Jess Franco, the walking death of Eurocrime (Part III): The Case of Sumuru

 The Thesis: Every Eurocrime-Franchise that Jess Franco touched, had to be buried afterwards. Basically his movies are the sleazy epitaphs of once-well-regarded serials and characters: the last chance to squeeze some money out of an already dead topic.

Jump to each chapter HERE 

After having Eddie Constantine (Lemmy Caution) finishing off his eurospy/crime movies, Jess Franco then put the final nail in the coffin of Dr. Fu Manchu, only to let his spirit be guiding one of his daughters. Now let's see what he did to Fu Manchu's sister in spirit: Sumuru.

3. The Case of Sumuru

Sax Rohmer had been successful with his Fu Manchu novels, depicting the chinese super-villain who had to be beaten by the western empires. Remember that was written in the early 1900s under the influence of the joint western war against the chinese uprising. In world war II, things were not so clear any more and Rohmer decided to add another supervaillain to his roster. And what was the second biggest threat to western civilisation next to the Chinese? Right: Women. So we are introduced to a sinister, beautiful eastern evil empowered woman called Sumuru (please put the accent on the last u: Sumuru). She appeared first in a radio-show for the BBC in WWII. 

Her main agenda is to rid the world of uglyness (=men) and in this world, only the beautiful people rule. To do this, she leads a secret order of female spys that use their bodies to lure men into traps. Yes.

If you read the novels, they are very explicit for the time and Rohmer turns the kink-dial up from his Fu Manchu books. Already on the first page of the first book we learn that Sumuru is "Nude under the Mink"and our hero knows, because he gets a good look. Sumuru herself has oriental looks, but no nationality attached to her.

The Franchise: 

Harry Alan Tower's 2 for 1 deal with Sax Rohmer purchased the characters (not the books) of Fu Manchu and Sumuru. Sumuru had no cinematic heritage and so Towers was free to do conceptually whatever he liked. The first installment is solid entertainment with lots of mini-skirts, a few bikinis and firmly tongue-in-cheek. Shirley Eaton is a near-perfect impersonation of the character with her green eyes, high cheekbones and obvious enjoyment of being cruel. This is an entertaining reminder of how innocent cinema used to be. The movie did not fare worse than the 3rd installment of Fu Manchu (Vengeance) but is by far the superior movie.

The title "The Million Eyes of Sumuru" certainly is a reply to the "1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse", indicating that all the women in the world are on her side. Basically her plan falters because women simply love men too much. Interestingly, Sumuru is portraied villainous, but with a good amount of sympathy. The movie itself does not take itself too seriously and basically is a typical non-essential Towers movie. Besides the character of Sumuru itself and her "million" (I counted 36) eyes in various states of undress (but not too much), this is pretty bland.

Case opened: The Girl from Rio (The Seven Men of Sumuru)

Torturing men with sex in 1969

The plot: In Brazil, Sumuru has built a city just for her and her army of women called Femina. Accidently arriving there on a plane, our "hero" is being captured and tortured as he is believed to have ten million dollars he has stolen. In the end another crimelord attacks the city and Sumuru pushes the self-destruction button, but is able to flee. 

But  this is not what this is all about. This is all about style and asthetics and in the sequences where Franco can play to his own tune, the movie looks astonishing. The HAT-scripted sequences of plot clearly fall apart as they are treated basically with disrespect by Franco. All he is interested in is creating a future world where latex-cled young amazones rule over post-modern cities. And in these parts of the movie, Franco fully (and I might say - for the last time) is able to bring his "vision" the the screen. 

Torturing men with sex in 1984

Again highly influenced by "Lemmy Caution vs. Alphaville" and other french sf-movies Franco here throws an unruly, analog man vs an organized, digital community. But as sterile as the inhabitants of Femina are, the brooding sex underneath erupts in artful episodes  (filmed with care by Franco) of lust. Obviously inspired by the emerging fetish scene around latex and using bits and pieces of "Gwendolin", "Phoebe" and "Pauline" to create a unique enviroment (that was only explored once more in the "Gewndoline in the Land of Yak-Yak" movie). 

Although the nude scenes are done with great care and restraint by Franco, the whole subject of forced sex is undeniably disturbing so that Sumuru's name had to be changed to comply to the late Sax Rohmer's widow's concerns about damaging the artistic property. Co-producer Constantin had no such problems and kept the title in, as "Million Eyes" had done good business, basically cashing in as much as the 3rd "Fu Manchu" installment of the same year.

The character of Sumuru remains untouched, more a ruthless politician with a criminal mindset than a gangster-bosslady, but the sf elements cannot be found in Sax Rohmer's work. The casting of the same actors that were used in the first part however, is an obvious sign for the attempt to establish a franchise, as is the open ending with S. being able to flee.

Nope, this did not help gaining the 
support of Eaton for another sequel

Lead-actress Shriley Eaton, the "Face of Sumuru" had decided to leave the movie industry all together. Franco stated that she basically was a housewife who would do occasional acting jobs to earn some additonal living and that she was not made to be "in the movies". 

Eaton herself expressed a deep dissatisfaction with the conditions of working for these films and made it clear (polite as they are, the british) that she would not work with Franco again as he intercut her scenes with more explicit scenes that she did not do. Eaton did not appear naked in the film, she was wearing a skin-toned suit under the see-through dress in one debatable scene.

This sounds like a "amicable seperation", although Eaton stated that "she cried the whole way back in the plane from brazil"

. 

It certainly did not help that german distributor Constantin photoshopped her head on the naked body of another actress on the big movie posters! 

Franco finished the movie a week ahead of schedule and while the basic crew had to stay in brazil to film the carnival in Rio scenes for the film, everybody else was sent back and HAT together with Franco quickly filmed material for a WIP-movie called "99 Women" in the spare time. 

This is how Franco 1969 thought women in plexiglass-cages would look like in the future

Box-Office returns for Sumuru II were dismal. I mean bad, really bad. Much worse than this movie deserved. In 1969 this one came in at the bottom-10 grossing movies in germany with only about 100.000 tickets sold. This was much lower than the already dismal returns on "The Castle of Fu Manchu" (ca 350.000) . Ticket sales in other markets were bad as well so that AIP decided to sell the movie directly to Columbia TV where it was released as "Future Women" in an obviously heavily cut (75min) version. It never made it to the cinemas in the US.

