Franco's Muse: Lina Romay (1954-2012)

Tragic news has emerged today from Spain, where actor Antonio Mayans -- her co-star in dozens of films -- formally announced the February 15 death of Lina Romay, the actress and filmmaker best-known as the wife and longtime creative partner of Spanish director Jesús "Jess" Franco. A cancer victim, she was only 57 years old.

Born Rosa María Almirall Martínez in June 1954, Lina Romay -- renamed after the retired former singer with Xavier Cugat's band, who died a couple of years ago -- entered the world of cinema in a brief appearance in Jess Franco's film THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN (1972) as a gypsy girl, which appears in only the Spanish variant of the picture. She came to Franco's attention as the art student girlfriend of his stills photographer Ramón Ardid, but it soon became apparent to both Jess and Lina that they were personally and creatively inseparable. Their attraction ended Franco's marriage to his script girl Nicole Guettard, who disappeared from his filmography circa 1974, returned briefly circa 1980, and died in 1996. For Franco's part, having found it difficult to reassemble himself following the 1970 accidental death of his most promising actress Soledad Miranda, he claimed to sense a reincarnation of Soledad in Lina, and she -- who never met her predecessor -- claimed to sense her presence watching over them at times, as if from within.

Her first starring role for Franco was 1973's FEMALE VAMPIRE, which exists in no fewer than three distinct variants: mainstream, erotic and hardcore. A self-proclaimed exhibitionist, Lina had no problem with performing hardcore straight or lesbian acts onscreen, and she was adamant offscreen that these were things she did in character, not as herself. The IMDb lists 118 different films to her credit, but this is hardly a complete accounting. Her filmography swells to a still larger number if we take into account the variants that exist of numerous Franco films; she also worked on rare occasions for other directors, including Carlos Aured, Erwin C. Dietrich and Andreas Bethmann. During the 1980s period when she and Franco were earning their incomes from pornographic films, she sometimes worked under the secondary pseudonyms Candy (or Candice) Coster and Lulu Laverne, accepting directorial credit for some of them.

No other woman gave quite as much of herself to the fantastic cinema as Lina Romay. The sprawling filmography of Jess Franco can be divided, unevenly and much in her favor, between the films he made Before Lina and With Lina; she became so synonymous with his work, as its focus and behind-the-scenes facilitator, that an After Lina period seems frankly unimaginable. As Franco's muse, Lina inspired as many as 150 or more films, and in many of them she withheld nothing of herself from his voracious camera -- body or soul. Theirs was an ideal meeting of exhibitionist and voyeur, both giving generously to one another in one of cinema's most provocative love stories. As the years passed, Lina changed and her body changed, but it never mattered to Franco, who continued to star her and film her as if she were the most desirable woman on earth. This is not to say that Franco's adoration of her was blind; on the contrary, Lina became a skilled actress under his tutelage, acquitting herself admirably not only as vampire women and nymphomaniacs, but in roles requiring the deft touch of a light comedienne. She could carry a film without dialogue; she could be funny, tragic, insanely desirable, shocking, even embarrassing in ways that left one admiring her bravery. On the two occasions when she ended a film by screaming -- LORNA... THE EXORCIST (1974) and MACUMBA SEXUAL (1980) -- she showed she could chill the blood like no one else, on the strength of her performance alone.

In Brian Horrorwitz's ANTENA CRIMINAL, a documentary about the filming of BLIND TARGET (2000, one of their lesser pictures), a candid illustration of their 40-year union emerges as Franco loses his temper when a scene continually goes wrong. He scolds a young actress and upsets himself to the point where he had to leave the set and sit down for a smoke in another room. Horrorwitz's camera holds on his attempt to recompose himself, and we see Lina find him, lean into him and stroke his head calmingly. It is the most privileged glimpse of their private selves we have, unless we count Lina's unbilled presence on the evening in February 2009 when Franco's career was rewarded with the Goya Award. During this presentation, Lina wheeled her husband onstage to generous applause, held his microphone as he accepted the honor, and bowed to kiss his head. The moment becomes even more poignant if we realize that, though they had been lovers and collaborators for 35 years, on the evening of this life achievement recognition they were technically newlyweds.

