Marquis de Sade's Justine (1969)

Someone didn't want me to do a week of Jess Franco, but I told him/her to read another blog instead of Ninja Dixon - I'm sure they have yet another review of Evil Dead or Halloween there so he'll be happy. He claimed Jess Franco is oversaturated on the net, but hey... that's just not true. Not reviews that take Uncle Jess seriously and just doesn't mentions all the "funny bad details" they find in Franco's less-budgeted epics. Justine is Franco's most expensive movie, shot over seven weeks and with an all star cast. Produced by Harry Alan Towers of course and shot in beautiful Spain.

We follow Justine (Romina Power) and her journey into adulthood. From being a maid at a perverted old dirty man, being accused of theft and thrown in prison - where she escapes with the help of crime queen Madame Dusbois (Mercedes McCambridge), almost raped but ends a while later at a rich couple where the man, Marquis de Bressac (Horst Frank), who's gay and having an affair with one of the servants, wants to kill his rich wife (Sylva Koscina) and uses Justine to do this, she escapes from there and finds a monastery lead by the crooked Antonin (Jack Palance) where she's tortured and... well, she's not a happy lady - that's for sure!

Justine is a series of small adventures, some more fun than twisted - and some more twisted than fun, based on the works of de Sade. Franco loved the script written by Towers, but the American financiers wanted a bigger name as Justine and cast 18 year old Romina Power, and suddenly Franco couldn't do the adult, dark, movie he wanted it to be. He describes her as furniture, furniture guarded by her mother and her Italian prick of a boyfriend. This was of course a letdown for Franco, but the movie turned out really good in the end anyway - even of it's a lot tamer than it was planned to be.

It's a big movie, or a "big fake movie" as Franco describes it. Lots of spectacular locations, hundreds of costumes and overall a very glossy look and one f**king amazing score by Bruno Nicolai. This is a classy production in every sense and Franco tells it like a master. The cast, especially, is great. My favourite Horst Frank is so cool as the greedy gay Marquise and Jack Palance - drunker then ever, something that's very visible, is over-the-top as the crazy monk. Franco stalwart Howard Vernon is brilliant has Palace's colleague and Maria Rohm is wonderful. Ah, Klaus Kinski is in it to of course, without any dialogue, as Marquise de Sade. He's great and it's the second Franco-movie I've seen him in where he only sits in a room saying nothing (the other being Count Dracula). Franco himself has one of his funniest roles, as a burlesque turban-wearing ringmaster!

Mercedes McCambridge is just hypnotic as the angry, tough, queen of crime. Imagine she did the voice for the demon in The Exorcist a few years later!

I also love how Franco's love for architecture shows, including two locations designed by Antoni Gaudí. The inclusion of his work gives the film another otherworldly dimension, a sense of a fairy tale, but still stuck in the brutal reality.

Justine isn't THAT tame by the way. It has some blood and a good amount of nudity, mostly boobs and an ass here and there, but imagine if Power didn't get the part and the cool Rosemary Dexter (who plays a smaller part, but first got cast as Justine) did it instead? I think we would have seen a very different movie, an even better and more brilliant production.

Now it's "just" great. 

Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (1977)

I once read that according to the Catholic church the two most dangerous filmmakers during the seventies was Pier Paolo Pasolini and Jesus Franco. While I personally think Pasolini had a lot of Catholic guilt to deal with, Franco on the other hand never had any problem with bashing religion and hypocrisy of all kinds. This is very visible in Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun, another movie produced by the notorious Erwin C. Dietrich. Movie geeks who claims Franco is ha hack and never made a good movie has obviously not seen so many of his movies, and if they have it's Oasis of the Zombies, Devil Hunter, Mansion of the Living Dead or something even more trashy and easy-to-find. They're too lazy to go any further into his huge body of work. That's a pity, because here we have another excellent and edgy production!

14 years old Maria (played by 17 years old Susan Hemingway) gets caught fooling around (very innocently) with a boy by Father Vicente (William Berger). He brings her home to her mother and uses his best Christian manipulation to send Maria to a convent, lead by the sinister Mother Alma (Ana Zanatti). Maria is soon punished for being completely human and natural and Father Vicente starts to abuse her sexually while Mother Alma uses her in satanic rites! Maria just wants to get away from there, but her newfound love for god makes it even harder to leave the, by god blessed, sadism and torture!

Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun is a point blank fuck you to organized religion and abuse of power. It feels even more fresh today with the tons and tons of sexual abuse being uncovered inside the Catholic church, and while this one deals with satanic rites and more visual terror a lot of what's said from the religious representatives in this movie is eerily similar to what we've heard during recent year from PR-people at the Vatican.

This is also a gorgeous movie. Franco had a lot of fantastic exteriors and interiors to use and he uses them well. I've seen more expensive productions look less interesting and more flat than this one. For those who don't like Franco's trademark (and I would say very important trademark) use of zoom will be happy here, because it's shot in very conventional way, still beautiful, but also very calm and without apparent stress. Like many of Franco's films the cast is the most important thing and I think he has one of his strongest casts ever in this film.

First of all, William Berger is brilliant. He plays probably the most disgusting priest I've ever seen in a movie, mostly because he's a hypocrite and uses his power to get money and other things from poor citizens (just like the church to do today, to support their fancy buildings and huge paychecks) but also his sexual appetite for young girls. The scene where he cums in the confession booth while hearing Maria talk about her wet dreams is both extremely funny in a very dark way, but also sick and disturbed. Susan Hemingway, who looks way younger than she was, makes a fine performance as the frail and innocent Maria - who ironically gets corrupted by the church and not the boy she's in love with. Ana Zanatti balances the religious angest with pure sadism and coldness like no one else.

This is yet another fine production from Jess Franco and I urge you all to give it a try! 

Barbed Wire Dolls (1976)

Here it is, the mother of all fake slow-motion

filled with Lina Romay's hairy sexual potion.

Barbed Wire Dolls is back to deliver the sleaze

plus some additional scenes of extra gooey cheese!

The wardress dyke wants female flesh

fingering vaginas on new inmates - so juicy and fresh!

Lina remember how she killed her dad

Pity that fake slow-motion was just a fad!

Rarely boring, but hardly original

Fun but not a reason to start a bacchanal.

Stylish angles and a sleazy cast

But the all seemed to had a sexual blast!

