DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN (Jess Franco 1972) Severin Films Blu-ray Review.

DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN is 100 proof Jess Franco. It unfolds at a rapid clip thrusting the viewer into a magical dimension of Franco's creation, somewhere between a fumetti and a Gothic cartoon. The plo,t is a highly compressed fantasia of the Universal Pictures horror classics DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, only shot in lurid color on a dollar store budget. Filmed in 1971, along with at least 5 other films, it attempts to cram as many classic monsters as possible into a hectic mise-en-scene. The paucity of dialoge (there isn't any for the film's first quarter hour), the rumbling Bruno Nicholai score imported from Franco's previous EL CONDE DRACULA and JUSTINE, the proliferation of zoom shots from the very first image onward, all combine to creater an overwhelmingly onieric atmosphere. Dr. Seward (Alberto Dalbes) stakes the sleeping Dracula (Sartana in the German version) turning the Count into a dead bat. Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price) appears with his assistant Morpho (Spaghetti Western regular Luis Barboo), revives Dracula to his original form, and also recharges the dormant Frankenstein monster. There's also a vampire woman (Britt Nichols) and a werewolf (Brandy, who would stunt double for Paul Naschy's werewolf character in THE WEREWOLF AND THE YETI) who join in the final monster bash. Dr. Seward races to Castle Dracula to stop Dr. Frankenstein's mad plan of world domination via classic monsters. The final fight between the Frankenstein monster and the wolfman owes a lot to Universal's FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN. Part of the magic of Franco's treatment of these cine-mythologies is that he adds such surreal touches as having his 19th Century villains drive around in 1970 model hearses and sedans, something that the Universal and Hammer studios would never allow. Howard Vernon's Dracula may be a long way from the the Bela Lugosi and Christoper Lee incarnations of the character and would return in the more conventional follow up, LA FILLE DE DRACULA (1972). DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN is purely Jess Franco's unapologetic take on the iconic characters. Fernando Bilbao's silver skinned Frankenstein monster would return in the outrageous 1972 EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN.

The 2006 IMAGE DVD of Franco's minimalist monster-rally DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN (onscreen title) was a disappointment. This no-budget 1972 French Spanish coprodcution was one of Franco's personal favorites and, depending on your critical perspective, a film you'll either embrace or be sorely disappointed with. Just compare it to his EL CONDE DRACULA, made for Harry Alan Towers with Christopher Lee in the title role, and notice the difference in treatment. Of course this isn't at adapting Bram Stoker's "Dracula", it's Franco's termite version of Universal's HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945), only in color and scope. And that's where this DVD fails both the film and the viewer. The image is consistently soft throughout, the colors murky and it's all misframed at 1.85:1. The PAL 2003 Divisa DVD is also misframed with similar color and sharpness issues. One advantage of the Divisa release is that it's the only home video release so far to include an opening text, credited to "David Klunne" (another Franco beard), which recontextualizes the monster tale into Franco's own arcane personal dimension. Franco told me when I interviewed him in 2005* that he shot this film in Techniscope to achieve a multiplane perspective, he wanted the right, left and center fields to be of equal importance and to have a flow of action within and across each area. This strategy, along with an agressive use of the telezoom, ONLY works when the film is seen in its correct 2.35:1 Techniscope ratio. Seen fullscreen or partially letterboxed it looks clumsy and compositionally confusing. And it's not. It's one of his most carefully composed and visually experimental works. Once again, comic book panels were a major inspiration while Bruno Nicolai's score (recycled from EL CONDE DRACULA-1970) along with use of animal noises (cf Luis Bunuel's THE MILKY WAY-1969) are used as much as possible to replace exposity dialogue with a completely stylized sound environment. Franco's comments were very specific, "for some films, like DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN, I preferred Techniscope. I liked it because it literally gave you more 'scope', you can show more of the castles, the landscapes. It can be beautiful and gives a mysterious look to everything. You can show more on the sides of the [main] action. But shooting in scope can be more expensive because of the anamorphic lenses. It's more expensive to shoot and edit in scope."

The previous Blu-ray of this title, DIE NACHT DER OFFENEN SARGE from Germany's Colosseo Film, was correctly frame at 2.35:1 but had a dark, unsharp image quality with damp, desaturated colors. Severin's new 4K scan from Spanish, French and German release prints finally restores the film to what Franco intended. The 2.35:1 compositions are sharp, detailed and as color saturated as possible given the low budgeted production on Portuguese, Spanish and French locations. It's also the first disc release to allow the extended end music to fully play out rather than abruptly cut off. Special features include an interview with Franco author Stephen Thrower, Part 10 of In The Land of Franco, with Alain Petit and Thrower, the alternate Spanish opening credit sequence with the aforementioned "David Klunne" text and a deleted scene from the English language version which features a reading from Dr. Frankenstein's diary post produced by English language dubber Richard McDonald and written by David Mills. This post-production insert goes all the way back to the fullscreen WIZARD VIDEO VHS release, THE SCREAMING DEAD. A 3 minute 20 second trailer, "Master of Black Horror", is also included. *"Truth Will Out: A Final Audience With One of Cinema's Greatest Visionaries, Jess Franco." By Robert Monell ART DECADES magazine: December 2017, Issue # 13. Thanks to Kit Gavin for arranging the interview with Jess Franco. (C) Robert Monell, 2024

LILIAN ( LA VERGEN PERVERTIDA) (Clifford Brawn/Jess Franco, 1983)

An image which sums up the hard-boiled dimension inhabited by Al Pereira (Antonio Mayans). Cigarettes, a gun, a few drinks, suggesting a minimalist pattern of a gritty life and a story which ends with Al executing the club owner (Emilio Linder) who drugged, raped, and turned out Lilian (Katja Bienert). In the opening scene of this neo-noir the young, naive Lilian opens a door to the upscale villa in which she is staying and confronts a hardcore scene between Lina Romay and Jose Llamas. That perfectly sums up the issue with this project, which began as Clasificada "S" thriller which had to be upgraded/downgraded to a hardcore feature, necessitating the removal of some 20 minutes of the original's runtime (84m). The reason was a Spanish law which had been suddenly imposed restricting the showing of "S" product in Adult houses. Jess Franco had to scramble and add this footage since his film would not be playable in more mainstream locations. I assume the film did reasonably well, probably due to those grudgingly added hardcore scenes, and may disappoint those who look for something more than another Franco hardcore. LILIAN... tells the downbeat story of a young woman (Katja Bienert) who collapses while staggering though a desert-like area. She has been drugged, held prisoner and forced to be the abused party in an S&M show staged for the edification of the local police official (Daniel J. White) who is supposed to be leading investigations. Instead he takes detective Al Pereira off the case when he gets too close to the truth.

Al has discovered the comatose Lilian, who recounts her terror in a delirium at the residence of retired cop and friend Bernardo (Jess Franco), who counsels Al to forget it. He doesn't. Corruption is endemic here as in LES EBRANLEES (1972) and BOTAS NEGRAS, LATIGO DE CUERO (Golden Films Internacional, 1982), two very similar Al Pereira episodes. As in those films, Al Pereira  is depicted as a hotheaded, high minded loser who will ultimately trigger his own exile from the human race. The villains, the drug lord (Emilio Linder) and his wife (Lina Romay). who fetches him party girls and druggies at her nightclub, are oh-so-chic, part of the local glitter scene. Franco shoots this as a 1980s Film Noir, a virtual encyclopedia of noir references and visual quotes. Using long takes and wide angle lenses in the style of Sam Fuller (UNDERWORLD USA) and Robert Aldrich (KISS ME, DEADLY), but also incorporating his personal favorites THE KILLERS (Robert Siodmak version) and Howard Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP in the flashback structure of the former and the opening credits of the latter, which are recreated in the penultimate scene when the camera lingers on a pack of cigarettes (American, of course), two whiskey glasses and a pistol on a table. The drug lord had just been sitting there having a drink when Al Pereira burst in and summarily executed him, Dirty Harry style. Al leaves his pistol as a calling card, knowing the police will trace it to him. Then he quickly hops into his car and drives away into a future life of assured damnation. One evil bastard is done away with, but the corporate  evil of the big combo will continue under the averted attention of the corrupt police official. And the principled avenger and seeker of justice Al Pereira will suffer the punishments of our sinful, fallen world. The film has a brutal, nihilistic tone which is mediated by one of Daniel J. White's most breathtaking scores, incorporating a kind of funk theme and an ethereal line. Some of these cues can also be heard in the director's 1985 Jungle adventure, L'ESCLAVA BLANCA, a Manacoa production. If one can forgive or fast forward the hardcore scenes there's a good film in there. Franco and Antonio Mayans are superb as the world weary receivers of Lilian's sad story. This element of delirious confession to authority figures evokes EUGENIE DE SADE (1970) and Sade's theater piece, DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PRIEST AND A DYING MAN (1782). The Spanish "kiosk" DVD version was screened for this review. It has very good video quality, sharp and colorful with acceptable Spanish only audio.  This version lasts approximately 73 minutes. We're left with a moral vacuum, set in the glitter scene, which is made into a sexual hell by the insertion of much routine hardcore footage, taking advantage of Spain's newly liberalized censorship. With strong performances by Lina Romay, Jess Franco as the retired cop and frequent Franco composer-actor Daniel J White as the corrupt police official. The opening escape by the delirious heroine staggering across a beach is indicative of Franco's ability to throw the viewer into a scene's atmosphere quickly, efficiently and without any dialogue or context. This was released on Spanish VHS before appearing as a "kiosk" DVD. Filmed on locations in Madrid and Huelva.

