LOS BLUES DE LA CALLE POP (Jesus Franco, 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.

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 poster for that 1943 classic. With the director himself as the reliable piano man one waits for someone to say, "Play it again, Jess." (C)Robert Monell, 2020 Franco index

BANGKOK, CITA CON LA MUERTE (1985, Directed by Clifford Brown [Jess Franco])

Robert Monell & Alex Mendíbil Blog Alliance

BANGKOK, CITA CON LA MUERTE (Clifford Brown, 1985)

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BANGKOK, CITA CON LA MUERTE is fascinating to the serious Jess Franco student but may not engage interest as a serious action film with Jess Franco-style martial arts interludes included. The formulaic plot combines drug running, Thai pirates (led by Lina Romay), karate fighting, kidnapping, comic relief and tourist footage which on first viewing looks cribbed from an unknown source.*  [Update: the DoP of this film, Juan Soler Cozar, read this review and kindly informed me that he was actually sent to Bangkok to shoot some street footage, and that it does appear in the film. I was very surprised that they went to the expense and trouble to do this, especially considering the production’s obvious micro-budget.]

The yacht-going daughter of a millionaire is kidnapped by pirates. Her father (Eduardo Fajardo) hires a bumbling private eye named Panama Joe (Bork Gordon) to locate her. The daughter’s boyfriend is also on the kidnappers’ trail. Panama Joe discovers the crooks are led by a drug smuggler (Antonio Mayans), who is in turn being double crossed by Queen Amania (Lina Romay). The detective roams around the faux Asian locations, tries to play both sides against the other, while uncovering deeper layers of corruption and double dealing.BANGKOK is dialogue and plot heavy to no good end, and Gordon’s imitation Inspector Columbo ramblings just do not spark enough interest. The characters are shown talking in cartoon dialog balloons during the opening credits, but Franco unaccountably drops this unusual device immediately and never picks it up again. What’s left is a C-minus adventure with some comic relief and sloppily staged karate stand-offs, in which the participants miss each other by miles. Then again, given the budget and assumed rushed shooting schedule this could be understandable. It also could indicate the director's disdain for those perfectly choreographed martial arts films of Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Sonny Chiba, etc. 

Gordon (Christian Borck) just seems a disheveled guy, actually a German comedian/television actor, who wandered in. Like the karate stuff, comedy-parody needs timing. The lines and martial arts blows rarely connect. Actually, I managed to find some amusement in the martial arts showdowns where the fighters miss contact with each other by such obvious distances that it looks like children playing at karate fighting. This is all likely due to a crushing schedule/lack of budget. Nonetheless the colorful cinematography frames the locations with skill and makes the Canary Islands seem like Southeast Asia, at least for 90 minutes.

    BANGKOK, APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH (VSOM dupe from Spanish television broadcast)      

A colorful, amusing mix of Kung Fu fighting, Asian aesthetics, modern day pirates, BANGKOK CITY OF THE DEAD (1985) mixes comic book-style imagery with crime film elements, some self parody and a adventure plot with a not-so-happy ending. Franco has tried this before, notably in the delightful LOS BLUES CALLE POP…. (1983) and La sombra del judoka contra el doctor Wong (1985). Lina Romay has a few touching moments as the pirate leader, but she is once again miscast, and her familiarity as Lina Romay distracts from her performance. In one embarrassing scene, shes dances around in a tight swimsuit accompanied by a mechanical band. The result might been cute in 1973, but at this late date it is unfunny and unflattering to the talented Ms. Romay. Veteran character actor Fajardo (DJANGO)  turns in a professional but unexceptional performance as the millionaire. The movie benefits from its luminous cinematography and occasionally hectic energy but needs a more interesting focal point.. The Far Eastern locations, represented via the aforementioned stock footage are given an atmospheric boost by Pablo Villa’s (Franco and Daniel White) brassy score, some of which recalls music heard in Franco’s earlier FU MANCHU AND THE KISS OF DEATH/KISS AND KILL (1967). Given the negatives I’m at the stage where I can still engage with and enjoy even an understandably flawed genre mashup such as this one. It’s obvious that Jess Franco took it serious enough to attempt to deliver a multi-faced entertainment package under impossible circumstances. As he told me when I interviewed him on his Golden Films Internacional period, these productions were “poor” i.e. made at very low coast, with little or no resources and rushed out to theaters or hidden away in the offices of producer Emilio Larraga to be lost forever. I had some fun watching it but have no idea where one could see it outside of fan websites. I am not aware of any DVD release, although it may have appeared on Spanish VHS. The version I saw was from the wretchedly unreliable VSOM and had no English subtitles. A good quality HD transfer from a print or negative with  language options is required for a more in-depth consideration, but it’s an example of Franco’s 1980s exotica. *Thanks again to Juan Cozar for additional information on the production of this film. (C) Robert Monell [1998: New Version: 2020

Bangkok, Cita con la Muerte 1985; 87 Minutes; Spanish TV broadcast                                                                                     Director:  “Clifford Brawm” sic (Jess Franco)/ Director of Photography: Juan Cozar./ Produced by Golden Films Internacional S.A. in Alicante and Bangkok, Thailand.

DEAD MAN'S HAND (Rarely seen precredit sequence in the Spanish version of THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS (1962)

 
Here is a video (please excuse the quality) of the rarely seen precredit sequence for LO MANO DE UN HOMBRE MUERTO (1962), the Spanish language version of THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS. A 2.35:1 scope film, the French version had been released on Blu-ray. Unfortunately, this Spanish version has not had a HD release. Also, the later sequence, featuring Hugo Blanco torturing and murdering Gogo Rojo, was censored in this version.

This sequence features a white masked killer in black, anticipating the sadistic "shape" in Mario Bava's Giallo foundation stone, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964).

BAHIA BLANCA (1984, Directed by Jess Franco) Severin Blu-ray.

BAHIA BLANCA (1984) Severin Blu-ray

BAHIA BLANCA, Jess Franco's rarely seen 1984 crime melodrama, screened today at the Filmoteca in Madrid, Spain as part of a tribute to the late Lina Romay. Hopefully, a future HQ DVD/Blu-ray presentation of this excellent film will appear.