Maybe it's missing some important shower scenes

Could have used someone blown to smithereens?

I'm missing the playfulness of Uncle Jess

Next time I would like to see some fun finesse.

Oh, now I sound so mean and grumpy

Didn't meant to make all of you jumpy!

Barbed Wire Dolls is fine, fine euro cult

for us who appreciates films for the adult!

So get your copy already today!

Prepare your remote control for action replay!

Long Live Uncle Jess and Lina, his late muse

May they forever light the cinematic fuse...

Voodoo Passion (1977)

I'm always a bit sceptical when it comes to the pure softcore productions from Uncle Jess, but Voodoo Passion was still made during the seventies and the steady hand of Erwin C. Dietrich as producer. Why sceptical? Probably because they mostly are focused on tits and ass, shaky zoom-shots on pubic hair and going gynaecological with the camera. That just bores me. But I need to learn to trust Uncle Jess, because behind the most boring premises there's actually some nice ideas and originality. This one is a remake, according to many, of Franco's own 1970 production Nightmares Come at Night. I have it on DVD but never seen it, so I guess that's one thing I must do now. But back to Voodoo Passion - Call of the Blonde Godess!

Susan (Ada Tauler) moves to Haiti to join her new husband Jack (Jack Taylor) there. They are newly wed and it comes as a surprise when Jack's sex-crazy lesbian sister Olga (Karine Gambier) also lives in their house. Her life revolves around sex and nothing more. Susan soon finds this quite nice and starts living the dream together with her husband and his sister - but something is wrong! She starts having hallucinations, almost trance-like walks - and she's killing people! Is it voodoo? Or something more sinister, something more natural?

There's a lot of penis in this movie. And buttocks (often those of Jack Taylor). And pubic hair and vaginas. Often in close-up and often lingering a few seconds too long. But that's what's it all about, it's a softcore thriller set on Haiti by Jess Franco! What to expect? While I fail to see the exciting with these many, many sex scenes, I can still see that it's a stylish and often very entertaining sex-thriller. The bright and clean cinematography looks fantastic (at least when it's in focus) and the hotel gardens standing in for jungles looks good.

Even if the sex and nudity is the most important thing here it's easy to see that Franco want to create a mystery and build-up an interesting, but thin, storyline that will help us get through the cheesiness. Karine Gambier is easiest the best thing here. Not that she's the best actress, but she's so vulgar, blonde and over-the-top that it's hard to dislike her. Muriel Montossé, who plays the lesbian housekeeper Inès, has a stunning and almost scary look (the eyes, the eyes!) and rules most of the footage she's in. Jack Taylor does his job, and is great, but this is a strictly women's movie and so shall it be.

In-between these reproductive organs and nice tropical gardens there's the music of Walter Baumgartner and I must say that here he's created a couple of masterpieces. Especially one piece, traditional jazz fused with some form of tropical bongo-beats. It's so good and so hypnotic and suddenly raises the somewhat cheap production several notches up to a completely different class of filmmaking.

No, I can't say that Voodoo Passion is a great movie, but it worked for me and Franco made it a little bit interesting with some clever twists and nicely handled sleaze-filled voodoo-sequences.

The only thing really bad is the awkward opening dance-number on the beach. I've seen drunk old men do better than that on the ferry to Finland!

Blue Rita (1977)

Jess Franco is back on Ninja Dixon. I wrote about a week ago that I wouldn't write any new Franco-reviews for a while, but here he is again. The reason is that when I'm very down the works of Franco is the best movies to make me feel better again. I've never been interested in Blue Rita mostly because I thought was a normal softcore romp without any redeeming qualities, but when I finally started to read more about it I saw that it's actually more fun than I first though. Produced by the Erwin C. Dietrich (and according to some sources Robert de Nesle also), Blue Rita is a fun little spy-thriller behind all that sleaze and nudity...

At the Blue Rita Bar there's a secret organization lead by Blue Rita (Martine Fléty) and her team of lesbian strippers/killers. They lure important politicians, journalists and other power-hungry men to their bar to drug and torture them, only to get their money and secrets - the latter something they can sell to other countries to the highest bid. Oh, she torture the men by exposing them to a chemical that makes them absurdly horny and then she teases them with her women! But what she don't know is that there's a spy among them, a female Interpol agent who's there to expose their dirty business!

Blue Rita was a big surprise. I still can't say its a masterpiece or anything, but here we have a fun and tongue-in-cheek thriller set in an extremely stylish (but cheap, like everything else in this film) bar and a script that's not just humping, but has a few fun twists. The set design and visual approach from Uncle Jess feels like one of this more kitchy 60's films, like The Girl from Rio - but instead of an exotic country and lots of locations we have here a very grey Paris and a couple of glittering plywood sets. Even of the script was more than I expected it to be this is more of an adventure in style than anything else. The sex-room, for example, is painted totally white with only transparent, blow-up furniture! Only in the mind of Jess Franco.

Expect a lot of boobs, ass and pussy from the female actors, but also some dicks and ass from the not-so-attractive male cast. I must confess I have a soft spot for Eric Falk, the tall karate-freak that did a lot of sleaze during the seventies and early eighties. He's probably most famous or his hilarious performance as the nudy, karate-kicking nazi-biker in Mad Foxes. In that one he acts like he's gonna die tomorrow, but he's not bad at all in Blue Rita. He's also in the most stylish scene in the whole film, when he and his bodyguards visits a Eastern European restaurant and it all ends with a fun fight outside.

I've read at least one review of this movie that claims that Franco has very little talent when it comes to staging action sequences, and yes, I can agree on that. The odd thing is that the action in this movie, while very short and not so spectacular, isn't bad at all. Especially the fight outside the restaurant and some of the shooting at the end. It's simple yes, but it also works better than a lot of unnecessary editing.

Blue Rita is a lot more fun than you could imagine. It's a nice sleaze-movie with a fun cast and lots of cool sets and clothes. It's shallow and stupid, but made with passion and love for the art of cinematic storytelling - even if the budget wasn't there to help out in the end. 

