I'm really in the last string of major Franco titles to review. These are particularly darker and more trying films from his more depressive and destitute days. I don't enjoy them as much, but they fit my current mood and reveal more of Franco's character and inner battles.
The Bloody Judge is some prime Franco. It could be the best work but maybe not the best film from his soaring commercial career in the late 1960s. Its just as disturbing yet alternately beautiful. Its smart and not at all exploitative. It feels sincere to its historical influences and you can measure it favorably to Hollywood of the period or this current age. Its plot-themes are very pressing: a psychotic conservative authoritarian and probable secret society member who is persecuting the impoverished population he presides over. Scary stuff. This and the other Franco roles are Christopher Lee at his most effective as an actor and a scary "horror movie" presence. Highly recommended!
The Demons follows the same vein but its made for a much sleazier producer with cheaper resources and questionable tastes. Robert de Nestle replaces Harry Allan Towers, which is not a totally skewed trade-off. Its so tawdry and lurid, you can't help but admire it. And a stoned Franco does a great job on damage control. I think this is probably the most tightly plotted and classically shot of de Nestle's time with Franco. It could be the most polished overall and its one of the most erotic and aren't Franco's film supposed to be erotic primarily? The film has some surreal, absurd, camp and kitsch treats as usual. Jess was really in a free-form mood with some impressive resources to bounce off of.
Doriana Grey fits the 70s definition of a porno. You can't quite interpret it the same as the traditional commercial narrative film or even the arthouse experiments or even the sleaziest softcore movies. But it can have the same value. Doriana Gray has the loosest of loose stories about twin Linda Romay's who are soul mates and need to make lesbian love... and maybe its all a dream. Its some heavy, artful, technically brilliant stuff to prop up a lot of graphic sex scenes. And it works. I wasn't thrilled by plot or character because thrills weren't the goal. I find the sex scenes alluring in concept and cathartic and beautifully staged. Pornographic cinema has always had its place and been an influential genre steeped in important cultural art. Franco channels something ancient in these erotic period pieces of the 1970s. I favor this to some more narrative but less erotic films.
Lorna the Exorcist came out earlier (another de Nestle film). Again, the plot is small and lifted essentially from merging Eugenie with other shit, Rumpelstiltskin perhaps (Faust is mentioned). This film sets the stage for following explicit sex films by Jesus Franco: hotels, long takes of scenery, extended love scenes and very obtuse but effective dialogue and minor action. Actually, Franco's Other Side of the Mirror led to this mini-genre in its X-rated cut. Lorna has a wonderfull psychedelic rock/electric jazz score and otherworldly photography and the performances are sharp. Its plot is more strange than anything that precedes it, but maybe more easy-to-follow than what follows it. This is not for everyone but Francophiles will rank it highly.
Sexy Sisters is one of many films where blonde actress Karine Gambier is masochistically tied up and abused mentally and physically by a brunette. I very much enjoy the film Franco made for producer Erwin Dietrich but apparently he stunted Franco's experimental camerawork. Their collaborations are always minimalist, polished and focused on erotica over statements or creativity. Thats fine. Sexy Sisters is one of the weaker of their films but it has decent dramatic plot, performances and great design on a dime.
Sinner is probably the biggest slam dunk out of this batch of reviews. It integrates an original story structure, haunting music, nightclub atmosphere, feminist romance and melodramatic tragedy. And it remains classy by rejecting the hardcore sex or sadism you might expect. This is more of a personal statement or responsible professional job. And it has that rare kind of Franco ending that is so open-ended that it drives you mad and forces you to meditate on the story's reality and its metaphors. I like when Franco's films are personal and still can easily convince the mainstream of his genius. I hope this film was a grindhouse smash because its one of the purest examples of drive-in aesthetics you can find. It might have been too sexy and unadulterated for most suburban drive-in's though.
Showing posts with label 1977. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1977. Show all posts
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Friday, February 16, 2018
Love Camp / Tropical Inferno / Women Without Innocence / Kiss Me Monster / Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun
All of the Jess Franco films I'm reviewing have a feminist edge and the first 3 are all produced by Erwin Dietrich, a Swiss who focused his productions on political subtext, extreme sexual content and moody, lavish locations. He's possibly my favorite producer Franco had in the 1970s as all of their collaborations have been strong so far.
1977's Love Camp tells the story of women abducted to be concubines for a communist rebel army. Most of the girls don't really care but our protagonist becomes torn in her heart between her bourgeois husband at home and the brutish but idealistic freedom fighter who rapes her. The film, if taken literally, will offend feminists but its merely an ironic satire of 1970s political movements, especially feminist and communist hypocrisy. Its brisk but heavy and entertaining.