The above was a hopeful note from several years ago for a future Blu-ray presentation of this outstanding 1984 Jess Franco crime film. That hope has now been answered by Severin Films Limited Edition HD release.

BAHIA BLANCA is a tragedy wrapped inside of a film noir set on a tropical Mediterranean island populated by a bar owner and her mute sister (Lina Romay) which is regularly visited by local fishermen thirsty for alcohol and sex.

This  film was financed by Franco's own Manacoa Production company and was not available on digital media until now. As of this writing the Bahia Blanca Blu-ray is sold out. For those of us lucky enough to have procured a copy, the film offers multiple rewards, being one of the director's more personal and well crafted products. The video quality is breathtaking, high resolution, glowing colors, and layers of atmospheric detail delight the eye. This is a very downbeat, sometimes lyrical tale, the kind of story that pulp fiction writers revel in and sailors tell when they return from the sea. It also should be noted that there is a port city named Bahia Blanca in Argentina, a country which is sometimes named as a magical locale in the alternate Franco-verse. Maybe this is another wink from the ever-deceptive auteur. 

Above: Shining Sex Blu-ray. Another highly recommended release from Severin Films. 

Lina Romay, Antonio Mayans, Analia Ivars and Eva Leon are all top-notch in their roles as the haunted participants in Franco's melodrama of crime, lust, murder and vengeance. Franco himself establishes an authorial presence by playing the role of a local psychic who predicts the the sad fates of the protagonists. The chilling image of revenge -minded maiden Analia Ivars clutching a rifle as she arrives on the island to act out her part as the story's exterminating angel is one of the most memorable images in Franco's extensive filmography. The eerily beautiful song by Isabel De Tejeda, the repetition of which takes on varying emotional inflections in different contexts, musically illustrates the nature of these deeply flawed lives overwhelmed by primal emotions and surprised by violent death in this revenger's tragedy.

Both SHINING SEX and BAHIA BLANCA have been finally saved from obscurity and unwatchable dupes by the due diligence of Severin Films.

Special Features: 

In the Land of Franco ,Part 4: a tour of Jess Franco locations guided by Stephen Thrower and Antonio Mayans

Bay Of Jess: Interview with Stephen Throwner on the film.

1080p Full HD resolution
Spanish Mono with new English subtitles.
Scanned in 4K from the original negative.
1984--98 minutes.


I'll be posting on the recent Severin HD presentation of SHINING SEX in the near future.

(C) Robert Monell, 2020

BOTAS NEGRAS, LATIGO DE CUERO (1982)

(a.k.a. BLACK BOOTS AND LEATHER WHIPS) One of Franco's favorite characters, private investigator Al Pereira (Robert Foster, a.k.a Antonio Mayans), has an addiction and he's got it bad. It's gotten him in trouble before, but this time it will be the end of him. Al is frantically packing, trying to get away from trouble with women, money and all the people who are after him. Then Lina (Lina Romay) walks in. She's bleach blonde, wide eyed, and those long legs under her trench-coat just can't wait to wrap themselves around their next victim, who happens to be Al. It's pretty obvious that she's the kind of spider woman which Franco introduced in such 1960s films as MISS MUERTE(1965) and VAMPIRESAS 1930(1960). In this case, the black widow, the femme fatale. She wants him to pick up some dirty money stashed in a wrecked car in the local junkyard, that's all. But Al doesn't bargain on having to kill two thugs, just so he could get back to his seedy apartment, where Lina waits with her legs spread wide. He doesn't bargain for the strip-club where she performs and her male friend, who likes to wear make-up and female clothing. Then there's the phony, blind psychic and her friends, who like to strip and play S&M games with black boots and leather whips. When they make Al strip at the party and start beating him, he really loses it and begins shooting people. Unplanned violence is part of Al's professional and personal life. Now he's a murderer. A walking dead man. Running from the police and the mob he drives to end of a bayou, where he makes love to Candy one last time. As the seagulls reel overhead, stirred up by Candy's horny cries, she pulls the pistol out of her trenchcoat pocket and pumps a slug into Al's side. "Puta" is the only thing he can get out as he falls to his knees, pants still around his ankles. Death was coming to the party, and he is the guest of honor. Like Robert Mitchum in OUT OF THE PAST he plays the fall guy role right to the end. The burning, wet feeling in his side finally makes the lump of flesh between his legs go soft. He always called the nude playmate taped to his wall, "Mio Madre". But where was she? The bitch of it all was that Lina, who was long gone, hadn't gotten him, the mob hadn't gotten him, the cops hadn't gotten him. He got himself. Lina Romay is credited as "Candy Coster" but is named Lina in the film. Another level of irony. BOTAS NEGRAS, LATIGO DE CUERO is the blackest panel of Franco's series of films about eternal fall guy Al Pereira. It's a film noir rendered in the saturated oranges, lemons and aquas of the glittery, trashy Costa del Sol. As embodied by Mayans, in one of his most dead-on performances for Franco, Al is a frantic, at times charming and boyish, womanizer who has a deep seated problem with obsession and compulsion. It's even darker than Franco's 1972 Al Pereira adventure, LES EBRANLEES. In that film Howard Vernon played Al Pereira who also got involved with sleazy criminals and made poor decisions which destroyed him emotionally if not physically. Romay's femme fatale represents lush, slutty sexuality with an icy edge which is barely perceptible to Al. This time around, Al might be a character out of Jim Thompson or a deluded protagonist from a Florida based crime thriller by John D. MacDonald.  It's obvious from the outset that his grim finale is inevitable for a man whose thinking capacity never rises above his waist. Daniel White's urgent score is perfectly appropriate for this rush-toward-death cautionary tale. Franco and Juan Soler's vivid color scheme has never seemed quite as ironic and becomes a post-modern Costa del Sol equivalent of those liquid black nights and mean streets of the 1940's noir universe of Robert Siodmak, in particular THE KILLERS, a personal favorite of Franco. Unfortunately there is still no digital representation of this film, which would benefit greatly from a HD restoration. Robert Monell		Unfortunately there is still no digital representation of this film, which would benefit greatly from a HD restoration. Robert Monell

Jose Benazeraf's ORGIES REVOLUTIONNAIRES (1983, rare film)

Orgies Revolutionnaires 1983, Free xczech Porn fc: xHamster

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Jun 5, 2018

 I hope this link to watch this Jose Benazeraf hardcore rarity (at least rare to me, since I don't have any of the French DVDS and had to scrounge Internet porn sites). Good luck. This one has wit, irony, a fast pace and a subversive charge. One can never be too busy, even during times of political violence, for plaisir....