Eugenie... the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion (1970)

This will be the last film of Jess Franco I will review for a while, mostly because it's hard to find new superlatives for each new text. Franco often revisits same themes and ideas and that makes many of these movies seem a bit similar after a while, so I will end it for this time with another fantastic movie, Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion, as the DVD title says. The original title is Marquis de Sade's 'Philosophy in the Boudoir', based on de Sade's text by the same name, but honestly, both titles works very fine in the end. I have a tendency to prefer Franco's dark sexual dramas before his lighter movies and this is no different. Eugenie is a mature, intelligent drama with lots of nudity and a wonderful cast. The story is as simple as genial...

Marie Liljedahl plays plays Eugenie, the daughter of the rich businessman Mistival (Paul Muller). Mistival's mistress is Madame Saint Ange (Maria Rohm) and she makes him allow her to bring Eugenie to her private island for a weekend. There her perverted stepbrother Mirvel (Jack Taylor) awaits them, and what begins as a childish, drunken and weed-smoking day soon becomes more sinister when a cult worshipping de Sade arrives and watches the Madame and Mirvel sexually use and abuse the young Eugenie...

Being a story based or inspired by de Sade (I never read any of his works) Eugenie is a tasteful trip down sexually lane with some light spanking and whipping, tits and asses, drug use and an intercourse or two. Quite far from the excessive sleaziness Franco shot during the later seventies. This is both good and bad. Good because it gives Franco more time to shoot a stunningly beautiful drama and bad because maybe someone wants more sex when it comes to a movie like this. For me, it doesn't matter. This is high-quality sleaze with some kind of ambition to do more than just give the audience a hard-on.

Eugenie is a trip to one of the circles of hell, an almost supernatural story about living in a world about sex. Franco never says if this is a good or a bad thing, there's not judging at all and the open, almost surreal, ending both reminded me of The Beyond and Nightmare City, if you get my point. It also echoes the later Countess Perverse in style and concept. I would love to have been a fly on the wall on this shoot. First of all we have the cast, the very talented Liljedahl, a Christopher Lee that had no idea (yeah sure!) of what was going on, the producers wife, the wonderful Maria Rohm, making it out with Jack Taylor, a gay man that probably have seen more pussy than few other gay men!

Even today, in 2012, Eugenie, feels very fresh and modern. If it had more gratuitous sex maybe, but still. This is a movie that survived the years and still makes an impact that fits both the cult squad and the arthouse-aficionados. It's interesting how Franco had such a bad reputation from the beginning, because most of his works I've seen is actually quite classy - and they easily would gain more attention than his trashier production if we, the cult movie fans, would demand more of our movies than just boobs, gore and goofy action scenes.

Eugenie... the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion is another masterpiece, yeah, a perfect piece of arthouse-sleaze. 

The Devil Came from Akasava (1971)

First of all, I would lie if I said I actually understood the story of The Devil Came from Akasava, but in some weird way I think that's the point with it all. It's a spoof, a send-up, a caper with a lot of humour and of course made by Jess Franco. Officially another Edgar Wallace story, but I'm not so sure it's really one from the beginning. Maybe something Wallace's son wrote down on a napkin once, just an idea,  a few words and somehow the German producers of got their hands on it. So what's it about? I'll give you the basic structure, but that's all.

Somewhere on a tropical location (really Alicante, Spain and the garden of an hotel) a couple of scientists - Horst Tappert for example - find an amazing stone, or metal, that both create huge damage to the people handling it, but also can transform normal metals into gold - or something like that. Suddenly everyone wants this stone, and one of the scientists goes missing and so is the stone. A relative to the scientist, Rex (Fred Williams), starts to investigate but soon finds out that everyone wants to kill everyone in this confusing mess of a story!

I can't say that The Devil Came from Akasava is Franco's best movie, not by a long-shot, but it still holds a certain charm to entertain me. The best thing with it is the cast, from Horst Tappert doing is normal robotic routine as Horst Tappert to Soledad Miranda, in a quite small part, as a thief and maybe even a secret agent. She's cool and beautiful, as usual! Paul Müller and Howard Vernon shows up later in the story and both is perfect in their small parts. Fred Williams, who was that guy? Anyone who knows? He looks good and had some talent, but he's lost as an interview object. I want to hear his story! Someone, please?

The problem - or maybe the point - is that the script is so damn convoluted. Everyone is fucking up things for everyone else, friends becomes foes and foes becomes friends and in the end... I'm not sure how it ends. This could be a part of the concept of course, the movie has humour and a generous twinkle in the eye. One part I really love is the Kiss Me Deadly-reference, the bag with the mysterious stone that kills people with a strong light. The film could be a unofficial goofy sequel to Robert Aldrich's classic noir-masterpiece...

Franco made this at the same time as Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy and it differs a lot from the two other movies. It's also one of those Franco films that looks less thought through, cheaper and yeah, sloppier. We have the traditional hotel garden standing in for a jungle, there's editing that even I can do better - sometimes - and uglier lighting. It's easy to see that the heart of Franco wasn't involved all the time, this was a normal gun for hired-project.

Still, quite entertaining and a nice cast. A cozy feeling, a movie to look at when you're very tired and just want to see handsome and cool people walking in and out of hotel rooms doing nothing special.

Sinner - Diary of a Nymphomaniac (1973)

This starting to sound very repetitive, but Sinner - Diary of a Nymphomaniac is yet another film by Jess Franco that literary stunned me with it's quality. Made for the same producer as Countess Perverse, another fine movie, this Robert de Nesle production is totally opposite when it comes to atmosphere and concept. Countess Perverse is a stylish, comic-book, sleaze-movie and Sinner is another dark, strongly sexual drama that feels very personal. After the death of Soledad Miranda it seems like Franco changed his viewpoint on filmmaking for a couple of years, the stories got more serious and darker, maybe even more depressing, but also a lot more personal.

I don't want to reveal so much about Sinner and how it begins, but it's a brilliant way to start a movie and sets up for a downbeat story about a young girl's descent into a living hell. Linda (Montserrat Prous) arrives to Alicante from a small village, with ponytails and an innocent, childish dress. She drifts around in town until a man starts to follow her, and it ends with him sexually abusing her in a Ferris wheel! Soon after she ends up as the lover of Countess Anna de Monterey (Anne Libert) and her spirals into a mess of sex and drugs... soon she can't take it anymore and plans a revenge on the man that once raped her...

