Director: Jesus Franco
Country: Spain
Year of Release: 1972
Runtime: ~80 mins.
Other Titles: La Maldicion de Frankenstein, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, The Curse of Frankenstein
Jess Franco's dreams are dreams of another order. I swear they have an actual psychic potency. I watched this twice last night. In a row. The first time I felt like acid had bored a hole through my brain. The second time I became its willing slave. Life imitates art?
I don't know where to start. If this were real life. (Wait...) I would get my own white robes, head to the nearest altar, light black candles in satanic adoration, and leave it at that. But since I said I was going to write something about these movies, I suppose that means I should actually, you know, write something.
There is a plot somewhere in this movie. But it seems somehow unimportant next to the power of its images and ideas. Any way you might attempt to describe this movie makes it sound incurably insane. But that's the beauty of it -- it can't be translated. It must be experienced. Like dreams, the film is greatly reduced when merely described. Not that this will stop me from trying.
So, here are some of the relevant details. Cagliostro, an undead sorcerer and hypnotist, has a plan. He sends Melisa, a blind half-bird, half-woman with an insatiable lust for blood, to kill Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant Morpho, so they can kidnap Frankenstein's monster. The monster is inexplicably painted silver and his belt is not attached to his pants. They take him back to the castle, where we learn that Melisa's other function is to act as a conduit for Cagliostro's "magnetism," which allows him to control all living things. Eventually, they use the monster to kidnap attractive women so they can harvest their body parts to make the ultimate woman. Then, of course, the monster will mate with her to create a super race. Then there's the Night of the Dead, the white-shrouded horde of the Sect of Panthos, and Esmerelda, the gypsy woman who will eventually give birth to Cagliostro's reincarnation -- and, well, you get the idea.
This sort of thing can launch protracted meditations on the nature of film. Because the point isn't what, it's how. It's the way Franco zooms on Cagliostro's hypnotic stare. It's the way the monster's silver head pops against a black background. It's the way the sect of Panthos looks genuinely disturbing and mysterious standing around Cagliostro's altar. It's the completely unnecessary, but wonderful scene in which the camera begins zoomed on a distant forest (or mountain? I can't tell), and then zooms rapidly out, before panning up and zooming in on the daytime moon. It's all about the association and juxtaposition of images.
And that's really where Franco transcends his budgetary limitations. The film is edited and directed like an art film. It really is just gorgeously shot (most of the time). And whoever is actually responsible for the photography clearly had an eye for composition.
There is an early scene looking down from Cagliostro's castle on two shrouded figures carrying a casket across a beach. It's a haunting image. Something straight out of a romantic poem. Later, in a conversation between Seward, the inspector, and Abigail, the camera is tilted just slightly to make the scene just slightly off-kilter. They stand in diagonals to each other. The movie is filled with moments like this.
And, really, they're way above the quality any movie about Frankenstein and Bird-Women should be. But that's the magic of Franco. Art be damned, he says. I'm GOING to make a movie about Frankenstein and Bird-Women. And I will have magnificent establishing shots of castles, and surreal close-ups, and bizarre set-pieces. Because that's just who I am. And what happens? All that sleazy earnestness gets rolled up into a big, silver, psychedelic ball. And the ball is like a diving bell. And the diving bell goes into a weird hell. And somehow you come back up with pieces of weird embedded in your brain, and, somehow, that's okay.
And maybe you forget about it for awhile. But then someday -- maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day. But someday. You wake up and echoing in your mind is a silver Frankenstein and the Sect of Panthos and Cagliostro's devil eyes. I realize this kind of makes Franco sound like he gives you acid flashbacks. Okay, maybe he does. But, maybe, just maybe -- that's what you're looking for when you're out wandering the movie wastelands. Dreams to take with you.
Before my mind completely melts away into a Franco-induced acid coma, I need to mention the disc itself. Image has given us a wonderful transfer. It really looks nice (if a bit too dark at times). But the real bugaboo about this is that Image has given us the original Spanish "clothed" cut. First, this edit removes all of the film's nudity (as Spanish filmmakers were in danger of breaking the law). And I'm inclined to say that Franco's nudity is kind of like Kirby's crackle. It's the twist to his delirious horror martini. But this isn't for pervy reasons: Franco filmed it a certain way, and part of it is just missing. The scenes haven't just been re-filmed, but they've frequently been shortened. The iconic scene in which silver Frankenstein whips a couple over a bed of spikes is not only clothed, but much shorter. And this does have an effect on the film.
More importantly, the cut is a good deal longer than the "Director's Cut" versions thanks to the addition of Lina Romay's scenes as Esmeralda. I can't quite decide if these really work or not. They interrupt the action and add some dreamy forest images. But they're not really related to the main plot and action. Either way, the addition of at least 10+ minutes of footage has a profound effect on pacing and overall atmosphere. Not having seen the shorter cut I can't say which works better, but I imagine the shorter runtime of 70ish minutes is probably the tauter and more effective version, if only because it condenses its madness. Especially as the more lurid scenes are actually somewhat longer.
The Image DVD does include the excised footage as an extra. And upon first taking it in, I liked the style more. The footage is clearly from an inferior source. But the colors in particular are warped in a strange and pleasing way. The movie might actually benefit from the distortion. It's especially noticeable with the Panthos skeleton. The crisper Spanish cut makes it clear that it is a plastic model, whereas the cheaper transfer obscures it enough to make it more effective as a prop.
And then there's the issue of the dub. If I had actual readers, I would ask them to help me figure this out: Is the Spanish version dubbed into Spanish? Was this movie like those Italian affairs with multilingual casts? Howard Vernon's Wikipedia page suggests that he doesn't actually speak Spanish. And not having seen him in anything else, I don't know if the voice here is actually his. My point being with this that the English dub (from the extra footage) is actually quite bizarre and effective (Melisa's voice, in particular, is outrageous). But the purist in me would have an issue with it not being the original. But this problem would be alleviated if I knew the Spanish soundtrack was dubbed too. Life is so hard.
Even in a longer, less "Erotic" version, The Rites of Frankenstein is a wonderful dream of a movie. And I heartily recommend it.
Lastly, it is probably worth a plug for Trash Palace, who will apparently sell you DVD-Rs of difficult to find material. And they just happen to have the Dutch subtitled, English language, 70 minute version of the movie available. So, who knows. Maybe the truth is out there.
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