I never met Lina, but I always imagined we would meet someday. It is unthinkable to me that Jess, now in his early 80s, has survived her. On the occasions I've written to him, it was Lina who responded to me on his behalf, and she was always very sweet and appreciative. I last heard from her on April 28 of last year, when she and Jess responded to my enthusiastic VIDEO WATCHDOG review of Mondo Macabro's LORNA... THE EXORCIST: "Dear Tim, We are very much touched by your opinion of Lorna. Not a lot of people understood the film ("another Jess Franco sex film"). Thank you. Take care, Jess & Lina."

Those who admire the work of Jess Franco cannot help but become deeply involved in it, which means that, in the course of our exploration, we end up seeing more of Lina than we see of any other actress -- seeing more of her, and seeing more OF her -- so the news of her premature death strikes us in an uncommonly personal place. As the incarnate center of a filmography I take very personally, I had and will always have a great affection for her. Anything I have ever heard or learned about her -- including the only extensive interview she ever granted, to Kevin Collins for his booklet THE LINA ROMAY FILE: THE INTIMATE CONFESSIONS OF AN EXHIBITIONIST -- only confirmed what her work onscreen led me to suspect. I remember Kevin telling me that, at the time he recorded the interview, he asked Lina to sign something and she responded "Me?" She had starred in at least 100 films and no one before Kevin had ever asked Lina Romay for her autograph. This changed as she and Jess subsequently flew to different points around the world, including America, to make various convention appearances.

Jess Franco and Lina Romay were more than a team; they were an indivisible creative force for roughly 40 years. My heart goes out to my favorite living director at this time of most terrible loss -- to him, to me, to us, to cinema.

A Better Beginning: Reprinting VIDEO WATCHDOG #1

Publisher/art director Donna Lucas restoring the images accompanying a discussion of HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN in VW's first issue.

While VIDEO WATCHDOG magazine has been marking its 20th anniversary, VW publisher Donna Lucas has been quietly engaged in one of the greatest restoration projects in the magazine's decades-long history. No, it's not the ultimate exposé of how CATACLYSM became part of THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS, nor is it a meticulous comparison of five different versions of Jess Franco's LA COMTESSE PERVERSE... it's Donna's own painstaking digital recreation of VIDEO WATCHDOG #1.

When we decided to reprint our premiere issue, Donna's first idea was to scan the contents of a surviving copy and turn it over to our printer. Simple, right? However, the realities proved more complex. First of all, the original paste-up boards used to create the issue -- with PMT (photo mechanical transfer) illustrations affixed with spray adhesive to windows cut into each laserjet-printed page -- were long missing. Secondly, the original print job was so clumsily executed that a straightforward scan yielded typographic results that were somewhere south of acceptable. Fortunately, a thorough search of the attic at Chez Watchdog yielded a box of considerable value, containing not only the original layout boards but also most of the original illustrations and drawings that Donna used to create this landmark issue back in 1990.

Original artwork by Stephen R. Bissette and yours truly awaits its chance to be rescanned.

The discovery of the original artwork, as well as some photographic material, proved to be a real godsend to this undertaking, as the scanning of the PMT images, whether from a printed copy or from the original PMT's, tended to throw up some nasty moiré patterns. However, by meticulously rescanning each layout page in high definition from the original sheets, and inserting completely fresh digital scans of the issue's stills and original art from the original materials whenever possible, Donna has ensured that the 20th Anniversary edition of VIDEO WATCHDOG #1 will be much more than just a reprint.

"If you were to ask me what percentage of the pictures are now in better quality, I'd have to say 100% of them!" Donna explains. "Even when I didn't have access to the originals, I removed specks and dots and flaws from what I had to work with. Some pictures that were badly cropped in the original, like the center spread from SUCCUBUS, will be seen in this new printing as they were meant to look the first time. Likewise, some pictures that were too dark in the original issue, like some of the shots from CUT AND RUN, have been brightened, so you can now see the actors' expressions and can tell what's going on in them. We are also printing this new edition on paper that's consistent with the way VIDEO WATCHDOG is printed now, so it will be light and flexible in ways the original wasn't."

The text in the issue has not been changed. The only variation that has been made to the issue in terms of content is its back cover. Whereas the original edition showed an image from the Jess Franco film THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF, the reprint edition offers a scan of the same back cover image taken from Donna's and my own personal copy, inscribed to us in gold by Franco and his wife and longtime associate Lina Romay.