Sinner feels so modern, so fresh. It feels like one of those French indie movies, very arty, but never loosing it's grip around the exploitation parts of the story. The beginning, especially, is among the best I've seen in a Franco movie. One sequence is a loooong take of a man following Linda, handheld camera, in the middle of the unsuspecting crowds. It ends in the Ferris wheel and a beautiful edited sequence that shows nothing - but tells it all. Its rare, I think, to see a morality tale from Uncle Jess, but here it is - the dangers of sex and drugs, without getting annoying or stupid. It's just Franco's way to tell this kind of story.

There's a lot of nudity and sex in Sinner, which doesn't come as a surprise, but I must say that the most impressive thing is the fine performances Franco gotten from his actors this time. It's easy to sleep yourself through a sexploitation movie, but everyone from Montserrat Prous as Linda to Howard Vernon in a very edgy performance as a sleazy hippie-doctor makes very impressive jobs. Manuel Pereiro, who plays the unlucky Mr Ortiz, gives his character some depth and layers, instead of the normal sleazebag any other hack would transform him to.

Sinner is one of those oddities that's hard to set a specific genre on, but I would say it's a dark drama and one of the finest I've seen from Mr Franco. The DVD from Mondo Macabro also makes the glorious cinematography by Gérard Brisseau shine, in all it's brown and yellow shades, very seventies and very "here". It very rarely feels like a movie, more a very intimate documentary about a fucked-up life.

This is another movie that once again proofs the genius and talent of Jess Franco and I urge you all to buy it and support both the legacy of Franco and Mondo Macabro, the distributor. 

The Sinister Doctor Orloff (1984)

Many regards the 80's (and 90's, 00's, 10's....) the downward spiral of Jess Franco's career. In a way they might be correct, because he started to make more... utter trash. Porn, ultra-cheap action movies without any love or passion. But here and there, in-between such movies as Falo Crest and Golden Temple Amazons, Uncle Jess churned out some very personal and passionate projects. One of them is yet another Orloff-movie, The Sinister Doctor Orloff (not to be confused with 1973's The Sinister Eyes of Doctor Orloff). Like the 1987 classic Faceless this is another take on the Orloff-mythology and as usual Franco blows me away with his talent. It's a f**king crime this isn't out on DVD! So what's it about? Well, it's the same old story...

Alfred Orloff (Antonio Mayans), the son of the legendary and controversial Doctor Orloff, lives with his old father (Howard Vernon, of course!) in a huge, spectacular house (created by Ricardo Bofill as usual) in Alicante, Spain. In the basement his mother Melissa (Rocío Freixas) is laying dead and frozen in time and he's obsessed with trying to resurrect her. The old Orloff has given up, but Alfred wants to continue his fathers legacy by stalking the streets after prostitutes to use in his experiments. Inspector Tanner (Antonio Rebollo) is as usual around the corner, getting closer and closer in his investigation!

Yeah, it's a very basic premise and we've seen it in many the other movies directed by Uncle Jess - but The Sinister Doctor Orloff goes further in creating a dark and menacing atmosphere. The scenes where Alfred is stalking the streets in his car reminds me a lot about Taxi Driver, but the similarities ends there. Everything is drowned in an amazing score written and performed by Franco himself. It's a mix between ambient experimental stuff and freaky and very alternative jazz. Never heard anything like this in a Franco movie before, and it's just another sign how different this production is.

While the story is very traditional - Orloff lures a woman come with her and then his literary eyeless brute Andros kills her, the story is so filled of dread and darkness. The loveless relationship between the bitter, insane old Orloff is a damn tour-de-force by Howard Vernon - very low-key, hardly speaking a single line - but so powerful. But you know what, the person who steals every scene is Antonio Mayans. It's rarely I write something like that regarding him. He's a good actor, but often a bit uninterested in his work - but here, wow... he's burning. Never seen him so intense, so cold. The sadness because of his mother, maybe even a incestuous feeling - something that seem to create a jealousy in hi father. This is top-shelf Franco, with out a doubt.

The ending is strange, odd, totally unexpected - and downbeat as hell.

This is always how it ends. I watch a Franco and I get stunned by how good it is. Franco is a smart man, one of the smartest people I've heard. But when he makes movies it's more about the EQ than the IQ, the Emotional Quote. He knows which buttons to push and he often gives a fuck about the small details. Why bother with stuff no one cares about when he can create a movie based on the wholeness, something very few other directors can.

The Sinister Doctor Orloff look great with great cinematography, editing and directing - not to forget the fantastic cast and original score. This is on my top ten Jess Franco movies from now on and I wish more of you could see it. Mondo Macabro, please... DVD?

Ninja Dixon Talks: Commando Mengele (1987)

My first - and maybe only - audio review! And of course I had to talk about one of my favorite flicks, Andrea Bianchi's Commando Mengele! Hope you like it. If I'm not too crappy I might do it again :)

Jack the Ripper (1976)

Last week Lina Romay passed away, the iconic actress and partner of director Jesus Franco. It became official yesterday. For me, and for many others, this came as a shock – I had no idea Lina was battling with cancer and I can’t even imagine how Uncle Jess must feel now when his soulmate has left him after so many years. One of the first movies by Franco I saw was Jack the Ripper, the Erwin C. Dietrich-produced thriller from 1976. Hardly a historical correct retelling of mystery of Jack the Ripper, Franco just takes the basic idea of a brutal murderer of whores in London and tells it from Jack’s point of view instead.

Klaus Kinski is Dr. Dennis Orloff (a relative of The Awful Dr. Orloff maybe?), a doctor popular among the poor and freaks in society. He’s very kind and wants to help those who can’t afford to take of their health, but he’s also a sadistic killer of prostitutes and showgirls. Hot on his trail is the ambitious Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkopff) who also dates a dancer, Cynthia (Josephine Chaplin) – and believe it or not, soon our good old ripper gains interest in her…

Jack the Ripper is not the most loved of Franco’s output in the seventies, and I wonder why? Sure, it’s a bit too talky – but I think that’s only main drawback with the screenplay. I guess Dietrich wanted something serious, something with class – not just gore and nudity – maybe glancing at the more serious Edgar Wallace-thrillers out there or even Hammer. And Franco did what was expected of him. The weak spots is the police procedure, which never gets especially interesting. But every time the story jumps back to Klaus Kinski and his inner demons this becomes a super-classy and original production. Kinski, as the master-actor he was, uses his favorite form of telling his characters story – less dialogue, more acting. He never goes as far like in Count Dracula, where he has not dialogue at all – but here it’s kept to a minimum and it works out very fine.