78's Tropical Inferno is another Women in Prison film, this being the most brutal. The plot is a reworking of 99 Women, Sadomania and other Franco WIP films, with innocents and political radicals being oppressed by a fascist couple (a lesbian & male surgeon, naturally). But Franco is unleashed in this newest rendition, sparing no detail of gory torture or sexual manipulation. This is one of the most serious Franco films I've seen. Zero humor and the performances are as human as the production level can allow.
From the same year comes Women Without Innocence. Its the strongest WIP film of the trio with a tight, unorthodox and detailed plot, plus a supremely impressive performance from Lina Romay (who is absent from the other films). She plays a mental patient being triggered to remember details of a murder she witnessed. There's lots of bizarre subplots and very gorgeous cinematography, even for Franco. Most surprising is the unrealistic Romantic ending that the film receives. With the other 2 films it creates a satisfying dialectic where Franco delivers 3 vastly different worldviews of the same basic narrative.
The more I watch his films, the more impressed I am with this idea of "syncopated cinema" (a term coined in Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco). He returns again and again to themes, plots, characters, even locations to play jazz with broken expectations and new, biographic detail. He's not just creating new work but commenting and critiquing his old work. Its deconstructionism, self-analysis and creating a totally personal grammar of cinema from taking as little outside influence as possible. Its so much more authentic emotionally than most so-called postmodernists like Tarantino or De Palma who crib from other actors but don't actually bring much to it but fanboy or film critic commentary. Thats how Franco started out as a maker of mainstream exploitation films, but he quickly outgrew that while proudly retaining or parodying his roots in cheap mimicry. He parodies the parody he once was.
Kiss Me Monster from 1969 is evidence of this. After directing a couple decent Bond-esque spy films, Franco returned to the more liberal, hipster, feminist films he started his career with. His 2nd film ever followed the Red Lips detective agency, two cute Spanish girls who are prototype Mary Sue's, but who are so flippant and self-aware that the film becomes cute satire. KMM resurrects these characters as more mature post-oo7 super spies with a mean sense of humor and enormous sexual identity. The plot is thin and convoluted so we can have early touches of minimalism, long takes, expressionist lighting, cartooned gags and nifty dialogue. A lot of it is lost in the bland English dub, unfortunately. Still this film is worth a watch and sets up much better films. The film doesn't shy away from exposing assassination, secret societies, corrupt government officials and institutional abuses of power by elites and bottom feeders.
8 years later, Jess releases Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Amazing how much less money he's allowed but how much more creative freedom and experience he attained. This is why you can't down this director for working on small projects so frequently. And while Nuns isn't a masterpiece, its high above the quality of most grindhouse of what was the golden age of B-movies. Barring some heavy nods to Ken Russell & Roman Polanski and the basic theme of his own films Justine and The Bloody Judge, Nuns is a beautiful, tasteful, non-exploitative and respectful study of victimhood. Franco takes serious meditation in showing the hypocrisy of the Catholic church and decosntructing the inherent Satanic qualities of Christianity, while condemning dark occultism and libertine sadism. This film too ends with a Romantic and implausible ending, but Franco intended to show his own spiritual beliefs in karma and justice prevailing.
Apparently, Love Letters is a remake of his film The Demons. Expect a review soon! As that is a Robert De Nestle production, I'm sure its heavier on Gothic design and horror tropes. Dietrich as a producer gives Nun a polish, a cold calculated design, a sincere parallelism with Nazism that gives the film undertones of high art. This wasn't just S&M porn for German audiences. This was anti-fascist propaganda and medicine to cure the hearts and minds of survivors of institutional terror. That brave assault on German white nationalism is why this period of Franco's oeuvre ring so loudly today. He was one of cinema's great moralists and, as a villain says in Faceless, a "deep sentimentalist" underneath his spooky, sex-loving mystique.
1977's Love Camp tells the story of women abducted to be concubines for a communist rebel army. Most of the girls don't really care but our protagonist becomes torn in her heart between her bourgeois husband at home and the brutish but idealistic freedom fighter who rapes her. The film, if taken literally, will offend feminists but its merely an ironic satire of 1970s political movements, especially feminist and communist hypocrisy. Its brisk but heavy and entertaining.
78's Tropical Inferno is another Women in Prison film, this being the most brutal. The plot is a reworking of 99 Women, Sadomania and other Franco WIP films, with innocents and political radicals being oppressed by a fascist couple (a lesbian & male surgeon, naturally). But Franco is unleashed in this newest rendition, sparing no detail of gory torture or sexual manipulation. This is one of the most serious Franco films I've seen. Zero humor and the performances are as human as the production level can allow.
From the same year comes Women Without Innocence. Its the strongest WIP film of the trio with a tight, unorthodox and detailed plot, plus a supremely impressive performance from Lina Romay (who is absent from the other films). She plays a mental patient being triggered to remember details of a murder she witnessed. There's lots of bizarre subplots and very gorgeous cinematography, even for Franco. Most surprising is the unrealistic Romantic ending that the film receives. With the other 2 films it creates a satisfying dialectic where Franco delivers 3 vastly different worldviews of the same basic narrative.
