Jesús Franco

Jesús "Jess" Franco (born 12 May 1930 as Jesús Franco Manera) is a Spanish film director, writer, cinematographer and actor. His career took off in 1961 with his cult classic The Awful Dr. Orloff, which received wide distribution in the United States and England. Though he had some American box office success with Necronomicon (1967), Ninety-Nine Women (1968) and his two Christopher Lee films, The Bloody Judge and Count Dracula, he never achieved wide commercial success. Franco moved from Spain to France in 1970 so that he could make more violent and sexual films, and it was at this point that his career began to go downhill commercially, as he turned to low-budget filmmaking with a heavier accent on adult films. Although he produced a few well-received, low budget horror films in the early 70's (Dracula vs Frankenstein, Vampyros Lesbos, A Virgin Among the Living Dead), many people in the industry considered him a porn director due to the huge number of X-rated adult films he began churning out. Franco returned to low-budget horror in a brief comeback period from 1980-1983 (Bloody Moon, Mondo Cannibale, Oasis of the Zombies), but after 1983, his career took a second downturn as he drifted back into porn. With the exception of his Faceless (1988) and Killer Barbys (1996), his post-1983 films are almost unwatchable due to the incredibly low budgets he was forced to work with. Franco has nevertheless retained a large cult following through the years with his sexually-charged horror films, some of which are regarded as masterpieces by his avid followers. Franco's fans tend to obsessively collect all of his films (both the good and the execrable), and line up for hours at horror conventions for a chance to meet him in person.

Career

Franco has sometimes worked under various pseudonyms, including David Khune and Frank Hollmann. A big fan of jazz music (and a musician himself), many of his pseudonyms are taken from famous jazz musicians, such as Clifford Brown and James P. Johnson. Franco made a half-dozen films starring the Spanish beauty Soledad Miranda, and when she was killed in a tragic automobile accident in 1970, he took a teenage actress named Lina Romay under his wing and made her his new "star". Since 1971, Romay has been his most often utilized actress, as well as his life companion, soulmate and muse.

Franco's themes often revolved around lesbian vampires, women in prison, surgical horror, sadomasochism, zombies and sexploitation (including several films based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade). Franco also worked in other exploitation film genres, such as cannibal films, spy films, giallo, crime films, science fiction, jungle adventure, exorcist films, war movies, historical dramas and nunsploitation. His main claim to fame is that he has managed to write and direct close to 160 motion pictures in his lifetime, encompassing a wide swath of different genres, with practically no financial backing available to him.

His sex movies often contain long, uninterrupted shots of nude women writhing uncontrollably on the floor or in a bed (such as in Lorna The Exorcist and The Bare-Breasted Countess). Most of his hardcore films starred his companion Lina Romay, who has admitted to being an exhibitionist. Franco is also notorious for his use of hand-held camera and zoom shots, which he feels actually lends realism to his films.

He has frequently worked with genre actors Howard Vernon, Antonio Mayans, Paul Müller, Christopher Lee, Soledad Miranda, Maria Rohm, Lina Romay and Klaus Kinski. Kinski was famous for his hatred of directors, but according to Franco, he never had any trouble working with him.

Franco was supposed to direct a film for Eurocine Productions in 1980 called Lake of the Living Dead but he could not do it, so producer Daniel Lesouer hired Jean Rollin to direct it (later retitling it Zombie Lake). Lesouer then had Jean Rollin direct some newly-filmed zombie footage to be inserted into Franco's A Virgin Among The Living Dead (1971) for its 1981 re-release. Franco purists today insist that "Virgin" be released in its former unadulterated form on DVD, as the added Jean Rollin footage greatly slowed down the pace of the film. Franco was later hired by Lesouer to direct a film for Eurocine called Oasis of the Zombies (1981), which had a plot similar to Zombie Lake (also involving revived Nazi zombies).

Filmography

Further reading

• Jess Franco, Memorias del tío Jess (2004) (autobiography, in Spanish)
• Stéphane du Mesnilot, Jess Franco - Énergies du fantasme (2004, in French)
• Alain Petit, Manacoa Files (1994–1999, in French)
• Lucas Balbo, Peter Blumenstock, Christian Kessler, Tim Lucas, Obsession - The Films of Jess Franco (1993)
• Tim Lucas, How to Read a Franco Film, in Video Watchdog n. 1 (1990) Article
• The book Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984 (1994) by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs dedicates a chapter to him.
• Benedikt Eppenberger, Daniel Stapfer Maedchen, Machos und Moneten: Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Schweizer Kinounternehmers Erwin C. Dietrich. Mit einem Vorwort von Jess Franco. Verlag Scharfe Stiefel, Zurich, 2006, ISBN 3-033-00960-3
• (Italian) Robert Monell, Il codice segreto di Jesús Franco, in Nocturno Dossier n. 60, luglio 2007

External links

• Jesús Franco at the Internet Movie Database
• http://www.santoandfriends.com (Hispanic horror film index)