It is debatable why this happened. The movie feels disjointed and offers the same kind of bland unexcitement that basically was a staple of the  previous eurospy-films. The Femina-parts however are stunning and gorgeous but few and in-between.

Maybe the brand Sumuru, like Fu Manchu smelled stained, and those folks that went in to see these kinds of films now had a wife and children and a tv-set at home. The younger audience basically did not care about the pulp-heroes of the previous generation. 

And to start with, Sumuru never had been a "hot property", she was just a "plan B" even from Sax Rohmer and thrown into the deal with HAT. Sumuru is like a third-born child that is free to do whatever it wants in life as the parents never had a plan for her. 

The 100.000 ticket sales desaster definitively led to an end of the Sumuru-franchise although HAT produced a Sumuru-movie in 2003 that takes place in outer space and sadly lacks entertainment value. A Jess Franco in his prime would have made that movie a classic. There is a 15-minutes cut of the movie on youtube. That's all you need. 

Harry Alan Towers had obtained the rights to Fu Manchu and Sumuru for the legal lifespan (70 years after the author's death), so both HAT and Jess Franco would play with the thought of re-visiting these properties. HAT stated that "Jess Franco was a good and fast director, when he was being entertained." Bsically that's HAT saying that JF is unreliable.

Verdict: There is little doubt that the bad box-office returns led to an end of the franchise, but is Jess Franco really to blame? The movie is not worse than a dozen other eurospy-flicks but contains stunning visions that were maybe ahead of it's time. The only reasonable way to continue this franchise in a commercially successful way would have been movies like "Blue Rita". But here, Elizabeth Rohmer firmly stood against the sexploitation of Sumuru.                        

Acquittal

The Relapse: Blue Rita (1977) and Linda (1981) 

Blue Rita is the head of an amazon organisation that lures wealthy men into a high-class brothel only to torture them to get money and information for different secret agencies.

The whole plot sounds like a low-key Sumuru-sexcapade. It helps that Sumuru is not specified in Sax Rohmer's work, she is merely described as seductious mistress of disguise (like some female sexual Fantomas). So now we have a caucasian "Rita" with her oriental sidekick "Princess".

The movie features a lot of outre-sf-noir stylistics and Franco obviously tries to recapture the feel of Femina. The movie is done with relative care and can be looked upon as a worthy successor to Sumuru. I can totally see this being remade in Blade-Runner style. And to me this is the inofficial "Sumuru 3: Slaves of Sumuru" - movie...

Princess explaining advanced yoga techniques to her tribe

Raquel Evans

Linda works in a hotel and gets entangled in the evil doings of Sheila, the manager of the night club "Amore". Women are drugged and given to wealthy business men to whatever use they can imagine. This sounds like a rework of "Blue Rita", and while writing this entry, I was immediately reminded of Raquel Evans, who plays the night club manager. I re-checked "Linda" and indeed again a lot reminded me of the Sumuru-movies. The scale is much, much smaller (but basically more akin the the later Sax Rohmer novels), the sf-motiv is gone,  but the care and general coherence suggest that Franco had something bigger in mind. Indeed some scenes have a direct connection to Sumuru and Raquel Evans is a perfect substitute for Shirley Eaton. 

This is how women in plexiglass-cages looked in 1981

The three Sumuru-style movies are all above-average entries in Jess Franco's work, showing his affection to the character. Sumuru seems to have been some kind of catalyst for Franco's work and the diffusion of motives from movie to movie (Sumuru in the end just cares for herself, there is no political agenda left) basically reflects Franco's own cinematic carreer.

Was Franco a male Sumuru who, with a group of acolytes (his cast and crew) tried to steal money from rich movie-producers by casting them under his audio-visual spell and basically abducting them by secretly robbing them of their time and money and getting the movie audience under mind-control??????

In the end, Sumuru failed.

99 Women was a big box-office success, as was Justine, making it clear to everybody where the money lay. "Count Dracula" and "Witchhunter" performed reasonably but the collab with Towers ended (obviously due to mutual distrust) and Franco was employed by Arthur Brauner, who held three franchises: Bryan Edgar Wallace, Doktor Mabuse and some original Edgar Wallace stuff.

Coming next: Jess Franco vs. Edgar Wallace 

Jess Franco, the walking death of Eurocrime (Part II): The Case of Dr. Fu Manchu

 The Thesis: Every Eurocrime-Franchise that Jess Franco touched, had to be buried afterwards. Basically his movies are the sleazy epitaphs of once-well-regarded serials and characters: the last chance to squeeze some money out of an already dead topic.

Jump to each chapter HERE

In installment  one , I did examine the Lemmy Caution series, coming to the conclusion that he did not kill that one off, but he did use Eddie Constantine (the star) for a last time in eurocrime with his 1969 movie "Residence for Female Spies". 

2. The Case of  Fu Manchu

The Fu Manchu series is a well known pulp ficton novel series from the 1910s and had already been filmed numerous times.  The prime example for this must be the hilariously pre-coded "Tha Mask of Fu Manchu" with Boris Karloff in the title role. Prior to this, Paramount had already produced three talkies about our asian businessman that had already spawned a female spin-off with "Daugther of the Dragon". 

From the start, these movies had been - well - sensationalist, basically leading to calls for censorship which was introduced in late 1933. But I advise any one of you to watch the newly restored, uncut version of "Mask" to witness its kinkyness in all its glory.

After the 1940 serial "Drums of Fu Manchu", things became quieter however and Fu Manchu was relegated to the cheapo tv-series league. The renaissance of eurotrash, however, brought our trusted diplomat and worldshaker back into view, curtousy of the Brits:

The Harry Alan Towers "Fu Manchu" series

Harry Alan Towers was one of those film-entrepreneurs that seemed to be the essential ingredient in european film-making: Scandalous womanizer who caught every possible angle to make a profitable low-budget movie. After two crime movies, he purchased the rights to the adventure novels by Edgar Wallace, the only thing the Germans obviously had left over in their rush to the goldmine. So in 1963 he tried to cash into the EW-hype with "Death Drums along the river" that featured the adventurer Sanders who would pop up in a few further movies that obviously did not as well as their crime counterparts but returned reasonable profits.