The more I watch his films, the more impressed I am with this idea of "syncopated cinema" (a term coined in Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco). He returns again and again to themes, plots, characters, even locations to play jazz with broken expectations and new, biographic detail. He's not just creating new work but commenting and critiquing his old work. Its deconstructionism, self-analysis and creating a totally personal grammar of cinema from taking as little outside influence as possible. Its so much more authentic emotionally than most so-called postmodernists like Tarantino or De Palma who crib from other actors but don't actually bring much to it but fanboy or film critic commentary. Thats how Franco started out as a maker of mainstream exploitation films, but he quickly outgrew that while proudly retaining or parodying his roots in cheap mimicry. He parodies the parody he once was.
Kiss Me Monster from 1969 is evidence of this. After directing a couple decent Bond-esque spy films, Franco returned to the more liberal, hipster, feminist films he started his career with. His 2nd film ever followed the Red Lips detective agency, two cute Spanish girls who are prototype Mary Sue's, but who are so flippant and self-aware that the film becomes cute satire. KMM resurrects these characters as more mature post-oo7 super spies with a mean sense of humor and enormous sexual identity. The plot is thin and convoluted so we can have early touches of minimalism, long takes, expressionist lighting, cartooned gags and nifty dialogue. A lot of it is lost in the bland English dub, unfortunately. Still this film is worth a watch and sets up much better films. The film doesn't shy away from exposing assassination, secret societies, corrupt government officials and institutional abuses of power by elites and bottom feeders.
8 years later, Jess releases Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Amazing how much less money he's allowed but how much more creative freedom and experience he attained. This is why you can't down this director for working on small projects so frequently. And while Nuns isn't a masterpiece, its high above the quality of most grindhouse of what was the golden age of B-movies. Barring some heavy nods to Ken Russell & Roman Polanski and the basic theme of his own films Justine and The Bloody Judge, Nuns is a beautiful, tasteful, non-exploitative and respectful study of victimhood. Franco takes serious meditation in showing the hypocrisy of the Catholic church and decosntructing the inherent Satanic qualities of Christianity, while condemning dark occultism and libertine sadism. This film too ends with a Romantic and implausible ending, but Franco intended to show his own spiritual beliefs in karma and justice prevailing.
Apparently, Love Letters is a remake of his film The Demons. Expect a review soon! As that is a Robert De Nestle production, I'm sure its heavier on Gothic design and horror tropes. Dietrich as a producer gives Nun a polish, a cold calculated design, a sincere parallelism with Nazism that gives the film undertones of high art. This wasn't just S&M porn for German audiences. This was anti-fascist propaganda and medicine to cure the hearts and minds of survivors of institutional terror. That brave assault on German white nationalism is why this period of Franco's oeuvre ring so loudly today. He was one of cinema's great moralists and, as a villain says in Faceless, a "deep sentimentalist" underneath his spooky, sex-loving mystique.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Macumba Sexual 1983 / Voodoo Passion 1977 / Revenge in the House of Usher 1983 / Devil Hunter 1980 / Death Whistles to the Blues 1964 / Mondo Cannibal 1980 / How Seduce a Virgin 1974 / Mansion of the Living Dead 1982 / Fall of the Eagles 1989 / Dr. Orloff's Monster 1964 / The Awful Dr. Orloff 1962
11 Jess Franco reviews for you, bitch... Franco-mania!
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Macumba Sexual is an almost masterpiece. Franco remakes "Vampyros Lesbos" with a transgender theme! Replacing the irreplaceable Soledad Miranda is the commanding Ajita Wilson, the most beautiful black she-male in cinema history. She's seducing Lina Romay (as her blonde actress title "Candy Coaster") to take her role as some pan-sexual goddess of lust. The plot is low on incident and keeps to maybe 3 locations, all around a hotel. Its a breathtaking experience despite this, gorgeous and alive with subversive sexual metaphors. Throughout the film, Lina is haunted by physical objects
that are both masculine and feminine at the same time while Franco never hides the fact that Ajita is transgender. He attacks the gender binary and really scrambles what an erotic horror film can be. For him this is an exploitative ride to attack homophobia and sexual insecurity. I don't know if its respectful to trans people, but I think its firmly on their side and is the most brave, entertaining and early examples of the subject in cinema.
Voodoo Passion is likewise a minor classic. Playing similarly to both "Virgin Among the Living Dead" and the formula of "Succubus" and "Nightmares Come at Night", I think Voodoo Passion plays better than all three. It has an impressive production, flawless cinematography, a beautiful score, truly erotic sex scenes, a game cast and some fabulous direction. It also irons out some flaws in the highly disjointed narratives of those previous films. You could only dock it points for being predictable, but Jess provides enough twists visually and narratively that you can call this a successful jazz variation.
