Robert Forster in ESMERALDA BAY

The recently late, great actor Robert Forster, was beloved for his "nice" tough guy roles in Quentin Tarantino's JACKIE BROWN (1997) and TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (arguably the best work of Tarantino and David Lynch). The versatile pro could also play down and dirty bad guys, as he did in DELTA FORCE (1986) and in this Jess Franco war film, where he played Colonel Madeiro, a torture specialist in a South American police state which is invaded by the United States. One of Franco's largest budgeted films also features U.S. actors George Kennedy and Craig Hill. Supposedly coming on DVD/Blu-ray soon.

Forster is seen below on the cover of a European promo (top) and between Lina Romay and Sylvia Tortosa (Bottom).

LA BAHIA ESMERALDA (1989)

 Cast:  Robert Forster, Ramon Sheen, George
Kennedy, Craig Hill, Brett Halsey, Silvia Tortosa, Fernando Rey, Antonio Mayans, Lina Romay, Jess Franco.


Directed by Jess Franco
Screenplay by A. L. Mariaux, H. L. Rostaine, Jess Franco
Music by Luis Bacalov
Production EUROCINE, ENRIQUE CEREZO (LLURIA FILMS) 

Shot in Barcelona and Tarragona. 


 ESMERALDA BAY, a 1989 Eurocine production, has long been absent on U.S. video or DVD. The story of the film, written by Franco and Eurocine founder Marius Lesoeur, anticipates the mid 1990s crisis in Panama, when dictator Manuel Noriega was deposed with the intervention of a U.S. military invasion. Noriega was captured by U.S. forces and imprisoned in the U.S. Franco had a good cast for this, a larger than usual budget, but it's not one of his more personal films. In other words, it's crafted for a certain international action-adventure market, which was already drying up at the time it was released.

TEXT (C) Robert Monell, 2019