Jess Franco's XXX Files. Falo Crest (1987)

(C) Robert Monell, 2023 Alternate title: CAPRICES SADOS POUR SALOPES DU PLAISIR/Producer: Phalos Films, Madrid/Director: Lennie Hayden [Jess Franco & Lina Romay]/Screenplay: Lennie Hayden, Lowel Richmond [J. Franco & L. Romay]/DP: Terry de Corsia [Jess Franco]/Music: Daniel J. White/Edited by Rosa Maria Almirall [L. Romay]/Agfacolor/Approx. 80m. Widescreen. Cast: Jane Morgan (Marzan) [Lina Romay], Gina Corrington, Andre' White, Brenda Haven [Elisa Mateo], John First [C.Gonzalez Ordi], Mel Power [A. Bartos Velasco], Linda Ewing [M. Fernandez Moreno, Sado Summers [Jose Miguel Garcia Marfa, Carlos Quiroga. Also listed in adverts: Fess Parker [!], Lola Falona, Twin Welamy, Wendy Cano, Andrew White, Sigurney Grant. Shooting locations: Benidorm, Alicante. *Bluray.com; Alex Mendibil. Release dates (Spain): May 4, 1987 August 10, 1988 One of two parodies of 1980s hit US television series, this one taking off from FALCON CREST. On the same wavelength but slightly superior to PHOLLASTIA, which parodied DYNASTY. There's not as much characterization here and the settings aren't as "upscale" as the other but a nonstop torrent of bitchy, sometimes amusing dialogue, which only Jess Franco could have written, saves this from being just another boring fuck and suck fest.

The intentionally ridiculous "plot" involves the Channing's ongoing conflict with the Carrington family. Both hot to trot families are attempting to gain the rights for aphrodisiac fruit which grows on the inherited Channing estate. Franco has a lot of fun with the upscale families restorting to low down affairs and hostile business strategies. The hostess dreams that her guests will drink her mixture of wine and semen. Everyone ends up imbibing and a lengthy orgy ensues. Twosome, threesome, and moresome encounters rule the evening until everyone is drunk on sex and more sex. We've seen this disgusting drink prepared and consumed in Franco's 1978 COCKTAIL SPECIAL, one of the last film productions of Robert De Nesle and a hardcore variant of Sade's PHILOSOPHY IN THE BOURIOR. 

The action unfolds in "real" time before and during the party on the Channing properties. Melissa Channing hosts the affair with zest and a clever plot to get the rights signed over to her without any hitches. The orange drink is mixed with "delicious" semen and drunk like champagne as a wife remarks, "It's so embarrassing to see my husband shoot cum in public!" as another woman drinks the spent semen out of a Phallo Crest wine glass. More witty Franco dialogue ensues until the company collapses into a heap of sweaty flesh. Lots of gynecological close-ups of sex acts make up most of the runtime here.  Lina Romay's brisk editing does keep things moving....

Neither of the two hardcore spin offs of popular American TV shows became profitable due to the miscalculation of spending too much on professional hardcore actors and the costs of the productions themselves. When they were finally sold the price barely covered the costs and there wasn't a huge audience for what must have seemed like a clever marketing idea. It should be noted that Angela Channing in the original FALCON CREST TV series was played by Jane Wyman, the former wife of Ronald Reagan, who was President of the United States during most of the series run. Falcon Crest (TV Series 1981–1990) - IMDb *1980s era Spanish VHS covers. No DVD releases.

It's a long way from Sade to 1980s American television... ***************************************************************** Script sample, likely for English language subtitles, to give an idea of the verbal tone: Oh dear! You've no idea what Angela Channing is capable of! Don't waste your time with those auctions. Sell! Sell! Sell! You'll evaporate in my hands like lightning. The lightning of my power, my intelligence and my cunt. Yes Julia, yes.. You were my favourite until sex and drugs destroyed you. You were the most intelligent. But now you're worthless like all the others. But you're still not as bad as the rest. Don't answer! Let me. - Don't answer it! ________________________________________________________________________________

LA CASA DE LAS MUJERES PERDIDAS (1982)

LA CASA DE LA MUJERES PERDIDA (1982) Most of Jess Franco's films are built around protagonists who are either trapped within or escaping from a dysfunctional real or extended family. The family is often a real or symbolic prison with a punishing mother/father figure, brothers and sisters in suffering communion and the psycholgical and existential weight of that specific situation. In the director's final film AL PERIERA VS THE ALLIGATOR LADIES the father figure is Jess Franco himself, the aged, demanding director, confined to a wheelchair but free to play with the apparatus of cinema and the representations of those within his mirror-enclosed mise-en-scene.