Viva Benazeraf!


Posted 6/14/20 rm

Dan Van Husen, R.I.P.

The prolific, versatile German character actor Dan Van Husen passed away on May 25, 2020 in England. Linda, his wife, was at his side. He died from COVID-19 complications and had also been in declining health, due to Alzheimer's disease, for several years. I was friends with Dan for around 20 years, I met him on a Spaghetti Western Internet board circa 2001. We then kept in touch through email, and eventually Facebook.

ABOVE: Dan Van Husen in Jess Franco's LA NOCHE DE LOS ASESINOS (1972). Dan was very friendly and generous with the time he took to help me understand his work with Jess Franco, whom I had been publishing articles and blog posts about since the early 1990s.

Dan had been in dozens of European genre films since the late 1960s. He had acted alongside Lee Van Cleef (in BAD MAN'S RIVER and other Spaghetti Westerns). He worked with Federico Fellini (in FELLINI'S CASANOVA), Werner Herzog, Tinto Brass (SALON KITTY) and many other legendary names. Between 1968 and 2019 he appeared in 145 films and television productions. At least 23 of his performances were in the Eurowestern category or Hollywood films such as EL CONDOR and DOC, which were filmed in Spain. His striking looks made him a natural for villain roles or unique character parts.

He acted in his first Jess Franco film, DER TODESRACHER VON SOHO (DEATH PACKS A SUITCASE) in April 1971. He appeared as a burglar working with the main villain (Horst Tappert). The film was a Bryan Edgar Wallace krimi, produced and co-written by CCC founder Artur Brauner, a German-Spanish co-production filmed in Alicante, Barcelona and London. Dan fit right into Franco's strange, mood-drenched universe and would be cast in four more of the director's films, including KISS ME KILLER and TENDER AND PERVERSE EMANUELLE (both 1973).

 His final film with Franco was the digital horror-comedy KILLER BARBYS VS. DRACULA (2002), where he played vampire hunter Dr. Seward. I spoke with Dan right after he made his final Franco film and he seemed to have had fun, being amused by Franco's frenetic, haphazard, low budget attempt to make a Dracula film, He was also pleased to be reunited with  1960s and 70s Spaghetti Western regulars Aldo Sambrell and Peter Martell, who also had roles in the shot-in-Spain musical-horror oddity.

ABOVE: Dan Van Husen was given a lifetime achievement acting award at the Almeria Film Festival

Dan was especially fond of his time spent making Franco's NIGHT OF THE SKULL, mostly because he got to act alongside his close friend, actress Swan Heinze, whom he also worked with in Franco's KISS ME KILLER, a Eurocine remake of the director's atmospheric 1962 noir LA MUERTE SILBA UN BLUES. He admitted he didn't have any recall whatsoever of appearing in KISS ME KILLER or TENDER AND PERVERSE EMANUELLE, in which he appeared as a tough homicide detective. Both of those films seem to have been made back-to-back in late 1973 or in such hectic circumstances that they were wiped from his memory. After all, Franco made 12 films in 1973, an amazing amount even for him. When I asked him if he remembered anything at all about them, he laughed saying, "Well, you know Jess, he sometimes made two or three films at the same time without telling the actors about how many films they were playing in"

Dan continued to send me emails inquiring about how I was doing, sending holiday greetings and reporting updates and information on his continuing acting career. I'll miss hearing from him.

Dan Van Husen was a memorable, reliable, versatile character actor and one of the good guys.

Thanks to Tom Betts.

(C) Robert Monell, 2020.

German Blu-ray: ROTE LIPPEN: SADISTEROTICA

This German re-release is of Jess Franco's 1967-68 Aquila co-production. This is the German version (RED LIPS), with a different runtime and score than the Spanish release. which should run about 89 minutes. The US Video release was retitled TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS and cut out over 10 minutes of footage.

The German video release title was DER WOLF-HORROR PERVERS. The West German release version, according to some references, has a runtime of 92 minutes. This horror parody is heavily influenced by Pop Art aesthetics popular in the late 1960s, which is obvious from the splashy, brightly colored set design. Janine Reynaud is costumed in an outlandish black leather fashion design which would fit into a contemporary female Superhero/Supervillain film.

The comic book quality plot features erotic murders re-staged as tableaux vivants by a mind controlled werewolf (actor-director Michel Lemoine) under the direction of a crazed artist played by producer Adrian Hoven, who acted and co-produced NECRONOMICON/SUCCUBUS and KISS ME MONSTER, the two other Aquila productions directed by Franco

(C) Robert Monell, 2020

VAYA LUNA DE MIEL: In Search of the Trivial. Finding Jess Franco in a rediscovered film.

At first glance this long unseen 1980 film is another Jess Franco adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's THE GOLD BUG. But is this frenetic comedy-adventure something more or something less than what it appears to be? In fact VAYA LUNA DE MIEL (What a Honeymoon!) is very similar in plot and style to Franco's 1981 LAS NOCHES DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS, which is a jaunty, erotically charged adventure-comedy about a couple in search of a hidden treasure, and it's one of several  films which he loosely based on that Poe story. But VAYA... lacks the nonstop sex, nudity and violence of LAS NOCHES.... it seems to have been deliberately made to appeal to more general mainstream Spanish audiences rather than the grind-house brigade. Franco was obviously in a very playful mood when he made it. So put on your white jungle hats and join in the fun.