In 1966 he actually co-produced a "real" Edgar Wallace "Circus of Fear". In between he tried to establish his own eurospy-series called "Mike Foster" but that was unsuccessful. 

In the search of something to compete the Dr. Mabuse Films of CCC, he stumbled upon the Fu Manchu series and obtained the  rights to the name (but not the novels). 

Thus the HAT-Fu Manchu cycle was born with "The Face of Fu Manchu" in 1965. Spending basically all his money on the actors, Towers was able to get the best of both worlds and basically the hottest names in the genre field at that time: Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu and Joachim Fuchsberger (Scotland Yard Inspector) as well as Karin Dor (dame in peril, of course), who were THE faces of the Edgar Wallace krimis. Directed on the cheap by Hammer's Don Sharp, this is an enjoyable action-romp, set in the 1900s. The movies were co-produced by the german Constantin-Film, who had their fingers in basically every krimi-soup back then.

Bringing together the exotic locations of the EW-Sanders series and Fu Manchu in what clearly was a cost-effecient move. locations are then moved from London to some jungle,

At this point, Towers had made connection via the american distributor of "Cartes sur la table / Attack of the Robots" (see Part 1) with Jess Frano. That distributor was acquired by CUC who obviously saw a good investement and set the Towers/Franco tandem up to do their magic. And - oh boy- did they do magic (The whole story is well documented by Stephen Thrower in his marvellous fist book on Jess Franco "Murderous Passions").

But after 3 years, the 3rd installment of the Fu Manchu-series had bombed, reaching an audience of roughly 700.000 (german sales), so the intent to put in much more money was basically very low. 

Starting off with "The Blood of Fu Manchu", Jess Franco introduces us to his own vision of supervillains whose sole interest is to dominate the world and their only way to do so is to put women in chains. What a concept. Somewhere in South America, magical spells are woven, bones and feathers are cast into a pot of bubbling blood and the results are those deliriously famous masterpieces like "Girl from Rio", "99 Women" and of course the last two Fu Manchu movies.

Case opened: "The Blood of Fu Manchu"

The Fu Manchu series was in full swing and the british-produced first three movies are cheap, but entertaining. Christopher Lee and Don Sharp do their Hammer thing and Constantin co-produces and lends out enough german Scotland Yard coinspectors to make these enjoyable. The series experienced a serious artistic  dump with the 3rd installment, "Vengeance of FM".

Now, however, Towers has to step up the production to meet the growing demands by CUC and the returns on Manchu#3 had not been good. Here comes Franco, who in a space of 4 years directs numerous HAT-movies, starting with "The Blood of Fu Manchu" in 1968. 

The Plot: Fu Manchu has found a secret venom to kill all the men in the world somewhere in cheap South Amerca (tbh. there are actual venem-raiders walking in the jungles to find some unknown species to sell them to the pharma-industry to produce profitable vaccines - so this is not as far fetched as it sounds).

Women are immune but can pass the venom on by kissing men. Sure. Basically Towers had invented Aids. Where is the conspiracy theory for that? Now Jesse comes in and cries: "Mind control, put in mind control" and so the women are of course telepathically controlled to kiss men. What a plan. 

And so? Yes we are in Francoland. 10 films shot simultanously with actors being paid to appear in only one, but with their footage appearing in all the other ones to. Why not chop-it-up and stick-it-back together. BTW no-one cared (maybe the actors who did not get paid). Co-Production is handled by Bad-Movie-Bank-Tax-loophole Terra Films who always got what the rest did not want (here it was Constantin, handling only the distribution). Needless to say, Manfred Köhler (who gave us "Daughters of Darkness" and the EC-Dietrich epic "Coffin from Hongkong") messes up the screenplay as good as possible, but he gets "mind control" in there somehow (I am pretty sure it was Franco himself while shooting and giving sht about any scripts). 

With a certified 3% audience score in Rotten Tomatos you know you will be disappointed. Even to me, this is tame and uninspired. Yes, there are rows of scantily-clad women hanging in chains from the ceiling, but Franco had done better on previous occasions. Maybe it was the presence of Christopher Lee or some kind of hesitance towards the Fu Manchu character, but this is neither as sleazy as it should be, nor as enjoyable as it could be. BO-returns however were on-par with the predecessor "The Vengeance of Fu Manchu", so why not throw another one in there: 

Further Investigation: "The Castle of Fu Manchu"

Still in Barcelona, where he mostly shot the interieurs for his HAT-films, Franco came to an end with his spy-films with "The Castle of Fu Manchu" - and yes, it is still 1968. 

The castle in question was re-used for Franco's HAT-Dracula production "The Count Dracula" with Lee a few years later (when Lee, like Eddie Constantine before him had run out of lucrative roles).

"The Torture Chamber of Dr. Fu Man Chu"

The Plot: Ah. The Plot. Ah. Crystals, Carribean Ocean, Turkish Mafia. Kill 'em all, kll 'em all. This is so confused that I doubt that actually any script had existed. If so, it must have been found in the used-sheets bin of a toilet in a turkish opium den. This is much more liquid-plot Franco than "Blood" and hence we get a 300% higher Rotten Tomatoes score of 9%.  It is obvious that Franco was just given the rest of the sets, days and money to produce "any" Fu Manchu film. 

I  do agree with S. Thrower that this is the better movie, simply because it is technically the worst one of the two Franco Manchus. There is so much do be delighted by: shobby landscape, cheap sets, completely boneless plot. It is no wonder that after this farce, the only way to film another Fu Manchu was an obvious comedy with Peter Sellers  1980 which, however,  is far less entertaining than this one.

If there is a movie that cries out: I'm off. Let's finish this thing. Then it is that one. And yes, when the end credits roll, you just don't want to see another one. So did the audience - with around 370.000 tickets sold in germany, this is by far the worst of all the Fu Man Chu - BO returns (though better than Bava's Planet of Vampires with 310.000....) . 

Tower had obtained "lifelong" rights to the character of Fu Manchu (70years after the author's death), so obviously he was willing to produce another Fu Manchu movie. But I honestly believe that after "The Castle of Fu Manchu), there were no investors to find for such an enterprise.

