AMANDO DE OSSORIO on DVD

Check out the excellent NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS website.
http://www.nightofthesorcerers.com/

2007 is shaping up to be the year of Spanish Horror for DVD collectors with several Paul Naschy titles already released in impressive DVD Special Editions (VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES; THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF) and more on the way from BCI ECLIPSE. Now it's the turn of Amando de Ossorio, the creator of the Blind Dead series, starting with 1972's TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD, which have established him as the Spanish George Romero to collectors of vintage European horror. These are essentially zombie films featuring the murderous Knight Templars and are famous for their graphic gore and their distinctive skeleton-like title creatures. BLUE UNDERGROUND released a boxset containing the series in 2005. Now two less well known of the director's films are available on DVD.

One of the numerous mid 1970's exploitations of William Friedkin's legendary THE EXORCIST (1973), LA ENDEMONIADA (1974) was released within a week of Juan Bosch's Paul Naschy vehicle EXORCISMO, presumably flooding the Spanish market at the time with images of spinning heads, desecrated churches and a climactic exorcism ritual performed by a heroic Catholic priest, Julian Mateos in this case. Produced by Richard Films it is known as DEMON WITCH CHILD in its English language incarnation and appeared on US video in the late 1980s.

A bizarre political element was added by having the possessed girl cursed by a hideous hag (Tota Alba) after the girl's father (Angel Del Pozo), a local police commissioner with political ambitions, orders the old gypsy woman taken in for questioning after a church is found trashed. The official brags that he has cleared the town of vagrants and his next priority is getting rid of the witches. Under questioning by a tough detective (Fernando Sancho, who is better known for his many appearances as Spaghetti Western bandits during the 1960s) the witch jumps to her death. Another gypsy woman (Kali Hansa), the second in command of the witch's cult, plants a demonic icon in the victim's teddy bear after which all hell... well, you know the rest. Given the impressive special effects make-up on display in the director's Blind Dead titles the perfunctory effects here look cheap at best. The victim becomes an ugly, balding, emaciated miniature of the dead witch who spews obscenities at authorities in a hoarse voice. Levitation, head spinning, mutilation are all on display here and mainly provoke laughter due to the extremely inept execution. Absurd humor is added by the sight of hefty Fernando Sancho driving around in a shiny black Cadillac, complete with fins, as he conducts his investigation. This tasteless, depressingly tacky affair is finally put out of its misery after hitting all the expected marks established by its famous template. Jess Franco starlet Kali Hansa (THE PERVERSE COUNTESS) adds some much needed spice with her shoulder baring blouse, but that's about it in the positives department.

DEMON WITCH CHILD gets a dubious US DVD presentation as part of a 20 Feature Film Collection entitled GRINDHOUSE EXPERIENCE, from FORTUNE 5 DVD ["With selections from Quentin Tarantino Presents The Los Angeles Grindhouse Festival 2007."] The fact that Tarantino's name is misspelled on the front of the box doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the product. Taken from what looks like the old fullscreen, unstable, very worn, fuzzy looking and sounding VHS (it looks like the source tape was playing in the EP mode) it looks as bad as the rest of the films in this package, which are mostly 1970s exploitation/genre material from around the world, including Nazi sexploitation (Bruno Mattei's WOMEN'S CAMP 119); cannibal horror (RAW FORCE); Eurocrime (CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN); marital arts (KUNG FU PUNCH OF DEATH; and blaxploitation (MANDINGA, which was originally slated to be directed by Jess Franco), among others. The price is low, but you get what you pay for.

A vampire woman models a stylish leopard skin bikini in Amando de Ossorio's THE NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS...

The other Amando de Ossorio horror film which is getting its debut on R1 DVD is THE NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS (LA NOCHE DE LOS BRUJOS), also originally released in 1974 with some of the same cast members. This is the right way to do a DVD presentation and this BCI ECLIPSE Special Edition has mastered the film in High Definition from the original Spanish negative and garnished it with a very nice array of special features.

An outrageous precredit sequence set in 1910 depicts the torture, rape and brutal blood sacrifice of a white missionary woman by a native voodoo cult in the ficitonal African country, Bumbasa. Colonial soldiers show up and massacre the tribe but the severed head of the victim suddenly comes to life, jumps up on the altar and snarls in closeup, baring her vampire fangs.

This pretty much sets the tone for this wonderfully outre blend of jungle adventure, zombie mayhem, female vampire antics, bloody/sexy voodoo rites and generally politically incorrect entertainment. The balance of the film is set in modern day Bumbasa as an expedition led by a big game hunter (Simon Andreu) is attacked by the bloodsucking zombies who revive every night. This film is just FUN, but the writer director does have some pointed barbs to make concerning the feminist movement of that time as well as some amusing observations of his macho males, sub Hemingway types who can track the leopards but can't keep their women satisfied. The Cuban actress Kali Hansa once again makes an impression as a hot blooded Latina who is ready to snuff any woman who goes after her Man. And it's always good to see Jack Taylor, another Jess Franco veteran (FEMALE VAMPIRE), in the cast of a Spanish horror film of that era. The very odd, energetic and eclectic musical score by sometime Jess Franco collaborator Fernando Garcia Morcillo (DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER) is one the most effective elements here and boosts the material into the realm of a live action comic book or an updated equivalent of vintage Hollywood jungle serials.

The fullframe transfer is quite luminous, with rich colors and crystal clear definition. Special features include the theatrical trailer, alternate "covered" and other footage, a still gallery, the Spanish opening and closing titles, and two audio tracks: in Castilian with very readable and literate English subtitles and the English dub track. Mirek Lipinski provides very helpful and well researched liner notes which give an overview of the career of Amando de Ossorio and detail the history of the numerous versions of this film.

Two notable concerns are the sometimes out of synch English language track (I would recommend watching it with the Spanish track) and the fact that some extreme footage, a few solarized shots and a few lines of dialogue included in other versions, are not included in the feature assembly. The sound issue and nature of this version are explained in the booklet. I had been used to seeing a certain version, slightly longer and containing a bit more violence and nudity via the Japanese video which has been long available from gray market dealers. Most of these elements are included in the alternate footage sections. I would recommend this DVD for the picture quality alone and people who have never seen the film in any version before will have no problems at all with it.

Along with THE NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS, BCI also will be releasing a DVD of the aforementioned Paul Naschy title EXORCISMO. They also plan a future SE of Amando de Ossorio's Wagnerian horror fantasy LA GARRAS DE LORELEI (1973).