                                                                   Jungle raiders

It opens with a pan shot over a crowed beach as Simon (Emilio Alvarez, who had previously appeared in Amando de Ossorio's "S" film PASION PROHIBIDA)), a clean cut young man, sits in the sun reading THE THERMOPYLAE. Yolanda (Lina Romay) walks past him, catching his eye. She then comes over and asks him to unfasten the top of her very skimpy bikini. They are married after a a brief flirtation and disembark for a tropical isle named Bananas, presumably a Banana Republic where the remainder of the film is set. All this occurs, along with a discussion of ancient Greek history, before the opening credits, signaling that the honeymoon is the kind of oneiric holiday from reality which often replaces any serious attempts at realistic verisimilitude in a Jess Franco film. A complicated honeymoon provides a perfect plot for a romantic comedy, Jess Franco style, in which the director is as much of a sight-seer as the characters. As the action proceeds Franco finds all manner of odd details in the local hotel and the streets of Benidorm, Elche, Alicante on which to focus his nervous lens.


                                             
                                                     Las Noches De Los Sexos Abiertos

Once on the island our couple become almost immediately embroiled in a search for a hidden treasure which has been already initiated by several separate parties, including a local group who want it for their town's coffers, a vacationing gangster (singer-director Max Boulois), another criminal group who closely track the couple, and a secret agent (Antonio Mayans). As in the Poe story the couple come across a series of clues which have to be carefully pieced together to reveal the location of the treasure. The first clue is discovered in the capital of the island, A dingy town which seems to be largely overtaken by a sprawling amusement park. The park is outfitted with various attractions, shopping markets, carnival rides and a Funhouse out of which stumbles a suspicious character (played by Jess Franco) who has just been shot by several gangsters. The couple is given a piece of blank paper as the dying man dying man repeats the word "beetle", which turns out to be the golden bug of the story. A Chinese inscription later appears on the paper after it is left in the sun while the couple are at a beach.

Of primary concern to Franco in this sequence are the various sculptures, images and icons of animals, demons and other bizarre figures which are everywhere in sight around the park. A sculpted vulture and a pink clad devil, among other odd figurines, seem to observe the confusion and pursuit of the couple by the gangsters and other dodgy looking individuals.. Franco's ever-active zoom lens keeps closing in on these objects as if they were as important as the human characters and the story itself. In fact, it could be intuited that they are more important in the director's obsessive, esoteric mise-en-scene. Codes, either musical or linguistic, are a favorite Jess Franco stratagem to bypass conventional narrative, they are consistent elements in the plots of KISS ME, MONSTER, LAS NOCHES DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOSand other films throughout his career.


                                                                 Carnival Demons

The action proceeds to a series of encounters between the various gold seekers in the hotel room of the couple. Simon has a recorder with which he can summon help by playing several notes as did Al Periera (Eddie Constantine) in Franco's ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS (1966). In fact, miniature robots are also part of the plot here, appearing out of nowhere to give the couple coded directions and warnings before self-exploding. These brightly colored plastic creations seem like something out of a child's fantasy world, part of the fantasy-play matrix in which the characters are embroiled. At the end there is a hint that the entire outlandish, if somewhat silly, plot is something to enjoy before the newlyweds endure the daily realities of normal married life. Whatever it is, Franco is more interested in every tiny detail of the environment rather than any kind of real suspense, intrigue or meaning. The only meaning is Franco's desire to make another film, whether it's finished or released is of secondary importance. In fact, this film wasn't released at all and was discovered by Franco scholar Alex Mendibil in the Filmoteca Espanola.



                                                        Attack of the (toy) Robots

My first thought after seeing this long lost, never released title was that it was like one of those 1960s Walt Disney live action comedies, only conceived and directed in secret code by a mad poet whose only wish was to amuse himself. This is actually as personal, subversive and esoteric as any title in the extensive Franco collection. It's just that's not what it appears to be on its rather glossy (for Jess Franco) surface. One has to leave expectations and perceptions behind to get it, but not to enjoy it. Franco doesn't have any messages for viewers of his films, but he does offer endless, amusing subterfuges, in-jokes, auto-critiques, arcane references and genre satire which one can take or leave. He's a master of artful ridicule of subjects which deserve to be ridiculed, especially criticism in search of profound truths in cinema. This film is structured like the amusement park location, it's there to explore and have fun in. Franco's direction acts as a carnival barker, shouting "Look at the gewgaws, ride the ferris wheel, go into the Funhouse."

After viewing it I thought of my 2004 interview with Jess Franco (published in ART DECADES # 13) in which the director praised surprisingly Walt Disney and the fantasy world he created, stressing that he admired the man as a pioneer in entertainment and the universe created under his name. But he qualified that by saying the multi-million dollar Disney corporation was not something he admired. One recalls the Mickey Mouse mask wearing killer in BLOODY MOON. Disney characters also appear on t-shirts and props in such otherwise grim epics as BARBED WIRE DOLLS, LINDA and EUGENIE, THE STORY OF A PERVERSION (1980). KILLER BARBIES VS. DRACULA is like a horror musical unfolding in Disney style alternate world.The idea here is that our seemingly wholesome young couple have the kind of naivete one associates with Disney product, even if the actor who plays Simon looks to be about 15 years old (he was actually in his mid twenties as was Lina Romay at the time of shooting). Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse don't appear but the live-action cartoon quality is prominent. Franco fans expecting scenes of morbid sex and violence might be pleasantly surprised by this other side of the director's world.


So what exactly is this film which fell off the radar 40 years ago? Like many of Franco's unreleased films it may have encountered quota/tax issues and was withdrawn from the market. The production company/potential distributors might simply have decided it didn't have the commercial potential needed to insure a successful theatrical run. Given that there is no serious violence, only brief nudity and one mild seduction scene it probably would have been rate 14 in Spain (only 14 or over admitted, the next rating up from "Todos los Publicos", everyone admitted). Certain 1970s popular films which had increasing levels of sex and violence were driving international mainstream tastes to demand more of that kind of content, especially in Spain, which by 1980 had largely transitioned away from the stricter censorship of the General Francisco Franco era. Maybe VAYA... was just too genteel for rapidly changing audience tastes. That seems odd since we are talking about a Jess Franco film, after all. What emerges instead is an eccentric romantic comedy-adventure about how the honeymoon educates the newlyweds about each others foibles and the fact that the world around them is place of danger and intrigue which can best be navigated with some apprehension along with a wide open mind.

                                                           The Gold Bug

This was a rare production of the Magna sound studio which created the soundtracks for such Franco films as EL SADICO DE NOTRE DAME, SINFONIA EROTICA, DEVIL HUNTER, among others. Lina Romay is dubbed here by Mari Pe Castro, the wife of the studio''s artistic director. The film was shot on locations in Benidorm, Alicante and Elche, familiar from other Franco productions.

