JUNGLE OF FEAR (1993): The secret writing of Jess Franco, Part 1.

The article below is (C) Dirk Rijmenants- 2004-2024 In 1840, Edgar Allan Poe wrote an article in the Alexander's Weekly Messenger, a Philadelphia newspaper where he challenged the readers to submit their own substitution ciphers which he would decrypt. Initially, he received cryptograms from around Philadelphia, but soon after, they came in from all over the United States. He published many of the cryptograms and their solutions in fifteen numbers of the Alexander's Weekly Messenger. The next year, Poe published his essay called "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine, in which he commented on the response to his cipher challenge (see download below). The essay also gave birth to the famous quote that "human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve". In the 19th century, most people considered secret writing and cryptography as a mysterious esoteric art, and Poe had sparked a great interest in cryptography among the general public. Thanks to Poe's publications, cryptogram puzzles became popular in newspapers and magazines. Inspired by the success of the cryptograms and the interest in his essay, he decided to write a short story that involved cryptography. After writing The Gold-Bug, he submitted the story to a writing contest, winning the grand prize and $100. The story was published on June 21, 1843, in Philadelphia's Dollar Newspaper. It is regarded as the first important publication in popular non-technical literature that incorporated cryptography in its story line. The Gold-Bug contains a detailed description of how to solve a cryptogram using letter frequency analysis. The story was an instant success and helped popularize cryptography in the 19th century. Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold-Bug is as iconic to cryptography in literature as David Kahn’s book The Codebreakers is to historical publications on the subject. It became one of his most read and best-known stories. Many readers have set their first steps in cryptology after reading Poe’s story and some even became important codebreakers, such as the renowned cryptologist William Friedman. Many writers have been inspired by Poe to include ciphers and coded messages in their own books. Poe is also considered one of the pioneers of detective and mystery stories. The Story Top The main character in the story is William Legrand, a man who lives at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina, to escape from his misfortunes. Legrand discovers a brilliant gold-colored bug but lends it out to someone else. When his friend, the narrator of the story, visits Legrand, he is told about the rare bug with a death's-head on its back, and Legrand draws him a picture of the bug on a piece of paper. A short while later, Legrand asks his friend to come visit him immediately. Upon the friend's arrival, the strangely behaving Legrand asks his friend to follow him on an expedition into the woods near some rocks, to search for a treasure. Afraid that Legrand has lost his mind, the friend decides to accompany him out of concern for Legrand's health. As it turns out, Legrand accidentally had discovered a secret message in invisible writing on the paper he used to draw the bug. Legrand later explains his friend how he found the message and how he was able to decrypt the message that started his quest for a hidden treasure. The cryptogram, as discovered by Legrand: Image by Dirk Rijmenants - Cipher Machines & Cryptology You can download a printable version in txt format. The Gold-Bug is not only an exciting story about the discovery of an old treasure, but also a great introduction to cryptography and codebreaking. It tickles the reader's curiosity and Poe gives a detailed description of how to decipher the cryptogram. While doing so, he also provides the solution. However, deciphering the message yourself is even more exciting than reading how Legrand did it in the story. Can I challenge you, just as Poe did, to decrypt Legrand’s message, composed more than 160 years ago? Decrypting the Message Top Rather than just reading Poe’s story, I will show you the technique and give you the chance to do it all by yourself. It might be useful to read The Gold-Bug first, as the story might provide information that will help to solve the cryptogram but read only to where the cryptogram appears. Don't cheat by reading or peeking any further! Don't search the Internet for Poe or The Gold-Bug, as this will also spoil the fun. The message is encrypted by mono-alphabetic substitution, a cipher where each letter of the alphabet is replaced by other symbol or letter. We can calculate all possible combinations for the 26 letters of the alphabet. The first letter is substituted by one of 26 symbols or letters, including itself. The second by one of the 25 remaining symbols or letters, and so on. The calculation 26 x 25 x 24…x3 x2 x 1 or 26! gives us a total of 403,291,461,126,605,635,584,000,000 different ways to replace 26 letters by another symbol or letter. How on earth could we possibly decipher such a cryptogram? For centuries, substitution ciphers were regarded as unbreakable...but it is easier than it looks. Although there are trillions of ways to allocate a set of symbols to letters, there are only a few ways to combine vowels and consonants in a natural language. Strict linguistic rules determine which letter combinations are possible and which are not. The syntax prescribes how words, and their order, are combined into a sentence, and conjugation rules determine how verbs are written. When we substitute letters with symbols, those symbols still follow all these rules and therefore create patterns that we can detect. Just as certain letter combinations are impossible (ZLG, XOJ, KFN,...), so will certain symbols avoid one another. Just as one vowel can only fit in a given set of consonants (THR?ST, L?GHT, ?NSW?R,...) so will certain symbols attract each other. But where do we start? The mystery weapon to solve our message is letter frequency analysis, the basis of all codebreaking. Each language has its own typical distribution of letters in a text. In English, the letter e is by far the dominant letter, with an average of 12.7 percent. If we locate some of the most frequent vowels or consonants in the ciphertext, or find recurring symbol combinations, then the rules of the language will give us strong leads to the words they are used in, or the letter they represent. Below, you'll find the letters of the alphabet, ordered from most frequent at the left to least frequent at the right (Poe used an older and slightly different frequency table). E T A O I N S R H L D C U M F P G W Y B V K X J Q Z For Legrand’s message, start by taking a sheet with squares and write down the secret message with a pen. Leave some blank rows between each row of the message, to write your solution underneath the symbols with a pencil (easily corrected with a gum). Count how many times each of the symbols appears in the cryptogram and write down the results in a table, ordered from most to least frequent. You will see that one of the symbols clearly stands out. This is the first major clue. That most frequent symbol represents without doubt the most frequent letter of the alphabet. Write your first results underneath the according symbols on your message sheet. Next, you try to spot recurring combinations of symbols. The most used words in English, in order of frequency, are THE, OF, AND, TO and IN. Therefore, you must search for identical combinations of symbols that contain the most frequent letter you already found. You should spot each THE quite easily. If so, you have discovered the solution for two more letters that are used frequently. Make yourself a second table with all the symbols and their corresponding letters you already found. By now, you should be able to find more and more letters by completing fragments. If, for instance, you find a fragment T?EE, it is not hard to imagine what should follow the letter T. Vowels twins (AA, EE, OO…) are common but not that many different words contain such pairs. Try to find those words. If you can’t see it immediately, try all letters of the alphabet until you get something readable. Each new letter will help you to reconstruct more and more fragments. Be patient. It could take some time before a word appears in front of you, but once you have four or five letters, you’re in a straight line to the finish. Good luck...and make sure you don't get bitten by the bug! Note: in the original edition, one symbol "(" was not printed near the end of the message, right after ‡9;48; although Legrand describes just that missing symbol to assist in finding a word. Since the story refers to that symbol, it is unlikely that it was omitted on purpose and probably got lost during the publishing. Downloads Top Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold-Bug PDF Format The original story A few Words on Secret Writing PDF Format Poe's essay on cryptography with his comments on the 1840 cipher challenge More on Manual Ciphers Top Hand Ciphers Various techniques to encrypt messages with pen and paper. More About Poe (offsite, opens in new tab) Top The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore containing the collected works of Poe. NSA - Signal Corps Bulletin No 97, 1939 PDF Format extract pdf p43-55, renowned cryptologist William Friedman on Edgar Allan Poe (full document) The Gold Bug mp3 on BookAudio.online read by Vincent Price. The Gold-Bug Audio Book on Youtube read by Vincent Price." © Dirk Rijmenants 2004. Last changes: 13 January 2023