Thanks to Eric Cotenas for the screenshot from the BCI ECLIPSE DVD of THE NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

INLAND EMPIRE DAY!

"There’s a vast network, right? An ocean of possibilities."

The above dialogue is delivered by a favorite veteran actor, Harry Dean Stanton, in his trademark desultory fashion, in David Lynch's three hour shot-on-digital-video epic INLAND EMPIRE, which was released today on a 2-Disk Special Edition. This will be the first of several blogs I plan on this truly overwhelming presentation of Lynch's groundbreaking, award winning synthesis of experimental, musical, horror, science fiction, melodrama, crime, and just about every other known cinema genre. It's for the adventurous filmgoer only, all others need to move on. On-the-edge is way too conservative of a covering term. This is. like the old 60's TV horror sci fi anthology, WAY OUT! I'm not going to describe the plot because there is no plot. There is what the French term "complot" or multiple narratives, stories, stories within stories, false stories, murder stories, Polish gypsy stories, urban legends, and Hollywood stories. Hollywood, its images, legends and products are the essential stuff of INLAND EMPIRE. It's the logical, or illogical, extension of MULHOLLAND DRIVE, but in a wilder, darker, bloodier, more stylistically daring key. Remembering that Jess Franco, our blog topic, has opted [for economic reasons] to shift to Hi Def in the last decade, Lynch has chosen to shoot this project on commercial grade digital video with a camcorder available on his website. It's homemade cinema which redefines the form.

I'm sitting here watching LYNCH 2, post IE, and it's an absolute delight to see Lynch darting around with his third eye, setting up jaw dropping compositions in a matter of seconds, and he just goes with it. This shot on DV making-of documentary is one of the 211 minutes of supplements, including short films, 90m of outtakes, extensive interviews with Lynch and lead actress Laura Dern, trailers, still galleries and much more. And David Lynch sure knows how to smoke a cigarette, many, many cigarettes.

I wanted to see IE theatrically but I couldn't because I don't live in one of the few major US cities it played in. Lynch had to distribute it himself. It was celebrated at last year's Venice and New York Film Festivals, among others, while reviewers scratched their heads. Lynch is still a painter and this is his broadest canvas yet. Shot in Hollywood and Lodz, Poland, this is a French, Polish, US production with a huge international cast mixed in with Lynch's informal stock company. At the center of the hurricane is Laura Dern, whose courageous performance is only matched by Lynch's determination to send her on a journey to the end of the night. And it's a night you will never forget. And you might want to, for this is a forbidding, terrifying film, which makes even the most graphic horrors of the recent spate of torture-porn movies seem like child's play in comparison. Working without a complete script, only giving actors some cues right before shooting, going on dangerous locations without permits or the usual amenities, there is only David Lynch between you and the door.

IE images Hollywood as Nightmare City of well appointed orange rooms where guests await the Inferno. But in Lynch's Hell there's dancing, scantily clad hookers, widescreen TV monitors and butlers. As in his past oeuvre, the only signposts are the haunting glitter of THE WIZARD OF OZ, SINGIN IN THE RAIN, SUNSET BOULEVARD, THE BIG KNIFE and A STAR IS BORN, which are further haunted by Kubrick's THE SHINING (Lynch lauds Kubrick's use of music in his interview), which IE repeatedly brings to mind with its repeated motif of fast moving forward tracking shots down eerie hotel corridors. Unlike the Overlook, the structures in IE are real dumps in downtown LA and Lodz, Poland, the latter chosen, according to Lynch, because it had a "truckload" of ancient factories (Kubrick's THE KILLING is another film which seems to have been a strong influence with its shattered time structure and urban maliase, but IE is much, much more radically unconventional). The element of Time (cap intended) is crucial in IE. The set up, Hollywood mainstream director secretly remaking a possibly cursed Polish film, 47, only to have the murdered cast members of that doomed produced reified in 21st century Los Angeles is at first ridiculous, but eventually it becomes clear (or unclear) that something from an unknown dimension is organizing unpleasant events. There is one blogsite review which actually relates the structure to "string theory" and posits 11 dimensions which the film illustrates and juxtaposes...it's possible. The film runs three hours but seems to go by in an instant, the fastest moving 170 minutes you'll ever experience. It's like a bullet train through Hell.

And I want one of those lamps. When you see it, you'll know what I man.

Lynch relates filmmaking to white slavery and acting to prostitution, both in Lodz and LA. The director of the slick, corny melodrama is expertly played by Jeremy Irons who defines the concept of "the banality of evil." His right hand man (Stanton) wears jet black suits and a red tie, sees the ghost of the lead actress and begs for rent money from the cast. This is Hollywood. And it's on Hollywood and Vine where Laura Dern pulls off an excruciatingly protracted death scene in the midst of the living dead of Southern California. Just before that she gets gutted by a maniac with a screwdriver which drops onto the star of Dorothy Lamour! But it's all a movie, it's only a movie, as Hitchcock pointed out to another actress. But movies can be art and are a commercial artform which, in Hollywoodland, are dictated by the Rules of the Game. IE joyously breaks each and every one of those rules again and again and again and again. And it breaks them in a way which suggests Humpty Dumpty may never be put together again.

And then there are the Rabbits.... But that's another blog.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

Orson Welles/MALPERTUIS/DON QUICHOTTE

Harry Kumel's 1971 DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS has been one of my favorite vampire films, actually one of my all time favorite horror films, since I first saw it at the drive-in, mid summer 1972. Hearing the director state that he now "detests" the film in the fascinating documentary REFLECTIONS OF DARKNESS: DEL VALLE ON KUMEL is something of an object lesson in how a lack of appreciation for one's strengths along with a tendency to blame others for career setbacks while attacking other filmmakers (Lars Von Trier, Truffaut, Orson Welles) who are seen as threats, can isolate and cripple a talented artist. After the failure of MALPERTUIS Kumel retreated to television projects. I have to commend David Del Valle, who asks all the right questions, for his patience and steadfast belief in Kumel. It's not a pretty picture of a filmmaker I have long admired and I wouldn't want to ever spend another minute in his boorish company, but it sure reminded me about that old warning about never assuming anything about anyone. I have little patience with pompous, embittered, aging directors who are out to make one last kill-off, but damned if couldn't stop watching this. This 74 minute interview, endearingly low-tech and presided over with panache by film historian Del Valle, had me picking my jaw up off the floor and is just one of the many excellent extras on the new BARREL entertainment 2 disc SE DVD presentation of Kumel's fated follow up to DOD, the gorgeous, sinister and thoroughly compelling MALPERTUIS.

