Jess Franco's Christina, princesse de l'erotisme (1973)

Christina (Christina von Blanc) arrives at a small coastal village from a boarding school in London to attend the will reading of her late father (whom she has never met and only seen in photos sent to her by her aunt and uncle). At the village inn, she is met by Basilio (Franco) who escorts her to the family villa where she meets Uncle Howard (Howard Vernon), Aunt Abigail (Rosa Palomar), and lovely Carmence (Britt Nichols). Despite some eccentric behavior from villa's "open" inhabitants, they are kind people towards Christina as she is welcomed. Following breakfast the following morning, Christina strolls the villa's grounds and meets a young man. Christina invites the young man inside the villa, and he is shooed away by Uncle Howard. The young man believed the villa was empty and always avoided it. In fact, Christina was told no one was living in the villa upon her arrival in the coastal town at the inn but she disputes the fact--her whole family lives there. She has been receiving letters.

Jess Franco's quiet and poetic Christina, princesse de l'erotisme (1973) is notable for its "closed" characters at the villa, Linda (Linda Hastreiter), Anne Libert's character, a queen, and Paul Muller's character and for its final act. However, before describing Christina for what it is, here is a look at what it is not (or what others tried to make it), from Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco:

One [of] the most widely distributed of Franco's films, "Christina queen of sex" is also one of the most worked-over of his films. Originally a a nouvelle vague style horror film, it was first presented at Cannes Film Festival. When Robert de Nesle's Comptoir du Film Francais released it theatrically three years later, soft core inserts for the X market had been added [note: the Obsession authors date this film as 1971]. Of course, the new footage badly distorted Franco's original concept. Worse was still to come... In the early eighties Eurocine bought back the original copyright and hired director Jean Rollin to shoot several zombie scenes to replace the softcore footage. This version, which better fitted the sales title, Virgin Among the Living Dead, is the one now available on video in the U.S. and some European countries. An Italian distributor even released the film in an edited version mixing in one of Jean Rollin's vampire films as Exorcismo per una Vergine (the poster showed a drawing of Vincent Price in Diary of a Madman!).

Image Entertainment, thankfully, released a region-one DVD of Christina under the title, A Virgin Among the Living Dead (the Amazon link also interestingly credits actors who do not appear in this version, such as Arno who was cast for De Nesle's erotic inserts (Obsession)). The version on Image's DVD appears to be Franco's original cut, as there is an absence of scenes as described above. Included are thirteen minutes of deleted scenes as an extra, most of which are obviously Rollin's work. This image is quintessential Rollin:De Nesle added sex to a Franco film, and Rollin added zombie footage, like corpses rising from the ground, in the eighties (did any influential zombie films appear after 1973?). Another interesting note, Christina's French-language credits from the Image DVD credit the film's composer and conductor, the legendary Bruno Nicolai, as having one other credit: special effects. According to Nicolai's IMDb entry, Nicolai has one hundred and nineteen "Musical Department" credits, ninety-five "Composer" credits, and one credit for "Special Effects" with Christina. Why not? His music for Christina is signature Nicolai, haunting and beautiful. Franco writes the character Christina as innocent and sheltered and von Blanc plays her that way, wide-eyed and curious. Christina's character bridges the "open" characters and the "closed" characters who populate the narrative. The "open" figures, such as Vernon's Howard, Franco's Basilio, and Nichols's Carmence, are eccentric but superficially harmless. These characters have darker sides but walk openly in the villa and with Christina. The "closed" characters of the narrative, such as Libert's and Muller's characters, hide in the shadows of the villa with little interaction with Christina (until the final act). These characters are very dark. One of the images that Franco repeats within Christina is this one of Christina ascending the stairs:There is also a small chapel on the villa's grounds, and it perhaps houses the darkest secret within Christina and also represents the films strongest theme: supposedly, according to an elderly man who has been perpetually waiting for the chapel to open, one may receive a special blessing from a Saint within. The chapel is not open to him. Christina does not enter the chapel but the villa is open to her: "open" and "closed," light and shadows, blessings and curses. A personal favorite in Franco's filmography.