The above article is an ideal way to explore the numerous Jess Franco film adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story, written to popularize what was then called "secret writing", cryptology and cipher writing which depends on the frequency of certain ciphers. When one studies the Franco's massive filmography one is immediately struck how the writer director uses the same plots/plot elements over and over, repurposing them to fit into various genre classifications. The various adventures of Doctor Orloff, Eugenie, Linda, etc. THE GOLD BUG is a story of a search for gold undertaken by adventurers off the coast of South Carolina. Poe's cipherchallenge was taken up by the world post haste of the publication of the story, which won first prize plus $100 dollars in Philadelphia's Dollar Newspaper. Encrypted messages, of course, become crucial communications in the contexts of espionage and warfare. Numerous Franco releases incorporate THE GOLD BUG in their story and structure, LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS and L'ESCLAVA BLANCA to name a few. As it turned out, JUNGLE OF FEAR, an unfinished 1993 Spanish US production, was his most ambitious attempt to adapt the story. The children's film adventure EN BUSCA DEL DRAGON DORADO (1982) features neglected children as searchers for a treasure which is mapped by a parchment printed with hidden hieroglyphs which became visible when held over a flame. In the case of this film mystical Kung Fu plays a key element in the mise-en-scene and advertising. As we shall see Franco utilized the story and it's structure as an intergral representation of his search for cinema.

LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS (1981)

LOS BLUES DE LA CALLE POP (.... AVENTURAS DE FELIPE MALBORO, VOLUMEN 8) 1983

Los Blues De La Calle Pop 1983 80 MINUTES Galan Video (Spain) European Trash Cinema (U.S. import). Written, Photographed and Directed by Jess Franco. Cast: Robert Foster (Antonio Mayans), Candy Coster (Lina Romay), Jose Llamas, Trino Treves, Mary Sad, Analia Ivars, Jess Franco, Augustin Garcia. -------------------------------------------------------------------- (a.k.a. AVENTURAS DE FELIPE MALBORO, VOLUMEN 8) Felipe Marlboro, ideally incarnated by Franco mainstay Antonio Mayans ("Robert Foster"), is a seedy private investigator who takes up a missing person case in punk infested Shit City, a sub-Fellini nightclub world in which all the males seem to hang out in a smoky bar decorated with posters of Bogart and Mae West, waiting for trouble to erupt. The residents of this corrupt town all look like they base their fashion sense on MTV. The men look like either Sid Vicious or a member of A Flock of Seagulls, and the women sport the slutty attire and pouty sexuality of Robert Palmer's female back-up in his music video "Addicted to Love." Likewise, (as the visual style of the film is a whacked-out array of shimmering primary colors and weird camera angles.

The plot has Marlboro enlisting the aid of piano player Sam Chesterfield (played by Jess Franco himself) in an all out effort to bust the town's drug and dirty money kingpin Saul Winston (Trino Trives). This witty and visually striking neo-noir parody is one of Franco's personal favorites, and it's easy to see why. Almost every shot in the film is a loving homage to 1940s private eye cinema (such as THE MALTESE FALCON and THE BIG SLEEP) filtered through a 1980s MTV-style lens. It's also retro-punk and looks forward to more familiar cine-comic books, such as SIN CITY. Franco has stated that he attempted to sustain a comic-book look in many of his genre efforts. He totally succeeded in this film as he did in his amusing 1967 spy spoof, LUCKY THE INSCRUTABLE. He also pulled it off in his 1971 answer to a 1940s Universal Pictures monster rally, DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN. Our guide through the punk nightmare world of POP STREET BLUES is the director's trusted actor-collaborator-friend Antonio Mayans, who is the perfect fall guy in Franco's off-world of pimps, whores, killers, and thugs. Sexy Analia Ivars makes for a perfect lean and mean femme fatale.

Franco stages the well worn private eye cliches in his usual iconoclastic fashion. For instance, when Marlboro gets a beating for asking too many questions, the guy who kicks the living daylights out of him is a flashy flamenco dancer who performs his dance steps in between each punch and kick. Most amusing of all is the twisted ending, which finds Marlboro seduced by the woman who has set him up for extinction.

Franco adorns this very personal project with a quick-paced editing style, brightly colored comic book frames, seedy locations shot through diffusion lenses, and a rousing New Orleans style jazz score by longtime Franco friend-collaborator Fernando Garcia Morcillo. LA BLUES DE LA CALLE POP is a continual delight to see and hear. Franco's experimental deployment of colored filters is especially interesting (as is Franco's stylistically similar 1986 punk-Eurospy adventure ESCLAVAS DEL CRIMEN) and makes me wonder why he didn't continue in this style. Instead, his next several films (leaving aside such purely commercial projects as FALO CREST and FACELESS), such as DARK MISSION (1987), ESMERALDA BAY (1989), FALL OF THE EAGLES and DOWNHEAT HEAT (1990), mostly display much more conventional visual aesthetics with very few, if any, of the familier Fracno "touches".

Seen in today's cult-music/movie friendly age, LOS BLUES DE LA CALLE POP could be designated as "retro-punk" in style, tone and theme. One gets the feeling that Muddy Waters would have understood it. There's even a touch of CASABLANCA, including the iconic Bogart poster from that 1943 classic. With the director himself as the reliable piano man, Sam Chesterfield. One waits for someone to say, "Play it again, Jess." LOS BLUES A}LA CALLE POP...certainly deserves at least a

Blu-ray release for the Franco collectors. (C)Robert Monell, 2024

An Interview with Paul Muller/EUGENIE DE SADE

This interview was conducted in 2005. Paul Muller passed away in September, 2016. I thank him for his patience with my questions.

(C) Robert Monell

Patience is the term which comes to mind first when attempting to describe the character of Paul Muller, tempered by a distinct Swiss formality which, in time, dissolves to reveal a very warm, kind human being who has seen it all, been there and done that, but remains humble about his own considerable gifts. There's a certain very low key frustration about his career, a certain wistfulness and sadness which is very difficult to describe in written words. Like his layered performances, he simultaneously and subtly, very subtly, suggests all the burdens and possibilities of human creativity in a world and business where extraordinary sensitivity can be a stimulus or a curse... Paul Muller (b. 1923 in Switzerland) has appeared in well over 200 films since 1948 and still has an agent. He has been in Hollywood mainstream productions, obscure European genre films, TV dramas and has been a recognizable visage in Italian Cinefantastique from the seminal I VAMPIRI (1957) to the not so hot GATE OF HELL, the eminently forgettable Umberto Lenzi satanic adventure from 1990 where he appears very briefly as a murderous monk stalking scientists in a haunted cavern. Our conversation covered the films he made with Jess Franco from 1968 to 1975. "Pronto!" the voice was both high pitched and full of undefined emotion. Paul Muller speaks VERY loudly and clearly and shifts immediately to perfect English when I indicate I can't speak Italiano. But he can't understand a word I am saying... I report our conversations from the outset to give a feeling of the man himself and perhaps for entertainment value, as it seemed that at times Paul Muller was interviewing me:

PM: "Where are you from?" RM: New York, well upstate New York. PM: You have an American accent which is hard to understand. RM: Yes, I've been told that. I'm sorry. PM: No, don't be sorry. You'll have to speak slowly. RM: I am writing a book about Jess Franco and wanted to interview you about your work in his films. PM: You are writing a script about me? RM: A book about Jess Franco. PM: Ah, yes, Jessie. How old is he? RM: He's about 75 now. PM: Ah, that's younger than me [laughs]. Is he still making films. RM: Yes, he just completed one. PM: Does he still make them in the same way? RM: Well, he still makes them quickly and inexpensively and in his own way. PM: I thought so. What do you want to know about the films I made with him? RM: Well, first of all, I'd like to say I'm an admirer of your extensive acting career. You are a very impressive actor. PM: I don't understand. RM: Well, I meant you are very good in all the films I have seen you in, but let me ask you about Jess Franco. PM: What years do you want to know about? What exactly do you want to know? RM: About your feelings about him as a director and the experiences you had while making these films. PM: Jessie could have been a very good director. But he was never prepared. I think if Jessie had taken time to prepare, to work on the scripts he could have been a good director. But he never had the time or the money. These films never, ever had a script. There were all just ideas he had. He had plenty of ideas, but you need more than ideas. He had good ideas but they were never developed properly. He never shot with a script and he was trying to get the production money as they were being shot. He was very busy and the films were lacking many things. RM: So, there was never any finished script or secured completion funds on ANY of the films of his you were in? PM: No, never. That was the problem. RM: Let's start at the beginning. I believe your first film for him was VENUS IN FURS in 1968? Do you remember that one? At this point Mr Muller excuses himself and when he returns appears to be reading something which he often consults during the conversation. PM: No, I only remember the years and the titles Jess called them by when we were shooting. RM: That one was also called BLACK ANGEL or Paroxismus... in Italy, I believe. PM: No. I was in DE SADE 70 first then THE TRIAL OF THE WITCHES and THE NIGHT HAS EYES then DRACULA and EUGENIE. Later, in Germany I was in DR JEKYLL AND MRS HYDE and AKASAVA. RM: I'm trying to get a correct chronology and I appreciate it that you have records. When was VAMPYROS LESBOS shot? With Soledad Miranda. PM: I don't know that title. I made a film Jessie called UNDER THE SIGN OF THE VAMPYRE with her in Germany and Spain and then JULIETTE. RM: Right, that's it. But lets go back. PM: I'll try my best. RM: Thanks. Now you don't seem to remember VENUS IN FURS but.... PM: No, I remember DE SADE 70 in 1969 as the first with Maria Rohm, Jack Taylor and Christopher Lee. RM: OK, good, that's got a different title now, EUGENIE... HER JOURNEY... but was DE SADE 70 the shooting title? PM: Yes, that was shot in Spain.These first films I made with Jessie were shot partially in Madrid, then in Barcelona and someplace else in Southern Spain. RM: THE BLOODY JUDGE was shot partially in Portugal. Do you remember that? And where, exactly, in Southern Spain? PM: All I remember is in southern Spain. RM: Do you recall the cast of DE SADE 70: Christoper Lee or the lead, Marie Liljedahl? PM: I don't know who Marie Liljedahl is. RM: She played the leading character, Eugenie. PM: I don't remember her. I remember being there with the cast who were all very nice, that's all. These films were made very quickly and sometimes he would make two films at the same time. And later they were all made in a row, one after another. RM: I understand. What came next? PM: Then there came THE NIGHT HAS EYES with Diana Lorys and Jack Taylor. RM: Good, you remember the exact casting. That's also known as NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT. Diana Lorys is very good in that one. PM: I don't remember her at all. That was also shot very quickly in Spain. RM: How quickly. PM: Maybe a week, maybe less. I don't remember much about that one. RM: THE BLOODY JUDGE and EL CONDE DRACULA had more prominent casts including Christopher Lee. Were they bigger budgeted? PM: I remember Soledad Miranda from DRACULA, THE VAMPIRE. RM: I wanted to ask you about her. PM: She died in a car accident. She could have been a great actress, a big star, if she had lived. RM: Mr. Muller, which films do you remember the most about and which actors? PM: EUGENIE, made in 1970 with Miranda, then UNDER THE SIGN OF THE VAMPYRE and DR JEKYLL AND MRS HYDE, also with her. She was called Susan Korda in those films. Then, later I made AKASAVA with her in Germany. Part of DR JEKYLL was also shot in Germany with Horst Tappert. Earlier I made SEX CHARADE with her and Jack Taylor. RM: OK, let's go back to SEX CHARADE and EUGENIE. Were these the first of the series of films you made with her in 1970? PM: Yes, I think so. But these two were made almost at the same time. I remember EUGENIE was a good film which could have been a very good film if he had more time to prepare the script. This was shot all in Germany. RM: In Berlin. PM: Correct. Also shot very quickly. I remember Jessie was writing all the lines on the set for the next scene as we were shooting. We would take a half an hour break and then shoot the scene he had just written. RM: Dialogue and blocking? PM: Yes, everything was written just before it was filmed. RM: Talk about the day to day filming of EUGENIE. Was it all hectic, as you have suggested.? PM: Yes, we didn't have any preparation or any rehearsal time. And no money for anything. It was all made up on the spot. As I said, Jess was writing as he was shooting.. He would be dictating lines which we would shoot shortly a half hour later. He was never sure about anything, never sure about thematic things. He had very good ideas but never had the time to work on them. RM: Was EUGENIE filmed MOS? And what language did you speak your lines in? PM: EUGENIE was shot in English. Miranda and I were given our lines by Jessie in English and we spoke them in English. They recorded our dialogue in English. RM: That surprises me. I thought it may have been filmed in French. PM: No, Jess spoke to me in French on the set. He spoke in German, French, Italian on the set to the crew when giving directions. I spoke to Jess in French and I spoke in Italian on the set to everyone else, but my lines were always given and delivered in English. RM: "Given" by whom? PM: Jessie, he always gave the lines in English but other directors to me in French. RM: It sounds like the Tower of Babel? How did you commnunicate with Soledada Miranda? Did she speak English or Italian? PM: No, she spoke just Spanish. But I talked to here in Italian, which she seemed to understand. There wasn't any trouble between us. She just spoke her lines of dialogue in Engllish. She was good, as I said, and would have become a better actress had she lived RM: On the EUGENIE set, did she speak her lines phonetically? PM: Yes, she just repeated the way they sounded in English if that's what you are asking. RM: She's very good in that. What did you think of her performance? PM: She was very good, she was a very good actress in that, not timid. RM: Can you discuss her as a person? How was she offset? PM: A nice person, a very good working partner. Very friendly. RM: Was VAMPYROS LESBOS filmed right after EUGENIE. PM: Yes, if you mean UNDER THE SIGN OF THE VAMPYRE. We shot that in Germany and Spain. RM: And Istanbul. PM: No, just Germany and Spain. RM: There's a lot of scenes set and shot on location in Istanbul. PM: I haven't seen it and I didn't go there then. This and DR JEKYLL were shot close together in Germany and Spain. Fred Williams was also in DR JEKYLL and Howard Vernon. RM: What do you remember about them? PM: I just have it written down that they were there. I don't remember them. RM: DR JEKYLL also has a different title now, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY about a Doctor who is driven to suicide and how his wife avenges him. PM: Yes, that was called DR JEKYLL on the set by Jessie. You must understand I had forgotten about these films until you called. Look, they all could have been good films! But I keep telling you that he didn't take the time or didn't have the time to prepare or develop them or film them. I really can't tell you anymore than that, but thank you for asking about them. RM: I wanted to ask you about the others.... You spoke of JULIETTE... PM: Yes, that was filmed by never released. I think it was left unfinished at the time because of money problems. That's all I remember. RM: You also made one with Christina Von Blanc called VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD in English. Do you remember her or that film? PM: No, I don't remember her, I only remember making one called THE NIGHT THE STARS CRIED in Spain after the ones with Soledad Miranda. I don't recall anything about filming it, though. That's the last one I remember. I apologize but I think I have given you what you wanted to know and I'm sorry I didn't understand you at first. I wish I remembered more, but these were made many decades ago. Then Mr. Muller said "Goodbye", a final bow shaded with that mysterious mixture of wistfulness, wisdom, sadness and humanity which we all remember from his many cinema incarnations. Below is my first impression of EUGENIE DE SADE, published 25 years ago in the international website, DARK WATERS: 1970 85 MINUTES -BLUE UNDERGROUND- DIRECTED BY JESS FRANCO WITH: SOLEDAD MIRANDA, PAUL MULLER, ANDRE MONTCALL, GRETA SCHMIDT, ALICE ARNO, KARL HEINZ MANNCHEN, JESS FRANCO -------------------------------------------------------------------- (a.k.a. EUGENIE; EUGENIE DE FRANVAL; DESADE 2000; EUGENIE DE SADE)