Based on a novel by the Belgian fantasy/crime writer Jean Ray/Jean Flanders (there's a charming seven minute featurette on him included on disc 2, including wonderful archival footage of the writer discussing his memories, writing habits and influences. Ray is avuncular, self effacing and wise, the exact opposite of Harry Kumel) one would think that a visually elegant Belgian Surrealist like Kumel (working from a script by Jean Ferry, who was part of the original Surrealist group in France in the early 20th century) would be the perfect man for the task. As in most Surrealist literature the "story" is a pretext for a mutating narrative which is there to illustrate the rich prose of Ray and a certain quote by the creator of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, at least in the restored 119 m 1973 "Director's Cut." Not that Harry Kumel deserves a director's cut (you can appreciate that I really like this guy) but his film certainly does. The "Cannes Version" goes down a lot smoother (I also prefer the shorter version of DOD over Kumel's dilatory cut) and has the great advantage of featuring the real voices of Orson Welles (Cassavius) and the strikingly lovely Susan Hampshire, who plays three (or is it four?) very demanding and greatly varying roles with
complexity, sensuality, and mystery.

Along with Ms. Hampshire, Orson Welles dominates the film as the gruff Uncle Cassavius, presiding over his dysfunctional family from his death-bed in the dreaded manse, Malpertuis where sailor Jan (Matthieu Carriere) will find love, sex, death, rebirth and eternal imprisonment. And much, much more.

This could have been a great film instead of a very interesting, beautifully lit (by Gerry Fisher cf his work in 1967's ACCIDENT for Joseph Losey) and very well acted cul de sac. "It's pretty...but difficult to understand" Alice notes at the opening image of the director's cut (the Cannes version plays its credits under a more appropriate Surrealist canvas) and that perfectly describes the film. The influence of such Surrealist painters as Magritte is duly noted by Kumel and Del Valle and is incorporated into the set design in a way comparable to the Bunuel 1930 Surrealist classic L'AGE D'OR (coauthored by yet another legendary Surrealist, Dali). You won't be asking yourself "Life, what is it but a dream?" but the sense of wonderment imparted by the team of Kumel, Fisher and his extraordinary cast, not to forget the transporting score of the great Georges Delerue, will have you, and me, returning to the conundrum of MALPERTUIS many times over. Overlong and indulgent, MALPERTIUS is nonetheless a legendary curiousity which is not to be missed and try watching one of the versions on a double bill with Jess Franco's A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING dead to find some interesting comparisons whle remembering Franco's professional relationship with Orson Welles as assistant director (CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT), director (TREASURE ISLAND project) and post production supervisor 1993's disastrous DON QUIJOTE DE ORSON WELLES.

Disc one gives us the 25 documentary ORSON WELLES: UNCUT, directed by Francoise Levie, an assistant director on Malpertuis, who also directed the Jean Ray documentary and attempts to keep Kumel in check on his commentary track (the commentary further confirms Kumel's passive-aggresive tactic of admitting to some error and then immediately moving to criticize another European director). The point of all this seems to be that Welles was, in Kumel's words, a "bastard" on set and a great drinking companion during long lunches. Kumel seems to delight in stories of Welles' misbehavior: calling his own cuts, interrupting other actors during takes, demanding, and [ineptly] applying, his own old-man make up, drinking and eating to excess, wasting time. But it's also obvious that Kumel allowed Welles these luxuries, was fearful of cracking down and had some kind of envy-need pertaining to the creator of CITIZEN KANE. Comments by the Susan Hampshire, and the equally other-worldly Matthieu Carriere (who seems to me perfectly cast as the "clean slate" Jan) seem to bear this out.

The new, high definition transfer of the 119 m version is quite good, the 100 m element somewhat less good, but always colorful and clear. And Gerry Fisher's luminous colors are what this experience is really all about. Note Kumel's trademark crimsons in the Venus Bar sequences and the drowning-pool blues in the corridors of the mansion. In 1.85:1 16X9, it's an intoxicating experience no matter which version you choose, and I would suggest starting with the longer.





Orson Welles has been on my mind a lot lately, after having read Joseph McBride's essential 2006 volume, WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ORSON WELLES?, which discusses in some detail the 1993 Jess Franco version of Welles' unfinished DON QUIXOTE project, begun in the mid 1950s. I highly recommend this book, if not the Spanish DVD of this highly controversial project. Franco is still reeling from the rejection of his cut by Welles scholars from all over the world. I have a slightly differing viewpoint. If you go to Wellesnet.com you can read my recent posts on the DQ message boards.

One impressive scene not included in the Franco assembly is now available for viewing on You Tube. It shows Quixote attacking the screen in an old European movie house showing a 1950s Peplum. A great scene, perhaps the best Welles ever filmed. I'll have a lot more to say about the DQ furor in the near future.

Orson Welles / Don Quichotte http://youtube.com/watch?v+cHQEViM3QYU



(C) Robert Monell, 2007

MEN IN BLACK

Forget about the new James Bond or THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM. Here is the next Hollywood sensation. A new team of over-50 Secret Ops (they used to be called Agents) who are not ashamed to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day while on the trail of a Pop Art painter out to repopulate the world with psychiatrically created werewolves (Hey, isn't that the plot of Jess Franco's 1967 SADISTEROTICA?!).

The Agent in the top image will be known only as 008. Original, isn't it? He works deep cover and also acts, plays jazz and directs films on the side. Don't underestimate him. The cigarettes don't slow him down. The one on the bottom with the sunburned face is seen in a Promo shot taken yesterday at high noon in the midst of a 99 degree F/heat index 105 heatwave. He was wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans and black sneakers. I know the hat looks goofy but, hey, it's the dollar store model. He'll be code named Generic Light 100s (my favorite brand).

This team will be featured in THE ADVENTURES OF FILIPE MARLBORO, VOL. 9, obviously the sequel to 1983's .... VOL. 8, in which Jess Franco plays Sam Chesterfield, after my favorite brand during the late 1960s. These guys are going to make millions. To maximize profits it will be shot on video, edited in camcorder with the Daniel White-Jess Franco composition SALZA INFERNALE (Fast Tempo) played over and over again as the music track.

Thanks to Jess Franco for making the droll and inventive VOL. 8 and my friend Dee, never afraid to grab her digital camera, go out among the evergreens (actually 2 evergreens in the middle of a concrete picnic area in steaming downtown Syracuse NY) and argue camera angles with me on the hottest day of the year....