Jess Franco's Sinner (1972)

"'If there is any message in my films,' says Franco, 'it's about the distance between people,' and Sinner is a field trip into seventies' alienation." (from Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies 1956-1984 by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, St. Martin's Griffin Press, New York, 1995.)I've encountered quite a diversity of opinions in my research on Jess Franco's Sinner (1972). The authors of Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco write:

Drug movies were popular in America in the early 70s, but this attempt to adapt to the trend didn't hit its target and is no more than a tedious sexploiter. While The Trip and such like are still fun to watch for their hordes of hippies in bell-bottom pants their "hallucination" scenes, "Diary of a nymphomaniac" only had a few hippies dancing in a nightclub and a drug delirium scene in which Kali Hansa endlessly rolls on the floor to a stoned score. The real purpose of the film was a sort of disguised pleading for sexual liberation (totally out of date by today's standards)...It is hard to guess whether he [Franco?] really cared about his subject when one analyses the sterotyped situations and the obsessive voyeuristic angle of the camera. It is also worth remembering that this was made in 1972, one of Franco's most prolific years, in which he made at least nine films.

The authors of Immoral Tales write:

Sinner is one of those strange creations you can only find in the bargain basement of cinema. In lesser hands it would have no discernible style, no garish intonations to take it outside the usual cheap sex film limitations. If the film works, it's because it straddles a stack of opposites. On the one hand it's phony and kitsch. On the other it's heartfelt and serious. Like many of Franco's best films it oscillates, refusing to be tied down to categories, forming a riddle that attracts some and repulses others.

Despite its extremely low budget, Sinner is one of Franco's most even productions; it doesn't plunge from the heights of heady fantasy to the depths of sloppily lensed realism.

Finally, the authors of Bizarre Sinema: Jess Franco El Sexo del Horror write:

Without being discouraged by his new flop [Los ojos del Dr. Orloff (1972)], Franco went back to work with [Robert] de Nesle: after having confirmed Prous and Hansa and "dusting off" Libert and Vernon, he shot two French produced back-to-back movies in Alicante, Le journal intime d'une nymphomane (1972) and Les ebranlees (1972). Two examples of the purest soft-core genre, their final outcome is, curiously, antithetical. The first one is a big detective-erotic melodrama, whose complex and very interesting plot--inspired by the narrative structure of Citizen Kane (1940) by Welles and to the The Killers (1945) by Sidomak, incorporating (yet again!) several sadeian overtones--also features Montserrat Prous' best interpretation (sometimes sensual, sometimes sweet, yet always effective) and a memorable ostentation of scabrous sex on the part of Kali Hansa, confirming her bent for lesbianism, already hinted at in her roles for Manacoa...

While all three pieces of criticism have merit, I find the criticism by the Immoral Tales authors the most persuasive. Perhaps Franco's statement quoted above says more than all (it's context completely unknown to me). Sinner is both totally unreal and real.

Linda (Montserrat Prous) comes from the country to the big city where at a carnival, with her suitcase in hand, she meets an older gentleman who rapes her on the ferris wheel. Linda gets a job with a laundry delivery service and while making her rounds she spies one of her customers, the Countess Anna De Monterey (Anne Libert) having sex with a suitor. The Countess is either curious or taken with young Linda and houses her, eventually having a romantic relationship with her. Eventually, Linda opens up socially and begins a relationship with a man and also with nightclub dancer, Maria (Kali Hansa). Her relationship with Maria causes a rift with her and the Countess, and Linda leaves the Countess's villa. With Maria, Linda gets a fast-track course on both sex and drugs. Linda is eventually arrested and released. A doctor (Howard Vernon) doesn't think Linda is a drug addict and can recover, so he houses her in order to give her treatment. Like all of Linda's relationships within Sinner, it ends badly. The opening sequence of the film is Linda's last day.

While the English-language title is more sensational, perhaps the French title, Le journal intime d'une nymphomane is slightly more appropriate, as it hints towards both the film's narrative structure and perhaps a deeper psychology working within the film. I have little to no formal training in sociology and psychology and the like, so I will not be speculating as to the film's genuineness towards its depiction of Linda's life. However, a meticulous detail is given to Linda's relationships within Sinner, and they are focal. The narrative structure is a mystery through the eyes of Rosa Ortiz (Jacqueline Laurent) and revealing who she is would be a serious spoiler. However, the story moves backwards through Rosa's discovery through her meeting with the police, with the Countess, and eventually with Maria who holds Linda's diary where her secrets are held.