Revenge/Usher is "final level Franco". You can't appreciate this until you know his oeuvre, biography and financial limitations. I would call it something of a no-budget masterpiece if Eurocine producers didn't poorly edit it into the kitsch it is today. Franco shot a fairly personalized but tonally correct version of Poe's classic with no budget. Had Jess had a few dollars more, it would be comparable to his Dracula. But Eurocine didn't like it, added 10 minutes of footage from Dr Orloff(!) and then added poorly done inserts to try and smooth it out. They did the same to "Virgin" apparently. If you know the story behind this film, its quite an eye-opener and an amazing demonstration of Franco's genius, but this is NOT for casual fans or horror fans.
Devil Hunter is a solid Eurotrash ride. Its a camp spoof of racist cannibal films made in Italy at the time and it still works as an anti-racist horror film. Franco shows great kindness for black people in his films, especially primitive tribes. This film paints the white characters as just as barbaric and maybe twice as depraved. Like the transgressive bits of transgenderism in Macumba, Franco displays his radicalism not in preachy dialogue, righteous characters or obvious gestures. He uses the power of ironic montage, contrast, dialectical materialism that he learned as a young admirer of Eisenstein. Devil Hunter is surprisingly long and quite absurdist, but its an epic enjoyment for his fans or anyone who is in on the joke. Also, just remember that the bug-eyed native is essentially "Morpho". This will make sense later...
Death/Blues is a small political thriller from Franco's early film period. Its gorgeous, well-paced and extremely heavy on dialogue. While its a refreshing break from many films of its time, it lacks the unique style that Franco would patent later. But it still has his hallmarks: anti-racism, proletariat sympathies, revenge, a sexy tropical atmosphere and a good soundtrack. Its evidence of Franco's ability to handle your regular commercial film but such a solid B&W caper is a footnote to his career and thats a compliment. I still recommend it for the time capsule appeal and the biographical nature of the story.
Mondo Cannibal is known as a piece of shit, but it has its moments. Its hated by fans of the cannibal genre because its low on gore, cannibals and action. But the plot is quite good and would be resurrected for "Diamonds...". This film is a bit of a chore because its maybe Franco's slowest and least artistic film, but it has (shockingly) some of the best photography of this period and the real sell is Sabrina Siani, who is inhumanly attractive and naked throughout the film. I wish this film was as progressive as the other Franco jungle films, but its no big loss because all of the natives are played by Italians! Actually, I suspect that was a joke and that the film is lampooning Italians taste for gore and their rampant anti-black racism. I've heard Franco diss Italian directors for their desire to be seen as white/American and this film is his rejection of the Italian schlock directors he is still lumped in with. In retrospect, this film was an intentionally "bad" anti-gore film.
How to Seduce a Virgin is a not-as-strong remake of the exquisite Eugenie, but it has its areas of supremacy. The sexual content here is excellent, the cast is different but equal, the production is smaller but more moody. This is kind of a dark X-rated doppelganger of a classic. There are some plot tweaks and maybe the best substitution is Lina Romay as the helpless minion. This might be her best role, likewise the underrated Alice Arno.
Mansion/Living Dead is basically a re-do of Bloody Moon, but serving Franco's sensibilities. We have some sexy Spanish girls at a hotel with a slasher. I still prefer Moon, but Mansion is close in quality. It leans towards a smaller, more absurd plot and a more hypnotic, dreamy style of directing. What Mansion does have is better dialogue, sexier lesbian action and a phenomenal female gimp character who steals the entire film each time she arrives. This film becomes a personal account of Franco's relationship with Lina and his own guilt in keeping this much younger, wilder woman to himself, a rather bookish man of small means. Many films from this period revolve around their real world romantic dynamic, its up's and down's and sadomasochism. Lina is more than a muse in these films. She's a strong actress with the unique gift of having a film told through her and about her.
Fall of the Eagles is the cheapest Franco film I've ever seen. It literally a couple really well-directed scenes about a Nazi love triangle before, during and after WW2 with some stock footage linking it together. The performances are strong from Christopher Lee and Mark Hamill (TWO fucking Jedi's directed by the guy who helped inspire Yoda!!!!) while Joe Estavez's son gives what might be the worst acting performance ever. The entire film is so uneven yet so watchable, a perfect time waster. Considering it cost nothing, I didn't feel cheated. It reminds me of the much worse Full Moon films that obsessively use WW2 as a backdrop. Despite its many limitations, Eagles IS a very serious, crafted and poignant story.
Dr Orloff's Monster is a well-made little thriller, way more conservative than its radical predecessor, but it introduces some important tropes into the Franco canon: adultery turning to murder (But Who Raped Linda?) and a young girl inheriting a dark castle of evil secrets (Virgin..., Daughter of Dracula). The plot and style of this film provides the gist of the much more entertaining Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, but you won't be disappointed in the noir-esque photography and what was once groundbreaking treatment of sex and violence. But its no match for...
