FRANCO FEBRUARY: BUT WHO RAPED LINDA? (1975) **

A rich asshole (Paul Muller) hires a sexy nurse (Alice Arno) to take care of his paralyzed daughter Linda (Veronica Llimera) and his nympho niece Olivia (Lina Romay).  Before long, she begins to realize the house harbors a boatload of dark secrets.  Olivia’s sexy nightmares could be the key to unlocking the family’s mysterious past.  

Jess Franco’s But Who Raped Linda? seems like a dry run for his 1983 flick, The House of Lost Women.  Both films feature a house brimming with nasty secrets and a family with a lot of kinky hang-ups.  In both movies, the sudden appearance of a visitor changes the family dynamic and ultimately causes their downfall.  I have to say, nearly everything Franco set out to accomplish here was done much better in The House of Lost Women.  

The set-up is promising, but things get bogged down in a hurry soon after Arno arrives at the house.  Dreams, flashbacks, and dreams that contain flashbacks disrupt the flow of the family drama.  Many of these dream sequences are repeated, mostly to pad out the running time.  After about the third time you see the same dream, you start to tune out eventually.  The appearance of a pair of comic relief cops is annoying as well.  (At least one of them is a hot babe who does a striptease.)  

The ending is downright infuriating too.  It’s one thing to be jerked around for eighty minutes if you can stick the landing.  However, it’s just one big cop-out.  Heck, I don’t even think Franco bothered to answer the titular query, which makes things even more frustrating.  

The good news is Lina Romay.  She is the sole reason to watch this mess.  I don’t think she’s ever looked hotter than she does here, and that’s really saying something.  She is incredible during the scenes where she seductively sips champagne, sunbathes in the nude, and in the film’s most famous scene, eats a banana.  I’m telling you, I never wanted to be a banana more in my life than when I was watching this movie.  I could justify watching But Who Raped Linda? solely for the presence of Romay.  Too bad there’s nothing else here that’s nearly as memorable.

As far as Franco’s signatures go, this is another movie in which he delivers lots of lazy camera zooms and pans.  As previously mentioned, it’s another film like The House of Lost Women where Franco depicts the family unit as a nest of crazed sexual loonies.  And like many a Franco picture, it seemingly solely exists to show Romay in the nude.  Among the performers from Franco’s usual stock company, we have:  Romay, Arno (from Countess Perverse), Llimera (Tender and Perverse Emanuelle), and Muller (Eugenie de Sade).    

AKA:  The Hot Nights of Linda.  AKA:  Come Close, Blond Emmanuelle.  AKA:  Erotic Dreams.  

Well folks, that’s a wrap on Franco February.  I looked through the Video Vacuum archives and exhaustively went through all the Jess Franco movies I’ve seen and ranked them.  Here’s how they stack up for me:

RANK-O de FRANCO:

1. Female Vampire ****

2. Sadomania ****

3. Ilsa, the Wicked Warden ****

4. Falo Crest ****

5. The House of Lost Women *** ½ 

6. The Demons *** ½ 

7. Sinfonia Erotica *** ½ 

8. Faceless ***

9. Killer Barbys ***

10. Succubus ***

11. Vampyros Lesbos ***

12. Dracula’s Daughter ***

13. Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun ***

14. Macumba Sexual ***

15. Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” ***

16. Justine ***

17. Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion ***

18. Jack the Ripper ***

19. Diary of a Nymphomaniac ***

20. Rififi in the City ***

21. The Sadist of Notre Dame ** ½ 

22. Barbed Wire Dolls ** ½

23. Bloody Moon ** ½  

24. Cannibals ** ½ 

25. Exorcism ** ½ 

26. Cecilia ** ½ 

27. She Killed in Ecstasy ** ½ 

28. The Awful Dr. Orloff ** ½ 

29. Black Boots Leather Whip ** ½ 

30. 99 Women **

31. Venus in Furs **

32. Lulu’s Talking Ass **

33. Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties **

34. Dr. Orloff’s Monster **

35. Women Behind Bars **

36. But Who Raped Linda? **

37. A Virgin Among the Living Dead **

38. Nightmares Come at Night **

39. Count Dracula **

40. The Diabolical Dr. Z **

41. Diamonds of Kilimanjaro **

42. Death Whistles the Blues **

43. Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein **

44. Shining Sex **

45. The Sexual Story of O **

46. Sex is Crazy **

47. The Bloody Judge **

48. Oasis of the Zombies * ½ 

49. Golden Temple Amazons * ½ 

50. Kiss Me Monster * ½

51. Night of the Skull * ½ 

52. Downtown Heat * ½ 

53. Rites of Frankenstein * 

54. Future Women *

55. Two Undercover Angels *

56. The Inconfessable Orgies of Emanuelle * 

57. Devil Hunter *

58. The Blood of Fu Manchu *

59. Lust for Frankenstein *

60. The Sadistic Baron von Klaus *

61. Esmerelda Bay *

62. Blind Target *

63. Night of the Eagles *

64. The Castle of Fu Manchu *

65. Revenge in the House of Usher ½ *

It seems that out of his over 200 directorial credits, I’ve only seen about 65 of Jess Franco’s movies.  Which ones are your favorites?  Let me know in the comments below.  And don’t forget to join me in the month of March when we will explore the wild, weird world of Andy Milligan for a column I call Milligan March.  See you then, Vacuumers.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: DOWNTOWN HEAT (1994) * ½

Maria (Josephine Chaplin) is a cop looking for the man who murdered her husband.  Tony (Steve Parkman) is a jazz musician searching for his girlfriend’s killer.  They learn the same man, a Mob boss named Don Miguel (Craig Hill) is responsible.  Maria and Tony team up with a tough American cop (Mike Connors from Mannix) to bring the Don down.  They even stoop to the gangster’s level by kidnapping his daughter and forcing him to play hardball.  

Downtown Heat finds Jess Franco working a bit out of his comfort zone.  He’s not the world’s greatest action director, so he’s not really the best man to helm a generic cop thriller.  In other hands, it might’ve worked, but then again, the action, plot, and drama are so dull that it makes it hard to care either way.  Maybe if Jess tossed in some of his patented sleaziness, we might’ve had a winner.  Still, it’s hard to say if anything could’ve saved this slow-moving bore.

The movie does momentarily come to life in the third act when the cops realize the only way they can catch the bad guy is to stop playing by the rules.  This blurring of morality is interesting, but it occurs too late in the game for the message to have its intended impact.  While this part of the film is mildly entertaining, it’s not nearly enough to salvage the dreary first two acts.  

Connors is top billed, but he doesn’t even show up until about the halfway mark.  Even if he is a little long in the tooth for a role like this, he at least seems to be having fun.  Lina Romay injects the movie with a little spark as a punk rock gang leader who turns her back on her fellow druggies to help the cops.  Naturally, it doesn’t end well for her.  It’s a shame Romay wasn’t in it more because when she’s on screen, Downtown Heat does have a little bit of sizzle.  

As for touches only Franco could bring to a motion picture, he gives us yet again his trademark lazy camera zooms.  This is also another Franco movie (like Death Whistles the Blues) where one of the characters is a jazz musician, and there’s a jazz performance to pad out the running time.  And like Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” and Esmerelda Bay, everything ends with a big helicopter explosion.  As for Franco repeat offenders in front of the camera, we have Romay, Hill, and Robert Foster all popping up yet again. 

FRANCO FEBRUARY: THE HOUSE OF LOST WOMEN (1983) *** ½

A family lives alone on an island like a horny version of the Swiss Family Robinson.  Father (Robert Foster) is a former actor hiding from the spotlight.  Since they are all alone on the island, there is nothing for them to do except masturbate and fuck.  Mother (Carmen Carrion) is a pent-up dominatrix who whips her daughters, Desdemona (Lina Romay) and the mentally challenged Paulova (Susanna Kerr) whenever they get out of line.  The dynamic on the island soon changes when a poacher (Tony Skios) shows up and lights a fire in the ladies’ panties.  

