Actor-Director Michel Lemoine appeared in the four Franco-related Aquila Film Enterprises coproductions of 1967: NECRONOMICON, ROTE LIPPEN, BESAME MONSTRUO and IM SCHLOSS DER BLUTEN BEGIERDE. He was married to featured actress Janine Reynaud at the time and they reportedly are still friends after all these years. Lemoine later become a compelling filmmaker in his own right, directing smooth and stylish erotica such as SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN and DESIRE UNDER THE SUN, among many others. He has never really gotten the recognition he deserves as a director. One of his most memorable performances is as the deadly alien Branco, whose touch turns humans into skeletons, in the Italian sci-fi thriller PLANETS AGAINST US. Thanks to Adam Williams for the image.
4 comments:
Michel Lemoine has one of the most distinctive faces in European exploitation films. I'll never turn down the opportunity to watch something he's in. SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN seems like it could be his quintessential work, but I have a soft spot for the films he did with Benazeraf. FRUSTRATION, which he wrote as well as acted in, is such a stark film at first glance. But eventually that loopy sadism of SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN emerges, and you either succumb to its madness or are left totally alienated.
I would like to sample some of the erotic films he directed, from LES DÉSAXÉES (1972) to some of the hardcore stuff he did in the eighties.
Yes, he has an uncanny presence. He doesn't need any makeup to convince as the alien in PLANETS... . Franco picked up on that for the roles in his films, especially SUCCUBUS. An old video store here used to carry FRUSTRATION but that was before I realized that Lemoine was in it. It just seemed packaged like a typical softcore with no credits on the box, so I ignored it. I wish now I had taped it. I do have an old dub of DESIRE UNDER THE SUN, one of the series of erotic films (this one's softcore) he made for a French company in the 80s with Gabriel Pontello, a really cleverly directed film.
I like FRUSTRATION a lot, it has great surreal images and a rare atmosphere, reminds me a bit LES CAUCHEMARS NAISSENT LA NUIT. SEVEN WOMEN FOR SATAN has a link I would like to know more about, Bob Wade: the editor, who Pete Tombs (I think in the liner notes of the DVD) defines as a central figure in the arty eurotica of that period.
Bob Wade provided the very adventurous editing for a number of films by nouveau roman author and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, whose films we'll be looking at here in the future. I've always thought ARG's LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS were a definite influence on JF.
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