The Awful Dr. Orloff. Finally I review the one that made Jess Franco a famous international genre director. I've watched it before but its much better with more context of what it spawned. Its been written that Orloff is a rip-off of Eyes Without a Face. Franco denies it and I believe him as The Brain That Wouldn't Die is also ridiculously similar to these two films. I think we have a case of 3 people thinking the same thing at once: surgical horror. They all were deconstructing Gothic horror films and predicting the rise of abused plastic surgery. Eyes is the classiest of the 3, Brain the most vulgar and Franco's little film is a perfect blend of both. Its evident how much the suggestive dialogue and rape-themed violence was in such a Catholic, conservative culture. And this is really the most expressionist and epic film of Franco's career. Its just a finely directed old school horror film that no one can fault. But Francophiles will take sweet pleasure in how personal the film reveals itself to be all these years later.
We witness the birth of Franco's most personal and repeated plot device: The Master and Slave. Dr Orloff (who would return so many times) is a mad surgeon based on Jess' army doctor father and in extension the Generalissimo Franco. He's an affluent, cruel, bourgeois monster, but physically and emotionally human in every way. Early on its revealed that his deep seated obsession with female flesh comes from his own insecurity about control, aging and dying. This rings as a confession of Jess' later lustful work as Orloff's violence is carried out by his demeaned bug-eyed relative, "Morpho". This is an obvious placeholder for Jess and Jess would even play the Morpho role in following films. Is Franco's entire filmography as actor/director his working through a tyrannical Father complex? Definitely.
This film has a solid climax but the rather hollow Dr Orloff's Monster might be even more personal as that film ends with the Morpho monster actually striking down the evil father character. Now read into Orloff killing women to preserve the image of his own daughter? (Or sister in "Faceless") The maternal side of Franco's anxieties would be explored in Jack the Ripper, sibling & daughter incest would pop up later. Having a Mexican father and Cuban mother, I suspect Jess' mother was dark-skinned, explaining his fetish for light skin but his distanced but bleeding heart for darker skinned women. Its so obvious why he found special balance in Soledad Miranda and then Lina Romay. The strange abusive childhood Jess had with some 8 siblings in a fascist militaristic surgeon's home spawned a lifetime of traumatic confessions on celluloid and video. The racial tension between his parents and the mixed heritage in Latin communities also left a huge impact on the little Jesus, turning him to jazz, political radicalism and becoming a malcontent who purposely deprived his genius from popularity.
I hope this sad but beautiful little genius is at peace now and that this amazing body of work will live on forever and become more legendary than it already is.
Macumba Sexual is an almost masterpiece. Franco remakes "Vampyros Lesbos" with a transgender theme! Replacing the irreplaceable Soledad Miranda is the commanding Ajita Wilson, the most beautiful black she-male in cinema history. She's seducing Lina Romay (as her blonde actress title "Candy Coaster") to take her role as some pan-sexual goddess of lust. The plot is low on incident and keeps to maybe 3 locations, all around a hotel. Its a breathtaking experience despite this, gorgeous and alive with subversive sexual metaphors. Throughout the film, Lina is haunted by physical objects
that are both masculine and feminine at the same time while Franco never hides the fact that Ajita is transgender. He attacks the gender binary and really scrambles what an erotic horror film can be. For him this is an exploitative ride to attack homophobia and sexual insecurity. I don't know if its respectful to trans people, but I think its firmly on their side and is the most brave, entertaining and early examples of the subject in cinema.
Voodoo Passion is likewise a minor classic. Playing similarly to both "Virgin Among the Living Dead" and the formula of "Succubus" and "Nightmares Come at Night", I think Voodoo Passion plays better than all three. It has an impressive production, flawless cinematography, a beautiful score, truly erotic sex scenes, a game cast and some fabulous direction. It also irons out some flaws in the highly disjointed narratives of those previous films. You could only dock it points for being predictable, but Jess provides enough twists visually and narratively that you can call this a successful jazz variation.
Revenge/Usher is "final level Franco". You can't appreciate this until you know his oeuvre, biography and financial limitations. I would call it something of a no-budget masterpiece if Eurocine producers didn't poorly edit it into the kitsch it is today. Franco shot a fairly personalized but tonally correct version of Poe's classic with no budget. Had Jess had a few dollars more, it would be comparable to his Dracula. But Eurocine didn't like it, added 10 minutes of footage from Dr Orloff(!) and then added poorly done inserts to try and smooth it out. They did the same to "Virgin" apparently. If you know the story behind this film, its quite an eye-opener and an amazing demonstration of Franco's genius, but this is NOT for casual fans or horror fans.