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

The Outcry of Michelangelo Antonioni

A few thoughts about the passing of Michelangelo Antonioni. I remember being at a New York City screening of his 1975 film, THE PASSENGER. During the famous shot which slowly moves away from Jack Nicholson's body, through a hotel window, finally turning in a geometrical pattern to reframe the scene from an exterior viewpoint, an elderly man in the theater starting shouting, "It's too SLOW, the photography's good, the acting is good... but it's too damn SLOW!!!!" Antonioni's pacing had caused the Outcry. I was fascinated, the other patron was bored. All of Antonioni's films look great and some have provoked great controversy. His masterwork L'AVVENTURA was roundly booed at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.

Edvard Munch's famous 1885 painting, IL GRIDO, could perhaps be considered as the structuring absence behind the Antonioni aesthetic. He also made a film with that title in 1957, which is perhaps his most underrated feature in a career that spanned six decades. All of his major works culminate in a kind of horrific, silent Outcry. It's no coincidence that this image can also be recognized as evoking the oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman, who also passed away yesterday. Like Munch, Antonioni was a painter. He used cameras instead of brushes and put his light and tints onto film.

Antonioni had a very tough time with many critics and still does with audiences unprepared for what the does with time and space. He gives us all the time in the world to consider Time and Space. For some that's probably Not Cool when they may be in a great hurry to get to where they want to go. But it's always been that way. Antonioni's camera seems to always want to crawl past his characters, or figures, toward.... let's just say something else. We don't want Steve Cochran to climb up that tower in the last scene of IL GRIDO. You want to shout, "Don't do it!" But he does. The preceding film has been a contemplation of a downward spiral leading to his final act. Suicide is a major taboo in our culture and not generally considered a viable option. Antonioni's film perhaps allows us to consider the act in a different light.

The image above is of Riccardo Freda (1909-1999) who, along with Antonioni, is my favorite Italian director. Freda hated the work of Antonioni, and Bergman, but especially Antonioni, whom he probably saw as representing everything which frustrated him about the post WWII Neo-Realist dominated Italian cinema: deliberation, intellectual pretension and Art Cinema over Genre Cinema. But in 1958 the two titans actually worked {as directors} on the same film, in one of Italy's most notorious genres, NEL SEGNO DI ROMA. Produced in 1958 by Italian, French and German companies, it was an Anita Ekberg-starring Peplum. Helmed by the ailing veteran Guido Brignone, who died the next year, Antonioni was called in to pick up some scenes, along with other directors, including Sergio Leone, who also worked on the script. Freda was second unit director for the action scenes, which are spectacular, possibly the best thing he ever did. NEL SEGNO... is set up as a series of Neo-classical paintings which burst into life from first to last shot. The fact that Antonioni and Freda were involved comes as no surprise, even though this is not a well-known collaboration, and considering that it is dramatically void and only intended to showcase Anita Ekberg's virtues, perhaps that's understandable. But it sure looks great.

IL GRIDO (1957) Kino Video DVD

L'AVVENTURA (1960) THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Both of the above DVD's are highly recommended and good places to start in a survey of Antonioni's essential oeuvre.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

Ingmar Bergman: ENDGAME

The Game is Over. But this image will live on imprinted in our collective consciousness, in that universal bank of essential images which hovers somewhere linking us even if we've never seen the film in question, THE SEVENTH SEAL. And there were many more: The fused faces of the female protagonists of PERSONA, and the burning of the film at the end. The floating bodies at the end of SHAME. The negative images of nightmare creatures in HOUR OF THE WOLF. The fades to red in CRIES AND WHISPERS. The protagonist in A PASSION walking endlessly back and forth in torment on a isolated Baltic island in that film's final image. Just a very few from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Ingmar Bergman's passing is not a tragedy as much as a reminder of something perhaps lost. He made Tragedies and a surprising amount of Comedies, the news was for me like a splash of ice cold water in the middle of a hot Summer. And there is no one around who can replace him. Like Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa or Stanley Kubrick, he was a singular giant who made films his own way.


I can't even begin to calculate how many filmmakers have been inspired by/borrowed his images for thrillers, dramas and horror films. His influence on such major figures as Andrei Tarkovsky, John Cassavetes, Monte Hellman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Woody Allen cannot be denied. Films like PERFORMANCE, TWO LANE BLACKTOP, THREE WOMEN, STALKER, INTERIORS, or keeping our own blog topic in mind, DAS BILDNIS DER DORIANA GRAY, have that hushed, internal tone, and are sometimes built around the specific image structures which the great director burned onto celluloid. And they weren't all high-toned. Even, God forbid, the dreadful THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was a remake of THE VIRGIN SPRING. And Bergman also made exploitation of sorts, THE DEVIL'S WANTON (1949) and SUMMER WITH MONKIA (1952), the latter being one of my personal favorites along with SUMMER INTERLUDE, which has the world of ballet as a backdrop, an artform in which I have zero interest. The disturbing, erotic SAWDUST AND TINSEL, is strikingly similar to early Fellini (cf LA STRADA) while showing the influence of German Expressionism.

He also made Le Bad Cinema: THE TOUCH (1971), THE SERPENT'S EGG (1976). The highly enjoyable, and underrated, FROM THE LIVES OF MARIONETTES (1980), can almost be described as his entree into Eurotrash.

Ingmar Bergman wasn't my favorite director or even the best director who ever lived, at least in my view. He made Film, Cinema. An Ingmar Bergman Film. You didn't go to see an Ingmar Bergman Movie. But they were moving pictures, as if Edvard Munch had become a cinematographer, in high contrast B&W, exquisite chiaroscuro, muted color. He had a long, successful career and life. When I heard about his death at the age of 89 this morning I wanted to thank him for what he gave me. The will to become a writer and a filmmaker. It didn't all work out the way I wanted, but that's not what counts. What counts are images like the one at the top of this blog.



(C) Robert Monell, 2007

Whatever Happened to Martine Stedil?

Martine Stedil lights Lina's fire in Jess Franco's Z grade subterranean WIP production, WOMEN BEHIND BARS (1975). Isn't it illegal to smoke in prison?

One of our blog readers has sent in a question concerning the fate of catwoman Martine Stedil. I'm not sure what became of her. Can anyone offer clues? Thanks to Tobias for asking.

"Hi Robert!

I´m a reader of your excellent blog "I´m In A Jess Franco State Of Mind". Keep up the good work. Anyway... I have a question to which I hope you have the answer.

Martine Stedil made a short but bewitching stint in Jess Franco´s filmography. What happened to this gorgeous woman? Did she retire after Doriana Grey or did she venture into hardcore pornography (considering the scenes in Doriana Grey) ? Any info you might have on this awesome creature would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Tobias"

7/26/26 from EMAIL.

Jess Franco at the Public Library

I never thought I'd see Jess Franco's 1972 EROTIC EXPERIENCES OF FRANKENSTEIN (LA MALDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN) at a local library (I live in a VERY conservative community) but there it was, listed as "SPANISH FRANKENSTEIN." Actually, it was the IMAGE DVD, RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN (onscreen title LA MALDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN). I first saw this under the title THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN (my preferred titling), and it's one of the few JF films I prefer dubbed into English. I noted that the scenes shot for the Spanish "covered" version, featuring Lina Romay, are slightly speeded up, as if the operator wasn't cranking the camera properly!

Here's my IMDB review from 2005:

Totally delirious take on BRIDE OF FRANKSTEIN: 100 Proof Jess Franco, 23 July 2005Author: monell579 from Antigua and Barbuda
Cagliostro (Howard Vernon) and his bird woman daughter work tirelessly to create a female mate for the silver skinned creature created by Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price).A wild ride deep into Jess Franco terrain. This is an unhinged, no-budget attempt to redo the Universal horror motifs in the style of Italian Erotic Comics. It works, at least in the nude/uncovered version, simply because Franco and his cast immediately go way over the top and stay there: ratty set design, the silver skinned monster who looks like the confused survivor of a spray painting attack, the nude whipping scene, the mysterious sect led by the perverse, totalitarian Cagliostro, Melissa-the flesh eating human vulture who predicts pleasure and death, are typical "Jess Franco" elements, but this time he stages them with such Sadean glee that those who "get it" will be utterly transfixed while those who hate will cite it as another file in the case against the director. It's a long way from James Whale...The version made for Spain contains additional scenes featuring Lina Romay as a gypsy and omits all of the outrageous nudity which is so essential to Franco's aesthetic (or anti-aesthetic). The score is an iconoclastic collection of sonic blasts, jarring cues and odd sounds.

At the top of this blog is the cover for the Japanese DVD, which was NOT at the local library. Thanks to M. Kino.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

UN FLIC: Jean-Pierre Melville's Final Masterwork

From his first film, LE SILENCE DE LA MER (above image) to his last, UN FLIC, the legendary French director Jean-Pierre Melville imprinted his personal vision onto his work and eventually onto the essential collective iconography of Film History, influencing and inspiring the work of Jean Luc Godard and the nouvelle vague, John Woo and Quentin Tarantino, to name just his most obvious acolytes.

Before putting on UN FLIC, I suddenly remembered a Jess Franco connection to its director. Franco icon Howard Vernon was given the lead role of a shunned Nazi in a small French town in the first film of the great Jean Pierre Melville, LE SILENCE DE LA MER (1949), which found critical and commercial acclaim in postwar France. I scanned Melville's 1972 UN FLIC (A COP) aka DIRTY MONEY for a glimpse of Jess Franco starlet Pamela Stanford (LORNA, THE EXORCIST). I couldn't locate her, although she may appear among the chorus girls in the nightclub owned by the protagonist, the criminal mastermind Simon (Richard Crenna). What I did find was how this film deepens every time one returns to it, while mysteriously receding at the same time. The screenshot below is from what is probably the best bank robbery scene ever filmed. It runs for 12 nearly dialogue free minutes, is bathed in an eerie blue twilight and accompanied mainly by the sounds of the North Atlantic crashing waves into the nearby rocks. You see, the robbers have chosen to hit a coastal branch of the BNP. Far from the crowds and regular police patrols of Paris, the mission unfolds as if on another planet. The image below, of the team leader backing into the getaway car, an early 1960's Plymouth, dressed in a trench coat which seems borrowed from Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP and flashing a machine gun, perhaps can transmit a sense of Melville's fetish for all things American ported into a Gallic context. The aesthetic synthesis of objects, figures, environment is subtle, ultimately overcoming one's rational expectations. Melville replaces disbelief with an alternate universe all his own. It's a starkly beautiful film, chilling, and leaves one wanting more. I immediately wanted to somehow see Melville's LE SILENCE DE LA MER, also set in a winter which becomes Existential, to compare it to his magnificent final work.

Beyond reporting to the blog readers my failure to find Pamela Stanford in it I want to celebrate Melville's last film before he died a premature death in 1973. It's the most austere and Bressonian of the director's last series of color crime films and the third film he made featuring Alain Delon. It was preceded by two masterworks, 1967's LE SAMOURAI and 1970's LE CERCLE ROUGE.

Melville was a tough customer who knew the local underworld argot. In his L'ARMEE DES OMBRES (1969), finally released in the US only last year to great acclaim, the French Resistance (in which he participated during the Nazi occuptation of France) became an ironic shadow of a crime milieu. And he mastered the argot. Most importantly, he mastered the cars and the clothes and the language of the eyes (his Italian counterpart, Sergio Leone, did something similar to a familiar genre with his Spaghetti Westerns). And his characters sure know how to smoke cigarettes with a certain elan, especially Melville's Superstar-icon, Alain Delon.

The supporting performances of Richard Crenna (RAMBO) , Michael Conrad (HILL STREET BLUES) and Riccardo Cucciolla (RABID DOGS) are also excellent, making memorable characters out of what could have been crime film cliches. Cucciolla's quietly desperate ex-bank employee is the kind of disgraced company man who might be sitting on a park bench in any city in the world as life passes him by. Delon's Detective Coleman is a psychopathic, sometimes empathetic, sometimes sadistic, executioner who brings them down one by one but without any ego fulfillment or professional pride. He's already dead. And as his secret lover (Catherine Deneuve) tells him, a dead man can't kill people. He's already a zombie, the living dead. His thousand yard stare is like a moral X ray which allows him to dispense cruel mercies, like allowing a trapped gang member the chance to commit suicide or delivering Simon from the certainty of life in prison by cutting him down in a final confrontation which recalls many an old fashioned western quick draw with the silenced, emptied streets of Paris filling in for the dusty street of a Wild West town . In Melville's universe suicide can be a positive action, the right thing to do; and a man shooting down a friend can be an act of mercy.

The film opens with a quote which is repeated by Coleman as a way to remind himself that he's only a cop doing a dirty, necessary job. He tells his partner that the prey only inspire ambiguity and derision in the detectives who pursue them. Everyone and everything is a mystery, there are no easy categorizations for a thinking and feeling person, and we all die.

