Jess Franco, the walking death of Eurocrime (Part IV): The Case of Edgar Wallace

  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 getting into trouble for sending Sumuru where she should not be (at least in the eyes of Elizabeth Rohmer) and being released from his duties to HA Towers, Franco finds himself under the patronage of Arthur Brauner of CCC, who is eager to exploit the specific talents of our spanish friend.

 Obviously part of the deal between HAT and CCC is the EW-Commissioner Sanders franchise (but without using Sanders) and Miranda Soledad, an upcoming star for Jess Franco and a woman he deeply adores.

4. The Case of Commissioner Sanders

Here already, it starts to get complicated, concentrate!:

1.The Franchise:  Rialto-Constantin had had huge success with their Krimis based on Edgar Wallace novels. But Wallace had done adventure books too (King Kong, anyone?). The hero of this series is Commissioner Sanders in HM Colonial Service in West Africa. HAT obtained the rights to do  a series of adventure flicks based on these novels. Maybe he had even thought of letting JF direct one after the series had not been that successful.

Three movies had been produced by HAT with stark declines in audience response:

1963 Death Drums along the River  

1965 Coast of Skeletons  

1967 Five Golden Dragons

2. To some crime-novels of Edgar Wallace Rialto had not been able  to obtain the rights because they were already sold to other movie production companies. Arthur Brauner, head of CCC Studios found out about this and was able to purchase the rights to "The Yellow Snake" and produce a Rialto-Krimi-Clone even starring the "faces" of the Rialto-Krimis and Christopher Lee.

3. Brauner then was able to obtain the rights to the novels and the name of Wallace's son, aptly named Bryan Edgar Wallace and decided to launch his own series based on these works. But they were primarily SF-Novels, not crime novels. Interestingly in the 3rd installment of the series "Phantom of Soho" 1963, already a connection to the Sanders story and the Akasawas (a fictional tribe in Africa) is established. 

Mexican lobby card for "The Nylon Noose"
that was called something with "The Strangler"
everywhere else in the world.

4. EC Dietrich of Monachia/Urania had tried to produce those movies for CCC but his "Strangler of the Castle" was rejected. To add insult, CCC released their next BYW-movie under the title "The Strangler of Blackwood Castle", making it impossible for Monachia to release their Krimi under that name, the title had to be changed to  (The Strangler with) "The Nylon-Noose". The script for both movies was written by Hungarian exilee Ladislas Fodor who also wrote for Rialto, but had the unfinished original script (out of which both films would evolve) still in his desk-drawer: Basically it is about a disabled wealthy man who tries to get world control by manipulating stock markets and medical experiments in the cellar and that he is in a wheelchair but can walk... (which would work for Dr. Mabuse too, but not let us open that can of worms yet...)

5. Rialto pulled the plug from their Edgar Wallace Krimis in 1969 when "Das Gesicht im Dunkeln / Face in the Dark / Double Face" had bombed and overall attendance had dramatically dropped in Germany. Remaining scripts and treaties were put on hold or sold to other companies. 

6. Although "Double Face" had flopped miserably by Rialto standards, the CCC-produced BEW-krimis did not have a larger attendance but stll made their money through ridiculously low production costs. Furthermore, "Bird with the Crystal Plumage" had made good money for Arthur Brauner in 1969 as a BEW-marketed movie, so why not quickly make an EW (and an BEW .... next blog entry....) in 1970?

Ok let's bring this together:

1. African adventure + 3. BYW SF-Krimis + 4. Fodor leftover script from 1963 + 5. Rialto is off, let's chash in the franchise quickly +  6. Make it as cheap as possible + 2. Get permission to use the EW-Name from HAT, who wanted to get rid of JF (Liechtenstein....) 

and give it all to Jess, who always did his own thing and loved the Lemmy Caution movies anyway, (and mind control!!!), then you get:

Case opened: The Devil came from Akasawa

or, talking in franchises:

The EW-Sanders/BEW-Crime&SF/Lemmy Caution/Eurospy/ - hodgepodge.

Given 1-6. there was no other way, the film could be different from what we have here: A rushed, cheap, SF-Krimi-Spy-African Adventure movie. JF even gets in his own Lemmy Caution impersonation complete with being rebuffed by attractive young women who he tries to make out with and black faced zombies. 