When watching it now I realized I totally forgot how Kinski is tormented by a former victim (or is it his abusive mother?), who haunts him in his house and makes him feel guilty. His relationship with the lobotomized maid is also excellent, and gives us a great performance from a very convincing Nikola Weisse. But why I first watched this movie again was the presence of Lina Romay. Here she has a minor part – but probably the most spectacular – as a showgirl getting stalked and killed by Kinski. And boy, she’s probably most unlucky victim I ever seen in a Jack the Ripper-movie: she first gets repeatedly stabbed in the guts, then brutally raped and finally carried home to the good doctor and getting chopped up in pieces while still alive! Romay has not much to do except looking sexy, getting scared and then die – but she’s also shows a lot of comedic talent when she performs her dance number, strutting around pouting her lips and having a ball with the scene.

It’s a violent movie, but much is off-screen – but when it’s onscreen it’s bloody as hell and graphic in the cheap way only Franco could do it.

Jack the Ripper is an underrated movie with gorgeous cinematography by Peter Baumgartner and excellent directing from Jess Franco. And if you don’t like those things, watch it for Lina Romay.

Rest in peace, Lina. You will be missed.

Succubus (1968)

I won't even begin trying to tell you about the storyline of Succubus, because it's virtually impossible. There is an outline for something - a nightclub, a producer (Jack Taylor) of nightclub acts, a beautiful woman (Janine Reynaud) who can't see the difference between reality and fantasy, and that's about it. Succubus is so far the most surreal and abstract Jess Franco movie I have seen, somewhere between Bunuel and Jodorowsky and his own work. The story goes from scene to scene, with odd dialogue taking us further and further into a very hallucinogen saga.

But Franco stands with his two feet very steady in the pop culture he always embraced and there's constant talk about authors, filmmakers and musicians. The idea of movies being outmoded even before they are released is interesting, but on the other side - like one character talks about - when we experience the movie it feels modern again, up-to-date if we want it so. In a dream-sequence (or is the whole movie a dream?) several horror characters is referenced, including Godzilla, which is a fun detail for a Kaiju-fan like me.

This is a chance for Franco to discuss in the form of a movie everything he likes. From movies to music (Succubus is of course filled with jazz) and not being forced to into telling an ordinary story. I would call Succubus experimental pop-art with a high dose of improvisation. According to Uncle Jess there was never a proper script and he wrote the scenes the night before every shoot to make it feel fresh and original. Some stuff is genius and some stuff - like the stereotypical symbolic (for what? I have no idea!) dwarf and dancing transvestite is less fresh - but as a whole Succubus is a minor masterpiece in surreal cinema.

The actors is the highlights, from the stunningly beautiful and charismatic Janine Reynaud to the cool and handsome Jack Taylor (without moustache) in his first movie for Franco. Howard Vernon, always brilliant, has a small role as an admiral who sits by a bar where a nude male bartender is making him a drink (must have been a dream for Vernon!) until he's stabbed to death in the eye and surrounded by crying old women in a weird funeral rite.

I'm not sure how to interpret Succubus, and I'm not sure if that's really necessary. It's not made to analyze and dissect, it's made to experience and probably smoke a lot of weed while watching. Succubus is a highly original piece of work from Franco, not for the beginner - but don't leave it to last either. It's a movie to breath and feel while you still have that fantastic groovy sixties feeling inside you.

Love live Franco! 

Dr. Orloff's Monster (1964)

There's no Dr Orloff in Dr. Orloff's Monster, but still the sinister Dr Fisherman (Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui) delivers a new diabolical experiment for our pleasure. Many years ago he found his wife in bed together with his brother, and he killed his rival and transformed him to a Karloff-esque killer-zombie/mind-controlled freak! Why? I'm not sure, but probably some kinda revenge and to kill helpless showgirls in the nearby villages! One day his daughter in law (Agnès Spaak) comes to visit. She's never seen her father, but soon understand that's something is terribly wrong in the spooky castle mansion and the now constant drunk wife of Dr Fisherman, Ingrid (Luisa Sala), clearly wants to tell her the truth... if she's not stopped first!

Except a crazy scientist this has nothing to do with the Orloff-mythology, but the story and settings - and more or less everything - reminds us of Orloff. The only thing missing is Howard Vernon as our favorite antagonist and instead the competent, but less charismatic, Jess Franco-veteran Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui and his huge beard puts in a good performance as the crazy doctor. He's showed up in more than a few of Franco's work from this time, but often in smaller parts - and I'm not totally sure he works 100 % in such a big part.

The script is well-written and works fine, but is a bit too generic and never comes up in the earlier levels of craziness Franco and Orloff. Hugo Blanc as Andros, the mind-controlled zombie gives us an excellent performance and is eerie and spooky and even looks kinda scary with his static movements and plastic-looking face. With his black polo the comparison with Karloff as Frankenstein's monster isn't far away and the fact is that Andros is a more complex character than I first could imagine. I especially like his interactions with his daughter, which is very tender and beautifully shot.

Ah, and Uncle Jess is in the movie also, as usual - this time in one of his favourite parts, a piano player, this time blind and getting killed by the monster!

In a way Dr. Orloff's Monster is one of those less personal movies from Franco, even if it's very similar to earlier works. Almost like the producers, Eurociné (called Eurocineac in the credits) in this case just made an order of an Orloff-like movie and Franco never put his whole heart into the projects.

But it's a well-made thriller with some surprisingly graphic nudity and nice set-pieces when the zombie is killing showgirls and creating havoc in a club. The cinematography, direction and editing is as usual top-notch. It's just the passion that's lacking.

Exorcism (1979)

Eurociné, a name that can induce fear in even the most hardcore sleaze collector - mostly because the extremely uneven quality and movies that often dares to be so boring that it's hard to understand without having seen them. It takes some time to get used to their slow pace, cheap sets and non-existent scripts - some once in while they strike gold and Exorcism is one of those surprisingly complex and interesting projects. Without a doubt one of the most personal movies Jess Franco ever made, so personal it could be a double bill together with Bo-Arne Vibenius 1975 classic Breaking Point, a movie that shares a similar gritty and nasty atmosphere. But where Andreas Bellis Bob Bellings just is an office rat who goes over the boarder of insanity, Jess Franco's adult author Mathis Vogel has been there for a very long time...