THE HOUSE OF LOST WOMEN went into production during a typically busy year for Jess Franco. He was involved in shooting, editing, preparing and doing post-production on at least 9 films in 1982. It was shot in late Summer/early Fall of 1982, probably toward the end of September, and completed post-production on October 18th, 1982. It was viewed by the Spanish ministerial commission which rated the film with a Clasificada "S" (sensitive material not suitable for viewers under 18 years old and even adults who might be offended). Theater workers checked that customers had ID that they were over 18. A film could be rated S for violence also, as was DAWN OF THE DEAD in Spain at that time. Filmed in coastal areas in the provinces of Murcia and Malaga, most of the action takes place in the seaside house of actor Mario Pontecorvo, played by Jess Franco regular Antonio Mayans. It opens with Desdemona, played by LIna Romay, walking along the beach and thinking in voiceover about her loneliness. There are no other residents on the island beside the dysfunctional Pontecorvo family. There is a tone of macabre, dark humor in the way the family is represented. We’ll be aware of this tone all through the film.

Fetishism, family style.... The film opens with shots of waves crashing on the island’s shore. We then listen to Desdemona’s thoughts as she walks along the beach. She’s lonely and frustrated as she watches the passenger jets fly overhead toward international destinations. She senses she will never leave the island and feels trapped. Her physical nudity represents her emotional nudity and vulnerability. She spends most of the film pleasuring herself, her only escape from the grim reality of her family life. These scenes of the island and the seashore were filmed along the coastal regions of Murcia and Malaga, mostly Malaga, two provinces in the southeast and south of Spain. The coast line of Murcia is seen in the first shots in Franco’s 1973, A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD. Some shots were filmed on the coastal area near the city of Benidorm, which is near Alicante, to the north of these other areas. Once again, Jess Franco is using various fragments taken in different regions of the Spanish landscape to create his own unique alternate reality. Lina Romay’s character is named Desdemona while Mario’s second wife is Dulcinea, both names of characters in famous Shakespeare tragedies. It should be emphasized that The House of Lost Women is a tragedy. The behavior of the head of the family, Mario, who could best be described by as a legend in his own mind, is that of a pathological liar. He claims to be from Argentina, where he was a leading stage presence for years until he had to leave the country due to a sex scandal. He constantly reminds the other family members that he in is permanent hiding and lives in fear of being found and arrested by Interpol agents and returned to stand trial. Desdemona also lives in a fantasy world while her sister Paulova is developmentally disabled and confined to a wheelchair. Both sisters are verbally, physically and emotionally abused by Mario’s second wife, played by the late actress Carmen Carrion. Mario’s wife also verbally humiliates him for being impotent in their sexual relations. Mario ignores all this and sits all day reading aloud from various magazines about such famous celebrities such as Margaret Thatcher and actors in classic movies. This is one of Antonio Mayan’s best roles and performances. He has to play a character who is never all in reality, but slides in and out of it. He’s self-absorbed to the point where he can no longer function normally, he lives in a plane somewhere between neurosis and psychosis. The late actress Carmen Carrion is also well cast as Mario’s dissatisfied wife. Some may remember the actress from Jose Larraz’s BLACK CANDLES. She’s very skilled at playing brooding, manipulative characters. Besides acting she worked in the garment industry and was a nightclub entertainer as well. Paulova is played by the actress Ausunscion Calero, who acts under the name Susana Kerr, and the character of the hunter/journalist is played by actor Tony Skios (Antonio Rebollo). Both actors appeared in other Jess Franco films around this time, including THE SINISTER DR ORLOFF.