"I've always felt that our first issue stood apart from every other issue we did, in terms of quality control -- or the lack of it," Donna says. "When our readers receive this new, improved version of #1, I think they're going to feel like their collection is complete for the first time!"

Orders for the 20th Anniversary edition of VIDEO WATCHDOG #1 (at the printer) are now being accepted here and at our toll-free number, 1-800-275-8395.

FIRST LOOK: VIDEO WATCHDOG #157

Donna is just now putting the final touches on the inside covers, but the front cover -- an image of Romy Schneider from HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO made still more scintillating by Charlie Largent -- is ready for unveiling!

You may note that this is indeed our 20th anniversary issue and, for the first time in those 20 years, my name is on the cover. Other contributors like Kim Newman and Steve Bissette have had this honor, but this is a first for me, in this country anyway. For those of you who have been clamoring for me to write more for VW, I actually wrote more than half of this issue -- the Franco essay alone is our longest single-piece feature article ever, practically novella-length at 34 pages (advertising free, of course), plus there's three-page "Watchdog Barks" editorial and I also reviewed some films, including CLOUZOT'S INFERNO. So no one can say I didn't give this anniversary issue my best shot.

Also in this issue, David J. Schow performs a post mortem on FEATURES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, a book that McFarland and Company withdrew from sale slightly more than a month after its publication date. It's our longest book review ever! Plus Kim Newman on SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, John Charles on some Paul Naschy rarities, and much more. For more details, visit out Coming Soon pages here.

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

This surprisingly stately clip from Jess Franco's 1972 monster rally DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN features Alberto Dalbes as Dr. Seward and Geneviève Robert as Almira, the gypsy woman who comes to his rescue. This scene brings to mind something I've always admired about Franco's, and also Mario Bava's, horror films: unlike American movies, where ugly vestiges of our country's puritan foundation lingers, their films never demonize witches, instead presenting them as serious women of intuition and arcane knowledge, who are often called upon to explain to characters who have chosen a more narrow way of living what is out of balance in their half-understood world, and just as often pointing their way to survival. Geneviève Robert is wonderful in this scene, and one regrets that she didn't make more films. Today, Robert is married to producer-director Ivan Reitman and a Reuters photo of the couple attending the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month can be found here.

Incidentally, Jess Franco and Lina Romay are currently in Austin, Texas, where they are being fêted at FantasticFest with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Here is a schedule of related events and I congratulate Jess and Lina on yet another long overdue recognition of their vast contribution to fantastic cinema.

Tonight Let's Watch Franco Films in Paris

Tonight, the most ambitious retrospective of Jess Franco films ever mounted begins to unreel at the Cinemathèque Française in Paris. Franco himself will be present to answer questions about his 1968 release NECRONOMICON, in what may well be a 35mm print distinct from the altered version issued in America as SUCCUBUS in 1969.

The Franco retrospective (which consists of 68 films by my count!) will run from today, June 18, through July 31. Here is a link to a complete alphabetical listing of the films being shown, their showtimes and locations, posted by Robert Monell at his website I'm In a Jess Franco State of Mind.

I certainly wish I could be there for this exciting event and send my best wishes to Jess and Lina for this long overdue celebration of their life of work.

New Franco Doc Goes on Sale Sunday Night!

Brian Horrorwitz' long-awaited documentary ANTENA CRIMINAL - MAKING A JESS FRANCO MOVIE is finally going on sale at the Trash Palace website tomorrow night -- Sunday night/Monday morning -- at midnight. You may want to make arrangements to be there because there are certain benefits to being one of the first seven people to order a copy.

ANTENA CRIMINAL is a new documentary that chronicles the making of Franco's 2000 crime thriller BLIND TARGET, filmed by Horrorwitz, who was cast to play a supporting role in the film. Brian showed me a rough cut of the picture a couple of years ago and I found it very interesting even in that state -- more interesting than BLIND TARGET, frankly -- including some candid scenes that have stuck with me ever since. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the final cut.