Bored upper class is enjoying a simulated black mass including a human sacrifice. Something for the rich and famous to tickle their boring lives and hopefully tickle their sex-lives even more. But in the background the defrocked priest and now adult author Mathis Vogel (Uncle Jess himself) is slithering around taking detailed notes about the masses. He's still a strong believer and wants to save these poor women from Satan - and the only way to do it is to slaughter them as a sacrifice to God!

When I first saw Exorcism many years ago I found it to be a cheap-looking and sloppily made soft porn thriller - and it still is! But now the flat cinematography and cheap lightning actually gives the story an aura of even more sleaziness, a realistic tour de force for Mr Franco and his woman, Lina Romay. In almost every Franco-review I write I always comes back to the fact that Franco is a great storyteller, especially if there's a story he cares about and then it doesn't matter at all of the budget is ultra-low or the sets is falling apart in the background. In Exorcism he uses the backstreets of Paris, old basements, run-down hotel corridors like very few others. It's hardly beautiful and the focus is, in many cases, somewhere else than on the main goal - but the story works and Franco, who never been a brilliant actor - but very special, fits perfectly in his tightly buttoned coat and sleazy haircut.

The hook in Exorcism isn't really the serial killer story, which is very well-made and nasty, but the look into the minds of the bourgeois who's tired of their pathetic lives and seeks excitement in live sex-shows with blood and S&M. The movie starts with one of those shows, but we're not told directly and when we start to understand that it's just a show we're also understanding that we're in the same boat as the bored rich - we seek pleasure, but Franco tells is it just fake and he wants to tell us the real story behind it all - the madness of Christianity.

I understand that Exorcism isn't for everyone, but if you can look beyond the exploitation you'll find a very interesting serial killer drama, a showdown from Franco's point of view with the people he most of all like to poke fun at: the fakes and hypocrites, the cowards who chooses the simulated dramas instead of the real deal.

The Bloody Judge (1970)

It's hard to beat a classic like The Witchfinder General, and maybe somewhere The BloodyJudge was planned to be a rip-off of Michael Reeves near perfect classic, but in the end it's a very different movie that focuses more on the politics and characters around the actually witch-hunt and comes out as a fairly interesting drama with a few scenes here and there of graphic nudity. It's a serious Franco, maybe too serious for some, but I kinda liked it.

Most of the story tells us about "The Bloody Judge" himself, Judge Jeffries (Christopher Lee) who's clearly a coward. He judges innocent men and women to torture and death but never witnesses the violence himself. Instead he acts like the hand of god and being the perfect puppet master of the stupid peasants around him. After ordering the execution of Alicia Gray (Margaret Lee) Jeffries more or less signs his faith, because her sister Mary (Maria Rohm) has no plans to let Jeffries go free and he must stop her before she becomes to much trouble...

The Bloody Judge is a slow movie, slow for being Franco - which means it's extra slow. I would say it's even to long for it's own good, and it would have been a much more powerful movie if it lost 20 or so minutes of talking and walking. I'm not saying it's a bad movie, it's actually very well-made and presents a whole bunch of interesting characters, specially Jeffries, but never live up to the directors legendary sleazy-factor. Sure, there's nudity and blood and a good battle scene with some nice stunts and pyrotechnics, but too much of the time is spent with talking heads and "suggestive eye movements" (to quote that famous religious movie site).

In a few scenes the true Franco comes alive, most notably the short sequences when Mary stands looking at the forest, hears the battle in the distance and sees the smoke slowly coming at her through the trees. It's a quite moment and once again shows the visual poetry Franco loves to treats us viewers. He surely know how to put the camera, and the whole movie look gorgeous and is very stylish. It reminds me of a Hammer-drama with less budget and more nudity.

For the you have problems with slow movies, the cast is well worth watching the movie for. Sir Lee is of course great, but watch out for the wonderful trio of Maria Rohm, Margaret Lee and Maria Schell, all excellent. Howard Vernon drops his suits and good manner and gives us a wonderful, almost cartoonish, hangman with a huge belt and a black hood. Leo Genn has an advanced supporting part and also do a nice job.

The Bloody Judge is a good movie with slow pacing. Franco is a pro and gives the best movie I could have directed during these circumstances, but it's also a movie far away from his favourite themes and lacking his usual acting ensemble. But it's worth watching, just don't expect something out of the ordinary.

The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966)

Me watching a Jess Franco movie often ends in a huge amount of superlatives. I always seen Franco has a master storyteller and depending on the budget the visual style of the movie differs from century to century. The sixties was a fantastic period on Franco's career. He churned out semi-gothic classics, kitchy spy adventures and sleazy dramas like there was no tomorrow. The Diabolical Dr. Z very effectively follows his adventures with Dr Orloff and Baron Von Klaus, feels like a spin-off to Orloff - the character is mentioned and his scientific work as a surgeon is used in one of the twists.  But Franco pulls off a great and original twist, worthy of Hitch - and beware of spoilers - Dr Z is just a MacGuffin, it's his daughter that we should focus on.

Yes, the Diabolical Doctor Zimmerman (Antonio Jiménez Escribano in a deliciously over-the-top yet sensitive performance) dies quite fast, just after showing us one brutal human experiment. His daughter Irma (Mabel Karr) decides to take revenge on the people responsible for his death and fakes her death and uses his technology to take control over her maid and a serial killer the good doctor earlier took control of. But the final masterpiece is Miss Muerte (Estella Blain), an exotic dancer with long sharp nails who can lure the stupid men into Irma's trap!!!

There's absolutely nothing bad with this movie. I've said it before, way too many times, but when Franco had the resources he created something very similar to perfection, without getting pretentious and boring like Kubrick. He mixed his favourite exploitation themes (female revenge, surgery gone bad, Orloff) with a stunningly beautiful and arty thriller. The set-pieces is nothing short of spectacular and the kills are similar to what the Italians did in the seventies, but not as gory of course. Shadows and light, rapid editing and a clever use of music makes this one stand out from the rest of the bunch. The most impressive sequence is the fist-fight between Philippe (Fernando Montes) and Hans Bergen (Guy Mairesse), which stats in the basement in a fantastic one-take fight through a long corridor, and then cuts and goes up into the mansion. If I ever make a movie again I will steal that idea, and it will make be rich sooner or later.