From a legal point of view this must count as the 4th "Sanders" movie, as it is obvious that the HAT's franchise had been used.

Besides this, the script just uses motives from an EW-short story: "Keepers of the Stone" in which the Akasawas had a luck-bringing stone that inhabits two ghosts and an inscription by the devil and when it was stolen, bad luck came over the Akasawas. Sanders tries to find the thief, only to find out that the stone is guarded by a ROMAN legion in full AD 9 armour. Eh. ok.  That's all. Sureley no stuff for ANY EW-Movie, let alone a Krimi! (maybe for Raiders of the Philospher's Stone .... hm...;-)

At least now I know why the third spy in this movie is an italian one. I had been wondering.

To make things bad,  JF muse and main actress of this movie Miranda Soledad died in a car crash during post-production, so that no reshoots were possible and JF edited this movie in a traumatized state of mind. 

The Plot: 

All you always get are remarks that the plot is all over the place and basically no-one understands it. So I sat down, took notes to bring you the only written complete summary of this movie in the entire internet/publicised world.

And - as you know - it is completely forbidden to ask any questions as to why, how, where, when this all happens in a JF movie. 

Interestingly I had to stop every 20 minutes or so to write the plot down, these 10-minute breaks enhanced the viewing experience immensely. This is a serial on steroids and should be consumed with caution:

This is gonna be hard, but this is how it goes: 

In Africa a mysterious crystal has been found that can change any metal to gold but will turn men into black-faced zombies if they do not wear protective material. The crystal has been found by assistant (A) of a professor for archeology (PA), in Kenian Akasawa, but (A) gets sick due to radiation. (PA) drives to Medical Doctor (MD) who, with his wife (WoMD) offers help. (PA) drives back but never reaches his house/disappears. 

(A) meanwhile is murdered and Crystal is stolen. Friend of (PA) (FoPA) asks head of Scotland Yard (HoSY) to send a female spy (FS) to investigate and pose as his wife. Unbeknownst to them a male spy from the CIA (MSCIA) investigates too, and even the italian secret service (THE ROMANS... get it?) has a spy (IMS) on the case.

Now they all meet in an african hotel where (FS) is performing as a stripper (natch!). An anonymous killer wants to kill (FoPA), but gets killed himself and (FS) and (FoPA) have to get rid of the corpse, witnessed by (IMS) and (WoMD) who just happens to have sex with (MSCIA) in the hotel room next door.

(FS) then invites (MD) with (WoMD) to one of her performances, to lure them away from their house, so that (FoPA) and (IMS) can search it for the crystal. (IMS) finds it but is locked into the room, exposed to the radiation. 

Meanwhile in London, (HoSY) visits a friend, an aristocrate ex-colonial serviceman, who is wheelchaired (WEXCSMA) and his wonderful wife (WoWEXCSMA).

In Kenya, (FoPA) is killed by a sniper and (MSCIA) is shot in the leg which is broken. (MD) applies plaster cast to the leg but hides the Crystal (!!!!!!) in it. Thus, returning to the UK, the crystal is smuggled by an unsuspicous (MSCIA).

(FS) telling slimy (IMS) to FO!

Oh, look, now everybody's (MD), (WoMD), (FS), (MSCIA), (HoSY), (WEXCSMA) and (WoWEXSMA)  in good old London and the story gets complicated: 

- here all the other summaries simply stop - 

(MSCIA) is (a) obviously immune to the radiation and b) is believed to have the stone. He is offered 500.000 Dollars for the crystal by a mysterious oriental organisation led by Mr. Wong(!!!). Their meeting is surveilled by (WEXCSMA) who orders his wheelchair-pusher (WPoWEXCSMA) to kill Wong and (MSCIA). 

Meanwhile (MD) had gotten the crystal from the plaster and tries to flee to Hongkong but is killed by (WPoWEXCSMA) who now has the Crystal.

Wong is killed and (MSCIA) attacked but he and (FS) can follow (WPoWEXCSMA) back to the manor of (WEXCSMA), where- in the meantime - (PA) has arrived, walking all the way from Kenya as a black-faced zombie. 