The first fifteen minutes of Jess Franco’s The House of Lost Women is fantastic.  First, Lina walks around the beach naked.  Then, she comes home and starts playing with herself.  Next, she lights a cigarette and smokes it with her pussy.  Finally, she fucks a bowling trophy.  

No wonder Jess Franco took one look at her and thought, “Marriage material.”   

Other everyday household objects that are used as masturbatory materials:  Decapitated doll heads and sliced oranges.  I guess if you’ve been alone on an island for twenty years, you’re bound to try just about anything once.  

Now, the first fifteen minutes may be some of the greatest shit Jess ever committed to celluloid, but the rest is a little on the uneven side.  While there is no doubt some good shit here (like the scene where Carrion goes to town on Kerr with a bullwhip), it still lacks the charm and thrill of the first reel or so.  The film also loses a little spark once Skios enters the fray.  That said, there is plenty here to enjoy.  I mean Lina Romay smokes a cigarette with her pussy.  What more can one ask for?

Of the Franco signatures, there are of course, many lazy camera zooms and pans, several of which occur during a gorgeous sunset.  His penchant for shooting Romay in the nude (half his filmography is devoted to it) crops up again as well as his use of a traditional family dynamic being shown as a hotbed for perversion and sadism (see also Sinfonia Erotica and countless others).  As for his stock players, Romay and Foster are frequent Franco flyers, Carrion was in The Sexual Story of O, Kerr also appeared in Black Boots Leather Whip, and Skios was in Franco’s Sex is Crazy.

AKA:  Perversion on the Lost Island.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: ESMERALDA BAY (1990) *

Traditional action has never been Jess Franco’s strong suit.  Esmeralda Bay more or less sinks because the action is so lousy.  The opening action sequence is so dark that it’s hard to tell what’s going on, the slow motion is often laughable, and there’s a car crash and explosion that has got to go down as the worst in screen history.  What’s worse is that the finale is a non-stop barrage of stock footage taken from various decades, wars, and sources, rendering the last battle scene virtually incomprehensible.  It’s enough to make Ed Wood’s use of stock footage look downright competent.  

There’s a lot of stuff going on in this movie, but never ever happens.  Fernando Rey is the President of a small country who is under the thumb of his war-happy Colonel, played by Robert Forster (seven years before revitalizing his career in Jackie Brown).  Ramon Sheen (from Franco’s Night of the Eagles) is a revolutionary who buys weapons from an arms dealer (George Kennedy).  There are setbacks, betrayals, and double-crosses, but most of it is too dreary to even care.  

Forster’s performance is kinda fun.  There’s a scene where he gets a new gun and goes running all over the house pretending to shoot it like a kid with a BB gun.  This was made during the time he was still stuck playing ethnic villain roles (see also The Delta Force, which also coincidentally featured Kennedy).  He shouldn’t be confused with Franco mainstay, Robert Foster, who also appears as a priest.  

Speaking of other members of Franco’s Stock Company, Craig Hill and Daniel Grimm were also in Night of the Eagles.  Rey was also in Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death”, and it looks like they once again shot all his scenes at his home.  Oh, and Franco’s muse, Lina Romay has a small role as a madam too.  

The only worthwhile part in this boring mess is the final scene when Kennedy goes mano y mano with a helicopter.  I won’t tell you if he wins or loses, but I will say that when the scene was all over, I laughed for about three straight minutes.  That amazing minute of insanity is not enough to make anyone sit through the other ninety-four minutes of Esmeralda Bay.  However, the scene taken on its own accord, is a ripe slice of WTF cinema. 