EUGENIE DE SADE is the story of Eugenie Radeck, the young daughter of a writer of erotic literature (Paul Muller). It is told from Eugenie's deathbed, as she recounts a tragic encounter with criminality. She is persuaded by her twisted father to first enter into a forbidden relationship with her, and the hook up with a film director, Tanner (Jess Franco), which leads to a no-holds-barred murder spree of various "loose women." One of these women is an S&M prostitute (played by Alice Arno in her first appearance in a Franco film) who they first photograph and then strangle in a sleazy Brussells bordello. This outrageous scene mimics the filmmaking process itself, with the father acting as director and the daughter as lead actress/murderess. Reality and illusion constantly blur in this film, as in Franco's somewhat similiar SUCCUBUS (1967), which was shot on some of the same locations in Berlin. Eventually, Muller brutally murders Miranda in a fit of rage, and then committing ritual suicide by disemboweling himself. All of this is watched over by Tanner, who hears Eugenie's last confession, and the film's last shot of him, looking mournfully down at the dead woman, is one of Franco's finest moments as both actor and director. (Miranda, who was killed in a car accident only months after appearing in this film, made several other erotic thillers and horror titles with Franco.) She is the film's tragic victim, albeit complicit in her father's crimes. Muller is the Sadean protagonist par excellence. An intelligent, menacing figure, an auteur of Sadism who makes films of his crimes, only of which is watched by Franco in the film's opening credits. Franco himself stands in for the viewer, who brings a rational point of view into the otherwise obsessive mise-en-scene. EUGENIE DE SADE benefits from the powerful chemistry between Muller and Miranda, two of the most instense performers in Franco's acting stable. They are at the top of their game here, with Muller especially effective as the sinister, tormented sadist. Franco based his screenplay on Sade's "Eugenie de Franval", and it remains the closest any film has come to capturing the spiraling contradictions of Sadean philosophy, as well as the dry wit of the notorious author. An jazz infused score by spaghetti western composer Bruno Nicolai (who also scored Franco's EL CONDE DRACULA (1969) evokes a bittersweet mood, which often swings unexpectedly into a Euro-pop female vocal. The Video Search of Miami video version of this movie is incorrectly listed as DESADE 70, which was an alternate title for another Franco Sade adaptation, EUGENIE, THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION (1969).

Although still mentally focused when I spoke with him, Muller had forgotten VENUS IN FURS (1969) as his first appearance in a Jess Franco film. He had also forgotten DOWNTOWN (1975), his final collaboration with Franco, produced by Erwin C. Dietrich. He did mention A VIRGIN FOR ST. TROPEZ as a Eurocine project which started shooting right after the completion of THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA (1973). He did remember working in Spain (Portugal?) with Franco on THE NIGHT THE STARS CRIED (aka VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD). He also mentioned that A VIRGIN FOR ST. TROPEZ and being directed by Franco in his scenes for that film. He noted there were other Eurocine directors working on the shoot simultaneously when he and Franco arrived. Several interiors familiar from previous Franco films are featured in this production, credited to Eurocine director/editor/screenwriter Georges Friedland, who would to on to script Franco's DARK MISSION (1987) and THE FALL OF THE EAGLES (1990). The settings in question are seen in Franco's 1974 EXORCISM and the basement torture chamber setting previously used in Franco's LA COMTESSE NOIRE and HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA (both 1973). Although it is unlikely that Franco directed the entirely directed A VIRGIN FOR ST. TROPEZ, Franco was obviously tapped by Eurocine to lend a hand in this film's production.

The images below are all from A VIRGIN FOR ST. TROPEZ:

Thanks to Kit Gavin for helping me locate Paul Muller. (C) Robert Monell, 2024

Jess Franco's Digital Apocalypse, Part 2: FLORES DES PERVERSION (2003)

"Forewarned, said she, of all that was destined to take place at the home of the libertine to whom I was being sent, I dressed myself as a boy, and as I was only twenty, with pretty hair and a pretty face, that costume very well became me."

The above quote, from Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom (1785), is a good example of the writing style of "The Divine Marquis", matter-of-fact, formally stylized with his droll pen. Throughout the epic Sade favors a dry, verbose approach, detailing clothing, rituals, lists of torments and witty conversations between the libertines, the narrators and the victims. Repititive, static and episodic, constantly interrupted with sidebar stories, he is less interested in narrative, pacing and psychology than an obsessive, episodic, irony-rich tapestry of perversion from contemporary taboo. One can easily see from a few sentences in any work of Sade why he would immediately appeal to the filmmaker Jess Franco. Especially the Franco who directed the torture sequence in THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS and the entirety of such films as NECROMOMICON/SUCCUBUS (1967) and such Franco adaptations of Sade as EUGENIE DE SADE, PLAISIR A TROIS and EUGENIE, UNA HISTORIA DE UNA PERVERSION (1980).

"I abhor nature. I detest her because I know her well." This Sadean statement, spoken by the female narrator of Franco's HELTER SKELTER (2002), is repeated again and again throughout its length. A film's female voice addressing a female nature. The Francoverse has been steadily female since his very first feature, WE ARE 18 (1959). If anything, Franco's universe becomes more female as his career progresses in digital. It's no accident that Sade's epic novels, JUSTINE (1791) and JULIETTE (1797), both are built around female protagonists. Franco first read Sade at a young age and it stayed with him throughout his 60 years career. HELTER SKELTER quickly shifts downward into a blurry, slow motion,d magenta and citron tinged fantasia between Lina Romay and a partner for the first half of its runtime. The players are always 100 percent involved in the softcore erotica but nonetheless are also aware of the camera's presence and often gaze at the viewer in the midst of ecstasy. That gaze, making the film interactive, is crucial to the director, he paces his film with regular interactive moments in the midst of his delirious mise-en-scene. It's as if to say directly to the viewer that this is not representational cinema. There's also, as in FLORES DE PERVERSION, a naked, bound male, waiting to be abused, hanging up with a view of the coast through a large window. This film was a warning directly from Sade: "Take me as I am, for I shall not change."

*FLORES DE PERVERSION is based on the posthumous Sade text "Augustine de villeblanche, ou le stratageme de l'amour: HISTORIETTES: CONTES ET FABLIAUS de Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, marquis de Sade, publies pour la premiere fois sur les manuscrits autographs inedits par Maurice Heine. A Paris, pour les members de la Societe du Roman Philosophique, 1926. 4to , 340 pages. 

