DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC (1973) ***

Cortez (Manuel Pereiro) watches a girl on girl show in a nightclub.  A sexy prostitute named Linda (Montserrat Prous) picks him and they go back to her hotel for some drunken sex.  Things get complicated when she calls the police to report her own murder!  

People can say what they will about Jess Franco, but this set-up is worthy of Hitchcock.  I’m not saying Franco executes it as well as The Master.  However, the opening has an undeniable kick to it.  

The rest of the plot revolves around Cortez’s wife Rosa (Jacqueline Lauret) searching for Linda’s diary, which might just prove her husband’s innocence.  When Rosa reads the diary, she learns of the poor girl’s descent into the seamy world of prostitutes and strippers.  Meanwhile, we see flashbacks of Linda’s checkered past and learn how she came into her profession.  

This all sort of threatens to spin out of control, especially during the last act where Prous begins to get caught up in drugs.  Despite that, there’s enough Franco goodness here for fans to gravitate to.  The opening lesbian club scene is classic Franco (who also appears as a police captain who sits in an office that is nothing more than a poorly disguised hotel room).  Women roll around in ecstasy under red lights for a static camera until it all achieves an almost Zen quality.  Sure, there are moments where he uses unnecessary zooms and weird camera placements, but there’s at least one Ferris wheel shot that feels right out of The Third Man.

So far, I’ve compared Franco’s work in this movie to Alfred Hitchcock and Carrol Reed.  Make of that what you will.  Those hoping for a typical Franco sleaze-fest may be disappointed.  Those hoping for evidence that Franco was capable of more than a typical sleaze-fest will not.  (Although, to be sure, there is plenty of sleaze here.)  I’m not saying it all works.  The narrative is choppy, and the film never quite tops that doozy of an opening sequence.  Warts and all, Diary of a Nymphomaniac has enough eye-popping moments for Francophiles to enjoy.

Franco vet Howard Vernon appears late in the game as a doctor who gets the best line of the movie.  He tries to help our poor little nymphomaniac, and when she doesn’t respond to the treatment, he says, “Since you’re nothing more than a prostitute, you’re going to pay my bill like a prostitute!”  

AKA:  Sinner.  AKA:  Sinner:  The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac.