Jess Franco's XXX Files: PHOLLASTIA (1987)

Jess Franco’s XXX Files: PHOLLASTIA (1987)/FELLATIONS SAUVAGES (French video title)

Directed by «Betty Carter» [Jess Franco & Lina Romay]/Screenplay by Chuck Evans [Jess Franco], Lulu Lavere [Lina Romay]/DP: Terry De Corsia [Jess Franco]/Music: Daniel J. White/Editor: Jess Franco/Produced by Phalos Films-Madrid/83m 15s/Video:Fil a’ Films [France] Additional cast: Carlos Quiroga, Bruce Leduc-rn A. Bartolos Velasco, Rex Robinson-rn C. Gonzalez Ordi, Traci King-rn Elisa Mateo, John Olms-rn Saez Montoro. [Credits from OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO which also lists an alternate French video title, Fellations Sauvages] I recently rewatched this 1987 hardcore porn film from Jess Franco, made in tandem with another Franco hardcore (FALO CREST) which also parodied a popular American television series (FALCON CREST). Produced by «Phalos Films», Madrid, this manages to look rather upscale for a Jess Franco hardcore. Hiring a cast of experienced Spanish hardcore professionals and featuring some gleaming, mirrored sets, this shot-in-Benidorm sex comedy parody of the 1980s ABC primetime soap opera, DYNASTY (1981-1989), has some interesting images and is staged with the kind of care a slightly more than average budget(for a hardcore porn film) allowed. This parody of the American hit television series DYNASTY was, like FALO CREST, produced by PHALOS FILMS, Madrid, likely largely funded by profits made by the series of hardcore sex films Franco and co. made between 1985 and 1987.

The Carrington family, including the cheating husband Blake and his scheming wife, are at odds over cosmetic expenditures. In the meantime their dysfunctional spawn go their own sex soaked ways. It’s wall-to-wall hardcore orgies of handjobs, blowjobs, group sex and more sex. Franco pulls his camera back more than usual but some of the clever verbal puns were lost on me since my French is nil and I only had access to a poor dub of the ancient French video. It all suggests that by the late 1980s the hardcore novelty was beginning to wear on Spanish clientele as well as Jess Franco. However, at least it does not all seem to be shot in hotel rooms as do some of Franco's non-hardcore 1980s features. Sarcastically referencing DYNASTY’s Joan Collins, Lina Romay is billed as «Jean Collins» and along with Jose Miguel Garcia Marfa (EL MIRON Y LA EXHIBICIONISTA-1985) are the only faces familiar to me in this show. But this is a film not really interested in….. faces. The costumes look surprising upscale given the genre. Apparently, the money spent on the cast and production made sure that it wasn’t profitable after the box-office was exhausted.*

Treating this as a full feature production with a higher budget and pro porn players to be paid backfired on Franco according to Antonio Mayans, who declined to be in this film and FALOCREST, another hardcore parody shot back-to-back in Benidorm, but acted as the film’s sales agent in the Barcelona market. According to Mayans, in an interview in the defunct FRANCOMANIA WEBSITE, «I wasn’t around when Jess made them. He went to Benidorm and shot them there. It’s different if you happen to be making a movie and – say, after lunch – you start filming a little porn film as well with the same available technicians, the same available actresses. It’s a matter of shooting some porn footage, editing it and then selling iit. Fernando Vidal [Campos] would put up some money and then he’d do the selling. But to go to Benidorm to make two porn movies, with people, with the structure of a real movie – that simply doesn’t work out and I told him.»** Also, Franco scholar Francesco Cesari points out that Follar in Spanish = «to fuck» and the Ph, as in Phollastia = F. Yet another subterranean Jess Franco linguistic «joke» buried beneath the layers of hardcore action. *Spanish admissions amounted to 29,693, not enough to show a real profit after production costs are factored into the equation. [Thanks to Francesco Cesari and Nzoog for the translation of this interview, conducted by «Chus» and «Al Pereira»]

PHOLLASTIA Main Title: PHOLLASTIA Directed by: FRANCO, JESUS ICAA Id: 924351 Nacionality: Spain Duration: Feature film / 0 min. Production Companies: ROSA MARIA ALMIRALL MARTINEZ (01F938) (Spain 0%) Cast: Collins, Jean. , (Lina Romay). , Robson, Melanie. , (M.Fernandez). , King, Traci. , (Elisa Mateo). , Leduc, Bruce. , (A. Bartos). , Childrum, Morgan. , (J.M. Garcia Marfa). , Robinson, Rex. , (C. Gonzalez Ordi). , Olms, John. (Saez Montoro). Directed by: Franco, Jesus Screenplay: Franco, Jesus Plot: Franco, Jesus Cinematography: De Corsia, Terry (Jesus Franco) Score: White, Daniel (Jesus Franco) Film Editing: Franco, Jesus General notes: La pelicula ha sido dirigida por Jesus Franco, aunque enloscreditos figuren: Betty Carter (Direccion), Lulu Laverne(Argumento)y Chuck Evans (Guion), otorgando estos seudonimos aRosa Maria AlmirallLos interpretes que figuran, aparecen con su apodo y acontinuacionsu nombre artistico Film Rating: Over 18 years of age (6/29/1987) 0min (Age Rating not available) Box Office (Spain): 51,913.80€ Admissions (Spain): 20,693 Production year: 1987 , 1987 Length: Feature film , Largometraje Type: Film ­ Fiction Aspect ratio: Panoramica , Panoramica Film Formats: 35 milimetros Emulsion: Agfa Color , Agfa Color Spain Release: 6/29/1987 Distribution (Spain): FERNANDO VIDAL CAMPOS.

What we are left with here, and in FALO CREST, are unlikely examples of the French term mise-en-abime. Franco has reached a stage of abstraction where the reproduction and deployment of porn images, the opening kaleidoscopic shots of a hand masturbating a penis, to the winking at the audience by Lina at the very end, is a form of constant satiric commentary on the original commerical property, a hit American television series which generates incoming viewers by repitition of its internal absurdities. It's not so much Jess Franco as a television critic as it is a beloved and commercially successful cultural event reassigned into the hardcore porn realm. [French ‘placing into the abyss’]. 1. The double-mirroring effect created by placing an image within an image and so on, repeating infinitely (infinite regression): for example, the album cover of Pink Floyd's Ummagumma (1969). This is also known as Droste effect. 2. A reflexive strategy where the content of a medium is the medium itself: for example, Shakespeare's Hamlet features a play within a play and Fellini's 8½ (1963) is a film within a film. See also reflexivity. 3. A formal technique in Western art of placing a small copy of an image inside a larger one. From: mise-en-abîme in A Dictionary of Media and Communication » Subjects: Literature Oxford Reference. Note that Franco took the name of legendary, untamed American jazz vocalist Betty Carter as his nom de plume here.

This is part of a continuing series on Jess Franco’s 1980s hardcore record. My personal favorite of the bunch remains the 1985 EL MIRON Y LA EXHIBICIONISTA, released in Spain as a "kiosk DVD". (C) Robert Monell, 2024