FERVI series, which were sometimes shot with the director also acting as operator/lighting cameraman. .

We shall see how, as usual with JF, nothing is quite what it seems, even in the coarse sexual underworld of hardcore production. 

My valued Spanish colleague Nzoog notes of the title ENTRE PITOS ANDA EL JUEGO: "The title seems to stem from "Entre pillos anda el juego", the Spanish title for John Landis's "Trading Places", with "pitos" (cocks) replacing "pillos" (rogues). This Spanish title for the Landis in turn derives from the common construction "entre...anda el juego", which may have been initiated by the sixteenth-century Spanish playwright Francisco de Rojas y Zorrilla with his play "Entre bobos anda el juego". It might be roughly translated as "The whole game (or the business) is between...". In this case, with "pitos", it would be "cocks". 
The pseudonyms, in accordance with this title, are taken from the Spanish words "pito", "polla" and "picha", all of which mean "cock", to which a suffix has been added to make them seem like Spanish surnames (osa, ales, et). Other names in similar vein include José Llamas's "Pepito Tiésez" ("tieso", which means "stiff", suggests a hard-on) in a number of these films and "Pichi Palo" (roughly, "dick stick") for one R.A. García, all of these for "Para las nenas, leche calentita". The Mayans name in this film was, incidentally, and contrary to what I said above, "Tome Proculi"."

Thank you, Nzoog. UN PTIO PARA TRES may be a little more self explanatory. The films seem likely to have been made back-to-back or perhaps simultaneously, a practice not unknown to the director. Although OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO gives different year dates for both those are likely the release dates.  But different release dates are given in other sources.  UN PITO... does have a different cast supporting Romay, including Daniel Katz/Pito Lungo! (MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE) and longtime JF performer-production manager Antonio Mayans/Tony Procula. Llamas is in both and involved in the hardcore action. OBSESSION notes the title could be translated, A WHISTLE FOR THREE and quotes Franco saying that Emilio Linder (SLUGS) is in it, but I can't find him in the film. Linder does appear in the Golden Films Internacional hardcore, LILIAN... as well as DIAMONDS OF KILAMANDJARO.I b


So, where does the Secret Code come into play?


Several years ago I emailed this to Nzoog: "Your translations and information confirm to me that Franco uses a complex linguistic code as well as image/music codes. This involves using the Spanish {and other} languages as commenting voice, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes playful, sometimes self referencing, sometimes referring to cinema or literature in a historical sense. It's also a pop-cultural voice that Americans and most non Spaniards cannot hope to understand."


I still believe that, it even pertains to the most recent PAULA-PAULA. It's all about voices, and Franco's own voice is the most resonant of these satirical codifications. He's making fun of the entire genre and even his participation in it. What's most fascinating is that he includes the whole cultural context in this.
UN PITO PARA TRES shares the same elements as all the Fervi hardcores, a hotel setting, limited cast of familiar faces, sexually coded credits and group sex. The camera only breaks away to bracket the action, as in ENTRE PITOS... , as if taking a breather. 


Here's a slightly different take on ENTRE PITOS... from the brief review I did here in 2009




Produced byFERVI FILMS [Madrid]/ Fernando Vido Campos SP
Written and directed by Lulu Laverne [JF & LR]