I often hear complains about the acting talent of Franco. As usual, because I'm Fred and I'm Ninja Dixon at the same time, I can't agree on this. Here Franco has a quite big part, as one of the polices trying to solve the murders and makes a great team together with composer Daniel White as Inspector Green. Boy, they seem to have a lot of fun and it shows - both on them and the resulting movie and wonderful jazzy score.

Masterpiece is a word I use all to often, and I'm gonna use it again here. Because The Diabolical Dr. Z IS a masterpiece, (another) one of Franco's fantastic movies from the years that some people claim was his best. I can't agree on that either - that the sixties was his best - but this is a masterpiece.

See, I used "masterpiece" no less than three times in that last paragraph. It's worth it, believe me.

The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff (1973)

Probably shot over a weekend, The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff is one of the cheapest productions I've seen from Franco from this period. I'm pretty sure there's other movies on the same budget level, but this is more or less a couple of persons walking around a nice villa in daylight, in the night and some driving around in a car as a bonus in-between. Personally I think this is a good sign, because Franco always do good stuff when he has a small cast and crew and don't need to move away from the set so much.

Young Melissa Comfort (Montserrat Prous) is haunted by nightmares where she's killing people. In real life she's paralyzed since childhood and can't move around without the help from her sisters (I think). Thank heavens Dr Orloff (William Berger) arrives and starts to take care of her, but because he's Orloff he also has something sinister in his... eyes and that's greed! He can make Melissa, with mind control, walk around killing those that Orloff wants dead, and this time he wants revenge for past love-related injustices!

The Sinister Eyes of Dr Orloff is a pretty simple movie. No real twists, but as usual a very interesting dreamlike quality. Much of Franco's work is based on mood and atmosphere, and here he makes a fine job with not much money at all. Like a lot of his movies it boarders to something arty, like an arthouse movie mixed with some gentle sleaze (but this movie actually has very little nudity and sex) and violence. It's all about the feeling that Franco creates, and this movie is all about that.

While her sisters are the usual dangerous broads, Montserrat Prous makes a sensitive and edgy performance as Melissa, easily the highlight of the movie. William Berger - and Edmund Purdom in a very small and quite pointless part - is good, but Berger can't live up to the fascinating character Howard Vernon once created and continued to do until his death. His cameo as Orloff in Faceless still makes me get goose bumps. Another weird cameo is Franco himself, playing something I thought was a rapist/child molester in the beginning, but now I can't honestly understand the inclusion of that character. Probably a line I missed that explained his presence, or maybe some of my readers can make it more clear?

When Franco is doing fine he's creating masterpieces. When he's slumming he's doing the worst movies ever made. And then we have this, when he's doing a job and having friends around for a couple of days without to much trouble, he makes good movies like The Sinister Eyes of Dr Orloff.

It's out on DVD from InterVision. Pick it up.

Esmeralda Bay (1989)

After a series of hardcore movies and obscurities that never seem to have seen the light of day Jesus Franco was on the go again with several movies with bigger budgets and bigger stars, Faceless, Fall of the Eagles and finally Esmeralda Bay. Eagles and Bay is typical Eurociné productions, but with a more ambitious feeling. Maybe they had a richer financer in the background somewhere, who also demanded more for the money. I know "real" Jess Franco fans tends to dislike Franco's more commercials projects, but I think they are excellent proof for what an excellent storyteller Franco was. Sometimes mainstream is needed to show us that part of a filmmakers talent.

It's actually quite similar to Fall of the Eagles, but set in the fictional country of Puerto Santo. We follow businessman Wilson (George Kennedy), who deals weapons with the local rebels and Robert Forster as Madero, the leader of the military police on the island. In the middle is the good-hearted banana republic-president Ramos (Fernando Rey) and the rebels, among them Ramon Estevez and Brett Halsey, all fighting for their own cause. The Americans want the military crushed and have planted their own under cover agents in the middle of this little war, and everything leads to the battle of Esmeralda Bay...

I have to admit that it's a bit boring in the beginning, but as soon as the intrigues starts Esmeralda Bay becomes an involving thriller-drama with some nice stock footage action at the end. In smaller parts we have Lina Romay (and she's excellent as the pathetic mistress of Madero), Antonio Mayans and Daniel Grimm, all doing great jobs with the material they have. George Kennedy is a pro, and so also Forster (who works together with his name-nemesis, "Robert Foster" - aka Antonio Mayans) who have a lot fun and energy has the intensive military leader.

Franco is an obvious hired gun here, to lead the ship to harbour in time (which he also does in the movie, in a cameo as captain of a boat) and make the producers happy. But with the time and money he had, and a great cast, he also delivers a good - if a bit generic - war drama with gorgeous cinematography and - for once - real squibs (Eurociné have a tendency to prefer non-squib shootings in most of their movies). There's really no depth in the story, but it's easy to see where Franco put his talent - in the drama parts. Few other movies can have so boring dialogues and still be interesting to watch.

Esmeralda Bay is out on a good-looking Spanish DVD, fullscreen and with English dub. It's cheap and worth buying.

Fall of the Eagles (1989)

I'm a man of emotions. I can't stand people who actually know something more about a filmmaker than the filmmaker himself. When it comes to Jess Franco there's an interesting and recurring opinion that some of Franco's movies are not Franco at all, but just something he did because he got a big pay check. Well, fuck you all. Franco has always mixed an artistic sensibility with crass commercialism. Why do you think he zoomed his camera to every pussy in the frame? He probably liked it himself, but he (and his producers) also knew that pussy sells tickets. It's that simple. So when Franco directed some of his more mainstream productions, like Bloody Moon or Faceless (both excellent movies, especially the latter) certain fans just couldn't stand that he did something that even a normal horror fan could appreciate. I tell you know and for the first and last time, Franco's style hasn't changed much at all. Faceless is as much Franco as The Awful Dr. Orlof, and even Franco considers Faceless to me a full-blown Franco-movie! That brings me to Fall of the Eagles, a Eurociné-produced WW2-drama released in 1989. A movie that has been blamed for not being Franco enough for years. Let me tell you, that's as wrong as it can be.