If you haven't seen this film, get the DVD. If you're not into Eurocrime, you'll experience a film which transcends its genre while transforming it. And let's have a R1 DVD of LE SILENCE DE LA MER.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

The Robert De Nesle Legacy

Robert De Nesle's C.F.F.P. was one of four European Production companies which bankrolled this wonderful template for the 3 FANTASTIC SUPERMEN films. I do wish this outrageously entertaining Eurospy adventure-comedy were available on US DVD in it's original aspect ratio. The colorful cinematography, catchy-campy music and enthusiastic direction of Gianfranco Parolini aka Frank Kramer highlight the high rolling antics of Brad Harris, Tony Kendall, Nick Jordan and co. And how about Sabine Sun and Gloria Paul?! Supersexy Women from an era when we didn't have to worry about being Politically Incorrect....

Thrills from a simpler, less cynical time which I find myself much more in synch with than today's CGI powered Superhero epics.

Just scroll down two blogs for a comprehensive listing of C.F.F.P. productions and coproductions with IMDB links.

Mirek Lipinski's KRIMI CORNER

I highly recommend Mirek Lipinski's engaging, expertly written, smartly laid out and handsomely illustrated 'zine KRIMI CORNER. It's the only current US publication I am aware of which focuses exclusively on these German Edgar Wallace films which were very popular in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. These are crime films with horror elements based on the works of Edgar Wallace and his son Bryan. They were mostly produced by the Rialto company and Artur Brauner's CCC. Jess Franco worked in this genre several times with Brauner's backing, lensing the THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA with Soledad Miranda (1970) and DER TODESRACHER VON SOHO (1971) based on Bryan Edgar Wallace stories. Franco himself has amusing cameos in both titles.

These German krimis, of course, strongly influenced the Italian gialli of the 1960's onward both in terms of style, casting and atmosphere, like Mario Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE and Dario Argento's THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970). In issue n. 1 Mirek explains the origins of the genre, profiles Edgar Wallace and provides a helpful checklist of Rialto produced krimis. There are also informed reviews of two krimis released by Retromedia on DVD. I'm hoping he'll take a look at the Jess Franco krimi titles and the related German DR MABUSE films in future issues. If you are a fan of these films or want to learn more about them this is a must have.

Checks, money orders and well-hidden cash should be sent to M. Lipinski, P.O. Box 2398, New York, NY 10009

BTW, if anyone has a copy of DER TODESRACHER VON SOHO/THE DEATH AVENGER OF SOHO/DEATH PACKS A SUITCASE they would be willing to make a trade for please contact me asap. Thanks...

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

Comptoir Francais du Film Production (CFFP) Films

Here is a listing, compiled by the IMDB, of the C.F.F.P. produced titles. I wouldn't be surprised if this list is incomplete. The distribution of adventure/peplum films in the 1950s and 1960s was very profitable for them and De Nesle ended his career by producing XXX/hardcore JF directed titles like COCKTAIL SPECIAL.

Comptoir Français du Film Production (CFFP) [fr] Filmography:
Production Company - filmography
Comptoir, Le (1998) ... Production Company
Cocktail spécial (1978) ... Production Company
Emmerdeuses, Les (1976) ... Production Company
Prostitution clandestine (1975) ... Production Company
Chatouilleuses, Les (1975) ... Production Company
Jouisseur, Le (1975) ... Production Company
Plaisir à trois (1974) ... Production Company
Quartier de femmes (1974) ... Production Company
Comtesse perverse, La (1974) ... Production Company
Christina, princesse de l'érotisme (1973) ... Production Company
Journal intime d'une nymphomane, Le (1973) ... Production Company
Al otro lado del espejo (1973) ... Production Company
Maciste contre la reine des Amazones (1973) ... Production Company
Tarot (1973) ... Production Company
Drácula contra Frankenstein (1972) ... Production Company
Démons, Les (1972) ... Production Company
Ebranlées, Les (1972) ... Production Company
Expériences érotiques de Frankenstein, Les (1972) ... Production Company
Mektoub (1970) ... Production Company
Aux frais de la princesse (1969) ... Production Company
Philosophie dans le boudoir, La (1969) ... Production Company
Mandabi (1968) ... Production Company
Coplan sauve sa peau (1968) ... Production Company
Hallucinations sadiques (1968) ... Production Company
Con la muerte a la espalda (1967) ... Production Company
Kommissar X - Drei grüne Hunde (1967) ... Production Company
Coplan ouvre le feu à Mexico (1967) ... Production Company
Fantastici tre supermen, I (1967) ... Production Company (co-production)
Nuit la plus chaude, La (1967) ... Production Company
Homme de Mykonos, L' (1966) ... Production Company
Roger la Honte (1966) ... Production Company
Coplan FX 18 casse tout (1965) ... Production Company
Mission spéciale à Caracas (1965) ... Production Company
Deux orphelines, Les (1965) ... Production Company
Johnny West il mancino (1965) ... Production Company
Strada per Fort Alamo, La (1964) ... Production Company
Coriolano: eroe senza patria (1964) ... Production Company
Goldene Göttin vom Rio Beni, Die (1964) ... Production Company
Maciste e la regina di Samar (1964) ... Production Company
Coplan, agent secret FX 18 (1964) ... Production Company
Amour à la chaine, L' (1964) ... Production Company
Sandokan, la tigre di Mompracem (1963) ... Production Company
Judex (1963) ... Production Company
Diavoli di Spartivento, I (1963) ... Production Company
Col ferro e col fuoco (1963) ... Production Company
Mafia alla sbarra (1963) ... Production Company
Ercole contro Molock (1963) ... Production Company
Sette spade del vendicatore, Le (1962) ... Production Company
Furia di Ercole, La (1962) ... Production Company
Ursus e la ragazza tartara (1962) ... Production Company
Pianeti contro di noi, I (1962) ... Production Company
Anno 79: La distruzione di Ercolano (1962) ... Production Company
Sgarro, Lo (1962) ... Production Company
Vecchio testamento, Il (1962) ... Production Company
Ercole alla conquis
Bal de nuit (1959) ... Production Company
Misteri di Parigi, I (1957) ... Production Company
ta di Atlantide (1961) ... Production Company
Colosso di Rodi, Il (1961) ... Production Company
Regina dei tartari, La (1961) ... Production Company
Vendetta della maschera di ferro, La (1961) ... Product
Avventure di Giacomo Casanova, Le (1955) ... Production Company
ion Company
Vendetta di Ercole, La (1960) ... Production Company

The Sounds of Andre Benichou

Andre Benichou is considered to be an accomplished classical guitarist. In a parallel career as a soundtrack composer his fusion jazz-electric guitar stylings for a number of mid 1970s Jess Franco films make for fascinating listening. The Gothic organ cues in EXORCISM; the haunting theme heard at the openings of LES GLOUTONNES (credited to Robert Viger ) and LE MIROIR OBSCENE; that same theme is played on the piano by the villain Radeck (Victor Mendes) and as a sort of acid-jazz guitar riff throughout the wild and crazy sexy Eurocrime comedy LES GRANDES EMMERDEUSES. I also like the upbeat wind dominated number which opens LE JOUISSEUR, heard over impressionist style images of the foilage canopy over upscale Parisian boulevards.

Possibly the most memorable of his compositions is the hypnotic and sinister sexual/emotional turbulence evoked by his electric guitar playing the same series of notes over and over and over again at increasingly elevated pitches on the soundtrack of LES POSSEDEES DU DIABLE. It's the music of demonic possession. By the way, the producer of that notorious C.F.F.P. production, Robert De Nesle, is cocredited for the music.

Benichou also scored several Pierre Chevalier-directed comedies for Eurocine and a 1980s French TV show. He is remembered by classical music connoisseur's and rare album collectors for his still sought after 1970 JAZZ GUITAR BACH recording seen at the top of this blog

We'll be discussing the music of this unique composer-performer and the Jess Franco films which he scored in the future. Does anyone else appreciate his sound and know if any Andre Benichou music for Jess Franco films is available on CD anywhere?

Thanks to Francesco Cesari for the image.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

Satan is Coming, Make Mine a Double!

I asked for Eurotrash and they gave me Eurotrash. Two Eurotrash obscurities served up on a low priced platter garnished with a number of vintage trailers for such 70's and 80s drive-in material as THE PICKUP, PRIME EVIL, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE and the Asian Trash epics SISTER STREETFIGHTER and LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI. Also included are those blaring OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION notices in appropriately scratchy condition just as they were in this project's template, the feature film GRINDHOUSE, released earlier this year to mostly good notices and sharply disappointing box office results. You can see from the images above that the DVD's producer's also based their cover art on the film's garish poster, designed in basic black and blood red. But where the poster for the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino GRINDHOUSE is eye-fetchingly packed with amusing detail, hyperbolic text and graphics the DVD cover is laid out in a rather clumsy, overcrowded fashion. In fact, the actual DVD looks even worse in hand as the bright reds have turned into color faded, smudgy lettering against what reproduced as a muddy background. The copy on the back, especially the film's specs, are difficult to read and need to be held under a light. Intentional? Maybe. But for me this is the ugliest DVD cover of the year.

Now, I'm not going to trash the entire enterprise, since I did want both of these on DVD and EVIL EYE turns out to be quite a nasty and compelling slice of mid 1970s paranoia fueled satanism. The price is certainly right. I just wonder about the wisdom of piggybacking on a notably unsuccessful project, at least in its brief US theatrical run, although GRINDHOUSE may turn a tidy profit on its coming DVD. In the previous blog we discussed our preferences concerning the popular brandings EUROTRASH vs EUROCULT. These films definitely cry out to classed as the former, despite the fact they both feature very aggressive satanic cults. WELCOME TO THE GRINDHOUSE is the kind of product which invites off-the-rack impulse purchases but I've yet to come across a copy after visiting numerous retail locations. Hopefully, the people behind this will sort things out and maybe there will be a couple of other Eurotrash items they'll be releasing which might find their way into this blog.

EVIL EYE (both films are presented in 1.85:1 widescreen ratio) is a very welcome and watchable transfer of Italian hack Mario Siciliano's 1974 Mexican-Italian-Spanish giallo-horror combo MALOCCHIO aka EROTICOFOLLIA. I would have preferred the latter title onscreen but EVIL EYE is the correct English translation. The late Siciliano (1925-1987) directed a number of Spaghetti Westerns before his career burned out with a series of low-budget porno items (ORGASMO ESOTICO). EVIL EYE is presented in a rather grainy print which looks like it was taken directly from a film element rather than a negative, which is just fine, since the film quality rather suits the subject matter and delirious style, and the film does have a style, even if it's mostly provided by the mid 1970's wardrobes and porkchop sideburns which most of the male actors sport. It looks like one of those post EXORCIST horror films which jump back in time to late 1960's psychedelic aesthetics with a crude attempt to make it all hang together using trendy flash forwards, crossing cutting, odd camera angles and an assortment of tricks which don't really work. But that's part of the fun.

Mexican hunk Jorge Rivero is a bizarre casting choice for American millionaire playboy Peter Crane who is tormented by dreams of being driven to murder by a mysterious sect who perform rituals with oversized candles while wearing the required red and black hoods or jump around in the nude screaming into wide angle lenses. When the dreams seem to start becoming reality Crane consults his psychiatrist (THE GODFATHER's Richard Conte) as he is tracked by a suspicious police detective (THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE's Anthony Steffen). It will all end badly for Peter and incomprehensibly for the viewer. I wouldn't have it any other way. Value added extras include a delightfully "groovy" score by maestro Stelvio Cipriani and a wildly eclectic Italian-Spanish supporting cast including Luciano Pigozzi (THE WHIP AND THE BODY), Lone Fleming (TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD) and Eduardo Fajardo (DJANGO) as Crane's proper English butler who ends up vomiting toads just like Elke Sommer in HOUSE OF EXORCISM. Conte looks somewhat uncomfortable with his involvement while Steffen appears to be having fun while picking up his paycheck. This made me want to see Siciliano's THE SATANIC MECHANIC (you have to love that title!) featuring Lee Van Cleef in a script by sometime Jess Franco scribe Santiago Moncada.