The two-disc DVD-R set includes: ANTENA CRIMINAL (84 minutes), an exclusive interview with Jess Franco (25 minutes), outtakes and deleted footage (from ANTENA CRIMINAL, not BLIND TARGET - 50 minutes)a Photo Gallery with complete score (21 minutes), documentation of ANTENA CRIMINAL's World Premiere (8 minutes), a trailer (3 minutes), and liner notes by Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro. Each copy of ANTENA CRIMINAL comes with a free DVD of Sub Rosa's release of BLIND TARGET. The low, low price for the whole package is $11.98 plus shipping.

Horrorwitz writes about the sale: "Here's how it works: The DVD will go on sale December 30th at the stroke of midnight (that's this Sunday night / Monday morning). [Editor's note: That would make it technically December 31, but you know what he means.] The first 7 orders that come through the Trash Palace website's order page each get a free autographed photo as follows:

"Customers # 1 to 3 each get a beautiful color glossy 8 x 10 still of Jess Franco and Lina Romay from the 1970s with Lina licking Jess' face! It is signed in gold ink by Jess and black ink by Lina!

"Customers # 4 and 5 each get a color glossy 8 x 10 still of Jess from DR. WONG'S VIRTUAL HELL, his name and a "secret Asian message" signed in gold by Jess Franco!

"Customers #6 and 7 get a color glossy 8 x 10 still of Lina from "Dr. Wong's Virtual Hell" signed in black ink by Lina Romay!

"In order to qualify you must be one of the first 7 customer at or after 12 o'clock midnight this Sunday night / Monday morning via our website. Any orders coming in before midnight will count as pre-orders but will NOT qualify for the photo giveaway."

For more information on ANTENA CRIMINAL (check out the trailer!), click here. To go directly to the secure order form, use this link.

EUGENIE DE SADE Previewed

Jess Franco's EUGENIE DE SADE, starring Soledad Miranda (pictured above) and Paul Muller, has been released a number of times on DVD -- domestically from Wild East, as an Australian R0 import from Force Video, and so forth. However, next month on January 29, Blue Underground will be reissuing this important title -- perhaps the finest and most intimate title in Franco's sprawling filmography -- in its most breathtaking transfer to date. Here, to whet your appetite, are some remarkable advance screen grabs.

The reason why this new release is so much better looking than any other we've seen may have something to do with the title card, which lists the 1970 film under the title EUGENIA with a 1984 copyright.

To the viewer's surprise, the new transfer reveals the film to be full of enticing textures, like the upholstery on this chair, the hanging carpet above the Franval family sofa, the scarlet leather of the thigh-high boots that Eugenie wears as part of her disguise in Berlin.

For my money, this is the single greatest closeup in Franco's filmography and I prize it more highly than the closing shot of Greta Garbo in QUEEN CHRISTINA. The transfer is so sharp, as it moves even more closely into Eugenie's face as she looks on adoringly at her father that you can see the exhaustion limning Soledad's eyes and read her thoughts. In the accompanying 20m interview with Jess Franco, he reveals for the first time that Soledad was beset by premonitions of her early death throughout the shooting of what she was convinced would be her last film. She lived to make three more.

Jess Franco as the inquisitive author Attila Tanner.

The hot red lighting in the nightclub during the band's performance is rendered with zero chromatic noise, and the colors of Andres Monales' scarf really pop.

Here's Paul Muller in a closeup that reveals more detail in his face than was delivered by the earlier, comparatively soft transfers. Likewise, a light smattering of freckles can sometimes be seen peppered over the bridge of Soledad Miranda's nose.

What ultimately makes the Blue Underground disc definitive, however, is its provision of not only the (frankly not-so-hot) English dub track, but also the French soundtrack with optional English subtitles. For some reason, during the scene of Eugenie's strip-tease in the midst of a drinking game, the accompanying dance cue is different on the two soundtracks -- and far more effective in the French track, as is the film's drama in general.

In David Gregory's interview featurette "Franco de Sade," the writer-actor-director discusses his teenage discovery of the forbidden works of the Marquis de Sade, his love for the characters in this story of incest and crime, and also the late Soledad Miranda. He denies any suggestion that he and she were lovers, insisting that their relationship was more like a father and daughter -- rather a suspicious comment to make in tandem with a movie like this, but one which I suspect is true. He also goes on the record for the first time about eerie details of Soledad's oltre-tumba endorsement of her successor, Lina Romay.