AKA:  Countdown to Esmeralda Bay.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: NIGHT OF THE EAGLES (1989) *

The same year Harrison Ford fought Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, his Star Wars co-star, Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in this dull WWII drama directed by Jess Franco.  Yes, you read that right.  Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie six years after Return of the Jedi.  Read it again.  Mark Hamill stars as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie.  You might as well read it again, because the fact that Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie is about the only memorable thing this boring ass turd has going for it.  

I guess if Hamill starred in a Jess Franco movie that was more… Jess Franco-y, it might have worked.  I mean, Jess has made countless Nazi flicks, so what could go wrong by bringing Luke Skywalker into the mix?  Unfortunately, Jess was going for a prestige picture with Night of the Eagles.  Instead of Nazi sex, Nazi experiments, and Nazi sex experiments, we get a boring love triangle between Mark Hamill and Ramon Sheen.  

That’s right.  Ramon Sheen.  They couldn’t even get Charlie Sheen, let alone Emilio Estevez for this thing.  Heck, even Joe Estevez wouldn’t have been caught dead in this.  

They might not have been able to get Joe Estevez for this thing, but lo and behold, Luke Skywalker was ready and willing.  This has got to be his all-time worst.  Man, if you thought Time Runner was bad, wait till you see this one.  

Hamill kind of phones it in, and I guess I can’t blame him.  He sort of hides inside his Nazi uniform, thick glasses, and oversized hat.  He’s probably hoping Indiana Jones doesn’t punch his lights out.  His awful deathbed marriage scene has to be his career low point.  

I think the biggest problem (aside from… well… EVERYTHING) is that Franco completely misread the audience.  Does he really think we’d want to see a Nazi love triangle movie?  Especially one that fails so spectacularly at being “respectable”.  At least Franco’s Naziploitation flicks had some stripping and whipping.  This feels like a bad Masterpiece Theater episode, but… you know… with swastikas.  

There are ways this resembles other Franco movies.  Chief among them is the recycling of footage.  This time, the action and battle scenes come from other (much older) war movies and the seams are obvious as the film grain, vehicles, and uniforms don’t really match the new material.  Franco’s use of the slow, lazy zooms and camera pans are kept to a minimum this time out (again, he was trying to be “respectable”), but he does give us a lot of padding in the form of nightclub numbers.  

At least the participation of Franco stalwart Christopher Lee prevents it from being a total debacle.  He plays a sad banker who is devastated when his daughter (the object of the love triangle) enlists in the Third Reich.  He gives a fine performance, which is easily the best thing about the movie.  Honestly, the only thing of note here is, of course, LUKE SKYWALKER STARRING AS A NAZI IN A JESS FRANCO MOVIE.  I guess if they knew Lee would go on to become Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels, they could’ve had them do a Jedi battle or something.  As it is, they share no scenes together, which is a shame.  Oh well.  

Sheen (who looks and sounds like his old man), along with co-stars Robert Foster, Daniel Grimm, and Craig Hill all reteamed with Franco for Esmerelda Bay the next year.

AKA:  Fall of the Eagles.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: COMMANDO MENGELE: “ANGEL OF DEATH” (1985) ***

I’ve been running a bit behind on posting reviews for both the Tubi Continued… and Franco February columns, so I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and check out a few of the Jess Franco movies Tubi has to offer.  He only co-directed this one as he apparently quit before filming was complete.  The producers brought in Andrea Bianchi, the madman who gave the world Burial Ground, and the results are a bit of a mess, but it is a fun, and sometimes surreal mess.  

Fernando Rey and Jack Taylor are Nazi hunters looking for the vile Nazi Josef Mengele (Howard Vernon) in South America.  Robert Foster’s girlfriend gets killed by the Nazis who patrol Mengele’s fortress, and he teams up with her best friend (Suzanne Andrews) to get revenge.  The Nazi hunters accept them into their fold with the provision they gather evidence to bring Mengele to trial, but he decides to blow him the fuck up instead.  

Here's the thing, though.  Mengele isn’t exactly hiding.  I mean his guards patrol his fortress wearing red armbands in broad daylight and fly around in helicopters with “4R” painted on the side of them.  (You know, for “Fourth Reich”.)  It’s shit like this that endears crappy movies like this to me.  

