ma-cortes
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 .
MisterWhiplash
Calling director Jesus Franco a pornographer after watching Vampiros Lesbos would be unfair, but not simply for the face that he's directed many, many films throughout a career of B to Z grade projects. It's also because it would be too easy. The man is, after all, an "artist", or whatever might pass for one in 1970. He was 40 at the time and made a film that, for better or worse, is a part of a legacy of sex-horror trash that must be mentioned in any conversation about sexy naked women and some blood and vampires and stuff. It's definitely not a very good movie, and point in fact it's probably too pretentious to see its own forest full of trees. But it does have some kind of power, some kind of very strange intuition that makes it never too boring - and, if you're *into* a very abstract love/mind-game story of vampire femme fatales then here you go.In Vampiros Lesbos or, you guessed it, Lesbian Vampires, Jesus Franco tells a story that is about as loosely based on Stoker's mythology as one of the dresses is on any given girl in a sultry scene. A lawyer, Linda Westinghouse (and yes, Ewa Stromberg so looks like Linda Westinghouse doesn't she... actually kind of), is on a beach away from her man and meets a carefree woman, Soledad Miranda, who draws her into her world: she's the sole heiress of Count Dracula's fortune, and has also been indoctrinated into the "coven" of other vampires, and by a slip of the "wine" she brings Linda in as well. Meanwhile, another sexy blonde is going nuts in a mental hospital where a doctor tries his hardest to figure on how to kill the darn beasts.So, in truth, there is some relation to the original book, much in the same way a hippie living in a sewer eating rats and tripping 40 year old acid is in relation to Jerry Garcia. This is such a work of its time that it might have actually been close to perfection for maybe one day in 1970 or 1971, while the sun was setting and everything was perfect for Franco and his production team and actresses all tanned and sultry, and then it was gone forever and locked into a time capsule. It's loaded with "crazy" imagery, hallucinatory passages of subjective viewpoints from its female characters- perhaps all an allusion to lesbianism and it keeping women trapped who normally wouldn't be under different circumstances(?)- and even an annoying recurring symbol of a scorpion in a pool (yeah, we get it, scorpion, Peckinpah, move on!) The acting also isn't good at all by a couple of the supporting players, like that guy who plays Morpho with the same stone-faced look or even Dr. Seward.But at the same time, as a time capsule, it holds some pleasures of some minor guilty measure. While its violence isn't directed with much care, Franco is a perverted master of a certain kind of seduction between women on screen, and here he does get some scenes and moments that are creepy and striking and even erotic. I also liked Stromberg and Miranda in their roles, no matter how at-best two-dimensional they were. And the music is both divinely awesome and totally ludicrous with it being funky and smooth and 'hey, Tarantino ripped that off and it is that great', as well as being like a putrid re-rendering of that Pink Floyd song from Zabriskie Point's finale played repeatedly to poor effect. Vampiros Lesbos is one of a kind, so one of a kind that it would take someone with daring and possibly dementia to remake it. I both applaud Franco's versatility in attempting something as maniacal and coolly grind-house-ish, while at the same time realizing I could never in good conscience recommend it wholly. It's one of those.