Franco finished and buried this series for good.

Verdict: Guilty as charged.

Joint Plaintiff: Collateral Damage to the "Four Daughters of Fu Manchu" in "Slaves of Crime"

Right at the beginning I wrote about the Fu Manchu - spinoff "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931) in which Fu's daughter Ling Moy tries to take over the world herself. In the Boris Karloff vehicle "Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932), he has a daughter called "Fah Lo Suee" who was born to his russian lover and is into all kinds of kinky stuff (did I tell you to go and watch this miracle of a movie?).

In our HAT-series, the daughter is called Lin Tang and she was played by chinese-born actress Tsai Chin in all 5 movies, so in the two JF as well.

The 1986 Jess Franco production "Esclavas del Crimen" now introduces us to the fourth daughter of Fu Manchu called ..... Tsai Chin (yes, he uses the actresses name!!). Other than stated in some sources, this is not an audult movie but bascally an updated version of the first one, played for laughs and with some wicked humour.

Tsai Chin (in best Dr. Mabuse fashion) is able  to communicate with the spirit of her late father (as Franco wrote the script we got the prove that he in fact murdered Fu Manchu!!!!!). Knowing that world domination does not come cheap she raises money by abducting rock stars on tour in china. She lures them into her high-end brothel, just to press the money out of them and then discharges them into the asian sea. We get Lina playing the title-character and she is quite convincingly yellow-faced. 

What exactly drove Jess Franco to make this movie  between a few depressing pornos and before "Dark Mission" and "Faceless" is a bit beyond me. Maybe he had been approached by HAT for a suggested Sumuru-sequel (which HAT then actually pulled through in 2003). The title sequence even states "based on characters by S. Rohmer". Maybe Franco thought he could get away with that as the spanish copyright law differed from the international one until 1986.

 Dark Mission then even stars Christopher Lee, so maybe something had been cooking broodingly under the surface in these years. As it is, this movie has good ideas but basically lacks funding, so Franco has to conjure things up his way. Nevertheless this is a good JF movie. Until now, all that is out there is a spanish VHS-cassette, and no-one's sure whether or not this movie actually made it to the spanish cinemas....

Parole Violation: Dr. Wong (1983)

IMDB lists an obscure kung-fu movie called "La sombra del judoka contra el doctor Wong" which uses footage of the 1973 HK Kung Fu Film "Seven to One". Here, Jess Franco stars as evil "Dr. Wong" who orders his daughter, evil Lina Romay as "Maggie Smith" to kill a kung-fu fighter. 

Here Franco uses the "Wong"-spoof of "FuManchu" (from "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" 1934) but to make clear, who this is about, he calls him Dr. Wong

Dr. Wong's Virtual Hell (2001)

Dr. Wong, played by Jess Franco himself has not grown wiser, still he tries to lure wealthy people into shady etablissements to capture, torture and ransom them. This time, however he will use VR-glasses to capture them in a virtual reality where they encounter (bad) sex and can be manipulated. Lina plays his daughte under the name of Nelly Smith, who owns the nightclub. The VR-Glasses are normal glasses with cartoon eyes painted on them. The VR-Enviroment is achieved by gimmicky Home-PC effects wich actually makes everything unwatchable. Interestingly Franco uses here still frames as comic book panels to explain the story. This is (in my opinion) one of the better late Francos. His concepts of mind control through glasses dates back to "Cartes sur Table", so I was expecting the corpse of Eddie Constantine to pop up here and there. 

Taken seriously the concept of people being captured in VR and held ransom is a very clever and prophetical one. Given some more resources, this would have become a very interesting movie.

Sax Rohmer, who had written the pulp novels on Fu Manchu also had a female supervillain in store: Sumuru. Towers had obtained rights for both at the same time (2 for 1-deals are clever). Needles to say, Franco was given the task to handle this Manchu-Spinoff as well and so we get: 

Jess Franco vs Sumuru

The Complete Series is HERE

Sources: Lots of internet pages, the movies themselves and of course: 

Stephen Thrower. Murderous Passions - The delirious cinema of Jesus Franco

Peter Osteried: Fu Manchu (Der Klassische Kriminalfilm Band 4)  

Jess Franco, the walking death of Eurocrime (Part I): The Case of Lemmy Caution

Why has not anybody noticed that? While working my way through the mess that was the german krimi death in 1972, I found it to be strange that the last screened Dr. Mabuse AND the last screened Edgar Wallace Krimi AND the last in Germany produced Bryan Edgar Wallace movie were all directed by Jess Franco. Well, I thought, they just needed somebody to burn money fast, before Dec. 31st., so let's have Jesus do the jobs for us... but then there were other film-cycles that Jesse closed down unceremoniously. Let's see.

1. The Case of Lemmy Caution

This blog is in english, and Lemmy Caution is an american character, written in a series of british spy-private eye-crime novels and never ever was a film produced on that franchise in english. 

But the french really did like him (as the germans liked Edgar Wallace), so they produced 9-11 movies (however you count them) with Eddie Constantine in the lead role as Lemmy Caution. The reason why it is so hard to tell is that whenever Eddie Constantine's undeniably memorable features appear in a movie, you might think that he's Lemmy Caution, even if he does not bear the name.

This was a highly successful series starting in 1953 with "The Poison Ivy" which centers, obviously around a femme fatale. These are highly enjoyable and well-produced crime flicks, trespassing into spy territory as James Bond got famous. 

It is actually here, where Jess Franco's involvement into the Lemmy Caution story starts: Starting in the spanish film-industry he claims (there is no proof than his own "recolections") that he supervised the spanish dubbing for exactly that first Lemmy Caution film.

In 1963, Constantine decided to go "serious" and could only be persuaded to return for a serious, meaningful movie with Lemmy. Well, here we have Jean-Luc-Goddard, the french auteur,non-conformist artiste who worked on miniscule budgets but highly intelligent films (Weekend, someone!??). He offered Constantine to play Lemmy Caution once more this time for the SF-Movie "Lemmy Caution vs. Alphaville", which is a highly effective and evocative peace about truth and deception, willfullness and desperation. I strongly advise anyone to watch this movie. 

