Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

From my favorite movies..

Dreadfully Boring

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It deals with Linda Westinghouse (the German Ewa Strömberg) , a charming young American lawyer, working in a law office in Istanbul . In the night, she has erotic dreams in which appears a sexy vixen vampiress (the Spanish Soledad Miranda, her pseudonym, Susann Korda, was created by director Jesús Franco , and she was destined to become a legend) , and makes passionate love to her, from which she's unable to defend herself . A minor case about an inheritance forces her to travel to one of the small islands off the Turkish coast. Then, her nightmares come upon her in ghastly and lively ways . Later on , the beautiful Linda is is sent to a mental institution where Dr, Steiner (The Italian Paul Muller) , who is also a vampire expert, treats her but things go wrong . An erotic and eerie horror tale about a seducing blood-sucker who kidnaps and murders girls to appease her insatiable thirst for female blood. This is a passable yarn by the prolific writer/producer/director Jesús Franco , considered to be one of the best films in his second period . Unforgettable and attractive Soledad Miranda as a sex-pot brunette who harasses women and sucks their blood . This fragile beauty appeared in numerous comedies, dramas, B-movies, and horror films, mostly in Spain , over thirty films altogether from 1960 to 1970 . In 1970 Soledad was in a car accident on a highway in Portugal and she sadly died . Ironically, before this tragic accident, the powerful German film producer Artur Brauner had offered her a contract which would have made her a great star. Soledad was destined to become a legend .Her biggest break came from legendary director Jess Franco, who cast Soledad in such cult classics as Count Dracula , Eugenie De Sade , Sex Charade , The Devil Came from Akasava and Vampyros Lesbos. Soledad is generally regarded as Franco's greatest discovery and not until the years after her death has she become a cult starlet with fans all over the world now discovering the beautiful, doomed actress. This Vampyros Lesbos is a pure psychedelic movie , being well produced Artur Brauner and Arturo Marcos but in short budget . Shot in Istanbul , Turkey , posing as the fictitious city in which lives the Countess vampire Nadine Carody , gorgeous Soledad Miranda ,though she was was dubbed . This classic terror motion picture , a classic in some circles , was professionally directed by Jesús Franco who never considered the film to be a horror story, but instead felt it was tale of "anguish" . Franco is really influenced by ¨Bram Stoker's Drácula ¨, ¨Carmilla's Sheridan Le Fanu¨ , B-Horror movies , German expressionism , and the Universal Terror . The picture was really cut , and it has several versions both , soft and hard . Initial releases of the film were met with negative reactions from film critics , while the general critical reaction had been poor , however ,today is considered to be an acceptable fim. Furthermore , support cast is pretty good such as Dennis Price as Dr. Alwin Seward , Paul Muller as Dr. Steiner and Jess Frank or Jesús Franco himself as a sadist killer . Special mention for musical score composed by synthesizer , full of strange sounds , jazzy , shouts and psychedelic soundtrack from Manfred Hübler and Jesús Franco as David Khune . The film has a lot of titles the German version is Vampyros Lesbos: Die Erbin des Drácula, the French version titled "Vampiros lesbos" was used, while the original German release title was spelled "Vampyros Lesbos" and Spanish versión titled ¨Las vampiras¨ .The motion picture was strange and regularly directed by Jess Frank , here using continous zooms, surprising close-ups , including blood drops , scorpions , butterfly , other insects and and kites . Jesus Franco was a Stajanovist filmmaker who realized 203 movies . However , here uses his trademarks , as he pulls off a complex narration , extreme zooms , and lousy pace . As the picture belongs to Franco's second period in which he made so-so flicks . Jesus uses to sign under pseudonym , among the aliases he used, apart from the names Jess Franco or Franco Manera, were Jess Frank, Robert Zimmerman, Frank Hollman, Clifford Brown, David Khune , Toni Falt, James P. Johnson, Charlie Christian, David Tough , among others . Franco used to utilize usual marks such as zooms , nudism , foreground on objects , filmmaking in ¨do-it-yourself effort¨ style or DIY and managing to work extraordinarily quickly , realizing some fun diversions, and a lot of absolute crap . Many pictures had nice photography , full of lights and shades in Orson Welles style , in fact , Franco was direction-assistant in ¨Chimes at midnight¨ and edited ¨El Quijote¨ by Welles . He often used to introduce second , third or fourth versions , including Hardcore or Softcore inserts or sexual stocks many of them played by his muse Lina Romay . In many of the more than 200 films he's directed he has also worked as composer, writer, cinematographer and editor. His first was "We Are 18 Years Old" and the second picture was ¨Gritos en la Noche¨ (1962) , the best of all them , also titled "The Awful Dr. Orlof" , it's followed by various sequels such as El Secreto del Dr. Orloff (1964) aka "The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll" , " Orloff y el hombre invisible (1970) aka "Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster" and finally "Faceless" (1987) . He also directed to the great Christopher Lee in 4 films : "The Bloody Judge" , ¨Count Dracula¨, ¨The Blood of Fu Manchu¨ and ¨The castle of Fu Manchu¨ . Jesús's influence has been notable all over Europe . From his huge body of work we can deduce that Jesús Franco is one of the most restless directors of Spanish cinema and often releasing several titles at the same time. Many of his films have had problems in getting released, and others have been made directly for video. More than once his staunchest supporters have found his "new" films to contain much footage from one or more of his older films . Jesús Franco is a survivor in a time when most of his colleagues tried to please the government administration. He broke up with all that and got the independence he was seeking. He always went upstream in an ephemeral industry that fed opportunists and curbed the activity of many professionals . But time doesn't pass in vain, and Jesus' production has diminished since the 90s ; however he went on shooting until his recent death .

Well, I taped this movie because I found the title Vampiros Lesbos (or one could translate it to Lesbian Vampires, or the Vampire of Lesbos, or whatever - there isn't one) interesting. My friend also directed me towards it, though I do rarely listen to him. My conclusion though is that I really wasted my time watching this movie as it was dull, boring, and pointless.Dracula fell in love with a woman and made her a vampire, and this vampire only loves woman. One woman, a journalist or something, kept on dreaming about this vampire, and saw her one night in a weird restaurant. She then went to her island and had weird things done to her, and then after she goes to hospital and then is released, returns to the island to kill this vampire.It is a very bizarre, almost pointless movie. One of my friends says that to appreciate one movie, one needs to watch movies of other countries, and I agree that some movies from other countries had a style and ideas that are not found in those of America. Also, garbage like this also comes out, just as garbage comes out of everywhere.

Vampiros Lesbos is an extended film essay, based on Franco's lectures at a women's college at Cambridge University in 1968. In it, Franco addresses his thoughts on "the question of women and film," interpreted by Franco as many questions. In Vampiros Lesbos, Franco ponders the significant question of whether or not a woman could find the same meaning in life as men, exemplified my Count Dracula. In doing so, he examines women's historical experience as well as the distinctive struggle of the woman artist. Franco defines the question of women and film as being three inextricable questions: women and what they are like; women and the women they sleep with; and women and hoe lesbian intercourse is depicted. A couple of bothersome features: First, the words lesbianism and omnisexuality are used interchangeably throughout the film and the script pertaining to the film. Second, the genres (e.g. cunnilingus) with which each actress is associated are clearly discernible, but there is almost non-existent notation of the actresses possible connection to any of the men, or the reasons that some of these actresses were considered lesbian.

I am attracted to vampire movies. They are my favorite type of horror. Adding lesbian to the title is a sure attraction, but there was very little of either lesbian action or vampirism in this Franco film.Now, Jesus Franco may not be familiar to everyone. Possibly because he had over 50 aliases. He directed over 180 films, wrote just about the same amount, acted in almost 100, and composed and edited many. You would think someone so prolific would be better known. With all that work, he only won one award, and that was for a short.This is considered by aficionados to be one of his more famous works. It is pure B sexploitation and of interest only to those who want to watch every vampire film, or every lesbian film, or every Euro trash film; in other words, a completion fanatic.Sure, Ewa Strömberg, Soledad Miranda, and Heidrun Kussin were worth looking at. Miranda is considered the Queen of the European Vampire Flicks, and displays full frontal in just about all her films. Her untimely death before the release of her most famous films certainly adds to the legend.