A Manacoa Film Production Filmed in Malaga, Spain PAL R2 X-Rated-Kult DVD Spanish & German language options with removable English subtitles. Photo Gallery Original Trailer X-Rated Kult Trailers.  

 Mme Villeblanche (Lina Romay) operates an upscale prostitution empire located in a office tower somewhere in Spain. She spends most of her days frolicking in bed with her assistant (Rachael Sheppard), occasionally interrupted by business calls on her cellphone. Two new hookers are hired to lure clients into the torture chambers of Mme... a one-way trip for the customers. Jess Franco has returned to Sade again and again since JUSTINE in 1968. That adaptation of Sade's infamous 1791 novel was scripted by producer Harry Alan Towers, this 21st Century shot-on-Hi-Def direct-to-DVD item, along with its 2005 [onscreen (C) 2003] sister project FLORES DE PASION, has yet to make it to R1 Blu ray. 

 Just as he brought Sade into the 20th Century with works like EUGENIE DE SADE (1970), PLAISIR A TROIS (1973) and EUGENIE...THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION (1970), he's now brought him into the early 21st Century, an age of cellphones, shaved pubic hair and the Internet. This is a situational rather than "plot" film, with Fata Morgana, Carmen Montes acting out bondage, whipping, castration scenarios which climax with sexual cannibalism under the direction of Franco's Princess of Eroticism, Lina Romay. 

This isn't a "nice" movie; approach with caution. Once again, it's all shot in anonymous apartments, hotel rooms and what looks like a brick-walled parking garage... minimalist indoor settings in which the "perverted" tableau unfold. The pubic shaving, lesbian groping and whippings go on and on until "duration" becomes just a term. Nothing often happens in Jess Franco films. That's not a typo. There's no fresh air in this perverse, enclosed universe. Sunlight is replaced by onscreen production lamps, pink, green, yellow electronica and colorized digital noise. We don't even have the comfort of continuous full color, sometimes the image turns b&w, with blood-red highlights. 

 A nude man is crucified upside down and another (Ezequiel Cohen) is flayed, then castrated before his [obviously fake] genitalia are eaten by the hungry whores of the Mme... It's an artificial paradise, a vivid, unapologetic alternate reality presented for your consideration.... the Divine Marquis would be proud.

Obsessively interactive with the ladies teasing the camera lens and the viewer beyond while the Franco favorite "Life is Shit" (THE MIDNIGHT PARTY) and other familiar JF tunes are heard on the soundtrack as if caught in a maddening loop. Will the future be a world without men, just languid, intelligent women who control finances and themselves and enjoy using sex as power? Is Jess wanting us to squirm amidst the sexual terrors? It's disturbing, amusing, boring, fascinating all at the same time. I changed my mind about it. You might hate it. You might, like myself, be unnerved to watch our blissful daughters of Sappho, their faces stained with a jet of the recently castrated victim's blood, look into the camera with an evil smile and assert, "And you...will be next." They really knows how to hurt a guy, at least in the mise en scene of movie reality. And it is only a movie.

You get the distinct impression that Franco wants you to take it personally and will break up laughing when you do. It will be knowing, conspiratorial laughter. He wants you to have an internal debate.   As I stated on my FACEBOOK homepage, I didn't enjoy it on first viewing. The film is not afraid to look us in the eye and laugh at our expectations.

But seeing it again, well... let's just say it takes repeat viewings, if you can take it ... and that's a Big if! Thanks to Francesco Cesari for suggesting I might want to think twice.... More Franco Digital Apocalypse comming in the future. (C) Robert Monell 2024

Jess Franco's XXX Files: PHOLLASTIA (1987)

Jess Franco’s XXX Files: PHOLLASTIA (1987)/FELLATIONS SAUVAGES (French video title)

Directed by «Betty Carter» [Jess Franco & Lina Romay]/Screenplay by Chuck Evans [Jess Franco], Lulu Lavere [Lina Romay]/DP: Terry De Corsia [Jess Franco]/Music: Daniel J. White/Editor: Jess Franco/Produced by Phalos Films-Madrid/83m 15s/Video:Fil a’ Films [France] Additional cast: Carlos Quiroga, Bruce Leduc-rn A. Bartolos Velasco, Rex Robinson-rn C. Gonzalez Ordi, Traci King-rn Elisa Mateo, John Olms-rn Saez Montoro. [Credits from OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO which also lists an alternate French video title, Fellations Sauvages] I recently rewatched this 1987 hardcore porn film from Jess Franco, made in tandem with another Franco hardcore (FALO CREST) which also parodied a popular American television series (FALCON CREST). Produced by «Phalos Films», Madrid, this manages to look rather upscale for a Jess Franco hardcore. Hiring a cast of experienced Spanish hardcore professionals and featuring some gleaming, mirrored sets, this shot-in-Benidorm sex comedy parody of the 1980s ABC primetime soap opera, DYNASTY (1981-1989), has some interesting images and is staged with the kind of care a slightly more than average budget(for a hardcore porn film) allowed. This parody of the American hit television series DYNASTY was, like FALO CREST, produced by PHALOS FILMS, Madrid, likely largely funded by profits made by the series of hardcore sex films Franco and co. made between 1985 and 1987.

The Carrington family, including the cheating husband Blake and his scheming wife, are at odds over cosmetic expenditures. In the meantime their dysfunctional spawn go their own sex soaked ways. It’s wall-to-wall hardcore orgies of handjobs, blowjobs, group sex and more sex. Franco pulls his camera back more than usual but some of the clever verbal puns were lost on me since my French is nil and I only had access to a poor dub of the ancient French video. It all suggests that by the late 1980s the hardcore novelty was beginning to wear on Spanish clientele as well as Jess Franco. However, at least it does not all seem to be shot in hotel rooms as do some of Franco's non-hardcore 1980s features. Sarcastically referencing DYNASTY’s Joan Collins, Lina Romay is billed as «Jean Collins» and along with Jose Miguel Garcia Marfa (EL MIRON Y LA EXHIBICIONISTA-1985) are the only faces familiar to me in this show. But this is a film not really interested in….. faces. The costumes look surprising upscale given the genre. Apparently, the money spent on the cast and production made sure that it wasn’t profitable after the box-office was exhausted.*

Treating this as a full feature production with a higher budget and pro porn players to be paid backfired on Franco according to Antonio Mayans, who declined to be in this film and FALOCREST, another hardcore parody shot back-to-back in Benidorm, but acted as the film’s sales agent in the Barcelona market. According to Mayans, in an interview in the defunct FRANCOMANIA WEBSITE, «I wasn’t around when Jess made them. He went to Benidorm and shot them there. It’s different if you happen to be making a movie and – say, after lunch – you start filming a little porn film as well with the same available technicians, the same available actresses. It’s a matter of shooting some porn footage, editing it and then selling iit. Fernando Vidal [Campos] would put up some money and then he’d do the selling. But to go to Benidorm to make two porn movies, with people, with the structure of a real movie – that simply doesn’t work out and I told him.»** Also, Franco scholar Francesco Cesari points out that Follar in Spanish = «to fuck» and the Ph, as in Phollastia = F. Yet another subterranean Jess Franco linguistic «joke» buried beneath the layers of hardcore action. *Spanish admissions amounted to 29,693, not enough to show a real profit after production costs are factored into the equation. [Thanks to Francesco Cesari and Nzoog for the translation of this interview, conducted by «Chus» and «Al Pereira»]