All in all, an ideal disc of one of the great transgressive horror films of the 1970s, which Blue Underground is releasing on the same day as another Franco title, CECILIA, a picturesque piece of '80s erotica also known as Aberraciones sexuales de una mujer casada.

Here's to Jess Franco on His 77th

Jess Franco celebrates with a small group of friends in the 1980 film MACUMBA SEXUAL.

Today Jess Franco -- one of my favorite filmmakers, favorite personalities, and favorite people -- is celebrating his 77th birthday. I would like to mark the occasion with a glimpse into a little side project of mine that has been incubating for awhile. I've just completed an immense book about Mario Bava and I have no intention at present of writing another book of that size and scope; however, over the years, many correspondents have encouraged me to write a book about Franco, and this is something that part of me also yearns to do specifically for him. Jess Franco is one of the very few film directors who literally changed my way of seeing, and I would like to repay that debt with a book that, unlike OBSESSION, is wholly mine.

Sometime last year, I began compiling and ordering new thoughts about Franco's work as I set about transfering some of my old tapes to DVD-R. I decided to start with Jess's 1970s films, as I feel this was his most vital and progressive era, and see what developed. As it happens, some interesting things began to take shape. I'm not prepared to embark on a film-by-film study of Franco's entire career (which would probably take another 32 years to complete), but I believe that an in-depth study of his '70s work is doable and could be valuable in itself. Later, if I cared to, I could add to it with other books devoted to the other decades, but I don't want to think about that now. I'm not quite ready to commit even to this endeavor to the extent of calling it a project; at least for now, I prefer to think of it as a hobby.

I thought I would pay tribute to Jess today by excerpting from the text I have written about one of his most interesting and offbeat films of the 1970s. And so, without further ado... Cumpleaños Felices, Tio Jess!

France: LE JOURNAL INTIME D’UNE NYMPHOMANE (“The Intimate Diary of a Nymphomaniac,” 1972 - Videobox)
France: LES INASSOUVIES ’77 (1977)
UK: SINNER (Go Video PAL VHS)
USA: DIARY OF A NYMPHO (Howard Mahler Films, 1974)

This erotic cautionary tale was presumably inspired by the success of such films as Max Pecas’ Je Suis une Nymphomane/Forbidden Passions (1970) and Dan Wolman’s Maid in Sweden (1971): like them, it is a downbeat first person account of a young European woman who becomes involved in intensely sexual lives and lives to regret it. It has always been a staple of exploitation filmmaking to explore subjects like sex and drugs while wearing a mask of sanctimonious piety, granting their audience a margin of safety and separation. Le Journal Intime d’une Nymphomane shares some of these characteristics and thus is a most unusual feature for Franco, as its judgmental quality (reflected in the Scarlet Letter-like title of the English version) flies in the face of the amoral stance he generally takes as an individual and as a filmmaker.

Linda Vargas (Montserrat Prous) is a “live sex act” performer in a nightclub known as The Lucky Ghost. While feigning lovemaking with her co-worker Maria (Kali Hansa), she catches the eye of customer Ortiz (“Jean-Pierre Bourbon” aka Manuel Pereira) and joins him later at his table. After persuading him to buy and imbibe ten bottles of champagne, Linda walks Vargas around the corner to to a seedy hotel room she uses for assignations. By the time they undress, Vargas passes out – and after calling the police and informing them that a girl has been murdered in that room, she cuts her own throat and dies on Ortiz. He is charged with murder and his wife Rosa (Jacqueline Laurent, “Ruth” in the English version) is summoned to the station. Upset with her husband’s infidelity, she determines to help him establish his innocence by undertaking an investigation outside official province: an investigation into the victim’s life and relationships. An interview with Linda’s friend the Countess Ana de Monterey (Anne Libert) reveals that she was a small-town girl who came to Madrid only to lose her virginity to a rapist on an amusement park’s ferris wheel. While delivering laundry to the Countess, she observed her making love and was invited into her bed, eventually sharing her male lover, Paco (“Gene Harris” aka Francisco Acosta). Paco took Linda to the Lucky Ghost where she met Maria. Linda lost Paco when his wife caught them together in bed, and she took refuge in Maria’s apartment and open, nurturing sexuality. Through Maria, Linda became involved in nude modelling after meeting an aging “fat cow” junkie photographer named Mrs. Schwartz (Doris Thomas), and subsequently in drugs. That’s when the Countess lost track of her.