Sue(muru) wants the crystal too...you know?

(WoWEXCSMA) unceremoniously kills (PA) who had worked for (WEXCSMA) but did so in good faith and felt betrayed when (MD) had killed (A) on orders of (WEXCSMA) to get the crystal.

(WoMD) arrives at the manor just as battered (WPoWEXCSMA) enters too. She obviously recognizes the killer of her husband (MD) and thus has to be bondaged and gagged by (WoEXCSMA) who actually can walk (making him EXCSMA and his wife WoEXCSMA). 

At that moment (MSCIA) and (FS) are at the door, looking for the assassin (jobless WPoEXCSMA). They are led in by (WoEXCSMA) and first can find nothing but (jWPoEXCSMA) is bleeding and drips of blood betray him. In the shoot-out  (EXCSMA) and (WoEXCSMA) are killed but (jWPoEXCSMA) can flee with the crystal, but that causes the plane (!!) to crash. In the end (MSCIA) is seduced by another woman interested in his stones.

Ah, this got a bit out of hand, sorry. I had a blast watching it and obviously Jess Franco too as this is full of hints at his older movies and given the right state of mind - quite funny. It is not obviuosly so, though. You really have to be a Franco-afficianado to appreciate it, and the average cinema-visitor is not. 

My personal highlight is 
the "striptease" by (FS). This 
photo includes the complete
dance routine with
all her moves!

Furthermore Franco overuses zooms, cuts, camera-movements and blur to make the basically static scenes hip and modern but will induce headaches to the uninaugurated. Camerawise this is a very sloppy  and unattractive movie. But I had a lot of fun, as it is obviously a farce, a mockup of Edgar Wallace Krimis (who by themselves were already humorously self-reflecting).

The movie is not worse than some bad Rialto or CCC (B)EW movies, but it simply oozes a lack of care. I would definitively prefer this one to the last official Rialto-EW-release "Das Rätsel des silbernen Halbmonds", which is better known as the giallo "7 Blood-stained Orchids". 

Some scenes that take place in London (but were shot at the CCC-Studios in Berlin) do feel like the old Edgar Wallace movies. The problematic side is more the African (Spanish) footage which simply is far too careless (obviously Brauner was not there...).

The music is great and seeing "Sir John" Siegfried Schürenberg as a competent HoSY for a change is very, very refreshing (maybe it was the reason why he picked the role - there is a biography that is out of print and only available at ridculous prices - so I don't know). Besides this, the only other recognizable EW-actor is Horst Tappert (as MD), but the role is quite small and he looks as if he did not give a shit. Soon he'd be moving on to become germany's national inspector Derrick for 20 something years on TV. 

Mitigating Circumstances: Well, there was no money in it from the beginning and in the end Miranda Soledad died during post-production. This could have been a better movie, if the enviroment had been right. 

Aggrivating Circumstnaces: Jess Franco bare-chested is something I don't want to see on the big screen.  No wonder (FS) tells him to f..off as he's hitting on her because there is too much grease in his hair. And why are there all the maps of the dalmatian adriatic coast in the manor in Akasava????

Only 300.000 tickets were sold after the release (1971). Reviews were bad. Due to the fact that Constantin did not distribute the film (as it had done with basically all the other BEW and EW movies) it started with a few copies in a few cinemas, so that ratio should be of interest (customers per copies).  

Distributor was the "Cinerama Filmvertriebs GmbH", 

which has nothing to do with the Cinerama film-technology. 

The distributor had been the german branch of 

"The Rank Organisation" but was sold (to Arthur Brauner???) in 1969.

 It is known that Constantin did not put out less than 20 copies. 

So if we assume an amount of 10 copies, the movie must have done

better than other krimis (in a relative way). And if (!) Cinerama belonged

to Brauner, it would have made some money for him....

After the bad turnouts for "Castle of Manchu" and "7 Men of Sumuru", Arthur Brauner can be held responsible for trying to kill off the EW-franchise using JF,. Maybe he wanted to make  it difficult  for Rialto to produce a comeback-EW, because this is clearly and prominently advertised as "A real Edgar Wallace", something that was a trademark of Rialto. 

