3 NEW JESS FRANCO FILMS!

Thanks to Jess Franco blogger Alex Mendibil for informing me about three new Jess Franco films going into production soon to be produced by Ferran Herranz with the help of Antonio Mayans as producer. Alex includes these details:  "One is an Edgar Wallace adaptation "El caso de la guiri asustada" or "El caso de la señorita asustada" (titles are not definitive) and Mayans has also one of the main roles. The other one is called (by the moment) "Sor Vampiria" and it is more like an experiment in the Paula-Paula style. Principal shooting was scheduled on this month. Mayans is, of course, a longtime Franco actor (MACUMBA SEXUAL) and production manager. 

Alex will also be involved in a Jess Franco documentary produced by none other than Eurocine! According to Alex, "The documentary in which I'm working as scriptwriter is produced by Eurociné and directed by Pedro Temboury. It is a feature film (maybe 70-80 minutes) with lots of interviews, HD remastered footage by Eurociné and a little fictionalized story around it."

The Edgar Wallace adaptation seems to be the long planned Franco presentation of the novel, "The Case of the Frightened Lady" which was last filmed in Germany in 1963 as THE INDIAN SCARF. That film features Klaus Kinski as one of the suspects among relatives vying for an inheritance by staying in a haunted house during a storm. I've seen the film. It's not bad but nothing to go out of your way to see. There are much better Wallace films including Franco's own THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA (1970). It will be interesting to see what he does with this. It's bracing to hear he's going ahead with new projects. 

Thanks to Alex and don't forget to visit his essential EL FRANCONOMICON   EL FRANCONOMICON

COUNTESS PERVERSE: The Mondo Macabro DVD is here!

Bob (Robert Woods) resists the offer of a cannibal meal, defying The Perverse Countess (Alice Arno). The new MONDO MACABRO DVD presentation of this key 1973 Jess Franco film is both visually stunning and finally gives us a look at the long lost director's cut. A must have!

Thanks to Eric Cotenas for the screencap.

Daniel J. White Centennial Today

The great composer of memorable music for numerous Jess Franco films (FEMALE VAMPIRE, MISS MUERTE) was born 100 years ago today near Paris, France. He also composed music for other director's films including CRIMSON (1975) and other Eurocine coproductions. He was heavily influenced by Debussy and could compose for orchestra, piano, other instruments (listen to his trumpet score for MISS MUERTE) and the human voice. The haunting female vocal accompanied by a piano piece in FEMALE VAMPIRE may be his signature film composition. He began composing film music in 1950 and was a key Jess Franco collaborator for over 30 years.

He also played in supporting roles in Franco's MISS MUERTE (as a police inspector), LA FILLE DE DRACULA (1972), THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER, among others. The best image of him I could find is included above, shot from behind playing the piano as a Nazi officer in Eurocine's ELSA: FRAULEIN SS (1977).

He also composed the jazzy score for Eurocine's CRIMSON, a 1973 film featuring Paul Naschy, among other projects.

The IMDB credits him with composing the scores for 134 films and appearing in 17 as an actor. 

LES DEMONS (1972): Vintage Lobby Cards

Here are some vintage lobby cards for Jess Franco's 1972 nunsploitation epic LES DEMONS/SHE DEMONS/THE DEMONS/DIE NONNEN VON CLICHY. I recently revisited the long 112m 59s. version, the longest extant cut of the film, and it looks stunning on the 2.35:1 X-RATED KULT DVD. It's an excellent print with luminous colors and good sound quality (German language only). You also get the "Director's Cut" (with English and Spanish language options) from 2003 with new music added (not too fond of this edition) and a grindhouse quality German print *85m. I tend to prefer this version of the Judge Jeffries story to the 1968 Harry Alan Towers produced THE BLOODY JUDGE, which has a quality performance by Christopher Lee as the Judge, a higher budget but sometimes "stars" and higher budgets inhibit the director's inspiration.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JESS FRANCO!

I Hope You Have A Wonderful Day!

CINEMADROME

CINEMADROME

CINEMADROME - HORROR RISES FROM SPAIN - Slugs: The Movie (1988) Slugs, muerte viscosa (original title)

CINEMADROME - HORROR RISES FROM SPAIN - Slugs: The Movie (1988) Slugs, muerte viscosa (original title)

QUIZ: In which JESS FRANCO movie does Patty Shepard appear? Follow the above link for a review of JP Simon's 1988 Spanish-US horror hoot featuring Patty Shepard and some other Jess Franco veteran actors.