Credited to Lulu Laverne (Jess Franco assited by Lina Romay) this is another no-budget hardcore financed by Fernando Vidal Campos' FERVI FILMS-Madrid, ENTRE PITOS ANDA EL JUEGO[1] is one of eight films Franco filmed in 1985. Four "straight" features: LA ESCLAVA BLANCA and LAS ULTIMAS FILIIPINAS (in association with Santiago Moncada), and two adventures for Golden Films Internacional shot back to back, BANGKOK, CITA CON LA MUERTE and VIAGE A BANGKOK ATUAD INCLUDIO. The four hardcores all star Lina Romay and cast members from the four "straight" features. This was explained by Antonio Mayan's in a subsequent interview*. These hardcores were shot in the afternoons during the production of the larger budgeted non-hardcore adventure films. EL MIRON Y LA EXHIBICIONISTA is the best and most personal of these micro-budgeted pornos and while ENTRE PITOS... is not the worst it illustrates just how much leftover creative energy the director mustered for these quickies. It opens with a jagged zoom back from the ocean [a familiar image from many Franco films] past some high rise buildings. Lina Romay is made up to look like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow and she has two good scenes with Mabel Escano, a formidable Franco actress-comedienne of that era (EUGENIE-1980; LA ESCLAVA BLANCA, MANSION DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES), an erotic encounter in front of an circular mirror (cf SHINING SEX) and a silly small-talk conversation the women have while performing oral sex on one of the males. Franco himself has lauded this scene as one of his favorites [2]. Lina is quite amusing with her pouty red lips and tacky gold jumpsuit. She vigorously throws herself into the gynecological antics and the closing credit FIN appears over her enthusiastically licking semen off the pubic area of one orgiasts. Enough said. By the way, there is a plot involving a parody of sexual fidelity and a sort of amoral moral at the end. 

Except for the always crucial assistance of Lina Romay, these short features were all bascially directed, photographed, edited and scored by Jess Franco specifically as overtime work to his enhance his income during a period when the was a demand for hardcore in Spain. 


In an interview Antonio Mayans speaks in some detail about how these films had to be made under very specific circumstances and within tight parameters to be salable and profitable. Franco would shoot them on the set of a "straight" film with the same cast and locations and just have them do hardcore scenes. But the resulting products are still "Jess Franco" films, with all that entails. 


UN PITO PARA TRES has the advantage of Mayans (a capable and omnipresent dubber as well) and is listed as 77m in OBSESSION. I just have an abbreviated Spanish video. The antics here seem to be mainly concerned with "length" (Daniel Katz is "Pito lungo") and it's telling that Jess is proud of ENTRE PITOS... but is fuzzy on this one.

Jean Rollin (1938-2010) Poet Maudit: RIP

Some images of Jean Rollin and his films. 

For the record he became involved in two Jess Franco projects. He stepped in as director for ZOMBIE LAKE (1980) when Franco didn't show up for the shoot and filmed zombie inserts for A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD.  His own films are unique, poetic, beautifully crafted examples of fantastique cinema. I had the pleasure of corresponding with and interviewing him 20 years ago and found him to be a humble, generous gentleman. He will be missed.

RE: SINNER--THE SECRET DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC: The Mondo Macabro DVD

LE JOURNAL INTIME D'UNE NUMPHOMANE, a Robert De Nesle production from Jess Franco's very busy early 70s period,  is a visually and musically entrancing downer. Suicide, seduction, sexual abuse, prostitution, lesbianism, drugs, sex, rock n' roll, it's all here. Oh yes, and nymphomania. The delirious cubism of this film, along with the acid tinged Jean-Bernard Raiteux electric guitar powered score (think early Pink Floyd), redeems the TV-movie-meets-Russ Meyers script (credited to Jesus Franco Manera), which Robert De Nesle commissioned as a typical "Clifford Brown" sexploitation epic of the era. The script's structure and final edit {see the DVD review below} seem to indicate CITIZEN KANE as a possible influence, it makes sense considering Franco's history with Welles. The prying investigator here is female (Jacqueline Laurent, who played Lina Romay's earthly mother in LORNA, THE EXORCIST) and that makes all the difference,  the film takes on a resolute Feminist tone while remaining marketable sexploitation. Women are shown as pathetic objects of desire and the film opens with a girl-on-girl show involving Kali Hansa and Montserrat Prous. They are watched by a significant customer. Once again the performance and the audience are caught up in a kind of magnetic field of attraction, but this time the focus is on "watching."