Try to find "Akasava"! Hint, it was released after
the dismal performance of "Double Face".

But if we look at it as a "Edgar Wallace Sanders" movie, which it was legally (and is, at least half of the time ), things do not look so bad, considering there was a shap decline in movie attendance from 1968 onwards anyway: 

To have some fun (yes, that's what I call fun) I calcultaed to gross turnover and deducted the inflation to find out which movie was the most cost-effective one. The percentage of the ROI is the thing that makes any businessman weep. Let's see: 

The decline between "Fiver Golden Dragons" and "Akasawa" is even less (-14% against the -31% if we only see decline in attendance). So this must have worked quite well given the ridiculously low costs that Franco made movies have.

It would have been the final EW-movie if "The Bird with the crystal Plumage" had not revived the franchise before which led to Rialto (co-) producing three more "original" EW-Krimis. It was however the final Sanders picture, but that one had been dead anyway. So obviously, he was not able to kill the franchise off, because three more EW and three more BEW movies were released thereafter. 

Verdict: Acquittal due to not succeeding in the deed

Parole Violation: "Viaje a Bangkok, ataúd incluido" (1985) , "Sangre en mis zapatos",  "Voces de muerte" (1983) 

Well, what can I say about these movies. The Edgar Wallace franchise was not based on specific characters like Lemmy Caution or Fu Manchu, so it is very hard to find any connection to the works of the english author 

a) if there is no title of a book or short-story used 

b) if there are no characters like commissioner Sanders or Inspector Higgins used 

c) if there is no plot / device used that can be found in EWs works. 

Yep, there it is: "Based 
on an Edgar Wallace 
Novel"

"Viaje a Bangkok" is a mix between "Cartes sur Table" and "Coffin from Hongkong" (a german eurospy-movie produced by EC Dietrich and based on a book by JH Chase). Aside from one character being called "Sanders" there is no connection to EW, as the character is not the Sanders we know. However delightful this movie is, it's not part of any EW-franchise.

"Sange en mis zapatos" again is basically a eurospy-clone and no reference to EW can be found other than that in the press-release for this film there is a line in there that it was based on '"Sanders of the River". And you know this blog is based on "Lord of the Rings". I wrote it here, so it must be true.

"Voces de muerte" was never released and no-one has ever seen a print of this film. Again someone said that he heard of somebody who has seen a piece of paper where  it was written that there is a rumour that it was based on the EW-story "Case of the frightened Lady". But what do we know? 

The long lost John Carpenter
Opus Magnum "Day-Killer"
aka "5 Donne...".
I was traumatized watching this
while expecting an elegant,
sophisticated movie.

There  used to be a german release for "5 Donne per L'Assassino" (of all films!!!) where it was officially declared as a John Carpenter movie. Sure. If somebody has written it down it must be true....

Until 1986 (Spain entering EU), the spanish copyright law from 1898 was legal which protected written publication for 80 years after the date of publication. EW had his first short-story published in 1899 and his first crime novel in 1905 (Four just men). So basically Jess Franco was able (from 1979 to 1986) to put the "Edgar Wallace" name on everything inside of Spain, as long as he could make a connection to these very early works.... I think that's what happened here. The same could be applied to the Fu Manchu stuff, but not on Sumuru (as she came into life in the 1940s). After 1986, EU and international law was enforced with the 70years after author's death rule (=2003 in EW's case - now lex Disney with 94 years but not appliable to deaths before 1978).

After the failed assassination, Arthur Brauner then let Jess Franco try his hand on a remake of a classic BEW-Movie. Let's see how this went:

Jess Franco vs. Bryan Edgar Wallace

Sources:

A perfect book. 900 pages, big format, all color 
Includes 90% of all Krimis and the pre-war
Edgar Wallace Movies too.

The benchmark 400 pages of in-depth knowledge.
Joachim Kamp went into the archives 
and had been given the documents of
many scriptwriters of the series. 
Prime research example. Besides
Rialto, though, a bit thin.

This too, a benchmark. 600 pages on Jess Franco, and this
is only part 1. Big format, beautifully researched.
Top writing and very entertaining.

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