One element to listen for on the soundtrack are the constant chatter of radio and television commercials for skin creams, food products, coffee, automobiles and an advert for the Spanish version for the 1980s American television hit DALLAS, which features a character named JR. Even the isolated, depraved world of this island bound family is invaded by the commercial entertainment world. Perhaps this is Jess Franco’s comment on his own position as a commercial Spanish director in the 1980s. He told me when I interviewed him in 2005 that “I was not free” when discussing his Spanish films in the 1960s and 70s, that the Spanish censorship only allowed him to make certain films which would be later censored of material the commission found offensive. He later gained a degree of creative freedom when in the 1980s the Spanish censors of the Francisco Franco regime had disappeared and there was a healthy soft-core sex film industry in Spain. He could deal with explicit themes and show things which were once forbidden in Spain.

1974 Eurocine composite, despite the presence of Franco veterans Jack Taylor and Olivier Mathot, not to be confused with THE HOUSE OF LOST WOMEN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE HOUSE OF LOST WOMEN, was made in total freedom which he was give by Spanish producer Emilio Larraga, who owned Spain’s GOLDEN FILMS INTERNACIONAL, for which Franco made films from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s. The only limitation he had was money. “They were very poorly resourced” he told me. He had micro-budgets and unlimited creative freedom. This film has only 5 or 6 characters and most of it takes place in a small house. There were no big expenses incurred by a large cast, sets or travel. What he delivered with this film, as with his similar Bahia Blanca, was a very serious, personal project without an artificial plot, clichéd characters, generic demands. This wasn’t a spy film, a horror film, a neo-noir, a comedy, an action film, it was a film about real people trapped in a painful existence. The alternate Spanish title Perversion en la Isla Perdida highlights its existential placement in the “S” film marketplace of the era. It's set on island where we visit a hermetically sealed, closed world outside of the boundaries of reality. In that sense it's similar to such films as FEMALE VAMPIRE, COUNTESS PERVERSE, A VIRGIN AMOND THE LIVING DEAD,99 WOMEN, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR, MACUMBA SEXUAL and many of his WIP films, an off shore off-world built from the ground up by Jess Franco. What’s important to consider about LA CASA… is that if fulfills the commercial requirements of an “S” film, crafted for that market, while at the same time taking a deep dive into collective insanity. He remade this film almost 20 years later with BROKEN DOLLS (2000), which is also very much worth seeing. It’s done in a different style, using a different technology, a more experimental film, as most of his 21st Century digital films were. Both films are 100 percent Jess Franco. Thanks to Ismael Fernandez, Alex Mendibil and Francesco Cesari for additional information. © Robert Monell, 2023

RESIDENCIA PARA ESPIAS (1968)

RESIDENCIA PARA ESPIAS 1968-90 minutes/European Trash Cinema and Video Search of Miami (U.S. import) Directed by JESS FRANCO; From a novel by Michael Loggan Cast: EDDIE CONSTANTINE, DIANA LORYS, OTTO STERN, ANITA HOFFER, TOTA ALBA, MARIA PAZ PONDAL, CRIS HUERTA, DINA LOY, Howard Vernon, Wolfgang Preiss (alternate version)/A Spanish-West German co-production. ======================================= Features Reviews DARK WATERS; Robert Monell's EUROSPY FILES

Video Resources (ETC VIDEO) Links Credits (a.k.a. ÇA BARDE, CHEZ LES MIGNONNES; DAN CHEZ LES GENTLEMEN; LES MIGNONNES) This obscure title, one of two Jess Franco spy films starring Eddie Constantine, the other being the much better known ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS (a.k.a. CARTES SUR TABLE), also features the charmingly rough-hewn actor-singer as a smarter-than-he-looks secret agent. In RESIDENCIA PARA ESPÍAS, his character is named Dan Leyton, but the part is a virtual carbon copy of the Al Pereira spy in CARTES SUR TABLE.

