Rosalba Neri News # 32 THE FU MANCHU CYCLE 1965 - 1969 on Blu fom Indicator

 

   Collecting the five Fu Manchu titles produced by Harry Alan Towers, Indicator has announced this release for 19 Oct. 2020.  Directed by Don Sharpe, Jeremy Summers, and Jess Franco these feature Christopher as the title villain with Nigel Green, Douglas Wilmer, and Richard Greene playing his arch-nemesis Nayland Smith.
   A mixture of pulpy adventure and James Bond with a sprinkling of Euro-horror they are collected together in this limited (6000 units) edition box set. Containing a plethora of extras (some of which will address the controversies now attached to the character) including commentaries, interviews, image galleries, the first chapter of the silent Fu Manchu serial from 1923 and nice fat book among others.   
    Rosalba appears (with some really odd costume choices) in the last film in the cycle with Jess Franco's THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU from 1969. There's a new 2020 interview listed with her in extras which is a definite plus.

Rosalba Neri News # 21 - 99 WOMEN Blu-Ray Coming From Blue Underground.

    Bill Lustig over at Blue Underground has announced a forthcoming Blu-Ray release of Jess Franco's 99 WOMEN from 1969. An upgrade to their earlier DVD release, this will be similar to the previous releases of Franco's MARQUIS DE SADE'S JUSTINE (1969) and EUGENIE (1970) this will be a 3 disc set (BLU/DVD/CD Soundtrack). No word yet on extras or release date.

   Featuring a pretty unbelievable cast including Maria Schell, Herbert Lom, Mercedes McCambridge, Luciana Paluzzi, Maria Rohm and of course Rosalba, 99 WOMEN along with Jack Hill's Filipino productions a few years later set the template for the whole women-in-prison exploitation genre during the '70s and '80s.

    It's nice to see Rosalba featured prominently on the cover (and in much better rendition than the Justine cover) and hopefully, she'll make it into some of the extras. The reverse cover art will feature the U.S. one-sheet art pictured below (which always reminded me at first glance of a paperback book cover for a Gothic romance). 

  

Rosalba Neri News # 18 - Jess Franco's MARQUIS DE SADE'S JUSTINE Coming To Blu

     Over on their Facebook page Bill Lustig & Blue Underground has posted some news concerning more Rosalba on blu-ray. Jess Franco's JUSTINE was one of a series of films he did for British producer Henry Alan Tower which mixed among them are some of his better works including the excellent historical drama/horror THE BLOODY JUDGE with Christopher Lee. Afforded a larger budget then usual (at close to $1,000,000 1969's JUSTINE was Jess's highest budgeted film) he created a visually stunning film, but one that is still grounded in his off-kilter (and sometimes incomprehensible) universe.

    The film has a pretty unbelievable cast including a deranged Klaus Kinski as de Sade, Franco regular Maria Rhom, along with Mercedes McCambridge (who worked with Franco in the same year on 99 WOMEN - also with Rosalba), Akim Tamiroff , a REALLY deranged Jack Palance (who appears happily drunk off his ass in his scenes), the ubiquitous Howard Vernon and of course Rosalba. Wearing one heck of an outfit (that alone is worth the price of admission), she appears as some sort of disciple and/or sex slave for a monk-like society headed by the scenery devouring Palance.
   Coming on blu-ray Dec. 15 (which includes a CD with Bruno Nicolai's score), this 1969 production was released as DEADLY SANCTUARY in 1972 for the U.S. market by A.I.P. in a heavily edited version that must have left grindhouse patrons scratching their heads in bewilderment. Originally Franco wanted Rosemary Dexter for the title role but a Hollywood backer insisted on Romina Power (daughter of Tyrone Power) for the lead role which caused Franco to take most of the highly erotic content out of the script and re-write much of the dialogue for her.

Rosalba Neri Friday # 10 - The Castle of Fu Manchu 1969

    This was Christopher Lee's fifth outing as the Oriental arch-villain for producer Harry Alan Towers and the second one from director Jess Franco. This time around Fu and his faithful daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) have a device that will freeze solid the worlds oceans. This is shown in the opening scenes of the film as he uses to sink an ocean liner in the "tropics" (which is strangely populated with passengers bundled up for winter), as this orgy of stock footage comes from 1958's Titanic opus A Night To Remember. This pretty much gives a big hint to the production values (and logic) of the rest of the movie. After discovering his new "ocean freezing" invention needs some tweaking to prefect it, he kidnaps a Dr. Heracles.

