Grunge

Werewolf in mid-transformation.

The grotty, post-dubbed, low-res seediness of WEREWOLF IN A GIRL’S DORMITORY and ATOM AGE VAMPIRE kind of wear on you. Both films started out continental (German and Italian) and with classier titles: LYCANTHROPUS and SEDDOK. I like SEDDOK enormously as a title, for the same inexplicable reason I like Michael Powell’s quota quickie RYNOX — nonsense words with a manly sound to them!

In fact, according to the IMDb, what Denis Gifford calls SEDDOK was released as SEDDOK, L’EREDE DI SATANA. It’s a knock-off of Franju’s rather more poetic EYES WITHOUT A FACE, which was revamped in Spain by Jesus Franco as THE AWFUL DR ORLOFF. In the low rent Italian version, a go-go dancer suffers facial mutilation in an unconvincing car accident and agrees to experimental treatment by a couple of obviously dodgy medicos. Soon, everyone is lap-dissolving into scabby, unkempt “vampires.”

(If Freda could make THE HORRIBLE DR HITCHCOCK and Franco coughed out THE AWFUL DR ORLOFF, what other titles remain unused? THE FRANGIBLE DR FRANKENSTEIN? THE TERRIBLE DR TERWILLIKER?)

This is a product of the post-war years when Italian horror was briefly science-fictional, following the atomic and space-age concerns of American movies. Soon, the Gothic would assert itself, a surprising development for that place and era, only to be largely superseded by the cod-psychological mayhem of the giallo.

Poor Sergio Fantoni! From Visconti’s SENSO to SEDDOK.

Both these films look like they might have modest virtues (even if LYCANTHROPUS deploys an unpromising whodunnit approach to werewolfery) — SEDDOK in particular has plenty of interesting, expressive camera angles — shots which really tell the story, and shots which are just decoratively beautiful or atmospheric. And the killer’s raincoat made me think of DON’T LOOK NOW. But the poor quality public domain copies, dubbed and probably rescored, do the films no favours. Maybe I’d revisit them if better editions appeared.

Chalk off another two titles in my quest to See Reptilicus and Die!

Le Grand Franju

I don’t know why Georges Franju’s short documentaries are so hard to see. Even if nobody wants to package them together as a set, they’re the best DVD extras anybody could wish for.

LE SANG DES BÊTES, of course, has served exactly this function, running as support to LES YEUX SANS VISAGE on the Criterion disc. And a fine, blood-soaked pair they are.

But why has it taken me this long to track down LE GRAND MÉLIÈS, albeit with an English dubbed V.O.? This one could not only fit with a Franju feature nicely, it could also be packaged with Georges Méliès films. The possibilities are quite literally several.

Franju begins at the end, getting the sad bits out of the way, as he puts it, before introducing us to Mme. Méliès, played by the real Mme. Méliès, and Georges Méliès, played by Melies Jnr. The casting is cute and works, and was facilitated by Franju’s role as co-founder of the Cinemateque Francaise. Mme. Méliès had been a friend to the institution, supplying a nude portrait of herself to the museum, although with the stipulation that it should only be displayed from the shoulders up.

At this point, aged 90, she looks exactly like a Ronald Searle drawing of an old lady.

Then comes the best bit — although later sequences illustrating Méliès’ techniques and tracing his entry into film are also admirable.

We meet Méliès, retired from film-making, at the toy shop be ran in a Paris railway station. Two children come to buy geegaws, but haven’t l’argentto pay for them. Kindly M. Méliès gives one boy a trumpet anyway, but when the little bugger keeps tooting it in an annoying fashion, the old wizard distracts him and his companion with a display of legerdemaine.

A wallet of coins is produced. The children are impressed. The coins are vanished and then reproduced. Wonderful. Then M. Méliès transforms his head into a bouquet of flowers. For real.

“Uh, okay… Back away, slowly.”

Franju cuts to them running, backwards and in slow motion, up the steps from the Metro to the safe, rational outside world.

Purists may argue whether this can really be called documentary, but it’s a lovely sequence, dovetailing from a kind of dramatic reconstruction into sheer fantasy. The flower-headed Méliès is a figure from Dali rather than from Méliès’ own work, connecting with the bird-headed avenger in JUDEX, himself influenced by Max Ernst rather than supposed inspiration Louis Feuillaide. The fleeing kids in reverse is an echo of LOVE ME TONIGHT, where a fox hunt is seen softly galloping backwards. And the setting is returned to at the end of the film, where we see the toy shop transformed into a florist’s (as it was in reality), where Mme. Méliès goes to buy flowers for her husband’s grave.

Now that’s magic!

How Awful!

One for the Jess Franco fans!

Franco first detailed the misadventures of demonic plastic surgeon Dr. Orloff in 1962, in GRITOS EN LA NICHE, better known as THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF. It’s a cheap ‘n’ nasty rip-off of Franju’s EYES WITHOUT A FACE, in which the titular mad scientist (American Swiss abroad Howard Vernon) is swiping the kissers of young girls to decorate the head-front of his mutilated daughter. Well, we’ve all done it.

Totally lacking the pop-surrealist poetry of the Franju classic, Franco’s film is nevertheless atmospherically shot in black-and-white, with noirish lighting effects, wide angle lens distortion, and nice tracking shots. It’s very different from the modernist noodling of later Franco breast-fests like VAMPYROS LESBOS. He leaves the zoom lens in the box this time.

Vernon’s mad scientist romped bloodily through numerous sequels by Franco and others, making him poor cousin to horror staples like Dracula and Frankenstein. He seems to have been treated as a copyright-free myth from the off, so that anybody can use him if they feel like it. His last outing, still played by Vernon, was in the glossy, cheesy, and appallingly nasty FACELESS, where he lurks in the background, allowing Helmut Berger to dominate the procedings, peeling one victim’s face off and SHOWING IT TO HER. Despite the always-ludicrous presence of Telly Savalas, Chris Mitchum, Anton Diffring and Caroline Munro (and Stephanie Audran! WTF?), the movie keeps slipping out of the realms of camp, into more upsetting territory. If you’re going to see it, turn the hot water on first. You’ll need it.

Anyhow, go HERE. Just when I was speculating what Victor Frankenstein might be getting up to nowadays! It makes perfect sense that Orloff, or maybe the SON OF ORLOFF, would wind up in such circs.