Everybody was happy. Goddard got some good reviews and box-office and Constantine played and was accepted in a "serious" movie.

Why not try this again with  another SF/Lemmy Caution movie, directed by an artist, auteur, non-conformist, who worked on miniscule budgets. But -eh- ----- ---- this time he chose Jess Franco.

Case opened: "Cards on the Table" (1966)

So here we have Eddie Constantine playing "Al Perreira" (Franco's X variable whenever he needed a private  eye) but basically it's Lemmy Caution all over again. And everybody knew. 

The plot: A mad scientist uses his army of mechanical monsters to thought-control people with rhesus factor 0. Hm. Where have I heard THAT before? (and after -- see Dr. M!). 

This is more eurospy than anything else, but then, the Lemmy Caution movies were eurospy.

Is it any good? Well, surprisingly this is the rare movie that will please Lemmy Caution, Jess Franco, Eurospy and the average movie goer alike (eh, that's me, here). It is no masterpiece, but it is competently handled, photography on the french blu-ray is crisp and clear (avoid the english releases under "Attack of the Robot Monsters"). This is a very enjoyable movie.

The trailer for the french BD

No, this is certainly no nail in the coffin, so should I dismiss this case? 

Well, a few years later, luck had left scar-faced E. Constantine and he had to fish at the bottom of the barrel for movie roles. And who did he find in cheap Turkey.... exactly... our man. 

Further Investigation: Residencia para espias (Residence for female spies) (1969)

Oh dear. Constantine here plays an US-officer whose job it is to recruit and train female spies in turkey. Jes (sic!), here we are in Franco-wonderland. A bit tame, very silly, but completeley unnecessary for the world outside Francophiles. 

There is actually a (bad) print out there on youtube, so go and watch it for yourself. I really did try to get my hands on a decent release. But there is none. This basically was only shown in Spain and France.

Here, though, Constantine does not play something remotely near Lemmy Caution, so this cannot count as "End of Series".

No, Jess Franco did not kill the "Lemmy Caution" cycle, he was just there to pick up the bones of an already worn-out character and did admirably so. Cartes sur la Table is a strong Franco Film in any way (considering it was shot in 1966). That he came back to rape the corpse in 1969 was unnecessary - but that's what we like about him... don't we? But, to be honest, "Residence" was the last proper Eurospy-film for Constantine who then went to star in some of ultra-low-budget-arthouse-filmauteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films. Jean-Luc-Godard directed then the last Lemmy Caution movie "Germany Year 90" giving both (Lemmy and Eddie) a big send-off for his last starring role.

So Jess might not have killed Lemmy Caution, but basically was trying to revive him and gave Eddie Constantine (maybe out of sentimentality) a last chance to play the american agent in 1969.

Verdict: Dismissed by Lack of Evidence. 

"Cartes sur Table" was distributed in the US under the title "Attack of the Robots" by the Landau-Unger Company via AIP, who also distributed the Harry Alan Tower's dullfest "House of 1000 dolls" (total waste of time). AIP was then acquired by the Hollywood-based "Commonwealth United Entertainment Corproation" CUC (see the book "Murderous Passions" by Stephen Thrower for more info on that)  Obviously they liked the ROI on that movie that much that they decided to bring Towers and Franco together, leading to:

Jess Franco versus Dr. Fu Man Chu (Oh, boy!)

The complete Series is HERE

There is a very nice and detailed article on both films on Braineater.com

The Blood-Stained Silver Crescent - The story of the last ever Edgar Wallace Krimi

Rialto decided to enter the Edgar Wallace Krimi market again in 1970 after seeing their competitor CCC films making good money with a small italian-german co-production called "The Bird with Crystal Plumage". Marketed as "new and even harder" (Bryan) Edgar Wallace Krimi, this movie did quite well, given that CCC did not have the marketing muscle that Rialto had. With the money needed to produce one german Krimi, you could easily co-produce 3 foreign ones, still holding all the cards for the domestic markets in their hands. Simultanously, a "real" German Krimi would be produced, ROIs would be compared and then decisions would have to made how to go on further with the franchise. 

The Edgar Wallace franchise was still going strong, attracting about 2% overall market share per film, a number that basically stayed unchanged from 1959-1972!!

The italian co-productions "Solange" and "Orchids" were expected to be below that mark by about 1%, but then the production cost would be only about 1/3 of a german krimi for Rialto. 

The original script was written by Paul Hengge, incorporating the "Silver Crescent" the assassin has to leave behind at every cime-scene to justify the german title: "Das Rätsel des Silbernen Halbmonds" (The Mystery of the Silver Crescent) under the title "Sieben Gesichter für die Mörderin" (Seven Faces for the Murderess). Then it was given to Umberto Lenzi and Roberto Gaianniti for further work, but only slight changes were made from the original screenplay. 

Obviously Lenzi had a problem with too much germanic interference, so the number of technicians, administrators and actors from germany were cut down. 

Krimi-veteran Uschi Glas, who played the lead role, remembered in an interview that Lenzi had a very strong anti-german stance, verging on germanophobia. 

Filming took place before "Solange", but Solange reached the german cinemas first. It was a reasonable success, by far the most successful of all germano-italian co-productions. Maybe this is why Rialto decided to release this one as another Edgar Wallace Krimi, as the third one ("Le Tueur" / Der Killer und der Komissar/ The Killer and the Inspector - filmed in France with Uschi Glas and Fabio Testi) was not released as a Edgar Wallace anymore.

So, "Seven Orchids" became the last picture to be released as official "Edgar Wallace" movie in Germany.

Rialto had done one cert. 18 Edgar Wallace before "Zimmer 13", (Room 13), which had made considerably less money than the others, so they were not willing to let that happen again. This time it should be maximum efficiency, so they trimmed the movie down 20 minutes, cutting the murder sequences and a lot of plot devices. The result is a strange one, the movie is less bloody, paced faster but loses its coherence.  On Blu-Ray, Rialto did publish both versions, with the german one even scanned in 4K from the domestic duplicate negative.