Thanks to Nzoog.for research assistance.

(C) Robert Monell, 2020

FURY OF THE WOLMAN PODCAST

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THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX/ LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS (1981) Blu-ray REVIEW by Robert Monell

THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX/ LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS (1981) Blu-ray REVIEW by Robert Monell

 

"It is clear that Kidd-- if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt not--it is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor. But this labor concluded, he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while the coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen--who shall tell."   Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold Bug

Moira (Lina Romay) is a sexy cabaret stripper by night and a secret agent by day. She is attempting to gain information on the Segunda Guerra Mundial, an international criminal group who are about to locate a hidden consignment of gold bars which was secreted beneath the desert during the last days of the Nazis.

Private detective Al Crosby is also on the trail of the gold and teams up with Moira. Eventually, Prof. Von Klaus provides a complex code which, when deciphered, will reveal the location. Moira is briefly captured by the opposition, tortured, and then freed by Al. They make a concerted effort to break the word puzzle, and finally succeed in locating Von Klaus's desert villa, in which there is a secret room containing the gold.

First though, the right notes have to be played on an organ which will electronically trigger the lock mechanism. It involves musical notation from a Liszt composition. When Moira performs the piece, the door opens and the treasure awaits them. The only problem is that the counter-agents have pursued them by helicopter and plan to relieve Al and Moira of their newly found fortune.

Considering the fact that Jess Franco has returned to Euro-spy genre again and again throughout his career, it would seem the genre holds a special fascination for him, as well as providing the profilic director with narrative action that functions as a necessary backdrop to his trademark erotic scenes, personal touches, visual spirals, and private jokes.

It is impossible to separate the sex from
any generic conventions at this point in Franco's career. His later Euro-spy feature DARK MISSION (1988), offers evidence that he could leave aside the obsessive focus on eroticism and make a relatively straight commercial product, but as this more personal early 80s period and his recent films show Franco is at his best when he is
allowed to be Franco.

LA NOCHE... opens with a deliriously filmed striptease by Lina Romay, performed in the driver's seat of a classic fifties American car. This all takes place in an ultra-glitzy night spot, where the sexy action is bathed in gorgeous neon hues. Lina's gyrations and Franco's camera work and lighting design seem in perfect harmony this time around, and the sequence is hypnotic.

There are many shootings, double crosses, torture sessions (one outrageously borders on a XXX level of sado-erotic intensity), exotic locales, and Lina Romay has never looked sexier. It's all so much fun, Jess Franco style. 

Inspired by Poe's "The Gold Bug" Jess Franco presents a Eurospy tinged mystery build around a secret code. As always, Franco is obsessed with secret codes in popular literature and cinema and developed his own as a filmmaker. The code in the Poe story leads adventurers to a fortune in pirated gold buried on a remote atoll. The code here is part literary, a poem, part musical, Liszt's composition, which when followed or played, open a vault of gold bars. The search for Nazi gold triggers thoughts of the gold guarding zombies in Franco's LA TUMBA DE LOS MUERTOS VIVENTES aka OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES, also filmed in the Canary Islands around the same time. But this is super sexy, light-hearted (with staggering doses of nudity, sex, erotic dancing displays) Eurospy fun all the way. 

This is not a horror film and it's one of the few Golden Films Internacional productions which is not a remake of an earlier Jess Franco film. That said, Severin Films has done another spectacular job delivering a sparkling presentation, scanned in 4K from the origina negative. The colors and definition are breathtaking. It looks delicious and has an intoxicating soundscape. Previously released on Spanish VHS (KING VIDEO), this is the film's official home video debut in North America. New English subtitles are provided for the Spanish Mono track.

Special Features include two hosted by Franco author Stephen Thrower: In the Land of Franco Part 2, a tour of multiple Franco locations; The Night of Open Jess, an interview with Thrower on the film. 

Also included is Part 2 of Donald Farmer's 1993 interview with Franco and Lina Romay during the shooting of JUNGLE OF FEAR. Fascinating stuff. 

Highly Recommended!
(C) Robert Monell, 2020

Orgies Revolutionaires- Jose Benazeraf 1983

https://tubepornclassic.com/videos/28859/orgies-revolutionnaires/


A 1983 hardcore war adventure as Gabriel Pontello and Olinka star as a military dictator who is visited by a sexy advernturess in the midst of an armed revolution. Benazeraf's subversive humor and a sense of visual detail make this worth a look. 

CRIES OF PLEASURE/GEMIDOS DE PLACER: Blu-ray Review by Robert Monell

It opens with the mute  houseboy Fenul (DP Juan Soler Cozar, whose feverish thoughts are voiced by the film's director, Jess Franco), playing what at first seems an easy listening afternoon sonata on an acoustic guitar, as the camera zooms back from a pleasure cruiser cutting across Alicante bay. The camera then zooms back further to an elevated view of the bay from the swimming pool patio. It then zooms into Fenul stringing the notes and ultimately down into the aquamarine pool water in which the recently murdered Antonio (Antonio Mayans) floats. Based on a story by the Marquis De Sade the credits over the image tell us. But adapted by Jess Franco for a daring stylistic experiment. Franco's models were obviously Touch of Evil by Orson Wellels and Hitchcock's extended-take murder mystery, Rope.


As usual in the films of Jess Franco sound and music is as important, possibly more so, than the the images he usual to illustrate his chronicles. One must always keep in mind that Franco has said that he considered himself to be a musician who made films. He worked in cinema because it offered more financial security than being a jazz musician. Just consider the fates of the musicians whose names he used to sign his films, short-lived jazz men Dave Tough and Clifford Brown. Franco was also an actor, both in his own and other's films, and his quivering voice here, representing the frenzied thoughts of Fenul, add a constant audio anxiety to the depraved proceedings.


Cut to the important fact here: The new SEVERIN 4K scan of this Jess Franco adaptation of Sade's sex and death game is absolutely stunning. It's like a gorgeous nightmare from which you can't awaken. Be bold. Do not hesitate to order. It's one of Franco's best films and now looks brand new. CRIES OF PLEASURE actually is from a Sade episode filmed at least twice before by the director, as a sequence in Franco's first Sade epic JUSTINE (1969) and in an expanded version as the 1979 SINFONIA EROTICA.