As usual Franco composes his film with layered imagery which challanges the viewer to really watch the film in order to "see" it; there is a difference between watching and seeing in the Franco galaxy. The above image tells us a lot about the plot and a major character in the film, but we have to look into the image, instead of just at it, to the picture on the wall, to "see" the revelation which will not be fully understood until the final scene. Once again, we are prisoners of appearances as is Dan Leyton in his journey toward a truth which will further disillusion him and provide an ironic twist. The story, which is not as original or interesting as the one in CARTES SUR TABLE, has Constantine trying to ferret out a traitor to American military interests in Istanbul. After an extensive investigation and many false leads, it turns out that a high-ranking official is leaking information with the help of someone close to Leyton. The key to the mystery has been hiding in plain sight. Constantine, as low-key as ever in this rather cut-and-dried role, is mostly seen wandering around in a spiffy military uniform while dodging fists and femme fatales. The movie maintans interest due to the exotic locales -- the mosques, bazaars, and back alleys of Istanbul -- which Franco spends a lot of time recording with an overactive zoom lens. One welcome factor is that the film is in color, which enhances the exotic locations. The black and white cinematography in CARTES SUR TABLE was competent but didn't boost either the aesthetic or commercial value.

RESIDENCIA PARA ESPÍAS offers some nicely understated moments of erotic frisson provided by the usually scantily-clad Diana Lorys, who played the female lead in Franco's first horror film, THE AWFUL DR ORLOFF. I found the film fascinating but somewhat talky, especially in untranslated Spanish. It works best as a relaxed travelogue with an occassional chase or fight thrown in for good measure. Eddie's reactions to the various women populating the film, especially a dominating female officer, are quite amusing. There's even a bizarre rendition of the song "When the Saints Come Marching In," done by an all-female chorus, with Leyton playing the keyboard.

The best parts of this are when it upshifts into Eurospy action gear as in a ferocioius fight, staged in a chicken coop, between the protagonist and some rough local agents. Leyton survives the attack by his ability to shift into a mode which is as nasty as his attackers. Istanbul is an amoral place for a Western agent, no matter how experienced, as it is pleasantly exotic for the innocent European tourist trade. At the end Leyton finds out that his closest friends there are betraying him and his country. He allows his friend (Otto Stern) the dignity of suicide before walking away with the bitter recognition that it's a dirty job in a corrupted world. This is in marked difference to the silly slapstick which concludes Franco's other Eddie Constantine Eurospy CARTES SUR TABLE (ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS, 1966). The point is that Leyton has been behind the curve despite his spy movie machinations. For the Franco fan, these minor diversions (which also includes a lively jazz and Turkish score by Odon Alonso) make this unpretentious entry easy on the eyes and ears. Franco would return to Istanbul for further atmospheric location shooting on THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU and VENUS IN FURS (1969). At this point the filmmaking skirts on the edges of the avant garde into which the director would make a deep dive with NECRONOMICON (1967).

Wolfgang Preiss, actor famous for portraying villains in numerous films, including the legendary title character in the final film of Fritz Lang, DIE TAUSEND AUGEN DES DR. MABUSE (1960). Unfortunately, this review is based on a truncated Spanish-language version from an old TV broadcast (in bootleg form) on video. It is watchable but runs about 15 minutes shorter than the 90-minute running time listed in some reference books. As a final note, it would be interesting to see the French version of this film which reportedly contains additional inserts featuring Howard Vernon and Wolfgang Preiss (Doctor Mabuse in Fritz Lang's DIE TAUSEND AUGEN DES DR. MABUSE!), filmed during the 1966 preparations for the shooting of NECRONOMICON! That legendary item, though, may be a version once offered by the various, defunct grey market dealers. It would also be interesting to read the source novel, Leyton et les Chatelaines. An attack by thugs on Radeck (Howard Vernon) does remain in the Spanish VHS I consulted for this review. RESIDENCIA PARA ESPIAS is certainly interesting enough to deserve a full-scale HD restoration with all the trimmings. The rather extensive shoot took place between June and August 1966. It was released in Turkey in 1968. Locations included Alicante; Comunidad Valencia, exteriors, including Jardin des Abril; Estudios CEA, Cuidad Lineal, Madrid; Bosphorous, dock exteriors, sunset; Istanbul, exteriors, including the Blue Mosque; Lisbon, Portugal, elevator de Santa Justa (scene of attack on Howard Vernon). (C) Robert Monell [New Version, 2023]