2024 Days at the Grindhouse Part I : June 15th

Well, for over 20 years now, I am a member of this filmclub.  It's a secret one, so I won't tell you the name. The members of this filmclub go down into forgotten movie archives to unearth prints of very obscure or interesting movies. These prints then are shown in an old art-deco cinema-palace, that still has 35mm and 70mm projection. This takes place on a saturday morning and only members are allowed. 

You never know in advance, which films have been unearthed, and there is always one guy in the audience who knows best and gives a little introduction into our feature presentation. In true style, you mostly got a B movie, some trailers and an A movie after the break. 

Sometimes it is the only surviving print of a movie and sometimes they are so corroded and worn out that this will be final time, they can be seen at all. Well, here is my report on today's programme.

1. Der Firmling (GER 1934)

First, we get a prelude film from 1934 (and the print shows it's age) called "Der Firmling" or "The Confirmed One" in which the latter comes into a restaurant with his father to celebrate the religious confirmation. Obviously they do not fit into this high-class enviroment and finally the father gets drunk. A lot of funny stuff happens. I am not a huge fan of the comedian "Karl Valentin" who was - let's say - "Laural AND Hardy" of Bavaria in one person and still is quite well known. This one is pure slapstick and has not aged well. You can watch it here with english subtitles .

2. The Alley Tramp / Ach blas mir doch einen (Marsch)  (USA 1968)

Ok this is one of the prints that basically died with this projection. To my knowledge there is no other german-dubbed print left, so we were to witness something special. This is a Hershell Gordon Lewis Sexploitation potboiler which has ridiculously bad direction, acting, dialoge and plot. I will not complain about the looks of the two female leads but everything else is really, really bad and amateurish. To me HGL is the american equivalent of Andreas Schnaas (Violent Shit). 

The Plot is a bout a 16year old witnessing her parents(!!!!) having sex, getting horny, and seducing all the men (except her father, thank god) she comes across. She becomes pregnant, has an abortion and has to stay in a clinic where she starts (still having pains from the abortion!!) to seduce one of the doctors. 

The film ends with the diagnosis that she is a nymphomaniac. 

-- What could have been a pretty sick move - given the reputation of the director - is a charade. 

The german distributors thought the same and went straight for laughs. The complete soundtrack is exchanged for either cool swinging sixties psychedelia or (in the "sex" scenes) bagpipe-military-march music, which is hilarious, sometimes dialog-snippets from other movies (westerns, crime) are inserted, maybe they had forgot to dub one or the other scene, I have no idea. 

The leads talk in ridiculous provincial german dialects (but each in a different!! one) and the dialogue is hilarious. The original dialogue's self-exploration becomes a farce, presented like this.

The best part is that in the german dub, the whole movie is designed to stage the explanation for her nymphomaniac behaviour -  it's the mother's fault for feeding her too much cocumber salad!. 

The german title translates as. "Oh, just blow me one (march)" - hence the marching music, as there now blowing in sight anywhere...

Sweetie Marie relaxing after her abortion

I honestly don't know how I feel about this, it felt like a complete waste of time as nothing is attractive about this movie, but somehow I am glad to be one of the few to have watched the orginal german dubbed version...

The only memorable thing about this movie is the attractive  Julia Ames who plays the (16 year old of course!!!) daughter... she also was part of Lewis 1968 "Just for the Hell" who has bascally the same people in the same sets. 

Here's a snippet that basically tells it all! an oscar-worthy monologue by Julia Adams. 

3. Trailer Time: 

Fright Night  - in which they want to sell this teeny-horror-comedy as a serious evil film. 

The Kiss - this 1988 movie about a female vampire in a pool??? was unknown to me until now, strange. But it looked interesting. It was quite hard to track down a good version, but now it is on my NAS for further investigation 

 

4. The Hunger / Begierde (UK 1983)

Of course I have been aware of this movie since 1983 but I never came round to watch it in the cinemas and the two times I rented it later, I fell asleep after 20 minutes of stylish boredom. There are only two movies that did that to me: the other one is called "Wolfen" which I still have not seen in it's entirety.

The plot: She (beautiful, beautiful Caterine Deneuve) is an immortal vampire and chooses every 200 to 300 years a new companion (m/f/div) by infecting this person with her blood and promising him/her/it eternal life. Well, eternity for  them  lasts about 200-300 years after which they reach their real physical status within a week, but they too cannot die but just become more and more frail. So she keeps them in coffins in the attic and carries them around. Flashbacks include her origin (Egypt --- lol, is there anyone less-egyptian looking than Deneuve??) and times spent with her corrent lover in the 18th cent. As this one (bautiful, beautiful David Bowie)  experiences this sudden coming-of-age trip he seeks help with an age-reasearching blood specialist (not that beautiful but braless Susan Sarandon). But she thinks he's a loon, so he wanders off killing girls to drink their blood in a desperate but futile move. When Scientist shows up at Vampire's door, the Lover is already in a coffin in the attic, so V seduces S with her Sherry-instead-of-Water-wet-T-shirt-trick to have sex with her and after and abundace of sucking and licking, S ist the new partner -- Until then I would have gotten the movie. It is a basically an ultra-high-budget and ultra-stylish british copy of every second Jean Rollin movie, but without the camp and without any entertainment value. But I would have gotten it.

Did somebody say "Style over content??"

But the movie does not end there. I'm afraid the movie industry bosses got involved and demanded a "good" ending, so S together with L and the other living dead from the attic kill V by literally throwing her down a flight of stairs (immortal! LMFAO) and S becomes the new V. I mean without ANY explanation, any hint on how and why. This is completely ridiculous. (Or maybe I fell asleep when they explained this... man, I don't know...)

The sets, acting, camera and score are B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L, but there is no soul. No soul. I was happy I made it through the movie till the end this time. I was happy to have seen it in all it's analog glory and in a big movie theatre. But actually that was just for the bucket list. Sad to say, but the prologue featuring Pete Murphy from Bauhaus with "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is the best thing in this movie.

Director Tony Scott went on to make "Top Gun" as a "Director-for-Hire", he later returned to the subject to direct the two season premieres of "The Hunger" TV-series, with David Bowie being the host for the second season. This has aged so badly that I wonder who the hell actually watched it first time around. 

Well, don't bother, me sais.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN MY 1985/1986 NIGHTS AT THE GRINDHOUSES CLICK HERE!

