LA TUMBA DE LOS MEURTOS VIVENTES (1982)

If you are a serious fan of the films of Jess Franco, or a zombie movie completest, it's likely you have seen the director's 1981 Nazi zombie effort, OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES/L'ABIME DES MORTS-VIVANTS, which is out on Blu-ray from REDEMPTION FILMS. It is less likely you have seen the notably superior Spanish version of the same film, LA TUMBA DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTES, which had a Spanish DVD release.

Robert Blabert and his friends use their holidays to find a treasure left by Rommel's soldiers in North Africa, and to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Robert's father. On their way, they run into a man who is also looking for the treasure, was digging around for the treasure and awakened its guards, a group of flesh-eating zombies. This is a long-lost Spanish-language Franco movie, parts of which were used to create the Nazi-zombie quickie known as OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (a.k.a. BLOODUCKING NAZI ZOMBIES). OASIS was completed and released by Eurocine magnate Marius Lesoeur (under the name A. M. Frank). Franco's version recently resurfaced on Spanish television.

Though LA TUMBA DE LOS MUERTOS VIVIENTS is a completely different film from OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES, it uses the same basic story line. Adding to the confusion, Franco's original production company shot French and Spanish versions simultaneously. Pieces of the French version were subsequently used in other Eurocine movies, of which OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES is the most well-known. LA TUMBA incorporates World War II battle scenes from some Italian productions, of which only Alfredo Rizzo's I GIARDINI DEl DIAVOLO (1971) has been identified. The checkered history of LA TUMBA is more interesting that the movie itself, although it is obviously an essential Franco collector's item. It looks and plays a lot better than OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES, mostly because Juan Soler Cozar's atmospheric cinematography has been retained. The actors are more interesting, too -- namely Eduardo Fajardo, an experienced character actor who appeared in many Italian westerns and thrillers (DJANGO, etc), and Lina Romay, looking as sensual as ever and eventually falling victim to the bloodsucking Nazi zombies.

The superior performances of Fajardo and Romay (compared to the actors who play the same roles in the French version), along with Franco's sharper editing, help this version play a lot smoother than the relentlessly schlocky OASIS. Also interesting are the effectively tilted camera angles used during the zombie attacks (which are not used in the OASIS version), as well as gorgeous long shots of the Canary Island desert locations. Best of all is the delirious, eerie score by Pablo Villa (performed by Carlos Franco), which is absent from the other versions and adds a sense of menace which is so obviously lacking in OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES. Daniel White is credited with the score for OASIS, although with different, more conventional cues. An all region HD release of LA TUMBA.... would be welcome. It should be noted that Franco also did some initial scripting work on another Nazi zombie project for Eurocine but did not show up for the first day shooting, ZOMBIE LAKE (1980). The scenario of that film has some interesting parallels with Franco's 1964 EL SECRETO DEL DR. ORLOFF. But Franco dropped out of that project and Jean Rollin ended up handling the direction. Franco remains uncredited on the finished film. (C) Robert Monell,2025

COCKTAIL SPECIAL (1978): Jess Franco's XXX Files

Christopher Lee, in his memorable crimson smoking jacket, as the vicious Sadean perpetrator/narrator, Dolmance, seen in this vintage advert for Jess Franco's first version of Sade's 1795 literary outrage, PHILOSOPHY IN THE BEDROOM.

COCKTAIL SPECIAL is a hardcore remake of EUGENIE, THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION (1970). Actually, the second remake after PLAISIR A TROIS (1973), which also featured some hardcore action, but much less than in this entry.

This may have been chronologically the last film Franco made for the prolific producer Robert de Nesle, who is credited with the script. De Nesle reportedly died in 1978.

The titular drink may be especially disgusting but there are reasons to examine this film, outside of its interest to those who must see each and every film Franco made during his 50 year and still ticking directorial career. Visually exotic, with bizarre masks, strobe lighting, esoteric set-ups, this brief, ingeniously composed adult programmer is interestingly scored by Franco and Daniel White (as Pablo Villa, these delirious cues would be heard in many of his 1980s period films).

Touxa Beni is an olive, bright, rather mysterious Eugenie and a makes an equally compelling protagonist as the other actresses (Marie Liljedahl; Alice Arno; Katia Beinert) who have played the role for Franco.

I disagree with the review in OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO, which dismisses this film while pushing the suggestion that Franco did not direct it. There may have been some inserts added but there are many trademark Franco images and plot details.

With Karen Gambier as the most significant eye candy, outside of Ms. Beni, in the film, there's little to behold outside of the endlessly interesting ways Franco finds to illuminate the penniless production, often large lamps are just placed directly behind the actors as the camera shoots into them, breaking one of the cardinal rules of "well made" cinema.

Shot in Portugal, one wonders if this was the film Franco offered to to Brigitte Lahaie in the wake of another de Nesle Portuguese-lensed hardcore, JE BRULE DE PARTOUT [type the title in the blog's search engine for my archived review]' she summarily refused the offer.

One wonders why Franco kept returning to the original Sade story, published as seven "Dialogues" in 1795. Female characters reading books (Sade/erotic pulp) is another activity given special attention in his Sade films.

Reading it is a shocking experience as one realizes, with reference to the five Jess Franco versions, it's much, much more explicit and transgressive than any or all of them put together. Note the way Franco uses the languid images of character's smoking cigrarettes as punctuation between the extended hardcore scenes. Smoking is always an activity which attracts special attention in the Franco filmography. Given the director's own habit of chain smoking for virutally every possible moment it registers as some kind of miracle that he lasted a few years past 80.