Rosa gets the rest of the story from Maria, a lesbian exhibitionist, who reads aloud to her from Linda’s own diary while shocking the woman’s sensibilities by stripping off and pleasuring herself. Rosa confesses that she’s equally attracted and repulsed by such openness, admitting that her husband has never seen her naked (“we turn off the lights wen we go to bed”) and that she herself has never looked at her own body. Maria seduces Rosa and teaches her to appreciate her body. Returning to the diary, Rosa learns that Linda was nearly rehabilitated from her nymphomaniacal ways by a doctor (Howard Vernon) who ran a private clinic. When she relapsed, he called her a whore and insisted on being paid for his services as a whore would pay, then told her to get out. She then returned to The Lucky Ghost, where Paco tried to get back into her good graces, but it was too late. She went to work at the club with Maria and then, one night, the man who raped her at the amusement park showed up in the audience – Ortiz. She decided to punish him for ruining her life by ruining his own by framing him for murder, her own suicide. The story told, Rosa and Maria fall asleep in each other’s arms. When they awake, Rosa asks for the diary, which Maria gives to her. She takes the evidence of her husband’s innocence of the murder charge with her, but – overcome by the sound of Linda’s voice demanding “He must pay! He must pay!” – she tosses the diary into a lake.

Made in tandem with Les Ebranlées and Franco’s first Manacoa production Un Silencio de Tumba, Le Journal Intime d’une Nymphomane is notable for the first lead performance by Montserrat Prous, a young actress who briefly occupied centerstage in his filmography between the death of Soledad Miranda and his discovery of Rosa Maria Almirall, whom he recristened Lina Romay. Montserrat Prous entered the world of filmmaking as an assistant makeup artist and met Franco through her relatives Isidoro, Alberto, and Juan, who had worked as production secretary and camera assistants, respectively, on Franco’s El Conde Drácula/Count Dracula (1969). She began acting onscreen that same year, in Amor y Medias (1969), directed by Antonio Ribas.

Any seasoned Franco viewer with knowledge of Lina Romay’s later place in his filmography will find his Montserrat Prous films fascinating, because she foreshadows Romay in many ways. She bears a striking physical resemblance to Romay, but has more elegantly sculpted features; Prous represents an almost intermediary stage between Miranda and Romay, and one suspects that Franco must have perceived in her the same continuation of Soledad Miranda that he later observed in Romay. In this film particularly, Franco uses Prous exactly as he would later use Romay: she appears wearing a pair of the thigh-high leather boots similar to those worn by Romay in several films, including Le Comtesse aux Seins Nus and Exorcismes; she participates in red-light “live sex act” stage performances as in Midnight Party; she has lesbian sex with Kali Hansa; she compliments her own dark hair with a longer, straighter brunette wig that makes her look more like Miranda and Romay; and, in scenes representing flashbacks to her virginal youth, she wears her hair in ponytails.

Compared to Romay (at least in her earliest films), Prous was the conventionally superior actress; on the other hand, Romay’s looks had aspects of darkness and derangement that Prous, a more wholesome beauty, could not summon on her best day. With the arrival of Romay, and as Franco’s personal relationship with her took shape, there was no question of which actress was going to become the enduring “Dark Lady” of Franco’s cinema. Prous made her last Franco film in 1973; thereafter, she and Romay stood on equal ground only in the work of another director, Carlos Aured’s El Fontanero, su muer, y otras cosas de meter… (“The Plumber, His Tools, and How Where He Puts Them…,” 1981), shortly after which Prous married and retired for many years from the screen. She has more recently returned under the name Montserrat Prous Segura.

Like Necronomicon and Vampyros Lesbos, and like Exorcismes and several other films still to come, Le Journal Intime… opens with a stage act, a sexual scene followed by the surprise revelation that the intimacy we have witnessed is part of a performance, met with the approval of audience applause. From there, the film proceeds as an hommage to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, as the life of Linda Vargas (a nominal reference to Welles’ Touch of Evil) is reconstructed through interviews with those who knew this figure of mystery. Rosa Ortiz’s investigation, undertaken with the hope of helping her incarcerated husband, is a reprise of the archetypal undercover lover device dating back to Gritos en la Noche/The Awful Dr. Orlof.