Below: A female predator (Rocio Freixas) moves toward a fateful encounter in Jess Franco's GEMIDOS DE PLACER (1982), "based on the writings by the Marquis de Sade." The impressive villa where the action is set was provided by the film's producer, Golden Films Internacional S.A. founder/CEO, Emilio Larraga. The villa is exotic in design, with a spiraling staircase, but it becomes more oppressive and claustrophobic as the film progresses.

Franco has said there are approximately 20 shots in this film, but I have counted over 30 at various times based on my viewings of the old Caliente Video from Million Dollar Video Corporation (cropped at 1.33:1) Spanish language VHS and this 2006 Spanish DVD. A later Spanish DVD version is part of the CINE EROTICO ESPANOL series- CLASIFICADA "S", licensed from VIDEO MERCURY FILMS S.A., Formato 4:3 [non-anamorphic, and it shows]; Mono; Multizona "0"; DVD5; approx. 83 min. Genero: Erotica; Boutique Multimedia S.l. Grupo Edider 88, S.L. there's even a Madrid ground mail, and this web address www.internacionaldersa88.com

"REMASTERIZADA DIGITALMENTE CALIDAD"

"Una presumible orgia con un desenlace soprendenta" [or, as I said to Jess when we first met: "Lo siento, no hablo Espanol"]

Back copy: [Un liberal matrimonio quieren probar a realizar un trio sexual con una amiga de ambos. Pero en relaidad la utilizan para matarse el uno al otro con argucias y todo tipo de artimanas. El desenlace es sorpendente."]

Anyone who has seen it knows this is a hypnotic film, one of Franco's most personal and experimental works. It unfolds in flashback, narrated by mentally challenged guitar player, Fenul (DP Juan Soler Cozar, dubbed by Jess Franco himself). The extended takes suggest a link to Hitchcock's ROPE, also a story of murderers and their victims. The opening take, zooming slowly back from a yacht in Alicante Bay to pan over the villa, its swimming pool and a floating dead body (cf SUNSET BOULEVARD), is a tour de force.  A tale told by an idiot signifying the corruption of its four main characters, two of whom will die in paroxysms of sexual violence during the course of the film.

As pointed out above this opening immediately recalls the stunning plan sequence which opens Orson Welles' noir masterpiece TOUCH OF EVIL. The constantly probing camera here is as much of a character as the occupants of the villa. Like Hitchcock and Welles, the director wants to make us complicit in the following action, which is a study in casual amorality. The camera is always a voyeur in cinema, but Franco takes this concept to its absolute limit here. With very little dialogue and an overwhelmingly toxic ambiance, offset by Fenul's wandering guitar improvisations, the film becomes a kind of Sadean daydream ending in death, decay and a silent scream recorded from a final God's-eye camera angle.

As the mesmerizing instigator of the increasingly complex erotic games, Rocio Freixas, as the recently discharged mental patient Martina, emanates a powerful ambiguity which immerses the proceedings with a slow burning sense of danger. At any given moment she seems capable of anything and appears to exert a kind of mental control over the participants. She's also in two other impressive Jess Franco films from this period, EL SINIESTRO DR. ORLOFF and BOTAS NEGRAS, LATIGO DE CUERO, both 1982 Golden Films Internacional Productions in need of HD upgrades. In all Franco filmed around a dozen of films in the busy year of 1982 for producer  Larraga, who left him alone to make the film he wanted in the way he wanted. "I had complete freedom," the director told me when I interviewed him in 2005, adding that what he didn't have was large budgets. This film, in particular makes up for the lack of big bucks with the elegant, expansive, abstract, beyond conventional time and space mise-en-scene.

One could write a book on this film alone and Franco author Stephen Thrower is on hand for two Special Features, In the Land of Franco Part 1, a tour through familiar Portuguese locations for such Franco films as A Virgin Among the Living Dead, and Jess Franco's Golden Years, a consideration of the unique Golden Films Internacional features he made during the 1980s. There's also a subtitled interview with Franco and Lina Romay conducted in 1993 by Filmmaker Donald Farmer, during which the couple discuss their relative anonymity in the Spanish film market and such subjects as budgets. Franco even singles out director Martin Campbell as a worthy contemporary film director!

Severin's 4K scan from the original negative reveals layers of light and color which make the dreamlike film even more rapturous. Presented in Spanish with English subtitles, the soundscape is as enveloping as the imagery.

CRIES OF PLEASURE is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Severin Films, who are also releasing another fascinating Franco film produced by Golden Films Internacional, the erotically charged spy thriller NIGHT OF OPEN SEX, which I hope to review here soon.

(C) Robert Monell, 2020.

Viaje a Bangkok, ataúd incluido (1985) [Castellano] rare Jess Franco Edgar Wallace film, Spanish with Programable English subtitles.

This films is not an Edgar Wallace adaptation. It is, rather, a remake of Franco's 1966 Eurospy, CARTES BOCCA ARRIBA/CARTES SUR TABLE/ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS, released on Blu-ray in 2019, in French with English subtitles and an English language track option. Commentary track by Tim Lucas. It begins as a scene by scene remake of the earlier film, but changes the story to bring in a mind-control cult which uses drugs and rituals instead of a technological system to turn victims into robot-assassins. There's a lot less action in this film, which is in color. The black and white 1966 film somewhat suffers because the skin of the robots does not change color when shut down.

CRIES OF PLEASURE/GEMIDOS DE PLACER (Jess Franco, 1982)

Severin Films has announced a new Blu-ray release of this unique Jess Franco erotic drama. One of his key films produced by Emilio Larraga's Golden Films Internacional S.A. company in the early 1980s. The Blu-ray will be a new 4K scan from the original negative.


These are some thoughts on the film after viewing the Spanish DVD release from Cine Erotico Espanol. The film's release is dated as 1982 on the box. It's 4:3 format, Mono. 83m, Spanish language only. No subtitles available. This is an updated post from 2016.

GEMIDOS DE PLACER: [Spanish DVD] and other releases.

