From the beginning I was hooked. The film opens with lurid colors and mod minimalist decor. Every time Franco worked with a French production, he delivered something bright and bold and very futuristic. Even by 2017 standards, Blue Rita is a cool and visually arresting film. Immediately Franco pulls us into his world of obsessions: sex, jazz, S&M, political intrigue and oddly poetic dialogue. I haven't seen that formula mesh so well as it does here.
Franco only had a few basic premises that he returned to: The Orloff saga, The Women in Bondage saga, The Lesbian Vampire saga and a lot of little miscellaneous departures that borrowed from those main stories. Blue Rita is one of the most unique Franco films, best described as a spy adventure spoof. Franco made quite a few cheeky oo7 style films in the 1960s like the inferior Fu Manchu sequels, The Girl From Rio and Red Lips Girls films. Stylistically and thematically, BR is close but amped up because of Franco's experience and the 70s' much softer censorship. Having worked on lots of great films at this point, Jess worked in a lot of plot devices and characterizations from other genres. While he added cruel psychological violence and very titillating softcore to the previous films' absurd and breakneck scifi sleuthing, he takes it to absurd levels here. As this genre was old-hat to him, he approached it with ease and an experimental approach that hits all the right buttons.
Blue Rita is very campy, even for Franco but I really got invested in the characters, especially "Sam" played by Dagmar Burger (named "Sun" in the German version). She's has to be the most likeable and comparatively real protagonist in 70s Franco's films. Its bizarre that a girl shows a romantic interest in a man here, instead of just lust. Dagmar is perfectly cast as she plays the dual nature of her character well. And the erotica in Franco's movies rarely lasts beyond its visual and sensual splendor, but Dagmar's little striptease as Pippi Longstocking was adorable! So funny and memorable.
The story was very well done, straightforward and totally fantastical but full of reversals and action. I've read a lot of comparisons to Jean Rollins' films and I totally got that vibe too. Urban, colorful, sexy and campy with a twist ending. But, again, I have to point out that Franco's early films had this formula.
This is a new favorite for me and I highly recommend it to fans of softcore adventure films, psychedelic B-movies and spy spoofs. Really would play next to Danger Diabolik!
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