Devil Hunter is a solid Eurotrash ride. Its a camp spoof of racist cannibal films made in Italy at the time and it still works as an anti-racist horror film. Franco shows great kindness for black people in his films, especially primitive tribes. This film paints the white characters as just as barbaric and maybe twice as depraved. Like the transgressive bits of transgenderism in Macumba, Franco displays his radicalism not in preachy dialogue, righteous characters or obvious gestures. He uses the power of ironic montage, contrast, dialectical materialism that he learned as a young admirer of Eisenstein. Devil Hunter is surprisingly long and quite absurdist, but its an epic enjoyment for his fans or anyone who is in on the joke. Also, just remember that the bug-eyed native is essentially "Morpho". This will make sense later...
Death/Blues is a small political thriller from Franco's early film period. Its gorgeous, well-paced and extremely heavy on dialogue. While its a refreshing break from many films of its time, it lacks the unique style that Franco would patent later. But it still has his hallmarks: anti-racism, proletariat sympathies, revenge, a sexy tropical atmosphere and a good soundtrack. Its evidence of Franco's ability to handle your regular commercial film but such a solid B&W caper is a footnote to his career and thats a compliment. I still recommend it for the time capsule appeal and the biographical nature of the story.
Mondo Cannibal is known as a piece of shit, but it has its moments. Its hated by fans of the cannibal genre because its low on gore, cannibals and action. But the plot is quite good and would be resurrected for "Diamonds...". This film is a bit of a chore because its maybe Franco's slowest and least artistic film, but it has (shockingly) some of the best photography of this period and the real sell is Sabrina Siani, who is inhumanly attractive and naked throughout the film. I wish this film was as progressive as the other Franco jungle films, but its no big loss because all of the natives are played by Italians! Actually, I suspect that was a joke and that the film is lampooning Italians taste for gore and their rampant anti-black racism. I've heard Franco diss Italian directors for their desire to be seen as white/American and this film is his rejection of the Italian schlock directors he is still lumped in with. In retrospect, this film was an intentionally "bad" anti-gore film.
How to Seduce a Virgin is a not-as-strong remake of the exquisite Eugenie, but it has its areas of supremacy. The sexual content here is excellent, the cast is different but equal, the production is smaller but more moody. This is kind of a dark X-rated doppelganger of a classic. There are some plot tweaks and maybe the best substitution is Lina Romay as the helpless minion. This might be her best role, likewise the underrated Alice Arno.
Mansion/Living Dead is basically a re-do of Bloody Moon, but serving Franco's sensibilities. We have some sexy Spanish girls at a hotel with a slasher. I still prefer Moon, but Mansion is close in quality. It leans towards a smaller, more absurd plot and a more hypnotic, dreamy style of directing. What Mansion does have is better dialogue, sexier lesbian action and a phenomenal female gimp character who steals the entire film each time she arrives. This film becomes a personal account of Franco's relationship with Lina and his own guilt in keeping this much younger, wilder woman to himself, a rather bookish man of small means. Many films from this period revolve around their real world romantic dynamic, its up's and down's and sadomasochism. Lina is more than a muse in these films. She's a strong actress with the unique gift of having a film told through her and about her.
Fall of the Eagles is the cheapest Franco film I've ever seen. It literally a couple really well-directed scenes about a Nazi love triangle before, during and after WW2 with some stock footage linking it together. The performances are strong from Christopher Lee and Mark Hamill (TWO fucking Jedi's directed by the guy who helped inspire Yoda!!!!) while Joe Estavez's son gives what might be the worst acting performance ever. The entire film is so uneven yet so watchable, a perfect time waster. Considering it cost nothing, I didn't feel cheated. It reminds me of the much worse Full Moon films that obsessively use WW2 as a backdrop. Despite its many limitations, Eagles IS a very serious, crafted and poignant story.
Dr Orloff's Monster is a well-made little thriller, way more conservative than its radical predecessor, but it introduces some important tropes into the Franco canon: adultery turning to murder (But Who Raped Linda?) and a young girl inheriting a dark castle of evil secrets (Virgin..., Daughter of Dracula). The plot and style of this film provides the gist of the much more entertaining Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, but you won't be disappointed in the noir-esque photography and what was once groundbreaking treatment of sex and violence. But its no match for...
The Awful Dr. Orloff. Finally I review the one that made Jess Franco a famous international genre director. I've watched it before but its much better with more context of what it spawned. Its been written that Orloff is a rip-off of Eyes Without a Face. Franco denies it and I believe him as The Brain That Wouldn't Die is also ridiculously similar to these two films. I think we have a case of 3 people thinking the same thing at once: surgical horror. They all were deconstructing Gothic horror films and predicting the rise of abused plastic surgery. Eyes is the classiest of the 3, Brain the most vulgar and Franco's little film is a perfect blend of both. Its evident how much the suggestive dialogue and rape-themed violence was in such a Catholic, conservative culture. And this is really the most expressionist and epic film of Franco's career. Its just a finely directed old school horror film that no one can fault. But Francophiles will take sweet pleasure in how personal the film reveals itself to be all these years later.