In France, a version of the film including hardcore sequences was released under the title Les Inassouvies ’77 (suggesting a sequel to his earlier film Philosophy in the Boudoir aka Eugenie... the Story of Her Journey into Perversion, which was known as Les Inassouvies in France).

Franco Upconverted

Alicia Príncipe lollygogs on holiday in Jess Franco's erotic terror opus THE SEXUAL STORY OF O.

Last night I decided to spend some time getting to know my new LG Super Multi Blue Player, the first DVD player on the market able to play both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats. The reason this blog is opening with an image from Jess Franco's THE SEXUAL STORY OF O -- a 1984 film to be released on May 1 by Severin Films -- is that part of my study was spent looking at how well various non-HD titles "upconvert" to 1080i resolution.

One of the discs I had handy was MGM's latest reissue of THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, which, like all the recent Bond reissues, was treated to a much-ballyhooed digital process that promised to make them look better than ever. Played on my LG Multi Blue, it was impossible to overlook the prevalence of haloing in the presentation -- every moving figure appeared to be outlined in a bid to gain sharper definition, but it wasn't as defining as it was noisy. It wasn't as bad as the nightmare that is Koch Lorber's LA BELLE CAPTIVE (the worst transfer I've seen of late), but it was noticeable -- especially after admiring the dazzling beauty of the Blu-ray release of CASINO ROYALE. Daniel Kleinman's main titles for that movie are now my high-def demonstration reel. I continued to sample different discs until I remembered that I had received Severin's two latest Franco titles in the mail that morning. What was I doing watching THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH when I could be watching THE SEXUAL STORY OF O? In English!

THE SEXUAL STORY OF O is not a high-definition release, but in a side-by-side comparison to MGM's highly-publicized Bond transfers, THE SEXUAL STORY OF O is almost miraculous. It's a minimalist erotic film, but it delivers Costa del Sol scenery that knocks anything comparable in the Bond film off the map -- especially when viewed as a 1080i upconversion. I'm still educating myself in these matters, but to my eyes, this presentation could easily pass for a high-definition disc. It passes the upconversion test with flying colors -- candy colors, in fact. Image liquidity, depth perception, fine details... all were beautifully enhanced, adding to the tactile pleasures of what would likely be a much lesser film in a lesser presentation.

Mamie Kaplan as she appears in the film's nearly three-minute toe-sucking sequence.

I think Severin Films is doing heroic work in bringing Franco's 1980s work to DVD at all, but the label deserves our recognition and applause for the stellar (some might say unnecessary) quality they bring to each presentation. I have no idea how many units of these titles are being sold, but it can't be many, and that's what makes their level of craftsmanship all the more impressive. It's a company that visibly cares.

I wrote a review of THE SEXUAL STORY OF O today, but I'm going to hold it back for publication in VIDEO WATCHDOG #131. In the meantime, here are links to two reviews already online: one by Robert Monell at his I'm in a Jess Franco State of Mind website and another by Troy Howarth at DVD Maniacs. I would caution you to take Troy's "ranks among Franco's most satisfying works" comment with a grain of salt, but that it ranks among Franco's most satisfying DVD presentations is indubitable.

One thing I will add to their comments is something I noticed about the film's soundtrack. This film would appear to be an experiment in bilingual cinema by Franco. The film's heroine is a young American and all of her dialogue is in English; the film's story is dependent upon her not understanding what her co-stars are saying. I haven't yet watched the film in this way, but it made me wonder if -- like Fellini's "Toby Dammit" in SPIRITS OF THE DEAD -- THE SEXUAL STORY OF O might not be even more winningly disorienting and suspenseful if viewed without subtitles. Fortunately, they are removable.

For the record, I must say I agree with those observers who prefer the look of Blu-ray over HD DVD... but I can't tell if my preference has anything to do with me viewing HD DVD on a player whose primary bias is Blu-ray. What both formats appear to love above all is digital information: CGI detailing, digital animation, that sort of thing -- THE CORPSE BRIDE in high-definition is an unbelievable treat. Which means that the format might not fully come into its own until the film industry fully switches over from 35mm to DV.