Even if you didn’t know the behind the scenes drama, Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” looks like a cut-and-paste affair.  (I mean, the title has two titles for God’s sake.)  There are scenes that are played silently while narration tries to explain what’s going on, the same random insert shots of Andrews’ shocked face are reused a couple of times, and some plot points (like Andrews being artificially inseminated by Mengele) are haphazardly (or never) resolved.  However, when it’s Franco doing the cutting and Bianchi doing the pasting, the results are entertaining more often than not.  

This movie has a lot of movie for your movie dollar.  It has Chris Mitchum sleepwalking through his performance as Mengele’s top bodyguard who walks with a limp, but can still snap into action for slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights.  Foster’s “Dirty Dozen” style team are also a lot of fun (even though there are only four of them).  There’s a Bud Spencer looking guy who uses knives and crossbows, an acrobat, a computer geek, and a Kung Fu master who’s always exuberantly practicing his karate chops and kicks in the background (who also gets his share of slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights).  Then, of course, there’s Howard Vernon chewing the scenery like only Howard Vernon can as Mengele.  I think my favorite moment came when he shows Andrews his big experiment and it’s nothing but a room with a monkey lying in bed next to two half-human/half-monkey freaks.  Most movies would make this a major plot point, but for Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death”, it’s just a random WTF throwaway scene.  

Speaking of which, the final siege on Mengele’s fortress is a head-spinning onslaught of “…HUH?!?”  There’s badly choreographed action (including more slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights), bizarre plot twists, and one of the worst model explosions of all time.  I think I laughed six times and said, “Wait… WHAT?” at least twice in the last three minutes.  A lot of the movie never comes close to matching the weirdness of the final reel.  There are a few moments along the way though that flirt with being totally bonkers, but ultimately wind up being completely bananas.  And I’m not saying that because of the scene where the monkey and its half-human brethren are liberated by the Nazi hunters.  

It's kind of easy to tell what scenes Franco was responsible for thanks to the slow zooms and pans.  Also, the flick is chockfull of his regular stock players like Taylor, Foster, Vernon (the De Niro to Franco’s Scorsese), and Mitchum.  I’m not sure if he was responsible for the monkey business (pun sorta intended), or if that was Bianchi’s doing.  All I know is that when the WTF is flying freely, Angel of Death is heavenly.  

AKA:  Angel of Death.  AKA:  Commando Mengele.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY: BLACK BOOTS LEATHER WHIP (1983) ** ½

Robert Foster stars as a washed-up private detective who is about to go on the lam to get away from some pesky loan sharks when he’s hired to by a sexy femme fatale (Lina Romay) to retrieve her purse from a junkyard in exchange for a big payday.  He gets more than he bargained for when he goes to get the bag and is jumped by two goons.  Naturally, he kills them in self-defense, but the cops come looking for him anyway.  He changes his appearance, and eventually gets embroiled in a scheme to rub out his new lover’s enemies.

Jess Franco’s Black Boots Leather Whip starts out like a sexy version of a private eye movie before slowly morphing into a hitman drama.  The film’s best scenes are its early ones where Romay (ideally cast as the femme fatale in a bad blonde wig) is luring Foster into her web of deceit.  The ensuing sequences of Foster setting up Romay’s husband’s underworld associates to be murdered are less effective, although there are some decent moments along the way.  (Like the scene where a dominatrix gets the upper hand on Foster.)

Black Boots Leather Whip is surprisingly progressive for an exploitation movie in 1983.  Romay’s husband in the film is trans, and one of his illicit businesspeople is a blind woman.  That doesn’t necessarily make it “good”, but it makes it memorable.  