Orson Welles-Jess Franco TREASURE ISLAND project site

http://www.western-locations-spain.com/andalucia/almeria/playa_sombrerico/index.htm

Above is a link to an interesting website about the vessel on which the Orson Welles-Jess Franco 1964 film version of TREASURE ISLAND was shot. Unfortunately, it was never completed but some scenes were shot in the Alicante harbor. 

I've always wondered what happened to the footage they shot. Was it destroyed or even printed? Is it stored somewhere? I also question if any of it was used in the 1972 Andrea Bianchi directed TREASURE ISLAND, also with Welles. 

It would have been fascinating if they had completed it. We'd have an Orson Welles film directed by Jess Franco! 

Franco's 80s actors: TRINO TRIVES

Among Jess Franco’s actors, the background of Trino Martínez Germán, known as Trino Trives, is similar to that of Antonio de Cabo. Though not primarily an actor, he was nonetheless a man of the stage who additionally gave acting performances in films by Franco – indeed, exclusively in Franco films as he appears to have worked for no other filmmaker in his life. In the world of theatre, while he did occasionally act, he mainly busied himself with direction, set design and the translation into Spanish of plays, not to the exclusion of some poetry translating. In 1998, when his career had lapsed into obscurity, he was cited in the newspaper ABC as one of the most relevant theatrical figures in Spain, where he is essentially remembered as the man who, as a translator and stage director, introduced many Spaniards to the work of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Eugène Ionesco during the sixties, notably with productions of such Beckett plays as Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Happy Days.

The Valencian-born Trives also served, for a while, as the director of the National Theatre in Spain, but he was mostly active either abroad or working in the fringe. It may be that an openly gay man like him had limited chances in the Spain of General Franco, or it might simply have borne on a personal penchant on his part. Whatever the case, he alternated his activity in Madrid with work in Paris, not to mention Portugal and Brazil, both of which were also frequented by his fellow theatre professional Antonio de Cabo, with whom he thus became acquainted; it could well be, in fact, that one of these two men recommended the other to Jess Franco. 

Trives’s first recorded collaboration with Jess Franco came with his work as production designer for Rififí en la ciudad (1963), where he is credited as Trino Martínez-Trives. This was during his period  of greatest prominence in the world of theatre. By the time he returned to Franco’s cinema, in the eighties, Trives’s career was drifting towards a marginal position, in which he was engaged in acting teaching and in fringe, non-profit theatrical productions, with much of his income coming from the royalties of his translations. Franco, for his part, saw possibilities in his appearance, bald and with a Van Dyke beard, and cast him in several roles, often villainous, as in Los blues de la calle Pop and Viaje a Bangkok, ataúd incluido.  

However obscurely, Trino Trives remained active as a stage director towards the end of the century, gaining a 1998 award in Japan for his production of Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano. Interviewed in 2002, Jess Franco said of Trives: “I’ve lost track of him but we’ve always been very, very good friends” (1). Trives, at the time, had been diagnosed with lung cancer and returned to his hometown, namely Orihuela, Alicante. In the summer of 2003, he refused to give an interview, saying: "Forget it. Those who've tried to rehabilitate my name by writing about me have merely screwed up. Anyway, with no sex and no work, death is a relief" (2). He died on 28 September 2003. His ashes lie buried in Montparnasse Cemetery, in Paris.  . 

 Los blues de la calle Pop (Aventuras de Felipe Marlboro, volumen 8) (1983)

                              En busca del dragón dorado (1983)

                                           Bahía blanca (1983)

                          Viaje a Bangkok, ataúd incluido (1985)

                           La chica de los labios rojos (1986)

Dark Mission: Flowers of Evil (1988)

Trino Trives's imdb entry:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0873205/ 

(1) http://members.fortunecity.es/francomania2/entrevista.html

(2) http://www.orihueladigital.es/orihuela/puntos/puntos_2_131003.htm

Text by Nzoog Wahrlfhehen (Special thanks to Ricard Reguant)

CINEMADROME - FAVORITE ACTORS/CULT MOVIE ACTRESSES - VOICES

CINEMADROME - FAVORITE ACTORS/CULT MOVIE ACTRESSES - VOICES

Follow this link and listen to Soledad Miranda's real voice!

THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF

GRITOS EN LA NOCHE/THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF (1962): Following up a Georges Franju centenary visit with LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (1959) with Jess Franco's first horror project, which has a very similar mad plastic surgeon storyline and characters but a totally different tone and aesthetic. I think what really makes THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF (one F) unique is the jarring, abstract music score by J. Pagan and A. Ramirez Angel. Two of the most influential films of the era and both in glorious black and white.

The awful Dr. Orlof (Howard Vernon) obsesses over his disfigured daughter (Diana Lorys).