LA ESCLAVA BLANCA (1985)

la esclava blanca 1985 87 MINUTES Video Search of Miami (U.S. import) DIRECTED BY "CLIFFORD BROWN" (JESS FRANCO) WITH: JOSÉ LLAMAS, MABEL ESCAÑO, MIGUEL ROS, AUGUSTÎN GIL, LINA ROMAY, CONCHI MONTÉS --------------------------------------------------------------------

Of the eight other films Franco made in 1985 (half of them hardcore porno features), this very low budget adventure stands out because of an absorbing, multi-layered script by ace Spanish screenwriter Santiago Moncada. Besides writing Bava's HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON, THE BELL FROM HELL, and THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER, Moncada has written and produced screenplays for a variety of European genre directors (Manuel Cano's SWAMP OF THE RAVENS, TARZAN'S GREATEST CHALLENGE, and VOODOO BLACK EXORCIST were all based on Moncada scripts). 牋牋 In LA ESCLAVA BLANCA, Moncada gives us three separate stories that gradually interweave and come together in the final scene. The first story seems to based on Macbeth. A weak-willed jungle guide is manipulated by his domineering wife into committing a series of crimes. During a safari, he leads a honeymoon couple (José Llamas and Conchi Montés) into a trap laid by the Tobongas, a Stone Age tribe that worships a giant lizard god. The bride is tied to a sacrificial altar for later sacrifice. 牋牋 The second story starts out in the city, where a karate student and two of her instructors accidentally discover the secret of the Tobonga. In the third story, two expeditions make their way back to the Tobonga camp. One of these groups includes the original guide, who has been abducted by the karate instructors (they have also killed his wife). The other consists of the husband of the abducted woman and the female karate student (Lina Romay) who has split off from the school. During the long trip back, the guide has a change of heart and decides to repent, turning against his captors and helping the people he originally betrayed.

牋 The climax of the film, expertly shot and edited despite the budgetary restrictions, may remind some viewers of a miniature version of the final scene in THE WILD BUNCH. The very last scene, in which the Tobonga gold is thrown away, echoes THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE. Franco's film, of course, is a lot less ambitious than those two classics, but maybe that's why it works so well. The massacre at the Tobonga camp, the abduction scene, and the opening safari are as well-staged as anything Franco has ever done. There's also an amusing dose of voodoo dancing thrown in for good measure. The film has no artistic pretensions. It is simply a programmer, made for showings at Spanish grindhouses or low profile mainstream houses. The fact that it's entertaining pulp illustrates Franco's realization that he's making a film for a certain audience in a certain marketplace.

Daniel White's pulsating drum and vocal score is familiar from some of Franco's other jungle adventures, but this is by far the best of the lot. Miguel Ross and Mabel Escaño are both very effective as the safari guides from hell. With its karate scenes, voodoo rituals, adventure story, literary and film references, LA ESCLAVA BLANCA seems typical of Franco's 1980's output (minus the XXX sex material). It's good fun while it lasts. It might be compared to a Saturday afternoon adventure matinee with Franco's encyclopediac knowledge of cinema built into its unassuming, carefully crafted mise-en-scene. (C) Robert Monell 2024