1985 Grindhouse Nights in Munich's Stachus Kinocenter PART IV: 30th Nov

 

This night consisted of 12 movies by the ultra low-budget "AB" filmdistribution that was founded late 1971, obviously to avoid some of the disturbances caused by legal proceedings around the tax-evasion schemes of film-mogul Horst W. Murrmann. AB stands for Alois Brummer who had  had considerable success as director of the "Count Porno" series. AB was an active film-producer for exactly 10 years (the statue of limitations for tax-evasion crimes in Germany). Needles to say, most of the movies were tax-shelters of the lowest kind with memorable titles like "Dangerous sex of precociously puberting girls" or "While yodeling the Lederhosen itches". There is an interesting documentary that was filmed in 1970 about Alois Brummer and his company "Sex-Business - Made in Pasing". Here we go:

1. Ein Halleluja für 2 Schlitzohren 

The Story of Drunken Master HK 1979

If you have bothered to follow the story of Drunken Master and were looking forward to seeing this one, you know what to expect. So "Beggar So" tries to teach siblings his mixed-style kung-fu which of course goes not down too well with his old enemies. The story is a mere pretext for the numerous fight scenes which are well presented for a end-of-cycle-kung-fu-movie. No disappointment here, if you are into these kinds of film.

Verdict: If you liked the other ones...

 
2. Zwei gelbe Höllenhunde 

Two Assassins of Darkness (TW 1977)

The script to that film must have been dreamed up in a cocaine-soaked fever dream. I will try to make it easy for you: 

Killer 1 (K1) and Killer 2 (K2) are hired by Female Brothel Boss (FBB) through her multiple henchmen (H1-3) basically to kill each other. K1 meanwhile falls in love with one of his targets, the beautiful Step-Sister (SS) to another target (GUY). Going to a monastir to kill SS, K1 meets a monk (M) who tells him out of the blue and without any cause, that his father was one of the traitors 15 years ago who tried to steal a valuable jade-horse from the emperors palace and that his adoptive father (AF) is the one who betrayed his real father. This AF had been training K1 in Kung-Fu to kill all the other traitors (T1-T6), but is also the real father of K2 and trained him too seceretly (K1 does not know about K2), to eventually kill K1. Eventually FBB kills M  because he was just a character invented to tell the story and obviously was T3. Before that she had already killed H2, who was her in-house Killer (H2=K3??), just to show us that she is tough as nails.K1 faces AF who tells him that he has the jade horse, that M is a liar and tries to protect it from the last mysterious TX. Together both  of them and SS and K2 hunt down FBB who is eliminated from the script. They set-up a trap with the jade horse as a lure and GUY steps up trying to get it because he is the son of T4, the trap kills him. Then H1 and H2 show up, capture SS and the jade horse and could run away, but basically tell AF, K1 and K2 to liberate SS in a palace for a show-down. 

This show-down now includes H1, H3, TX, SS, AF, K1, K2 and multiple flying assassins. In the end, we find out why the horse was so valuable. And we find out that the authors of this script knew we would not give a damn.

I think I got it right. My  brain hurts. And, btw SS can kung-fu too and is such a sweetie (Doris Chun-Erh Lung). And of course K1 must have been around 25 when he was "adopted". 

Now.  This is a solid movie, much more like a spaghetti-western and even a giallo or japan yakuza flick than an eastern, esp. in the first two segments of the movie.   Later we go more traditional chinese, with the assassins, which does not hurt, as there are some inventive battles (eg. K1,K2 defend each other while being tangled in a huge net, hanging in the air). A worthwile film, for both western and easterns fans. 

I am not convinced that it was produced in 1977 as everything cries out 1971 here, but what do I know. 

 I  am surprised that this movie is not better known as it has stood the test of time much better than most others. The really, really convoluted script is the only bothersome thing here but that cannot deter from this being a  solid movie, and to me a stand-out eastern.

Verdict: Gem

3. Zwei Schlitzohren in der Knochenmühle (Superfighter III) The Shadowman (HK 1979)

This is an ok Jackie Chan movie with well staged fights and the usual comedy, found in the drunken master series. The German dubbing though is first-rate, making it a joyous watch for me, but I doubt that the same can be said for the english dub. 

Verdict: For J. Chan completists

4. Gipfelglück im Dirndlrock 

Dormitory Girls  (D  1971)

Originally released as "Dangerous Sex of  Precociously Puberting girls", this movie basically was immediately renamed after it's first run. Maybe to cash in on the then popular "Alpine" sex film, maybe because it was too dark in its original dubbing, maybe not. We will never know. 

The new title translates as "Mountaintop Happiness in a Dirndl" which basically adds insult to injury as this quickly and amateurish made movie by Alois Brummer himself is basically a sexploitation roughie with no (real) mountaintop in sight.

 Obviously Elke (Bolten-) Hagen, who went on to make "She-Devils of the SS" for E.C. Dietrich and around two dozen other soft-porn flicks, stars. 

The post-production dubbing (or maybe second dubbing???) suggests that this is all funny, but basically this is a compilation of completely unfunny scenes of girls being harrassed by every kind of man. Their faces, though, never smile...

It's neither funny nor sick enough to be entertaining, it is just unpleasant and a complete waste of time as every scene is decidedly amateurish staged .

Verdict: Stay clear!

5. Frauen hinter Zuchthausmauern  

Women in Cages  (FIL 1974)

"The movie that lifts the veil from the dirtiest racket ever conceived in the minds of vicious men!!!" aka "The Dolls of Devil Island". Here we go again...

A sequel of sorts to  both the "Blood Island" trilogy by Geroardo de Leon and the "Big Doll"-Films (produced by Roger Corman), all set in the Phillipines, this one is a cash in on the WIP movies and what a howler that is. Roger Corman co-produced this so we got american actresses including Pam Grier as an Ilsa stand-in. 

It is actually pretty bad, and if you've seen the "Blood Island" films, you expect this. As an asian movie, nudity is presented strictly from the waist up and violence is only hinted at. AB distribution quickly noticed that there was something missing, re-edited and inserted hc-footage, called the movie "Sexfieber" and let run the porno-cinema circuit.