PHOLLASTIA Main Title: PHOLLASTIA Directed by: FRANCO, JESUS ICAA Id: 924351 Nacionality: Spain Duration: Feature film / 0 min. Production Companies: ROSA MARIA ALMIRALL MARTINEZ (01F938) (Spain 0%) Cast: Collins, Jean. , (Lina Romay). , Robson, Melanie. , (M.Fernandez). , King, Traci. , (Elisa Mateo). , Leduc, Bruce. , (A. Bartos). , Childrum, Morgan. , (J.M. Garcia Marfa). , Robinson, Rex. , (C. Gonzalez Ordi). , Olms, John. (Saez Montoro). Directed by: Franco, Jesus Screenplay: Franco, Jesus Plot: Franco, Jesus Cinematography: De Corsia, Terry (Jesus Franco) Score: White, Daniel (Jesus Franco) Film Editing: Franco, Jesus General notes: La pelicula ha sido dirigida por Jesus Franco, aunque enloscreditos figuren: Betty Carter (Direccion), Lulu Laverne(Argumento)y Chuck Evans (Guion), otorgando estos seudonimos aRosa Maria AlmirallLos interpretes que figuran, aparecen con su apodo y acontinuacionsu nombre artistico Film Rating: Over 18 years of age (6/29/1987) 0min (Age Rating not available) Box Office (Spain): 51,913.80€ Admissions (Spain): 20,693 Production year: 1987 , 1987 Length: Feature film , Largometraje Type: Film ­ Fiction Aspect ratio: Panoramica , Panoramica Film Formats: 35 milimetros Emulsion: Agfa Color , Agfa Color Spain Release: 6/29/1987 Distribution (Spain): FERNANDO VIDAL CAMPOS.

What we are left with here, and in FALO CREST, are unlikely examples of the French term mise-en-abime. Franco has reached a stage of abstraction where the reproduction and deployment of porn images, the opening kaleidoscopic shots of a hand masturbating a penis, to the winking at the audience by Lina at the very end, is a form of constant satiric commentary on the original commerical property, a hit American television series which generates incoming viewers by repitition of its internal absurdities. It's not so much Jess Franco as a television critic as it is a beloved and commercially successful cultural event reassigned into the hardcore porn realm. [French ‘placing into the abyss’]. 1. The double-mirroring effect created by placing an image within an image and so on, repeating infinitely (infinite regression): for example, the album cover of Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969). This is also known as Droste effect. 2. A reflexive strategy where the content of a medium is the medium itself: for example, Shakespeare's Hamlet features a play within a play and Fellini's 8½ (1963) is a film within a film. See also reflexivity. 3. A formal technique in Western art of placing a small copy of an image inside a larger one. From: mise-en-abîme in A Dictionary of Media and Communication » Subjects: Literature Oxford Reference. Note that Franco took the name of legendary, untamed American jazz vocalist Betty Carter as his nom de plume here.

This is part of a continuing series on Jess Franco’s 1980s hardcore record. My personal favorite of the bunch remains the 1985 EL MIRON Y LA EXHIBICIONISTA, released in Spain as a "kiosk DVD". (C) Robert Monell, 2024

THE FILMS OF JESUS FRANCO, 1953-1966: REVIEW

The Films of Jesus Franco, 1953-1966 by Francesco Cesari and Roberto Curti The name Jesus Franco carries a charge that means different things to different people. To someone not aware of the name of the prolific director of numerous European exploitation genre films such as FEMALE VAMPIRE, COUNT DRACULA and VAMPYROS LESBOS, the name may seem like a humorous blend of the name of the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, and the name of the dictator of Spain (Francisco Franco) from the Spanish Civil War to his death in 1975. To film scholars and fans it is the formal name of “Jess Franco”, a prolific maker of low budget, European produced genre films, otherwise known as European Trash Cinema; to his detractors it is the name behind scores of “bad” films, lurid horror films, commercial comedies, quickie hardcore porn films, Spain’s most notorious “hack” film director. Then there are the thousands of international fans who consider him an outlaw artist who left the world with over 180 unique, personal and sometimes macabre films. A self described “jazz musician who makes movies” whose films are “shot like long improvised solos,” Franco was the artistically inclined son of military doctor Colonel Emilio Franco Martin. His father looked down on young Jesus’ nightlife predilections for frequenting and performing le jazz hot in Madrid nightclubs. He enrolled his rebellious son in a religious law school located in an ancient monastery which Jesus fled after a year, enrolling in literature, music and cinema curriculums. Later Franco would compare his authoritarian father to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. The young Jesus withdrew from his parents and was emotionally nurtured by his protective older sister, Lolita. His older brother, composer and music critic Enrique Franco, had already provided him with an early musical education. The fact that Franco would describe himself as a musician first and a film director second only underlines his double identity as a lifelong jazz fan/musician and cinema auteur. The aim of the book under review is to examine that double identity in depth. The Films of Jesus Franco, 1953-1966, written by Roberto Curti and Francesco Cesari, is a deep dive into the early life and film career of a “walking contradiction, partly truth, partly fiction,” as the lyrics to the Kris Kristofferson song “The Pilgrim” go. The book distinguishes itself from other previous Franco books by acting as an intensively detailed critical biography and a film by film analysis of his developing style as a film artist. As this book makes clear Jess Franco had, what he himself described in an introductory biographical note “…two passions, music… and cinema… cinema as a vice, and as a game, and as a dream.” There have been previous books on the film career of Jess Franco, but this one aims to be the first edition in a multi-volume critical survey, looking into his often overlooked early short films, the first of which Theory of Sunrise (1953), a 14 minute silent short which already contains the seeds for his future feature filmography. A noirish series of scenes opening witha crime of passion, proceeding into a minimalist city symphony, featuring love, crime, romantic longing and murder at the break of dawn, Theory of Sunrise would later bloom as a structural template in such feature titles as LABIOS ROJOS, DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES, THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS, LAS CHICAS DEL TANGA, among others.

Equally fascinating is a chapter on the unmade LOS COLGADOS/LOS VENGADORES (aka The Hanged, The Avengers), a project set in an early 20th Century Central American country under seige by violent revolutionaries. Centered around a couple of lovers caught up in the fatal whirlpool of revolution it illustrates Franco ambition to move far beyond the comedy/musical genres of his first three films. When the government censors rejected the project Franco ended up making his first horror film instead, the macabre Gothic horror film, GRITOS EN LA NOCHE, the 1961 feature which would point his career in a totally different direction. Nonetheless, he would continue to make a name for himself with his atmospheric 1960s series of monochrome horrors, THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS, EL SECRETO DEL DR. ORLOFF and THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z.

