Les cauchemars naissent la nuit (1970)

It is difficult to discern what Les cauchemars naissent la nuit is about, in as much as it is to discern what genre Jess Franco's film falls into. The latter is not important (but erotica is probably the answer); and as to the former, here is a plot description: Diana Lorys is Anna, a nightclub dancer, who meets Cincia (Colette Jack), who invites Anna to her home. Cincia tells Anna that her talent and beauty are above and beyond where she is working and makes a vague promise to Anna that she can make her a bigger success. Anna agrees and soon finds comfort in Cincia's home. A local doctor, Paul (Paul Muller), is eventually summoned to Cincia's home under the assumption that Anna is ill. Apparently, Anna has been having nightmares--those of her killing people or waking up not knowing what she has done, with someone dead in her bedroom. Les cauchemars naissent la nuit is, as a mystery, reminiscent of Umberto Lenzi's Orgasmo (Paranoia) (1969) in the respect that Anna's reality is being manipulated by those around her. Anna's subsequent madness is borne from this manipulation. The key figure in this manipulation would have to be Colette Jack's Cincia, but during the nightclub sequence when Cincia first sees Anna, it would appear that Anna actually seduces Cincia. Anna's striptease sequence is shot in Franco-style (aka very lovingly) (aided by José Climent's photography and a sexy score by Bruno Nicolai); and it almost seems that Cincia is compelled to have Anna in her home. Lorys's Anna remains the focus of Les cauchemars naissent la nuit, and this makes it difficult to discern what is going on around her. Franco shows many an emotional scene where Anna wants to flee Cincia's home, and Anna often runs into the arms of Muller's Paul. She continually asks for help. Paul, not uncaring, lends a sympathetic ear, yet his ultimate advice is often just "go home and rest." More telling perhaps about Les cauchemars naissent la nuit is where this falls in Jess Franco's filmography: it is only slightly removed in time from his previous Eugénie (1970); and his subsequent film would be Christina, princesse de l'érotisme (1971). It is very easy to see Les cauchemars naissent la nuit as an experimental, transitional film: Les cauchemars has the intense subjective sexual obsession of Eugénie combined with the ethereal, almost random, characters of Christina. Jack Taylor appears late in the film as one of Cincia’s lovers; and when Anna and Taylor’s character interact, it is often composed of poetic, playful dialogue. Taylor’s character doesn’t seem real, and if he’s helping Anna, then it is very cryptic. Finally, giving a very precious appearance in a small performance is Soledad Miranda as a beautiful girl peering out of a window across the street from Cincia’s house. She has dreams that she shares with her lover of coming into a lot of money (this is important to the plot?). Miranda is dead sexy--Franco composes her primarily nude wearing only thigh-high boots. Franco had an intense obsession for Miranda, and it undoubtedly shows.Les cauchemars naissent la nuit is a lithe, meandering, arty, poetic film. I tend to prefer my cinema like this--a film which has really nowhere in particular to go in terms of story, so its imagery becomes prominent and, in the case of Franco, seductive. A minor entry, perhaps, in Franco’s filmography, because of the films preceding and following it. However, here’s some facts to conclude this post taken from essential Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco:

Only released in Belgium, this variation of the Miss Muerte story (a nightclub dancer unconsciously commits murders for somebody controlling her) has become virtually invisible since this limited release. Franco used the same story three years later for his own production of Los Ojos Siniestros del Dr. Orlof. Local critics writing about Les cauchemars naissent la nuit found that “the vague screenplay in the crime novel vein was only a pretext for showing scenes of a dubious nature with excessive nudity.” It is also true that Belgium is probably the most prudish country in Europe: even sex magazines are sold with stickers to cover genitalia! When asked (in Vampirella n° 13) what had been his smallest budget to date (in 1973) Franco named this film.

(from Obsession, ed. Lucas Balbo & Peter Blumenstock, Graf Haufen & Frank Trebbin Publishing, Munich, Germany: 1993, p.77)
Les cauchemars naissent la nuit has been released by Media Blasters/Shriek Show on DVD as Nightmares Come at Night. Also, check out Aaron’s review at his killer blog, The Bone Throne.

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.