Despite any psychological underpinnings and attempts at social realism, Franco creates images, and Sinner is Franco mixing the subjective and the objective shot: what is real and not real flickers with the frame, so whatever is shown is totally unreliable from a narrative standpoint in terms of visual storytelling. For example, the visual rendition of Linda's trip to the carnival, where she meets the older gentleman who rapes her, is far from sensitive. Prous's Linda is dressed like a literal doll at a child's tea party with pigtails and a short dress with frills and bobby socks (intimating that wherever she came from into the city was off of the pages of a fairy tale book rather than an actual place). The creepy older gentleman buys her pink cotton candy, and Linda, childlike, takes in the carnival atmosphere. Perhaps this is Franco rendering Linda's point-of-view, childlike and innocent for the viewer. The sequence is shot like a dream with wide angles and swooping zooms and disorienting editing.

The opening sequence of Sinner is perhaps the most "objective" since its quintessential Franco: a nightclub scene with a sex floor show with every one's eyes (including the viewer) glued to the action. Linda's first appearance is here (as is also Maria's) and when the viewer first sees her, she looks as sophisticated as her surroundings. What she begins to do and how she operates are revealed in this opening sequence as extremely meticulous and thought out--a plan perfectly executed.

Then the viewer gets to meet the storytellers within Sinner: Libert's Countess, Hansa's Maria, and even Linda, herself, through her diary. It is really only after a second viewing of Sinner do their motives become more obvious (as each is revealed to be extremely self-absorbed); and what each tells to Rosa reflects more about them than anyone. So what about poor Linda? I think that's Franco's point (emphasizing more so his quote at the beginning of this entry). There are scenes which feel very real, especially Linda's scenes with Maria. Then there are other scenes which feel too tabloid and sensational to be taken seriously. That's just Franco I suppose being playful (and sometimes playfully profound) with the sensitive and the sensational, creating another Franco experience.

Jess Franco's She Killed in Ecstasy (Sie tötete in Ekstase) (1970)

"With 31 films already behind her (more if you count the various alternative versions of Franco's films), Soledad Miranda sped along a highway in Lisbon to her death, sometime in late 1971," writes Tim Lucas in his memorial essay about the actress, "The Black Stare of Soledad Miranda," in Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco. "'The day before she died, she received the greatest news of her life,' Franco recounted. 'I visited her apartment in Lisbon with a German producer, who came to offer her a two-year contract with CCC, which would assure her of at least two starring roles per year in big-budget films. She was going to become a major star in Germany. The next day as her contract was being drafted, she had the accident. When the hospital called me to break the news...I nearly passed out.'" The gorgeous Spanish actress died at the age of twenty-seven, and Lucas continues: "Contrary to German production yearbooks and CCC sources, which declare Der Teufel Kam aus Akasava [The Devil Came from Akasava] as the last of Soledad Miranda's films to be released, Franco has identified Mrs. Hyde (Sie tötete in Ekstase, 'She Killed in Ecstacy (sic)') in interviews as their final collaboration." (All facts and quotes from within this paragraph are from Lucas's essay.)