There’s also a chapter on his another planned Eurospy feature, SANGRE EN MIS ZAPATOS aka 077 ESPIONAGE IN LISBON. A project packed with such future Franco tropes as a radio controlled female mannequin, messages encoded in music and actor Fernando Rey (ATTACK OF ROBOTS, ESMERALDA BAY) as a villain. It ended up being watered down by replacement director Tullio Demicheli (ASSIGNMENT TERROR) when Franco left the project to work on second unit photography for Orson Welles’ Shakespeare adaptation, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT. Franco’s shooting on the unfinished Orson Welles production of TREASURE ISLAND is also detailed in a separate chapter. Another scripted project, THE NIGHT HAS EYES, rejected by the censors, is also detailed. A fascinating, eerie story of mind control/possession, insanity, murder, it focuses on a predatory female who becomes mind controlled serial killer after her father kills himself. A Poe like tale of the macabre, it blends elements of classical tragedy and modern pyschoanalysis. Many plot elements would later find their way into MISS MUERTE, NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT, LORNA, THE EXORCIST, MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE and AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO. The final chapters on the visually arresting MISS MUERTE, and his two Eddie Constantine Eurospy adventures, CARTES BOCA ARRIBA and RESEDENCIA PARA ESPIAS, illustrate how Franco had finally achieved an aesthetic (if not technical) mastery over such genres as the musical/comedy, Gothic horror and spy/adventure which resulted in a kind of double vision, allowing him to stand outside various genres and critique their tropes while at the same time resulting in a commercial product which would entertain its target audience. What would become to be known as a “Jess Franco film” had arrived. Illustrated by dozens of rare photos from his childhood, his family, behind the scenes shots, exhaustively researched from documents at an impressive array of Spanish archives, meticulously footnoted, THE FILMS OF JESUS FRANCO 1953-1966 is a feast of new information, biography and critical analysis of the director’s formative years. Most importantly it proceeds in deep detail while creating an ongoing background survey of Spanish popular culture, history, morals, economic development, censorship and political pressures which kept its popular cinema on a short lease for decades. This background is crucial when dealing with the cinema of Jess Franco. It concludes at the point where Franco would become an international auteur with such future films as SUCCUBUS/NECRONOMICON, VENUS IN FURS, EL CONDE DRACULA, EUGENIE DE SADE, while continuing to move female characters to the center of his universe in such films as VAMPYROS LESBOS, LA COMTESSE NOIRE, THE PERVERSE COUNTESS, A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD, AL OTRO LADO DEL ESPEJO, BARBED WIRE DOLLS, DAS FRAUENHAUS, MIL SEXOS TIENE LA NOCHE, BROKEN DOLLS, SNAKEWOMAN, AL PERIERA VS THE ALLIGATOR LADIES among many other titles. Leaping ahead of all existing Franco books it creates a hunger for future books by Francesco Cesari and Roberto Curti on the rest of Jess Franco’s gargantuan filmography.

McFarland Books https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/The-Films-of-Jesus-Franco-1953-1966/ © by Robert Monell 2024

Je Brule de Partout (1978) Pulse Video Blu-ray LE [UPDATED 5/21/24] Last year I was lucky enough to score one of now OOP LE Blu-rays of Jess Franco's rarely seen erotic crime drama, Je Brule de Partout ((1978). It sold out in record time from PULSE VIDEO, in partnership with Vinegar Syndrome. Queen of Euro-erotica Brigitte Lahaie emerges from a sea of grain in an X Pro-III grab from the opening disco scene. A welcome indicator in this 2k scan from 35mm elements. The plot in rudimentary: A detective investigates the abduction of the daughter of an American gangster in Lisbon. After swimming in the cultural cesspool of this film's depressing SexWorld, he comes up with results that punish the guilty and rescues the heroine (Susan Hemingway). A jazz filled, downbeat immersion into the director's familiar criminal netherworld of drugs, kidnapping, extortion, white slavery, sex, international intrigue and violence. It's another Franco specialty, Women-In-Peril, a sub-genre of Women-In-Prison.

Robert de Nesle's last or next to last production, made back to back with COCKTAIL SPECIAL, using some of that film's cast and locations. Here's what I initally thought of the film after viewing it via a vey poor French language VHS dub about 30 years ago [From MHVD archive]: aka JE BRULE DE PARTOUT. Directed by Jess Franco (credited as Jacques Aicrag). Jenny Goldstone (Susan Hemingway) is abducted after a night at a popular discotheque. She is the most recent victim to fall into the hands of an international white slavery cartel. The point person is the beautiful, blond Lorna (Brigitte Lahaie) who, along with her henchmen, bundles the girls aboard a ship fitted with an orgy room into which a sedating "love drug" is piped. The victims are arranged on mattresses and the "action" is viewed from overhead camera angles, locking the viewer into a voyeuristic POV. They are transported to a brothel in Portugal where one of Jenny's customers will turn out to be her own father, ironically revealed to be the financier behind the ring. But there is someone else on the trail of the abductors, a certain investigator whose name will be familiar to those familiar with the filmography of Jess Franco, Al Pereira.

One of Jess Franco's more obscure sexploitation efforts, this one is of note mainly for the alluring presence of Ms. Lahaie who would go on to be featured in several memorable Jean Rollin titles (FASCINATION, NIGHT OF THE HUNTED). Lahaie, like Rita Calderoni or Rosalba Neri, is one of those Euro-cult actresses whose stunning beauty is equaled by a formidable acting talent. She can play a mean bitch (as here, or in FACELESS) or a pathetic victim (cf NIGHT OF THE HUNTED), and sometimes a bit of both (cf FASCINATION).

Robert de Nesle (1906-1978). Producer and CEO of the legendary CFFP, a production house responsible for dozens of Peplums, Westerns, Eurospy, erotica and horror from the late 1950s onward. He died on April 21, 1978, at age 71. This was shot in less than a week and really looks it. The "love drug" sequences are represented by smoke being forced through crudely cut rubber tubes. The love drug concept also turns up in the Franco filmography as early as THE GIRL FROM RIO a.k.a. SUMURU 2 (1968), and is also prominent in keeping Ursula Buchfellner as one of the CAPTIVE WOMEN aka LINDA/NAKED SUPERWITCHES OF THE RIO AMORE (1980) {see the self-explanatory still on p 143 of OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO to get a taste of the latter title}. I term all the above mentioned titles as Women-In-Peril, a related offshoot of the Women in Prison genre, also a goldmine for JF. Some plot elements, especially the father-daughter erotic complications, are also present in Franco's COCKTAIL SPECIAL, another adaptation of Sade's PHILOSOPHY IN THE BEDROOM, also made in 1978, the reported year of Robert De Nesle's death. It's also interesting to compare this film to the Franco film made for Erwin C. Dietrich the year before, DAS FRAUENHAUS, which is almost full strength Franco, featuring an Op-Art style mise-en-scene illuminated with saturated color filters.

(Above) Robert de Nesle, CEO of the production company Comptoir Français de Productions Cinématographiques (CFPC). Ms. Lahaie apparently quarreled with Franco on set and she doesn't look like a happy camper, but she does look terrific and can act, as she verified forever in Jean Rollin's NIGHT OF THE HUNTED and Franco's FACELESS (1988)! My favorite part was the opening, set in a glittering disco. Franco pans up from Lahaie's black leather boots to the neon colored-light show and you immediately know you're in Jess Franco territory (despite the use of one of his rarer pseudonyms during the amusing spoken credits). The director even manages to work in his trademark Al Pereira P.I. character, but Jean Ferrere's thug-like visage is no match for the more ambiguous mug of Antonio Mayans, my own favorite interpreter of JF's favorite Private Eye. Daniel J. White's moody, brassy score adds a dash of much needed atmosphere.

This rather obscure title was one of three quickies produced by the late Robert de Nesle and directed by Franco in 1978, the year of the producer's death and one of the director's less than favorite years. It represents someone coming up for air following a deep sea dive (in this case the colorful rush of productions the director made in his two years with the Erwin C. Dietrich factory. It should be noted that this film doesn't contain any hardcore footage, as do both COCKTAIL SPECIAL and ELLES FONT TOUT. NOTE: I have recently come across this quote from Brigitte Lahaie in a 2009 interview on the website PSYCHOVISION "Jess [Franco] who has a certain talent unfortunately ruined by some confusion [...]." This was about 20 years after Franco give her role of the female villain in his gore epic FACELESS (1988), in which she was absolutely terrific. I guess she was thinking of her more negative experiences on JE BRULE DE PARTOUT.