BLACK CANDLES (1982) is another story. The English language equivalent of Jose Ramon Larraz's LOS RITOS SEXUALES DEL DIABLO, bears a 1980 date and his name on the title of the print, which is alternately over and underexposed with somewhat faded colors. It's actually credited to Joseph Braunstein, one of the Spanish director's Anglo beards and the rest of the cast also get similar name changes. The English dubbing is annoyingly out of synch and voice cast with mid Atlantic accents which I also found irritating. Poor Helga Line was nearing 50 when she agreed to strip off and perform in numerous autoerotic and orgy scenes in this dubious enterprise. Still trim and fit, she proved a trouper. Born in 1932 as Helga Lina Stern in Berlin, she fled Germany and wound up acting in Spanish and Italian dramas, horror (THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER), spy films (OPERATION POKER), westerns (HANDS UP DEADMAN, YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!) and still appears on Spanish TV. She was one of the Queens of Spanish horror in such titles as HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB and THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY (both 1972). She's fine here as the "bitch in heat" who is a Player in the satanic cult hidden away in rural England and the only performer in the cast who appears to know how to act. The hapless supporting cast includes Vanessa Hildago and Carmen Carrion, who also appeared in Jess Franco's much better SEXUAL STORY OF O around the same time. The plot is an unimaginative rehash of ROSEMARY'S BABY and the 1965 INCUBUS, without the skillful direction of the former or the gothic atmosphere of the latter. The ending is recycled from the classic DEAD OF NIGHT. Larraz seems to have been going for a soft-focus elegance but comes up empty handed. There are a lot of extended sex scenes, none the least bit erotic, including a notorious one involving a goat (that one is also lifted from INCUBUS). The director has since rejected the film as a hopeless project which he used as a way to stay afloat at the time. Larraz and Line would also work together on ESTIGMA (1982). Missing from this print are approximately two minutes of exit music where Marcello Giombini's score (lifted from 1974's THE EERIE MIDNIGHT HORROR SHOW) played over a black screen. It was the only thing which I found effective about the film, since it gave the familiar proceedings an oneiric spin and a long goodbye which cleared the mind. Larraz will be remembered as the talented director of a series of 1970's horrotica, including DEVIATION, SCREAM AND DIE, SYMPTOMS, EL MIRON, and VIOLATION OF THE BITCH, which are all excellent and really need proper DVD presentations. His WHIRLPOOL, EDGE OF THE AXE, DEADLY MANOR and REST IN PIECES are also worth seeing and notably absent on DVD.

*To access my review of the movie GRINDHOUSE type in the title in the SEARCH function at the top of the blog.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

Bring Back EUROPEAN TRASH CINEMA!

One of my favorite issues of the long gone, but not forgotten, "European Trash Cinema." But then they were all favorite issues. Craig Ledbetter's legendary publication which ran 16 volumes and 2 Special Editions. Having written one of those SE's [on the late Riccardo Freda] and contributed several reviews to Issue #12, seen above, I'm hardly an objective observer. I do want to salute Craig for being a terrific editor and inspiration. All its readers and writers will join that salute. In July 2007 it seems like it all happened 100 years ago, or yesterday...

As the 1990's faded so did ETC, and something called the Internet happened, or at least sucked me into its vortex. I have all the old issues and consult them often, if only for a warm glow of nostalgia. I wish it could have gone on forever. Or at least I sometimes wish I could go back in time. But I haven't invented that machine... yet.

And now The Rant: If we can't bring back "European Trash Cinema" then let's bring back European Trash Cinema. I mean the term. I want to know who the hell came up with that unfortunate replacement we now know as Eurocult, or Euro Cult. I HATE that term. I cringe every time I read, which is often. And I HATE to admit that I've used it myself. In the first place anyone who knows me will tell you I am NOT a member of any cult or not the cultist type. The word "cult" always conjures up images of Jonestown or satanic rituals to me. It's probably useful as a marketing hook for DVD companies and a thread title for message boards. It's not for me, though. It's not me. I am an individual. I've always thought of it as a group of individuals tentatively linked by the films, the posters, the music, the faces of the actors; not as a cult grouped in some dank catacomb waiting for the National Guard to burn them out with flamethrowers.

We are now living in an age where Jess Franco alone is a DVD industry, an international one. And despite what you've heard all the important European titles have not come out on DVD.
I mean European Trash Cinema. Or just Eurotrash if fine. This will be the first of several blogs planned to give you a chance to think about what you are not seeing going on in popular culture right now, what's not on the shelves at Best Buy, and why it's not there.

In the meantime: Bring Back European Trash Cinema!

ZINES!

I highly recommend "Clifford Brown's" ZINES blog, which since October 2006 has been publishing rare images of covers, photo layouts, articles and interviews from such legendary specialty/cult/fantastique zines as SEX STARS SYSTEM and MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE.

An interview with one of our favorite obscure 1970's Eurotrash actresses, Pamela Stanford. appears in the most recent blog, featuring the interview text from EUROSCORE #3, 1975.

The issue of MIDI-MINUIT FANTASTIQUE in the above image contains an interview with my own favorite Italian director, the late Riccardo Freda. My 1997 ETC SE #2 career monograph on Freda is still the longest and most in-depth English language study of this often underrated director and I hope to expand it into a book when I complete my present longstanding project on another European director.

There is also a blog on a special issue of SEX STARS SYSTEM devoted to Jess Franco, complete with an interview and salacious photo layouts from LES DEMONS and other titles.

There are also blogs with issues of these magazines containing interviews with/articles on Christopher Lee, Terence Fisher, Jean Rollin, Alice Arno among others.

I had never seen an issue of any of these magazines until coming upon this blog....

Keep up the good work, Clifford!

www.bxzzines.blogspot.com/

(C) Robert Monell, 2007

BESAME MONSTRUO: Spanish DVD

Here's an image from the new Spanish FILMAX DVD of Jess Franco's 1967 sci-fi tinged spy spoof, known in the US as KISS ME, MONSTER. You won't see this image on the BLUE UNDERGROUND DVD, though. Why? Because the distributor put footage of a car chase from another film under the credits. A film Jess Franco had nothing to do with. KMM also has other footage included NOT generated by the director, including the long jazz fest scene.

The Spanish version is the covered version, while the English language shows above the waist nudity. But I much prefer the Spanish, which retains numerous personal and arcane audio jokes/references which have been removed or changed in the English language variant, which also replaced the original score besides dubbing it into English. This last point is significant since the whole point of the film is a search for a secret formula in which the clues are in musical notation from a score we are not hearing!

Our Spanish reader Nzoog reports that there is no English subtitle option or any other extras on this and the other new FILMAX discs.* I would still recommend this disc to those who have only experienced the English language variant.

*See the June 30 blog: the 5th Filmax Jess Franco DVD release is 1989 action/adventure/political melodrama, LA BAHIA ESMERALDA, one of Franco's larger budgeted productions featuring the veteran US character actor George Kennedy.

Thanks to Bloody Planet, Orlock, Francesco Cesari and Nzoog W.

(C) Robert Monell, 2007