I'm also looking for the Spanish version of this GRITOS EN LA NOCHE with English subtitles available, if possible. The Image DVD contains the French version with no English subtitles and the English language track. 

AN INTERESTING COMPARISON. EL COLECCIONISTA DE CADAVERES

CAULDRON OF BLOOD aka BLIND MAN'S BLUFF

MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE

EL COLECCIONISTA DE CADAVERES, a Spanish-US coproduction was shot in 1967 by Santos Alcocer (ORGIES OF DR. ORLOFF aka Solo un Ataud) in Southern Spain. Note that the plot point of a sculptor who uses the skeletons of murdered women as armatures (cf MYSTERY OF THE WAS MUSEUM, HOUSE OF WAX, BUCKET OF BLOOD, CRUCIBLE OF TERROR) is the same as Jess Franco's ROTE LIPPEN/TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS filmed the same year and that it was shot using what appears to be the same villa near Malaga which was the setting of Franco's 1982 thriller MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE, sometimes utilizing the same camera set ups. An interesting double bill, ultimately in Jess Franco's favor. Thanks to Francesco Cesare for sending an excellent quality DVD-R of EL CASO DE LAS DOS BELLEZAS which is about 10 m longer than the English language version, TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS and has a different musical score. 

COMING ON DVD IN JUNE 2012 FROM MONDO MACABRO!

I never thought it would happen but MONDO MACABRO has finally put together the Director's Cut of this essential Jess Franco cannibal adventure!

Franco's Spanish voices: DELIA LUNA

The slightly abrasive soprano voice of Adelina Luna Gómez, better known as Delia Luna, was heard in numerous Spanish-dubbed soundtracks produced by Arcofón, Cinearte and Magna, the most frequented sound studios in the career of Jess Franco, in whose long  filmography Luna, who passed away in the late nineties, made numerous incursions over the course of about two decades.

The niece of the noted character actor Manuel Luna, she made her onscreen debut in 1952 and went on to appear in some 18 films over the following decade, almost invariably dubbing herself except for some occasional films whose soundtracks were created in Barcelona. Dark-haired, with a roundish face and a slightly upturned nose, she landed female lead parts in two Antonio Molina vehicles, but was otherwise usually seen in supporting roles, sometimes as nuns. Her career dubbing others started shortly after her screen debut and from 1963 onwards she concentrated almost exclusively on her voice acting, remaining active in the profession until her death c. 1997. In the seventies and eighties, she worked extensively on many TV redubs of classic films whose original Spanish-language soundtracks were unavailable or in poor condition; in this capacity, she was frequently assigned to supply to dub Maureen O’ Hara. Other assignments of hers include several secondary Bond girls (Shirley Eaton, Martine Beswick), some voices for Patty Shepard, the voice of Bárbara Rey whenever Rey herself was not available (including Amando de Ossorio’s El buque maldito), Linda Kelsey in the whole Lou Grant TV show and Linda Grey in the first seasons of Dallas (the role was later taken over by Pilar Gentil, who had dubbed Pilar Cristal in The Awful Dr. Orloff), not to mention what, to many Spaniards, may be her most familiar vocal role on TV, that of Rue McClanahan's character Blanche Devereaux in the sitcom The Golden Girls. To all this one should add occasional jobs involving Anne Bancroft, Claudia Cardinale and Mary Steenburgen, among many other works. 

What follows is a list of several of Delia Luna’s dubbing efforts, including some that may be of interest to readers of the present blog: 

Bibi Andersson in The Seventh Seal

Mary Maude in The House That Screamed (great job)

Imma Ippoliti in Satanik

Samantha Eggar in The Light at the Edge of the World

Marilù Tolo in My Dear Killer

Maria Rohn in Black Beauty

Annalisa Nardi in Murder Mansion

Loreta Tovar in The Return of the Blind Dead

Susan Taff in Curse of the Vampyr

Maria Perschy in Hunchback of the Morgue

Ingrid Garbo in Dracula’s Great Love

Betsabé Ruiz in El espectro del terror

Helga Liné in The Dracula Saga

Susan Taff in Curse of the Vampyr

Patty Shepard in A Man Called Noon

Lone Fleming in A Candle for the Devil

Ewa Aulin in The Legend of Blood Castle

Dianik Zurakowska in The Vampires’ Night Orgy

Lois Chiles in The Great Gatsby

Marcelle Bichette in The Swamp of the Ravens

Julia Saly in Muerte de un quinqui

Bárbara Rey in The Ghost Galleon

Jennifer O'Neill in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

Maria Marx in Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS

Cirsitna Galbó in Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (Galbó often dubbed herself but not here)

Anne Francis in Eugenio Martín’s Pancho Villa

Joan Collins in The Cry of the Wolf

Barbara Bouchet in Don’t Torture a Duckling

Kataharine Ross in The Voyage of the Damned

Sandra Mozarowsky in Night of the Seagulls

Lynne Frederick in The Four of the Apocalypse

Susan Strasberg in The Manitou

Patty Duke in The Swarm

Janet Margolin in Last Embrace

Olivia Hussey in Death on the Nile 

Trish Van Devere in The Changeling

Helen Mirren in The Long Good Friday 

Louise Marleau in Alien Contamination

Alexandra Delli Colli in Dr. Butcher M.D.