Is this essential Franco? Hardly. But it's not as dull and tacky as ELLES FONT TOUT, produced as part of the same Portuguese-lensed 1978 bundle (later remade as the superior HOTEL DE LUIGES during Franco's Golden Films Internacional period) and really doesn't deliver the hardcore action demanded by that market. If you must see this film, see it as a tribute to the gorgeous Ms. Lahaie, even though she now rejects it as part of her catalogue and the best she can say in the Bonus interview is that it's not as bad as it could have been, an attitude shared by Stephen Thrower in his interview on the Blu-ray. The cinematography is rather bland and straightforward, especially compared with the best of Franco's previous Dietrich productions. It lacks the Sadean tone/textual reference points and more transgressive content of COCKTAIL SPECIAL, culminating with incest while sharing its interiors and exteriors, shot in a coastal suburb of Lisbon, the White City ( IMDB: Cruise terminal of Rocha do Conde de Óbidos, view of the movable bridge and in the distance to the left the bell towers of Church of São Francisco de Paula.). It certainly looks better in this HD presentation than could have been imagined, given its rushed production, grungy settings, clinical staging and overall bottom of the barrel aesthetics. (C) Robert Monell --2024

SLAVES

DIE SKLAVINNEN/SLAVES (1977), now released in a restored version by Full Moon, is not really a women-in-prison film, but it exists in a related sub-genre, the women-in-peril film. A story about women brutalized/kidnapped/tortured/manipulated/murdered by ruthless criminals or sometimes friends and associates. Other women-in-peril Jess Franco films include his two Fu-Manchu films. THE BLOOD OF FU MANCHU (1968) and THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU (1970), ESCLAVAS DEL CRIMEN (1987), JE BRULE DE PARTOUT (1978), EUGENIE, HISTORIA DE UNA PERVERSION (1980), OPALO DE FUEGE (1978), DIE TEUFLISCHEN SCHWESTERN (1977), MADCHEN IM NACHTVERKEHR (1976), FRAUEN OHNEUNSCHULD (1977), ORGIA DE NINOFOMANAS/LINDA (1980), the last a personal favorite. SLAVES falls squarely into the sub-genre. American exploitation cinema also had a run of these films, termed “roughies” or “nudie-roughies” films which focused on sexualized sadism visited upon captive/exploited women. In fact the US VHS release of LINDA was retitled CAPTIVE WOMEN 5. Many of these women-in -peril titles where German co-productions. SLAVES opens with a shot of a huge tropical plant somewhere in the jungles of a tropical island, more shots of foliage before the action shifts to an office of the Federal Police. Marta (Esther Moser SEXY SISTERS) makes her way through the jungle (now represented by some obviously potted/artificial tropical flora decorated a dark interior set), finally collapsing as she reaches the police outpost. The sleepy duty officer wonders why she is dressed in only see-through lingerie, something is up. The rest of the film is narrated by Madama Araminda, or Princess Arminda, the owner of the Pagoda, a highly profitable brothel located in the jungles of Chao Island, frequented by police officials who give Arminda protection. Cut to Arminda escaping from Snake Island Prison, where she has been incarcerated on Marta’s testimony. Her escape is enabled by two individuals who have plans to gather a fortune in ransom from one of the kidnappings executed by Arminda’s drug financed syndicate. The rest of the film is narrated by Arminda, this sudden change in point-of-view, complicated by a flashback structure, makes for a kind of tropical Film Noir, and the fact that it’s narrated by a dead person illustrates the influence of the Billy Wilder classic, SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950). The escape is filmed with Franco’s typical pan-telezoon style where he zooms back from the Golden Gate style bridge in Lisbon and then zooms in on Arminda lowering herself down the side of the prison. Very efficient, very minimal, all done without fuss. Picked up Ebenholz (Aida Vargas) she is immediately abducted by the brutal agent (Jess Franco) of Amos Radeck (Victor Mendes), who spends the rest of the film directing Franco through various torture methods, cigarette burns, waterboarding, bondage, etc. Radeck’s daughter (Martine Stedil) was kidnapped by Arminda and disappeared after he paid a film million dollar ransom. Cat faced Stedil does a good job of playing the blase victim whose demise is preordained. Franco regulars of this period, Peggy Markoff and handsome hunk Eric Falk are also on hand, albeit in small roles. Torture, lesbian interludes, rape and summary execute abound in this trim 76 minute effort. In the end, if there is a point, is that it’s a dog eat dog world and only the most ruthless survive. The most interesting elements here are the eye catching Zurich and Sintra locations, filmed in a less fly-by-night than usual fashion by Franco, who shared DP tasks with the reliable Peter Baumgartner, who lensed the Dietrich produced, JACK THE RIPPER (1976), which is probably the best feature of Franco’s two year contract with the producer. There’s also a sometimes jazzy, sometimes brooding score by Walter Baumgartner, along with the constant sounds of wild jungle animals. Stock footage represents Chao Island, (cf the opening scenes in CALL OF THE BLONDE GODDESS, also 1977). Franco’s trademark Nightclub scenes all seem to have been shot in one day, in a black walled set, dressed with wicker furniture and a few more tropical plants. The Zurich interiors tend to be rendered in hot pinks and ice cold blues while the Portuguese jungle settings, including Sintra’s Monserrat Palace, familiar from A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD and CECILIA, are sometimes breathtaking to behold, the latter scenes were the work of Peter Baumgartner, according to the director.

The massive Victor Mendes is in full Syndney Greenstreet mode as the sinister billionaire who read comics as Franco conducts the torture shows. Lina Romay is also quite credible as the shifty, coldhearted Arminda, who pays the ultimate price for her criminal activities. Franco himself is also quite effective as Radeck’s quietly efficient enforcer, who has the last laugh in this very downbeat crime film. SLAVES is a very watchable, entertaining feature which is now available remastered and restored from Full Moon in razor sharp definition. The colors are absolutely stunning, eye piercingly vivid as they pop off the screen. The definition is razor sharp, brimming with detail. The soundtrack is in German, with English subtitles. The most intriguing Special Feature is a 40m interview, FRANCO, BLOODY FRANCO, conducted with the director at a Zurich hotel, during the making of JACK THE RIPPER in 1976. This was an unsubtitled Feature of previous Ascot Elite Blu-rays. I’m very pleased it’s now more widely available in an English friendly release. Franco speaks in French, stating his theory of directing, to let the action evolve from the daily shooting, rather than strict adherence to the script, and his respect for the talents of Klaus Kinski. He also details how he visioned the film as a further examination into the themes in his first horror film, GRITOS EN LA NOCHE, and how he wanted to explore the twisted personality of the Ripper while maintaining a sympathetic distance. Nothing the difference between historical suggestions on the Ripper identity, he comes down on the side of Fantastique, rather than a realistic-historical approach, which he did not want to make. He also has some very negative things to say about Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy, rejecting his induction into the realm Fantastique creators and the dubious aesthetics of Hammer Horror. He lavishes much praise on the American B movie titan, Roger Corman, whom he claims as a spiritual equal. A vintage trailer reel is also included. English subtitles are included for the extended interview which has been ported from the German Ascot Elite JESS FRANCO GOLDEN GOYA COLLECTION, which was a HD release. As far as I’m concerned this release is worth the price for the revealing Franco interview alone. (C) Robert Monell 2024