We witness the birth of Franco's most personal and repeated plot device: The Master and Slave. Dr Orloff (who would return so many times) is a mad surgeon based on Jess' army doctor father and in extension the Generalissimo Franco. He's an affluent, cruel, bourgeois monster, but physically and emotionally human in every way. Early on its revealed that his deep seated obsession with female flesh comes from his own insecurity about control, aging and dying. This rings as a confession of Jess' later lustful work as Orloff's violence is carried out by his demeaned bug-eyed relative, "Morpho". This is an obvious placeholder for Jess and Jess would even play the Morpho role in following films. Is Franco's entire filmography as actor/director his working through a tyrannical Father complex? Definitely.
This film has a solid climax but the rather hollow Dr Orloff's Monster might be even more personal as that film ends with the Morpho monster actually striking down the evil father character. Now read into Orloff killing women to preserve the image of his own daughter? (Or sister in "Faceless") The maternal side of Franco's anxieties would be explored in Jack the Ripper, sibling & daughter incest would pop up later. Having a Mexican father and Cuban mother, I suspect Jess' mother was dark-skinned, explaining his fetish for light skin but his distanced but bleeding heart for darker skinned women. Its so obvious why he found special balance in Soledad Miranda and then Lina Romay. The strange abusive childhood Jess had with some 8 siblings in a fascist militaristic surgeon's home spawned a lifetime of traumatic confessions on celluloid and video. The racial tension between his parents and the mixed heritage in Latin communities also left a huge impact on the little Jesus, turning him to jazz, political radicalism and becoming a malcontent who purposely deprived his genius from popularity.
I hope this sad but beautiful little genius is at peace now and that this amazing body of work will live on forever and become more legendary than it already is.
Sunday, December 24, 2017
That Obscure Object of Desire 1977
Friday, February 17, 2017
BLUE RITA 1977
I don't like to give away the plot in reviews because films like Blue Rita are built on their wild stories and surprising twists. But I'll paint a picture of the experience: strippers, spies, stripper spies, sadism and psychedelia.
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Face/Off 1997
This is a seminal action film even if its not a very good one. It exemplifies the bizarre methods of Hollywood moneymaking/moviemaking in the 1990s - hiring John Woo to direct a Pulp Fiction style action film, casting Nic Cage and John Travolta both in dual roles and a ridiculous light scifi plot twist based on the film's double entendre title - while still retaining some kind of risk-taking approach to mass entertainment. A lot of the movie is cringeworthy, some of it is campy, some of it is brilliant but mostly its just brainless but inoffensive popcorn fare.
Now the story is compelling. Its about a rivalry between a detective and a gangster (very reminiscent of the much-better Michael Mann film Heat) set off by the murder of the cop's young son by the gangster. It escalates quickly to comic book levels (that most superhero films fail to reach) even before the major twist arrives: that they must trade faces surgically and identities metaphysically before they can finally "face off". The script is full of dated jokes and dialogue, the characters aren't very deep and none of the action sequences are believable or even well constructed. But the central gimmick allows for some surprising and original turns as the cop cleans up the life led by his enemy while the villain proves to be a more exciting father and husband than our boyscout protagonist and even hints a babyface turn a few times. The theme is duality and how the line between right and wrong is blurred. There's an interesting and touching scene where the villain mourns his dead brother which would never pop up in the common action shoot 'em up. And many unlawful and sociopathic bit characters are humanized too. There's a decided moral grayness that is naturally born out of film where the villain has to be quite likeable given that he shares half the screen time and is played by both star actors. And the hero is shown to be quite flawed; chiefly as a father and husband, only redeeming himself when he removes his wedding ring from the imposter self. I assume the whole film is designed around a moment where a two-sided mirror separates both men, who wear the other's face. Both characters are staring at themselves yet they are staring at their enemy. Its such a loaded and lyrical image that highlights the poetry of the concept and if John Woo didn't inject this idea, it surely inspired him to make the film.
John Woo does a very uneven job directing Face/Off. Maybe he's better suited to Chinese productions and casts, maybe Hollywood was unfair and abandoned his vision, I don't know. While the Woo touch is there - designer clothing, big staging, emotional relationships, cops and robbers, "bullet time" and the doves - it feels like such a rushjob or that he was in over his head. While the core of the story is pulled off well, the rest of it falls flat. The many "humorous" asides are lost in translation for the American audience. I recognize the fast and overly cutesy farce from Woo's kung fu days. And if there's one thing that John Woo does well, its action scenes. But not in this case. Each action scene is staged too simply, edited poorly and runs way too short. I can only guess the studios didn't have faith in Woo's style of action choreography, but why hire him then? I assume it was to cash-in on his name which was heavily promoted by Quentin Tarantino. There are bits where Woo seems to be reclaiming his style from his Xerox friendly fan Tarantino. But the film is also exploiting Tarantino in casting Travolta. You could easily see Bruce Willis in the Nic Cage role (Willis played a similar character in The Jackyl), but thankfully Woo is more of a Cage fan.
If the elaborate role reversal plot doesn't buy you, then the performances of Cage and Travolta might. The two stars each share the same two roles and have to adopt the other's mannerisms and speech patterns while creating unique characters from the script. I think they do a fair and rewarding job. Both excel as the evil and charismatic Castor Troy while being believable and sympathetic as the heroic Sean Archer. Now this was one of Travolta's last major gigs, but its one of his best. At around age 40, he's very cool and relaxed and having as much fun here as he ever had. Cage only gets a few moments to go crazy, but he further cemented himself as a unique Hollywood leading man and action star, surprisingly cool and multilayered. Its an odd pairing but that works for the story and its cool to see two very different talents on-screen together and carrying the film as co-captains. They're supported by the good, surreal cast of Joan Allen, Margaret Cho, Nick Cassavettes and the lovely Gina Gershon.
So its a bizarro movie that you could never remake successfully and yet it was a major commercial success and its now a cult classic. I recommend it. I had fun with it. Its a 20 year old, 2 hour long action movie about infidelity and schizophrenia. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?
Now the story is compelling. Its about a rivalry between a detective and a gangster (very reminiscent of the much-better Michael Mann film Heat) set off by the murder of the cop's young son by the gangster. It escalates quickly to comic book levels (that most superhero films fail to reach) even before the major twist arrives: that they must trade faces surgically and identities metaphysically before they can finally "face off". The script is full of dated jokes and dialogue, the characters aren't very deep and none of the action sequences are believable or even well constructed. But the central gimmick allows for some surprising and original turns as the cop cleans up the life led by his enemy while the villain proves to be a more exciting father and husband than our boyscout protagonist and even hints a babyface turn a few times. The theme is duality and how the line between right and wrong is blurred. There's an interesting and touching scene where the villain mourns his dead brother which would never pop up in the common action shoot 'em up. And many unlawful and sociopathic bit characters are humanized too. There's a decided moral grayness that is naturally born out of film where the villain has to be quite likeable given that he shares half the screen time and is played by both star actors. And the hero is shown to be quite flawed; chiefly as a father and husband, only redeeming himself when he removes his wedding ring from the imposter self. I assume the whole film is designed around a moment where a two-sided mirror separates both men, who wear the other's face. Both characters are staring at themselves yet they are staring at their enemy. Its such a loaded and lyrical image that highlights the poetry of the concept and if John Woo didn't inject this idea, it surely inspired him to make the film.
John Woo does a very uneven job directing Face/Off. Maybe he's better suited to Chinese productions and casts, maybe Hollywood was unfair and abandoned his vision, I don't know. While the Woo touch is there - designer clothing, big staging, emotional relationships, cops and robbers, "bullet time" and the doves - it feels like such a rushjob or that he was in over his head. While the core of the story is pulled off well, the rest of it falls flat. The many "humorous" asides are lost in translation for the American audience. I recognize the fast and overly cutesy farce from Woo's kung fu days. And if there's one thing that John Woo does well, its action scenes. But not in this case. Each action scene is staged too simply, edited poorly and runs way too short. I can only guess the studios didn't have faith in Woo's style of action choreography, but why hire him then? I assume it was to cash-in on his name which was heavily promoted by Quentin Tarantino. There are bits where Woo seems to be reclaiming his style from his Xerox friendly fan Tarantino. But the film is also exploiting Tarantino in casting Travolta. You could easily see Bruce Willis in the Nic Cage role (Willis played a similar character in The Jackyl), but thankfully Woo is more of a Cage fan.
If the elaborate role reversal plot doesn't buy you, then the performances of Cage and Travolta might. The two stars each share the same two roles and have to adopt the other's mannerisms and speech patterns while creating unique characters from the script. I think they do a fair and rewarding job. Both excel as the evil and charismatic Castor Troy while being believable and sympathetic as the heroic Sean Archer. Now this was one of Travolta's last major gigs, but its one of his best. At around age 40, he's very cool and relaxed and having as much fun here as he ever had. Cage only gets a few moments to go crazy, but he further cemented himself as a unique Hollywood leading man and action star, surprisingly cool and multilayered. Its an odd pairing but that works for the story and its cool to see two very different talents on-screen together and carrying the film as co-captains. They're supported by the good, surreal cast of Joan Allen, Margaret Cho, Nick Cassavettes and the lovely Gina Gershon.
So its a bizarro movie that you could never remake successfully and yet it was a major commercial success and its now a cult classic. I recommend it. I had fun with it. Its a 20 year old, 2 hour long action movie about infidelity and schizophrenia. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?
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