The version I saw did have some obviously inserted SC stuff, but no HC.

Verdict: Don't bother.

6. Im Knast der heißen Katzen  

Girls in the Tiger Cage (Prisoner 407) (KOR 1976)

Well, imagine this:  Some Korean dude watches Female Prisoner Scorpio and thinks: "Hellyeah! I can do that", without any sense of style, no budget, no Meijko Kaji and completely bugged down by the korean censors. What do you get. This here. The story follows FPS but this time her betraying boyfriend is a Japanese spy and the whole thing is set-up in pre-WWII occupied korea, so that the torture etc. is of course done by evil japanese and not by korean guards (who naturally could never in my life do such things, no sir!). But then again, this is nearly a family-friendly film, so don't bother. Please don't bother. 

The german poster has - as always - nothing to do with the movie. I'm beginning to become suspicious of AB's marketing campaign, needless to say, the movie had different titles in different areas of Germany (EC Dietrich (our man for the dirty underwear) once confessed that he had seen this done a lot by the french, where you had to sell the rights to the movie to 5 different distributors to get a movie properly distributed in the whole of France - naturally these distributors often changed the titles of the movie, so that nobody was able to track down the actual box-office numbers - clever eh?)

Verdict: Don't bother

7. Bruce Lee - Die große Kampfmaschine  

They call him Chop-Suey (FIL 1975)

Presentation of the best the filipinian cinema has to offer commences with "They call him Chop-Suey". Ok. Come on. What do you expect? This is rediculous. Of course, AB Films had to add "Bruce Lee" who is of course not in one frame but is cited in the german dub as "inspiration to Chop Suey". Ok, makes sense. Sorry for being inquisitive. This is actually a lot of fun if you like your bruceploitation served the filipino way. I'm not complaining. 

Verdict: Decent.

8. Ein Dampfhammer unter 1000 Nieten 

Bloodfisted Brothers HK 1978

This basically is Robin Hood retold Eastern style. Master Wan is a highly decorated warrior who roams through the villages performing tricks and entertainment. He helps the oppressed villagers against their evil lord. As I said, Robin Hood. Not bad, not good either. Decent production values.

Verdict: If you've got nothing else going on on a sunday afternoon...

9. Ti Lung - Die tödliche Kobra  
The Shaolin Heroes HK 1980

Shaolin monks are being tortured to stop resisting the evil Manchu aristocracy. This is a very well produced and sharply played late-eastern with enough politics and morality in it to elevate it from the usual run-of-the-mill easterns.

Verdict: Nice.

10. Das Tosende Mädchenpensionat   

Danish Pastries (DK 1973)

There is this boarding school. In Denmark. You see. It is administered by a fanatical astrologist woman who lets the girl only into the classroom if they are in their purple robes with nothing underneath. Bad conduct leads to extensive whipping, which the girls enjoy far too much. Today they discuss the passing of the Virgo Sign (original danish title) through the Goat. 

Oh dear. 

The girls are advised that this will lead to all kinds of sexual trouble which they should stay away from (whipping on the naked back is not considered anything sexual). Well you cannot mess with fate and if the stars say so, what can you do. So the "class" does encounter numerous identifyable set-pieces.  

This is a danish hc-production with a high standard, fresh faces and enjoyable plot. Sometimes it looks as if it would cross over into WIP-P, but then stays clear of it.

Movie must have been a success as it spawned 2 sequels.

11. Feuer zwischen den Lippen   

Vista Valley PTA (US 1982)

Antonio Spinelli burns mafia money in this well staged rehash of the old Joseph W. Sarno movie "Sin in the Suburbs". Acting is good, the overall quality is up to B-movie standard and we see plentiful of ongoings behind provincial houses. 

At this point, though, the whole concept of "suppressed sexuiality in rural places" is a little bit outdated. To spice it up, Spinelli includes a story-line about a evangelical single father who pressures his daughter into incest. This is the 80ies right. Well.

Verdict: For collectors only.

12. Love in Action (Zieh mich aus, Herzchen) 

Expose me, lovely (USA 1976)

Uh, what do we have here. A genuine Film Noir with some HC setpieces thrown in now and then. From the very first minute we are assured that this movie actually wants to emulate the 40ies/50ies Phillip Marlowe style movies as we begin with a faceless man in first-person-perspective and as he looks into the mirror, all we see are bandages. This is so reminiscent of Bogart's "Dark Passages" that everybody knows that this movie does consider itself a contender (we get a lot of references to "Inner Sanctum" "The Lady of the Lake" and "The Big Heat"). And I was not let down.  

While his girlfriend is giving him a BJ, Private Eye is called by a mysterious strange woman whom he later meets and who wants him to find her lost brother.

The actors are quite attractive and can obviously actually play and the plot is always given priority over the hc-scenes. Those were plausible and well acted. The film has the goal to convincingly pair Film-Noir and Porn and it succeeds. The only thing bogging it down is the severly strained budget, but once you can look past this, this is very enjoyable.

Verdict: GEM and Movie of the Week!

If you've missed the other parts:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

 

My personal tribute to the 60th anniversary of "Blood and Black Lace" aka "Der Würger mit der Maske" aka "Sei Donne per l'assassino" aka "Blutige Seide"

60 years ago, "Sei Donne per L'Assasino" prermiered. It was co-produced by Erwin C Dietrich's (Greta, Jack the Ripper) Monachia Films who had just had a considerable financial success with their take on the Edgar Wallace krimis called "The Strangler with the Nylon Noose". For legal reasons (CCC possessed the rights to "The Strangler..." in german movie titles), that movie is now known as "The Nylon Noose". 

The follow-up was called "Der Würger mit der Maske" - "The Strangler with the Mask" and was actually shown under this title in german speaking Austria and Switzerland. In Germany however, the title had to be changed again into "Bloody Silk", referring to the fashion-house setting. The americans who bought the movie ("for a minor six-figure dollar sum" - which was basically what the movie had cost in the first place!!!) falsely translated that title to "Blood and Black Lace".

This is my little tribute to that movie. Have fun. And happy birthday to the Strangler with the Mask!

P.S: (Ah, and yes, I do music. If you are interested, hop over to the sister-blog about my little band called CREAMVIII)