Jennifer O’Neil in Scanners

Sabrina Siani in Ator, The Fighting Eagle

Paola Senatore in Lenzi’s Eaten Alive

Cinzia Monreale in The Beyond

Dagmar Lassander in House by the Cemetery

Zora Kerova and Cinzia de Ponti in The New York Ripper

Robin Groves in The Nesting

Lorraine de Selle in Cannibal Ferox

Jennifer Ashley in Inseminoid

Maryam D’Abó in Xtro (the theatrical version, not the DVD dubbing)

Ronee Blakley in Nightmare on Elm Street

Barbara Crampton in Re-Animator

Valentina Cortese in The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (not the original theatrical dub but one made for Spanish TV)

Cassandra Peterson in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

Kelly McGillis in Cat Chaser

Janet Agren in Night of the Sharks

Mary McDonnell in Passion Fish

What follows is a list, possibly incomplete, of Delia Luna’s Jess Franco efforts. It must be said that most of her vocal roles for Franco are in stark contrast with the “wholesome” characters (nuns, nurses, housewives, “good” girls) she would usually play onscreen.

                          Lucía Prado in The Diabolical Dr. Z (1965)

Beni Cardoso in The Girl from Rio (1968)

                                                       
                            Luciana Paluzzi in 99 Women (1968)

Magda the convict (actress unidentified, behind Maria Schell) in 99 Women (1968)

Soledad Miranda in Vampyros Lesbos (1970)

                Mara Lasso in El muerto hace las malestas (1971)

              Eva Garden in La venganza del doctor Mabuse (1971)

               Glenda Allen in Un silencio de tumba (1972)

Inge (actress unidentified) in Los ojos siniestros del doctor Orloff (1973)

              Ada Tauler in Al otro lado del espejo (1973)

                            Evelyne Scott in Night of the Skull (1973)

Alice Arno in Mais qui donc a violé Linda? (1973) (dubbed into Spanish in 1984, for its VHS release)

                     Nadine Pascal in Las chicas de Copacabana (1979)

                       Nadja Gerganoff in Bloody Moon (1981)

                        Raquel Evans in Linda (1981)

                         Andrea Guzón in Sadomania (1981)

                        Analía Ivars in Juego sucio en Casablanca (1984)

                Ana María Espejo in Viaje a Bangkok, atáud incluido (1985)


                    Stéphane Audran in Faceless (1988)



                      Carole Keeper in Fall of the Eagles (1990)



Link to Delia Luna's imdb entry:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0526018/

Link to an online list (incomplete) of Delia Luna's vocal filmography:

http://www.eldoblaje.com/datos/Fichaactordoblaje.asp?Id=1595

Delia Luna and Manolo Morán (of Franco's 1960 Labios rojos) in Luis Lucia's Aeropuerto (1953)

Delia Luna (right) and Elena Espejo in Jerónimo Mihura's Maldición gitana (1953)

Delia Luna with Francisco Javier Martín "Blaki" in Fernando Palacios's Marisol rumbo a Río (1963)

They've all done Jess Franco! Delia Luna (far right), probably in the 1980s, at the Arcofón studios, in the company of with three other voice actors: Rosa María Belda, Jesús Nieto and, on the far left, Juan Antonio Castro (Remember him in Amando de Ossorio's Night of the Seagulls? He was Teddy the misfit)


Voice Samples of Delia Luna:

- D.L.'s voice for Soledad Miranda in Vampyros Lesbos:
http://www.4shared.com/music/05JK_F9U/delsoledad.html?

- D.L.'s  voice for Evelyne Scott in Night of the Skull:
http://www.4shared.com/music/nQupgd9H/delia_luna3.html?

- D.L.'s voice for Raquel Evans in Linda:
http://www.4shared.com/music/y_YU7dWT/delraquel.html?

- D.L.'s voice for Susan Taff in José María Elorrieta's Curse of the Vampyr:
http://www.4shared.com/music/3H_cj7PI/delia_luna.html?



Text by Nzoog Wahrlfhehen