PHOLLASTIA (1987) (original title) Phollastía France Fellations sauvages(new title) Spain Phollastía

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/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]

Produced by "Phalos Films", Madrid, this is 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 allow 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. Sarcastically referencing DYNASTY's Joan Collins, Lina Romay isbilled 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 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. Speaking of linguistic jokes and references, PHOLLASTIA and other 1980s Franco hardcores can be considered the director's own Lingua Franco. A lingua franca, also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication here takes the form of films which are often classified and rejected by Franco critics as only ways open to the director to remain active and generate income. But being a director who imbues everything he films with his own personal magic one has to look at them and scrutinize them as "Jess Franco" films, projects which did indeed generate income and did keep him active while forcing him to translate his visions and obsessions into the language and structures of commercial pornography. The orthological games, the ditzy (even for Franco) photography, the frenetic attempts at Bunuel type comedy, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeiosie meets DYNASTY or FALCON CREST, all exmplify this.

*Spanish ticket sales amounted to  29,693, not enough to show a real profit after productions costs are factored into the equation.  [Thanks to Francesco Cesari] ** Thanks to Nzoog for the translation of this interview, conducted by "Chus" and "Al Pereira" Reference print: XHAMSTER video This is part of a continuing series on Jess Franco's 1980s hardcore record. FALOCREST (1987), made at the same time and on the same locations as this film, will be covered next. (C)Robert Monell 2025