Lina is sexy as always and is the main draw.  Her best scene comes when she performs in a live sex show and runs Christmas tinsel all over her partner before blowing him.  I think my favorite moment though is when our hero changes his identity so the cops won’t find him, and he goes from looking like Magnum P.I. to a secret agent in a ‘60s spy movie.  I have to wonder since the hero’s appearance and the plot changes so drastically after the first act if this was actually two unfinished movies loosely stitched together.  

Like all the movies featured for Franco February, Black Boots Leather Whip has plenty of scenes where the camera wanders aimlessly around and zooms in on seemingly inconsequential things.  It’s also yet another film where Romay is saddled with a terrible blonde wig.  Of Franco’s usual stock players, Romay and Foster are the two most notable names yet again.

FRANCO FEBRUARY: SEX IS CRAZY (1981) **

Jess Franco’s Sex is Crazy is an almost unclassifiable film.  I guess you could call it a sex comedy, but that still wouldn’t do it justice.  It has a freewheeling, madcap, almost Monty Python style of irreverence.  (Just don’t mistake “irreverence” for “funny”.)  Scenes start out like a drama, and then the director (Franco, of course) does a second take where the actors play it like a comedy.  There are scenes of an alien gangbang where a human woman is impregnated over and over again in a matter of minutes.  This is eventually revealed to be nothing more than a live sex show.  Then, there are parts that play out like a spy movie where Lina Romay is tortured with utensils up her hoo-hah by Argentinian secret agents looking for microfilm.  She gets over that very quickly and runs off and has sex with her boyfriend while he’s driving.  There are also constant cutaways to the “producer’s girlfriend” who is only there to provide the film with gratuitous nudity.  

We also get a group marriage and a Satanic ceremony.  Oh, and it MIGHT be all a dream.  Or a movie.  Or a videotape.  And the aliens might’ve been real all along.  I don’t know.

One thing is for sure, the movie lives up to its title.  Sex is Crazy is crazy.  There’s a lot of nudity, a wild anarchic spirit, and jaw-dropping absurdity here.  That might seem like high praise, but I assure you that words like “good”, “entertaining”, and “coherent” were at no time found anywhere in this review. 

As far as Franco’s signatures go, his use of long, wandering camera pans and zooms matches the wandering, aimless plot to a tee.  His penchant for showing Romay in the nude also crops up once more.  In addition to Romay, co-stars Robert Foster and Tony Skios were also in Franco’s Night of Open Sex.    

FRANCO FEBRUARY: SINFONIA EROTICA (1980) *** ½

Lady Martine (Lina Romay) comes home to her mansion after an extended stay in the nuthouse.  Upon her return, she is shocked to learn her husband, the Marquis, has now shacked up with a young man who caters to all his whims.  One day, the duo finds an unconscious nun on the road, and they bring her home and have their way with her.  When the Marquis spurns his wife’s advances, she runs to seek solace in the arms of the nun.  Once the Marquis learns from his wife’s doctor that any kind of excitement will further disturb her and sex will probably kill her, he and his two lovers set out to drive her out of her mind.  

With Jess Franco at the helm working from a story by Marquis de Sade, you know you’re in for a good time.  Sinfonia Erotica contains all the ribaldry, debauchery, and just plain sleaze you’d expect from a de Sade adaptation directed by Franco.  Sure, it’s another one of those “Let’s Drive Someone Crazy and Steal Their Money” movies, but it’s got to be the kinkiest one I have ever seen in the subgenre.  It even contains some surprising gay and bisexual scenes, which are only fitting, I suppose.  I mean Franco had directed hundreds of lesbian scenes by this point in his career.  Fair is fair.  What’s good for the gander is good for the goose, after all.

Romay is excellent as the mentally unstable lady of the house.  (Who unfortunately is saddled with a bad blonde wig.)  The scene where she prays to Jesus (Christ, not Franco) that her husband will finally fuck her is especially powerful.  Hemingway is also captivating as the young nun who is slowly transformed into a manipulative nympho.