Not that the story in Fall of the Eagles is something special, but it has a few interesting ideas. First of all, it's set in a storyline where Germans are the "heroes". I mean, there's good Germans and there's bad Germans as usual, but even the baddies has a lot of character and are multi-layered in a way that an American filmmaker never could have done it. Like several of Umberto Lenzi's WW2 movies this is also about the war coming and splitting up friends and enemies all over Europe, and how they deal with the war, love and politics. The main patriarch is the old businessman Walter Strauss (Christopher Lee) and his talented daughter Lillian (Alexandra Ehrlich) who decides to do her duty for the Fatherland and joins the much to the dismay of her father, who are a convinced Nazi, but don't want her to sacrifice her life. His best friend is an open-minded woman, Lena (Teresa Gimpera) who maybe, maybe not, transforms his life when something is happening. Lillian is in a love-triangle with the young and optimistic soldier Karl Holbach (Ramon Estevez) and SS officer Peter Froehlich (Mark Hamill), but ditches them both to do her part in the war....

Like always, Franco is a drama-director and he's not that really interested in the war itself, only what it can do with people. And to my surprise, because I was fooled by the negative words, this is a very nice drama, directed with Jess Franco's same talent for subtle character-developments and gorgeous cinematography by Jean-Jacques Bouhon (who also shot Faceless). I love how Franco let the faces talk, for example the last ironic scene when Lillian is staring empty in front of her while the cigarette smoke of American soldiers caresses her face. Fall of the Eagles is just one part silly WW2 film, but the bulk of it is traditional European arthouse-drama with an intelligent deconstructing of the German family, not necessary in a negative way, because we're talking humans here. Not Spielbergian stereotypes.

Another interesting detail is Captain Anton (Daniel Grimm), a gay Nazi officer who actually is damn nice and wants to make good - but fate wants something else. His homosexuality is discussed very shortly and he's a bit upset that a woman calls him queer, because he's can't approve of such a degrading word of what he is. "I'm just a nice guy pretending to be bad because no one respects a nice guy." Another tragedy of war, but in a smaller scale.

There's not nudity, but if you aren't lazy and willing to dissect the movie you will find it's a lot of Franco-esque undertones. From the frail love-triangle, the father that refuses - not something you would see in a Hollywood-movie - to abandon his believes in the Arian race, the deathbed-marriage, the nightclub-singing and a lone Nazi playing organ in a church. Just those small poetic moments that Franco is a master of. But this is also commercial war-movie, but I think all war-scenes are lifted from other movies (among them scenes that also showed up in Franco's Oasis of the Zombies), but are edited into the newly shot footage in a good way. If you're not used to European exploitation or having basic knowledge in film stock and editing you would probably never notice the change of quality or rhythm in the editing.

The actors are also very good, especially Christopher Lee who makes an amazing performance - maybe the best he's ever done with Franco and probably the best he did during this part of his career. A surprise is Ramon Estevez, Charlie Sheen's older brother, who makes a fine job as the young ambitious German soldier. Mark Hamill, an old favorite of me, is good to - but it makes me wonder how the hell he could go from Star Wars to Eurociné in just a couple of years? Either it was a conscious choice or he just had a very bad agent.

Fall of the Eagles is released in the Czech Republic under the title Pád Orlů, and it's a good and cheap DVD. Slightly letterboxed, often good colour and sharpness. Probably taken directly from Eurociné's master-tape. Hardly BD quality, but well worth buying (for example from here!).

Attack of the Robots (1966)

Here's a fine little movie, Attack of the Robots, directed in 1966 by maestro Uncle Jess Franco and starring the one and only Eddie Constantine (and a cameo from his son, Lemmy Constantine also). Made during the big spy-craze during the sixties when every company wanted their own Bond-style movie. Attack of the Robots makes references to Bond and is well aware of what it's suppose to be, but it's not only a fun Bondish action movie, it's a seriously good movie who should be seen by much more people out there, not only fans of Franco.

Eddie Constantine is Al Pereira, a secret agent and an ex-alcoholic who lives a nice life pretending not to be a secret agent any more. Until a dangerous crime organization led by Sir Percy (Fernando Rey) sends out robot-esque assassins to kill the worlds most important leaders in politics, religion and other unnecessary bastards. They aren't really robots, but controlled with an electronic device in their glasses and it's all connected to their blood type. So Al Pereira is sent to Spain to investigate, and is directly contacted - a bit brutal - by a Chinese crime organization who also wants to get the technology to control people. Soon Al is hunted by the Chinese, the Spaniards and his own bosses wanting him to close the case once and for all!

Witty and charming are two of the words I could use to describe this movie. Other words are "great looking", "funny" and "tongue-in-cheek". This is, much like The Girl from Rio, a movie that spoofs the spy-genre and do both with respect and with comedic perfection. Franco and his co-writer, Jean-Claude Carrière, plays with every cliché in the book and do it so well. My favourite scene is when Pereira is presented the gadgets, an exploding umbrella, electric gloves, exploding cigar, a flute that could crush glass with it's sound and he just looks scared, because every gadget is so damn dangerous for him also! Another fine scene is a send-up on the typical "arriving to a new country with postcard-stock footage on the beautiful city" which here ends in Pereira only finding an packed tourist-bus with extremely dirty windows, which shows us nothing for the beautiful scenery outside. It's like a scene from a Marx Brothers movie!

But Attack of the Robots it's not just fun and games, there's a lot of nice fistfights, and some more advanced fighting from the "robots", especially when they meet the Chinese in Pereira's hotel room where both gangs are set to kill or kidnap him. This also ends in a scene where our hero needs to hide dead bodies from a sexy woman trying to seduce him.

And yes, of course Uncle Jess makes a cameo as a jazz-pianist. Important detail!

The movie was shot on a low budget but looks great and has a lot of action, stunts, comedy and fun actors and it never gets boring. A very competent movie and another proof of Franco's skills as a storyteller. The only way to see Attack of the Robots, except old video tapes, is the DVD-R from Sinister Cinema. It's taken from a 16 mm print and looks good, but is heavily cropped on the sides - but it almost seems like Franco have that in mind because it still looks good even if some of the shots are a bit cramped. This is clearly visible in the credits, but except that it's a good way to see the movie.