Author Peter Blumenstock describes Miranda in She Killed in Ecstasy within Obsession: "Actress Soledad Miranda's physical presence alone brings an atmosphere of mysterious eroticism and melancholy to the film that is seldom to be seen in Franco's other work...Sie tötete in Ekstase ("She Killed in Ecstasy") is, like Vampyros Lesbos of the same year, a straight "star vehicle" built around Miranda. In most of the film's 75 minutes it is her--in countless costumes and wigs (and of course nude)--sporting with numerous lovers of both sexes." The authors of Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984 write: "For a film filled with nudity, strange decor and kitschy muzak Sie tötete in Ekstase is a downbeat, depressing affair. Even the presence of the lovely Soledad Miranda fails to revive the tortured, repetitive plot. The film overflows with death and thwarted desire...Sie tötete in Ekstase is deadly serious. Too serious to be entertaining." The authors of Bizarre Sinema: Jess Franco : El Sexo Del Horror have this to say about She Killed in Ecstasy, after declaring that Vampyros Lesbos is the best production of the post-Harry Alan Towers, Karl-Heinz Mannchen/Artur Brauner/Miranda era: "In a singular way, Las Vampiras/Vampyros Lesbos defines and sublimates Franco's fondess for lesbianism, already preponderant in Necronomicon and in a few Towers movies. So, for Franco's pleasure, Soledad Miranda 'gave life,' once again, to a lesbian relationship, re-proposing the same couple featured in Las Vampiras/Vampyros Lesbos, in another film of this set, Sie tötete in Ekstase. Her partner was the actress Ewa Strömberg, a very attractive blond-haired Swedish...Beyond this remarkable lesbian-personal coincidence, nothing more can be said about Sie tötete in Ekstase, an anonimous (sic) and rushed variation on the theme of Miss Muerte/Dans les griffes du maniaque, filmed with the title Mrs. Hyde."

Any viewer who watches Jess Franco's She Killed in Ecstasy (Sie tötete in Ekstase) (1970) is immediately confronted by Soledad Miranda's powerful presence and performance in Franco's extremely simplistic narrative. Dr. Johnson (Fred Williams) engages in cutting-edge embryonic research and he approaches the medical association with his research who find the doctor's work unethical and too controversial. The association expels Dr. Johnson and effectively ends his career goals and aspirations. He commits suicide with his only survivor his loving wife (Miranda). His death induces madness in the young widow, and she learns the identity of the association doctors (portrayed by Howard Vernon, Ewa Strömberg, Paul Muller, and Franco) and seeks revenge. Her revenge takes the form of seduction, from simple to elaborate, then murder.

Jess Franco and Soledad Miranda's final collaboration becomes a de facto love letter to its leading lady. Manuel Merino's photography focuses solely and seductively upon Miranda, as she seduces the film's characters. Franco's compositions are a little too clean for my tastes and too formal, as if he doesn't want to taint the beauty of Miranda. Numerous close-ups of her face and hypnotic eyes fill She Killed in Ecstasy, as Miranda is often able to portray her descent into madness and despair through only the windows into her soul. Franco's solemnity for Miranda's presence is offset by his usual playful nature: for example, Vernon's character is easily seduced by Miranda in a bar with a look and a flash of her legs. Back in Vernon's hotel room, he reveals that his kink is to be degraded and beaten while having sex. Miranda's character has no problem whatsoever complying with this request, as Vernon climbs too far into his ecstasy to notice that Miranda's beating and degrading is genuine. Strömberg's seduction is the film's most intimate, and its intimacy creates an odd blend of steamy eroticism and uncomfortable emotion, as the viewer knows, simmering inside is a deep hatred within Miranda's character. Muller's seduction and encounter with Miranda is the most circuitous and elaborate and the most entertaining of She Killed in Ecstasy.

Those seeking strong narratives should look elsewhere. Those seeking a strong and another seductive performance by beauty Soledad Miranda need to look only to She Killed in Ecstasy.

Jess Franco's La maldición de Frankenstein (1972)

Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price) and his assistant (Jess Franco) have just brought life into their creation, a silver-skinned hulking monster (Fernando Bilbao). Almost immediately after the beastly creation has breathed its first breath, Melisa (Anne Libert) and Caronte (Luis Barboo) murder Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant and take the creature back to their master, Cagliostro (Howard Vernon), an evil guru with the power of mind control. Doctor Seward (Alberto Dalbés) and Inspector Tanner (Daniel White) are hunting for clues for Dr. Frankenstein's murderer, and the dead man's daughter, Dr. Vera Frankenstein (Beatriz Savón), has returned. She will avenge her father's death.
This is a bare-bones set-up for Jess Franco's tale of the Modern Prometheus, La maldición de Frankenstein (1972), which was, according to the authors of Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco, "idiotically retitled 'Erotic Rites of Frankenstein' by Robert de Nesle," the film's French co-producer. The authors of Obsession continue, "Shot in a number of versions more erotic than the last "Frankenstein's Curse"...is a literal adaptation of Italian erotic comic-strips (which are not known for their intelligence). Obviously shot too quickly, the film soon sinks into the picturesque and cannot be taken seriously. It contains Lina Romay's first appearance, in a single scene of the Spanish version." Franco's simple narrative of La maldición de Frankenstein allows him to "sink into the picturesque," where the film holds its primary power in its visuals.
La maldición de Frankenstein is one of a handful of films that Franco collaborated with French producer, Robert de Nesle, who according to the authors of Bizarre Sinema: Jess Franco El sexo del horror, after meeting Franco, "immediately organized the shooting of a set of sexy fantasy-horror movies" inspired by "the world's most successful comic-books of the time, from the stories featured in American magazines like Creepy and Eerie to Italian adult comic strips such as Jacula and Oltretomba." In addition to La maldición de Frankenstein, some of the other Franco/de Nesle collaborations are the sublime A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1971), Dracula contra Frankenstein (1971), the sensuous La fille de Dracula (1972), and Sinner (1972). Many of the films of this period were shot within Portugal with Lisbonian production house Interfilm (fact from Bizarre Sinema) and had many of the same participants with the roster of La maldición de Frankenstein being representative.
"Veteran British actor Dennis Price weighs in as Doctor Frankenstein," writes the authors of Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984. "As the amoral cad in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Price had displayed his cool English savoir-faire. The Erotic Rites caught him at the end of a career slide; bloated and booze-raddled, he staggered around hazily as Doctor Frankenstein." Price has few scenes in La maldición, and the observations of the authors of Immoral Tales are astutely and painfully correct. Beautiful Britt Nichols has few scenes, as well, primarily as the victim-cum-reanimated-captive of Vernon's Cagliostro, who intends to make her the mate of Dr. Frankenstein's monster (who in turn will seed a race of superpeople who will conquer the world!). Lina Romay, opposed to the Obsession authors' description, has several scenes (shot presumably in one location as one sequence and cut into several scenes) in the Spanish-language version that I saw via the region-one DVD from Image Entertainment; and her role could be cut completely from the narrative as non-essential (but the opportunity to view her essential presence through Franco's camera eye would have been lost). Howard Vernon "turned in one of his best performances as the wizard Cagliostro," writes the authors of Immoral Tales. "Rising above the drawbacks of a cheap goatee, he managed to deliver half-baked lines with wide-eyed compulsion. No matter how gonzoid the action, Vernon was always believable (Immoral Tales)."
Anne Libert (who was the lover of Robert de Nesle according to Bizarre Sinema) is the true highlight of La maldición de Frankenstein as Melisa, Cagliostro's henchwoman. Libert's Melisa is a blind, half-woman/half-bird siren who has telepathic ability. Libert is a gorgeous actress and brings an amazing amount of energy to her role, frequently nude save a sparse covering of well-placed bright-green feathers and a dark cape (Libert is seen sans cape in the "alternate scenes" included on the Image DVD. Like a lot of Spanish cinema during the period, scenes were shot "clothed" and "unclothed" for different markets. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during some of these productions to see directors like Franco or Klimovsky or de Ossorio give direction like, "Okay, let's do it again. Same scene. This time butt-naked." However, I digress.) Libert brings almost all of the eroticism to La maldición, and virtually all of her attacks upon unsuspecting victims are imbued with her sexuality. Her character is vampiric, mysterious, sensuous, and surreal.
The simple narrative of La maldición, while the film doesn't possess the strong, dark, and provocative thematic elements of Franco's other work, allows Franco to focus on the comic-book imagery to excellent effect. The color scheme is brilliant and runs the spectrum, and the artificial colors are often focal and bright, offset by the sombre colors of the genuine Portuguese locations. The light reflected upon the characters or reflected off their elaborate costumes makes them look like comic characters straight off of a paper panel. Hulking Bilbao, as Frankenstein's monster, is stunning visually with his massive frame and silver-painted skin. He looks like a giant toy action figure come to life. Franco's camera takes his characters as its focus, and with wide-angle lenses and jarring compositions, the characters look like monsters. La maldición looks artificial and feels superficial and is a tremendous amount of Franco fun.
All objective facts and quotes are from their sources as cited within.