A female predator (Rocio Freixas) moves toward a fateful encounter in Jess Franco's GEMIDOS DE PLACER (1982), a remake of PLAISIR A TROIS (1973), "based on the writings by the Marquis de Sade." The impressive villa where the action is set was owned by the film's producer, Golden Films Internacional S.A. founder/CEO, Emilio Larraga. The villa is exotic in design, with a spiraling staircase, but it becomes more oppressive and claustrophobic as the film progresses.

Franco has said there are approximately 20 shots in this film, but I have counted over 30 at various times based on my viewings of the old Caliente Video from Million Dollar Video Corporation (cropped at 1.33:1) Spanish language VHS and this 2006 Spanish DVD. This DVD version is part of the CINE EROTICO ESPANOL series- CLASIFICADA "S", licensed from VIDEO MERCURY FILMS S.A., Formato 4:3 [non-anamorphic, and it shows]; Mono; Multizona "0"; DVD5; aprox. 83 min. Genero: Erotica; Boutique Multimedia S.l. Grupo Edider 88, S.L. there's even a Madrid ground mail, and this web address www.internacionaldersa88.com

"REMASTERIZADA DIGITALMENTE CALIDAD"

"Una presumible orgia con un desenlace soprendenta" [or, as I said to Jess when we first met: "Lo siento, no hablo Espanol"]

Back copy: [Un liberal matrimonio quieren probar a realizar un trio sexual con una amiga de ambos. Pero en relaidad la utilizan para matarse el uno al otro con argucias y todo tipo de artimanas. El desenlace es sorpendente."]

Anyone who has seen it knows it's a hypnotic film, one of Franco's most personal and experimental works. It unfolds in flashback, narrated by mentally challenged guitar player, Fenul (DP Juan Soler Cozar, dubbed by Jess Franco himself]. The extended takes suggest a link to Hitchcock's ROPE, also a story of murderers and their victim. The opening take, zooming slowly back from a yacht in Alicante Bay to pan over the villa, its swimming pool and a floating dead body (cf SUNSET BOULEVARD), is a tour de force.  A tale told by an idiot signifying the corruption of its four main characters, two of whom will die in paroxysms of sexual violence during the course of the film.

This opening immediately recalls the stunning plan sequence which opens Orson Welles' noir masterpiece TOUCH OF EVIL. The constantly probing camera here is as much of a character as the occupants of the villa. Like Hitchcock and Welles, the director wants to make us complicit in the following action, which is a study in casual amorality. The camera is always a voyeur in cinema, but Franco takes this concept to its absolute limit here. With very little dialogue and an overwhelmingly toxic ambiance, offset by Fenull's wandering guitar improvisations, the film becomes a kind of Sadean daydream ending in death, decay and a silent scream recorded from a final God's-eye camera angle.

As the mesmerizing instigator of the increasingly complex erotic games, Rocio Freixas emanates an powerful ambiguity which immerses the proceedings with a slow burning sense of danger. At any given moment she seems capable of anything and appears to exert a kind of mental control over the participants. She's also in two other impressive Jess Franco films from this period, EL SINIESTRO DR. ORLOFF and BOTAS NEGRAS, LATIGO DE CUERO, both 1982 Golden Films Internacional Productions in need of HD upgrades.

Once again, eagerly awaiting the upcoming Severin Blu-ray, scanned in 4K.

(C)Robert Monell, 2019

Collected Jess Franco Film Reviews from Dark Waters: links included.

https://web.archive.org/web/20000407182421/http://www.dark-waters.com/franco/home.html

Dark Waters: Reviews

web.archive.org links to reviews by robert monell + jeffrey frentzen

THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX/ LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS (1981) by Robert Monell

Moira (Lina Romay) is a sexy cabaret stripper by night and a secret agent by day. She is attempting to gain information on the Segunda Guerra Mundial, an international criminal group who are about to locate a hidden consignment of gold bars which was secreted beneath the desert during the last days of the Nazis.

Private detective Al Crosby is also on the trail of the gold and teams up with Moira. Eventually, Prof. Von Klaus provides a complex code which, when deciphered, will reveal the location. Moira is briefly captured by the opposition, tortured, and then freed by Al. They make a concerted effort to break the word puzzle, and finally succeed in locating Von Klaus's desert villa, in which there is a secret room containing the gold.

First though, the right notes have to be played on an organ which will electonically trigger the lock mechanism. It involves musical notation from a Liszt composition. When Moira performs the piece, the door opens and the treasure awaits them. The only problem is that the counteragents have pursued them by helicopter and plan to relieve Al and Moira of their newly found fortune.

Considering the fact that Jess Franco has returned to Euro-spy genre again and again throughout his career, it would seem the genre holds a special fascination for him, as well as providing the profilic director with narrative action that functions as a necessary backdrop to his trademark erotic scenes, personal touches, visual spirals, and private jokes.

It is impossible to separate the sex from
any generic conventions at this point in Franco's career. His later Euro-spy feature DARK MISSION (1988), offers evidence that he could leave aside the obsessive focus on eroticism and make a relatively straight commercial product, but as this more personal early 80s period and his recent films show Franco is at his best when he is
allowed to be Franco.

LA NOCHE... opens with a deliriously filmed strip by Lina Romay, performed in the driver's seat of a classic fifties American car. This all takes place in an ultra-glitzy night spot, where the sexy action is bathed in gorgeous neon hues. Lina's gyrations and Franco's camera work and lighting design seem in perfect harmony this time around, and the sequence is hypnotic.

There are many shootings, double crosses, torture sessions (one outrageously borders on a XXX level of sado-erotic intensity), exotic locales, and Lina Romay has never looked sexier.

Robert Monell

Jess Franco Interview/Art Decades/Order Now!

My Unique Interview with Jess Franco in Art Decades #13 is still in print until Dec. 31, 2019. Order Now!