What makes Sinfonia Erotica an upper-tier Franco offering is that it even manages to keep your attention during the smut-free sections.  Franco employs effective use of long shadows, odd camera angles, and echo-y sound effects to enhance the feeling of Romay’s fragile state of mind.  He also gets a lot of mileage from the Franz Liszt score, which evocatively sets the mood. Sure, the ending is predictable, and the pacing drags here and there, but the sex scenes (especially the ones featuring Romay) are steamy.

We have a few Jess signatures at play here.  There are all the slow camera pans and zooms to nothing in particular that you’ve come to expect.  This was also yet another movie based on a story by Marquis de Sade (see also Justine and Eugenie) and there’s a bit of nunsploitation in there too.  As far as Franco’s stock player company, there’s of course, his muse, Lina Romay as well as Susan (Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun) Hemingway, who yet again plays a sexy nun.  

AKA:  Erotic Symphony.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY: THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME (1980) ** ½

For The Sadist of Notre Dame, Uncle Jess took scenes from his flick Exorcism (and its porno version, Sexorcismes) and added new footage of himself as an ex-priest-turned-serial killer and voila!  We have a new movie!  Jess wanders around Notre Dame murdering hookers and/or women he deems whorish.  (“This iron blade will purify your body and soul!”)  He also writes about his killings in hopes his stories will be published in a sleazy magazine owned by Pierre (Pierre Taylou).  He eventually learns from a hooker than a Count likes to hold orgies and black mass rituals in a nearby castle, and Jess is pleased to learn that Pierre’s sexy secretary (Lina Romay) is a frequent attendee.  

Jess spends a lot of the movie wandering around the streets where extras around him stare directly into the camera.  (These scenes are reminiscent of a Ray Dennis Steckler movie.)  Other times, he peeps on people fucking, but it’s just scenes of him reacting to scenes from Exorcism and edited to make it look like he’s in the same room or looking through a nearby window.  (Again, like a Ray Dennis Steckler movie.)  

Franco overacts gamely and the close-ups of his bulging eyeballs are moderately effective.  I especially liked the scenes where he begs a priest to absolve him of his sins.  Romay looks as fetching as always, but unfortunately, she isn’t given a whole lot to do in the new footage.

The additional scenes of Franco murdering women aren’t particularly graphic, but they get the job done.  The old footage is mostly nude and sex scenes from Exorcism.  I’d usually be upset by a director padding out a movie with old footage from his other films, but since this footage features Lina Romay in a sexy S & M get-up, I have no qualms whatsoever about Franco cutting corners here.  

I’ve seen both The Sadist of Notre Dame and Exorcism.  If I had to pick, I would give Sadist the slight edge.  If you’ve seen it, there’s no real reason to see Exorcism, unless you want to see a little more S & M and sex scenes.  (And frankly, I wouldn’t blame you.)

Now let’s move onto the Franco February round-up:  Among the Franco signatures on display are the repurposing of old footage, taking a derogatory view of the Catholic Church, and slow camera pans and zooms to nothing of particular importance.  Of his stock company players, the principal faces are Franco, Romay, and Olivier Mathot (who plays a police inspector).  

AKA:  The Demoniac.  

 

FRANCO FEBRUARY: DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES (1964) **

Jess Franco made Death Whistles the Blues the year after Rififi in the City.  Severin recently released them as part of a DVD double feature, and they make for an ideal pairing.  Both films are noir-influenced crime pictures that are padded out with calypso and jazz songs (plus a little blues this time out) as well as cabaret song and dance numbers.  They also contain (nearly) silent safecracking scenes and feature (Spoiler) a woman acting in an avenging angel capacity.  In fact, both movies include a nightclub called The Stardust, which makes me think Franco was trying to do a shared universe deal way before Marvel made it fashionable.  

Castro (Conrado San Martin) and Smith (Manuel Alexandre) are tricked into running guns in their fruit truck by the slimy Vogel (Georges Rollin).  While they rot in jail for ten years, Vogel marries Castro’s wife (Perla Cristal) and sets himself up in a mansion in a small Jamaican village.  Shortly after Smith is released from prison, he is brutally murdered.  Castro then saunters into town looking for revenge.