A parallel investigation is carried on by Jess Franco himself, as the clueless local police inspector. He just wants a signed confession. In fact, the film examines the poisonous relationship between perpetrator and victim, sexploitation and Feminist critique of pornography. It's a candy colored 70s film noir-melodrama at baseline, though. Sexed up as much as possible. Filmed in long takes and plan-sequences, the most impressive being the stalking of Linda from a back street through an amusement part by the man who will destroy her life. The handheld camera floats past Linda and the predator taking in the garish booths and rides in the park, gliding by the customers who often stare into the camera while stifling a smile. At one point the operator's shadow becomes visible on a street sign. It's an audacious sequence, looking forward to the plan sequences in GEMIDOS DE PLACER (1982) a decade later. The film is like a fever-dream of and from the early 1970s. There's very little dialogue, except for Linda's narration from her journal. She speaks of her broken spirit and her sexual addiction. She must have constant stimulation from both sexes. She seems to trust and crave women more than men, though. She speaks of experiencing orgasm while watch a female object of desire dancing to the loud hard rock music. The film illustrates how her sexual addiction is subtly related to her childhood trauma. She actually realizes this and pleads for love, understanding, writing that the man who destroyed her must pay. We hear her words as they are read by Rosa Ortiz (Laurent) who realizes that her husband is a monster who must be destroyed. In the film's finale Rosa must make a terrible choice which she does in a spasm of rage and pain.The final image of the journal sinking into the ocean is a near-perfect metaphor which pulls the themes and characters together into the moment of truth which Franco is always seeking. It's one of the director's best written and acted films and the Raiteux, Cosma, Tical cues drive it at a frenzied pace. It should be noted that in 1972 the director made at least nine other films, including the unfinished zombie horror-comedy EL MISTERIO DEL CASTILLO ROJO.  It appears likely to have been made back-to-back, or perhaps overlapped, LES EBRANLEES, which also featured Prous as a doomed stripper in the sexual underworld of Southern Spain, filmed on the same locations with many of the main cast of SINNER. LES EBRANLEES is pure, unadulterated Eurosleaze and just as much of a downer as SINNER. Both films illustrate the dark side of the sex trade and sex in general and are guided by an vengeance delivering investigator, in the case of LES EBRANLEES, Howard Vernon as Franco's favorite PI, Al Pereira.  And there is at least one erotic dance scene in both films which could have been cut into the other one with no problem, and probably was. 

After finally digesting the new MONDO MACABRO DVD I must say that this presentation does something few DVDs accomplish: it forced me not only to reevaluate the film but Franco's "De Nesle" produced oeuvre and maybe his entire career. It's a sterling, glittering, luminous 1.1:66:1/16X9 transfer from excellent negative elements. It's the most complete version available and has French and English language options with new English subtitles. It has to be the definitive presentation of one of the director's less celebrated films from that busy era. If the film itself is not on the level of LA COMTESSE PERVERSE, LORNA, THE EXORCIST or LA COMTESSE NOIRE it's certainly interesting enough to be worth  discovering or rediscovering via this presentation. I've always said that Franco's career is the Mount Everest of European Trash Cinema and while this is not at the very top it's a full tier above dozens of efforts before and after its production in late 1972 and release in 1973. The intoxicating colors revealed in this transfer allowed me to see it as one of what Franco terms his "black films"/film noir, in this case drenched in early 1970s psychedelic drag. Or more exactly a Eurocrime/softcore item produced for a certain market. Editor Gerard Kikoine who reveals during a 15m interview that Robert De Nesle hired him to post-produce this and other Franco directed productions beginning with the 1972 LES DEMONS. The producer gave Kikoine virtual carte blanche, numerous reels of b&w footage, a few pages of explanatory script and the job of making it all make some kind of sense. Kikoine never met the director but became his silent partner who not only sculpted this and other Franco-De Nesle efforts into a final shape but added sound, dialogue, and, most importantly, chose the music from his own library collection. These include the studio musician Jean-Berand Raiteux's delirious acid rock tinged, Pink Floyd-influenced guitar and sonic fantasias selected from the legendary "Musique Pour L'image" with contributions from Vladimir Cosma and H. Tical (the latter uncredited on SINNER). This 1972 compilation was layered over numerous subsequent Franco-De Nesle items including LA MALDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN, LA COMTESSE PERVERSE and other key titles. 

I find it rather fascinating that Kikoine made these sound/music/editing choices independently of the director, a fact that allows us to reconsider just what a Jess Franco film is, how much of what we see and hear in these films was his choice. De Nesle and Kikoine had the final word on these titles and even more so in the hardcore versions made for those venues.. The featurette is one of the most revealing and fascinating on any Jess Franco DVD and might have been titled HOW TO MAKE A JESS FRANCO FILM [IN POST-PRODUCTION].  Franco rarely writes "scripts" and famously relies on malleable outlines/notes/treatments sometimes written/rewritten moments before the shoot, as Paul Muller confirmed to me in my 2005 interview with him.  I also had to the chance to interview and question Franco about what exactly he had to do with the editing of his films. He answered that on the Harry Alan Tower production he made a final cut with the producer's editor and then it was out of his hands. Even his personal favorite VENUS IN FURS underwent extensive post production alteration by a several teams of US based editors.  Given this preference for minimal scripts and moving along or being moved along after the shoot I think it's fair to say that Franco is most truly "there" or "present" during the actual shooting, after which he rushes off to shoot another film asap.

This extra also shows us the patrician face of De Nesle for the first time and Kikoine provides some humorous anecdotes of the Producer's busy "social" life and penchant for buying and promoting cheap pepla, Eurospy and Spaghetti Western titles. 

Watching it in this deluxe edition also allowed me to discover the subtle inflections of Jacqueline Laurent's performance as the woman who investigates her jailed husband's "crime." What's unique about his film in Franco's oeuvre is that the character's are dynamic rather than static and Laurent's character undergoes a radical shift in consciousness, an awakening from her petit bourgeois waking sleep. Like Linda she ends up preferring women to men sexually and seems done with considering men as sex partners.  Also, along with CITIZEN KANE, I realized that the theme, structure and plot owe a lot to one of the director's favorite films, Robert Siodmak's PHANTOM LADY (1943). That final image resonates whether Franco put it there or Kikoine found it and decided it was the perfect end point. 

More light is thrown on the film itself in the text notes by Pete Tombs who reveals that the story was suggested by De Nesle's wife, Elisabeth, and considers Laurent's character's class background and psychological make up as a key driving factor.  He also picks up on the network of glances which open the film and restate Franco's obsessive themes of watching and performance. Critic Stephen Thrower (who offers a 10m summation of the film's themes and characters) cites the CITIZEN KANE influence, the downbeat tone of the film and notes the difference between the handling or eroticism here and in such Franco Sade adapts as PLAISIR A TROIS (1973).  Thrower also considers Franco's career as a whole in a longer video essay FEAR AND DESIRE, discussing themes, images and music which make the director's films unique. 

Informative notes on Laurent, Kali Hansa, Howard Vernon, Anne Libert and Montserrat Prous are included along with a note on the score which names Armando Sciascia as  "H. Tical" whose cues are as outre as Raiteux's. Thanks to Curt Purcell for supplying me with the CD "Musique pour l'Image n. 39" which features a key cue in the film, HARLEM POP TROTTERS.

LORNA, THE EXORCIST is coming--SINNER is here!

www.diabolikdvd.com/

Sinner - Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac DVD (Jess Franco) (NTSC Region 1)

Now available on DVD from MONDO MACABRO!

Cinema Arcana: You Can't Handle the Tooth -- Mondo Macabro's Pete Tombs on the Films of Jess Franco

bruceholecheck.blogspot.com 

Return of he Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies special: Female Vampire

A spinoff from the main series, dedicated to Lina Romay.

occhio sulle espressioni: Return!

occhio sulle espressioni: Return!: "Ritornano le puntate della web series fantahorror Return Of The Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies, scritta da Robert Monell e diretta da Mathis Voge..."