The final twist in COCKTAIL SPECIAL is that Eugenie's own father is tricked into incest during the climactic masque, but in the Sade original it's Madame de Mistival who ends up as the victim of a brutal physical-sexual assault by Eugenie under the close direction of Dolmance, played by Christopher Lee in the the 1970 version. Eugenie's subsequent dialogue highlights her delight in her role as multiple transgressor.

The final dialogue concludes with the lines which Lee speaks (with acidic irony) in a key scene: "I never dine so heartily, I never sleep so soundly as when I have, during the day, sufficiently befouled myself with what our fools call crimes." That's Entertainment, Sade style.



*[There is only the main title and a FIN card on the print I screened]; most of Franco's de Nesle backed films of this period were signed as Clifford Brown or Jacques Garcia.

Thanks to Francesco Cesari for helping me to see this rarity via DVD-R.

(C) Robert Monell, 2025

MIDNIGHT PARTY (Lady Porno) 1975

American-European Films presents LADY PORNO aka La Coccolona (Italian release), Porno Pop, Sexy Blues, La Partouze de Minuit, Sylvia la Baiseuse, Heisse Beruhrungen (German version) LADY PORNO (Spanish version) Directed by Tawer Nero (Julio Perez Tabernero) for Titanic Films, Spanish version. James Gardner (Jess Franco), English language version. Based on a story by David Khunne. 75 min, Spanish version. 90 min, English language version. MIDNIGHT PARTY version produced by Eurocine/Paris, Brux Interfilms/Brussels. Production Mgr. Daniel Lesoeur.

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the production of Jess Franco's ultra-minimalist Eurospy-sex comedy. Filmed in what Pamela Stanford once wrote to me was "the celestial city" i.e. the futurist/geometric Southern France resort Le Grande Motte in what appears to be just a few days in a hotel rooms also seen in several other Franco films made back-to-back (SHINING SEX, DE SADE'S JULIETTE),\. Franco himself appears in the central role as Agent #008. Lina Romay is Syvia, a frisky stripper working at the hotel. This is an interactive sexy spy film filmed without excuses and possibly scripted on hotel napkins. It was a typical Franco strategy that he shot two other films at Le Grande Motte using the exact same rooms, casts and crews. The version under consideration here has the onscreen title LADY PORNO, a Spanish variant of Franco's original, MIDNIGHT PARTY. Credited to Tawer Nero aka Julio Perez Tabernero, an actor turned producer-director (he can be seen in Franco's own SADISTEROTICA/Two Undercover Angels) acquired it for his Titanic Films (Julio, your company needs a new handle!) and reconstructed it as an "American-Belgian" co-production. It's very amusingly redubbed and rescored with lewd comments, bawdy music and direct-to-the-viewer takes.

--Sylvia is a very hot stripper who carries on an affair with a cheap detective, Al Pereira (Franco regular Olivier Mathot) behind the back of her longtime lover, jazz musician Red Nicholas (longtime Jess Franco friend, actor, film historian, Alain Petit). This is not really another of Franco's Al Pereira episodes, as he is mainly a player in Sylvia's story. This is kind of like a live action cartoon (cf LUCKY, THE INSCRUTABLE) with Lina Romay giving it all she has as the resourceful Sylvia. This might actually be my personal favorite of her performances, she mercilessly teases the viewer directly as the interactive approach allows her to pose, stick her tongue out, and make alluring remarks to the audience before turning back to the scene and players at hand, resuming in the traditional fourth wall mode. It's all a lot of good natured fun. Except that the subject is torture. Torture that really hurts! Sylvia is taken by Radeck/Agent 008, a spymaster and professional torture mogul who takes his business very seriously indeed. Look at the way he abuses poor Sylvia: after being stripped and sexually abused by henchpersons Monica Swinn and Ramon, she's poked, punched and cigarette burned by the ingrates under the very close supervision of Radeck. They take her to the "torture clinic" which, this being a Jess Franco shoot, merely means another hotel room (or the same hotel room slightly redressed and shot from a different angle). Choosing a metal tool they try pulling out her toenails, as Radeck is beginning to lose his patience.

At this point one of my favorite moments in Franco's monumental filmography occurs, and it only lasts a few seconds--Radeck simply puts a cigarette in his mouth and lights it. That's it! The exact way which actor Jess Franco jabs the smoke into his mouth and fires it up has to be experienced first hand. It's a grand bit a business, something small made into something very special by a seasoned professional. Radeck drops the pose at the end, as Sylvia and Al are escaping he faces the camera and admits to us that it was all an illusion. We have been spectators. But what are we doing at this venue? Of course, that question is implied rather than asked. Alain Petit is very droll as the Marxist jazz singer. Billed as "Charlie Christian" (cf JUSTINE, the 1979-80 Joe D'Amato composite where he is likewise billed as his footage here is rolled over with scenes from SHINING SEX into a unique reedit) he performs his infamous "La Vie est un Merde", also heard in a blues rendition during Franco's 1982 EMMANUELLE EXPOSED and in Petit's documentary THE MAKING OF TENDER FLESH (1997).

The Spanish language version which was screened for this review (subtitled in English) is very much in keeping with the joker/trickster impulses which frequently bubble to the surface of Franco's work. The finale, a shootout with the cops (a minimalist debacle) followed by shots of birds flying in the distance as our couple floats away on a pleasure craft, is post-ironic in the sense that it delivers on expectations which Franco obviously considers bogus while gleefully curving past the generic demands of representational, grade B sexploitation production methodology. In other words: don't worry, be happy, it's only a Jess Franco movie. (C) Robert Monell, 2025