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Art+Decades+%23+13&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Art+Decades+%23+13&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

EXORCISMS AND BLACK MASSES: Viewings and variants... by Robert Monell

Most recent version discovered is located on X Hamster website (type in title) as SEXORCISM, 82m. Presumably, this is the hardcore French language version. The 2012 Redemption Blu-ray is problematic both in terms of a sometimes heavily damaged source print and the poorly dubbed English language main feature. The standard horror version, a 69 minute censored cut, DEMONIAC, was also included on the Redemption Blu-ray. It does feature the French track, you can hear it under the opening credits. But the remainder defaults to the English dub. What is most needed is a release with the complete French track, which features the voice of Jess Franco as the killer, with new English subtitles. The X rated 4 Disc release has 3 versions listed, one "Director's Cut" and two theatrical cuts in French. None appear to have English subs for the French tracks. I have not had the change to review this boxset yet. Redemption was supposed to release the French language hard-core version, SEXORCISM, but that release never happened. A multi-language version of  the 1980 alternate cut, THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME, was released in 2018, from Severin Films, it included the Spanish track, on which Franco voiced his character. English language subtitles were provided. "...artistic curiosity begins at the very point where the senses leave off." J.K. Huysmans EXORCISM 1974 Gray Market versions: Video Search of Miami, European Trash Cinema, and others (U.S. imports) DIRECTED BY J.P. JOHNSON ("JESS FRANCO ") WITH: LINA ROMAY, "JESS FRANK" (JESS FRANCO), PIERRE TAYLOU, "LYNN MONTEIL" (NADINE PASCAL), MONICA SWINN, OLIVIER MATHOT, ROGER GERMANES, CLAUDE SENDRON, RICHARD DeCONNICK, CLAUDE BOISSON, DANIEL J. WHITE, CHRISTINE CHIREIX, DAVID ATTA, FRANCE NICOLAS, SAM MAREE, CAROLE RIVERE, PHILLIPPE LEBRUN, RAMON ARDID, ALBERT LERNER, CATHERINE LAFERRIERE, FRANCOISE GOUSSARD. This outrageous project exists in so many variants, at so many different running times it would be impossible to view them all (since some are not even available on home video) much less detail the differences. Of the versions now available on tape, the softest is undoubtedly the cut Wizard Video version, DEMONIAC, released in the late 1980s. A running time of 87 minutes is listed on the Wizard video box, which also sports stills of scenes not included in this particular cut. They released a recut version of LA SADIQUE DE NOTRE-DAME a 1979 Spanish-French co-production that mixes footage from Franco's 1974 EXORCIME ET MESSES NOIRES and scenes shot five years later on Parisian locations. This film has a softcore sex and violence, English-language variant, titled EXORCISM, which was the film which started it all. The 1975 hardcore version of this film, retitled SEXORCISME, can be had in two slightly different cuts available from U.S. mail order companies. These include an 71-minute English-subtitled version, taken from a French-language video; and a longer 82-minute variation which also has a slightly different scene arrangement. The latter is available in French language only. Both of these version drop much narrative material and several major characters to include several lengthy and over-the-top XXX sequences, some of which show Franco himself participating in hardcore action! The gory, English-language EXORCISM was unavailable for many years and in some ways it is the most disturbing of all the versions. The protagonist, Mathis Vogel/Laforgue (Franco), is a sexually twisted, religion-obsessed psychopath who murders Paris women. The film represents Franco's most severe vision of madness and evil. The thematic questions are, what constitutes madness and evil? Though these are familiar themes in Franco's works, the director never posed them so powerfully as here. The XXX versions were desperate attempts to make an unpleasant film more commercial, at least on the adult movie market, and the hardcore situations only enhance the film's sense of sexual delirium and blasphemy. The fact that all these version have scenes which later found their way into the 1979 remake SADIST OF NOTRE DAME indicates that Franco was attempting to more bucks out of burnt-out material. The hardcore versions look so cheap and shoddy, though, that one guesses they had difficulty even on the "money-back guaranteed" sex circuit of the mid 70s, which probably explains why he recycled the scenes. The English language EXORCISM anticipates in tone and style such slasher fare as HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and Franco's character is in some ways even more sinister than Hannibal Lector. However, EXORCISM and the later SADIST OF NOTRE DAME are very somber. The gore scenes are repugnant, and include the torturing of both Carole Riviere and Lina Romay with a knife. As they are being cut up, the killer chants sections of the Roman Catholic mass in Latin. The most grotesque addition is a scene which shows him murdering The Countess (France Nicholas) on a hotel bed. This is accomplished by shots of him slashing her open and ripping out some of her internal organs. Also, this version also makes clear the Black Masses Vogel witnesses are staged events, the human "sacrifices" are not harmed but are willing participants, the knives they are "stabbed" with have retractable blades, and the blood is fake. As these explanatory scenes are missing from all other versions, Vogel's mania and the Satanist's agenda are a lot clearer -- Vogel is a deluded fanatic and the Satanists are just harmless hedonists, even though their dedication to evil is total. Another aspect this version restores is a conversation between the various police inspectors and an Interpol investigator, in which Vogel's murders are linked to rituals from the Inquisition. Connect this with Vogel's description of himself in SADIST OF NOTRE DAME as an agent of the Inquisition. EXORCISM has the same storyline as all the other versions, minus the 1979 footage of Vogel repeated visiting the Notre-Dame cathedral, and confessing his murders to a priest who was a friend in the seminary that Vogel left. Without these scenes, EXORCISM and the hardcore SEXORCIMES are much more nihilistic. Vogel seems much more monstrous and, ironically, slightly more sympathetic. Some of Vogel's background and motives are not explained, which colors him as a mysterious, almost abstract, icon of insanity. He is insane, but perhaps not evil in the same sense as the Satanists, who are upper-middle class dilettantes and choose evil as a way of life. Vogel's self-proclaimed holy war upon them and the loose women of Paris is his philosophical statement on the amorality of the modern world, but he sees his sick actions as totally moral. EXORCISM and its many variants are not conventionally well-made films. The minimalist visual style, under-lit cinematography, ragged editing (exacerbated by the XXX inserts of some versions), and painfully slow pacing contribute to a viewing experience which is hard on the viewer's eyes and patience. Perhaps this reaction is precisely what Franco was looking for, as the theme of the film is the nature of "viewing." Vogel sees the sadomasochistic rituals, which he misinterprets, and we are the viewers of Franco's Sadean thriller. Vogel also writes narratives about his "viewings" just as Jess Franco makes films about the relationships and distance between viewers and writers,performers,and directors. (C)Robert Monell,2019 (New Version)