While the movie looks great (maybe not as sharp and snazzy as Rififi in the City, but it’s certainly atmospheric), the pacing is often sluggish (especially in the second half).  Although the cabaret numbers are more or less integral to the plot, they are sorely missing the panache found in Rififi in the City.  (It is fun seeing Franco cameo as a saxophone player though.)  The revenge plot lacks sizzle and the twists and turns in the third act ring a little hollow.  It also doesn’t help that Rollin makes for a middling villain.  He looks the part all right, but he just doesn’t exude enough menace to make for a worthy adversary in something like this.  Fortunately, Danik Patisson makes a memorable impression as a sultry cabaret singer.  Too bad she isn’t given nearly enough to do.  

Uncle Jess’s signatures are kept to a minimum this time out.  He gives us the requisite number of song and dance sequences and makes a cameo.  That’s about it though.

AKA:  Agent 077:  Operation Jamaica.  AKA:  077:  Operation Sexy.  AKA:  Operation Sexy.

FRANCO FEBRUARY: RIFIFI IN THE CITY (1963) ***

Jess Franco’s Rififi in the City isn’t really a sequel to Jules Dassin’s Rififi, but it does have a vague connection to that classic crime film.  Jean Servais, who was the star of that flick, plays the heavy here.  Also, there is a safecracking scene that plays out without sound or music, although it’s not nearly as long as the caper scene in Rififi.  While the title may have been trying to capitalize on Rififi’s success, Rififi in the City remains an entertaining crime thriller in its own right.  

A lowly stoolpigeon named Juan (Serafin Garcia Vazquez) learns a big-time politician named Leprince (Servais) is secretly the head of the crime syndicate in the city.  Naturally, Leprince has him killed.  Juan’s handler, Mora (Fernando Fernan Gomez), is an upstanding police inspector who flies off the handle when his informant is murdered.  Mora rattles Leprince’s chain and his goons retaliate by beating him up and tossing him in the river.  He recovers and quits the force so he can move freely to get back at Leprince without having to report to his hardened police captain (Antonio Prieto).  Complicating matters is a woman who dresses all in black and goes around the city bumping off Juan’s killers.  Of course, Leprince is number one on her hit list.  

Rififi in the City is a tough, mean, and entertaining little crime picture.  I know I'm biased towards Franco’s horror and sleaze extravaganzas, but even I have to admit, this was a surprisingly classy and respectable affair for Jess.  It serves as proof that Franco could deliver a beautiful looking film if given the proper time, money, and resources.  The camerawork is often interesting, the black and white cinematography is excellent, and some of the compositions of light and shadow are pure film noir.  The strong performances, solid action, and clever twists and turns help make this a crackling thriller.

At one-hundred-and-four minutes, it is a little on the long side.  There’s probably one plot complication and/or needless supporting character too many, but nothing that dramatically gums up the works.  There’s also a lot of padding in the form of calypso-jazz numbers and cabaret song and dance routines.  At least one of these numbers is pretty great though as it features Maria Vincent all dolled up in a sexy matador outfit.  

As far as Jess Franco cinematic trademarks go, there are a few slow, somewhat aimless camera pans.  Gratuitous cabaret numbers are also one of his signatures as well.  Plus, this was the first in-name only sequel he directed.  (See also Ilsa, the Wicked Warden.)

FRANCO FEBRUARY

The Video Vacuum salutes any filmmaker that embraces quantity over quality.  No director better fits that aesthetic than Jess Franco.  The man made hundreds (HUNDREDS) of movies.  Maybe a handful of them are stone-cold classics.  A few of them are amazing works of genre filmmaking.  Many of them are trashy fun.  But LOTS of them are just plain bad.  That’s why we’re devoting this month to Jess Franco.  What kind of Franco funkiness will we be getting this February?  There’s only one way to find out.