   The Dr. informs him that massive amounts of opium crystals are needed to make it work and with this in mind he takes over the governor's castle in Istanbul with the help of opium dealer Omar Pasha (along with his assistant Lisa - Rosalba Neri), because as it turns out the governor's castle has a massive supply of opium stashed there.  Opps ! - seems that the Doc has a bad heart, so next Fu kidnaps a heart surgeon and as the castle happens to have a fully equipped operating theatre (along with the tons of opium) this is no problem. After taking over the castle he double crosses Omar and throws Lisa in the dungeon. Soon Fu Manchu's nemesis Nayland Smith (Richard Green) shows up, beats up a few of the guards in some really badly choreographed fight scenes and by doing absolutely nothing at all saves the day in the end. "I think" & "somewhere" would seem to be the two most common phrases you'd use in describing the plot.

    A typical Jess Franco "I don't really care about this one" production with a very ludicrous plot and huge jumps in logic (lots of "Hey, how'd that happen ??"). Rosalba's presence (and Chris Lee) was the only thing that helped me make it thru this, as it is an endurance test. The plot clunks & drags along and when something needs to happen, it usually just happens - with no explanation. Fu Manchu needs to get the secret formula from Dr. Heracles and he won't give it up ? Hey, no problem as Fu has it in the very next scene - as things just sorta happen "somewhere".  His laboratory consists of what looks one of those chemistry sets you use to be able to order out of the Sears catalog placed upon a wooden table and the dungeon consists of paper mache rocks and lots of psychedelic lighting (to most likely help HIDE the paper mache rocks).

   Rosalba (3rd billed here in the secondary credits) shows up for about the first twenty minutes then disappears until the climax as she escapes from the dungeon and attempts to rescue Omar. For some strange reason (I'm sure known only to Jess) he dresses her a series of really ugly men's clothing - including a stripped suit and fez (??) and almost seems to go out of his way to make her seem unattractive (which is a real challenge). Not the best movie on her resume, but hey its Rosalba, so here you have it.

Rosalba Neri Friday# 5 - 99 Women 1969

Rosalba and All - Star Cast Get Down & Dirty for Jess Franco !  

  Rosalba from Jess Franco's 99 Women (1969). Classic WIP Franco and most likely the ground zero for this genre in regards to its fruition in the upcoming decade. A beautifully shot film, with all the women obviously having unlimited access to lipstick & eye makeup - plus an unbelievable cast - Maria Schell, Herbert Lom, Mercedes McCambridge, Luciana Paluzzi, Maria Rohm and of course Rosalba.

R.I.P "Uncle Jess" Franco 1930-2013

Jesús "Jess" Franco May 12, 1930 - April 2, 2013

    Word came thru early this morning that Jess Franco passed away at age 82 from complications brought upon by a massive stroke which he suffered last week. Just to label him a "director" seems almost arbitrary as he served as various combinations of director, producer, scriptwriter, cameraman and actor on many of his films. IMDB lists about 200 titles to his credit, but in reality it probably far exceeds that number. He started working in film in the 1950's with his breakthrough being The Awful Dr. Orloff in 1962. Many of his films starred his companion/muse/collaborator Lina Romay who passed way last year on Feb. 15 from cancer at the way too early age of 57.
   My first introduction to Jess was via the old big box Wizard videos from the 80's of his Eurocine work - Virgin Among the Living Dead , Oasis of the Zombies, Revenge in the House of Usher etc. and earlier in my life I have vague recollections of seeing his Count Dracula on late night TV (and most likely hating it). But then came that magical first issue of Video Watchdog from 1990 with the article "How To Read a Franco Film",then the trading & buying of hazy mutli/gen tapes with Greek subtitles and such and then came THE book - Obsession : The Films of Jess Franco by Lucas Balbo (still one of my most treasured film books).  Now as I look on my DVD shelves (and now we even have Jess on blu !) I can see over 24 titles of his sitting there (with many more out there that I don't have).
    At times in the 70's he made 12 movies in one year and was often working on four or more at a time, with his most recent film Al Pereira Vs. The Alligator Ladies having just been released in Spain and with this Jess had his first theatrical showing in almost 30 years (proving that he still had some tricks up his sleeve).  He worked in every genre - horror, gothic horror, slasher, adventure, zombies, comedy,  XXX..... and he's one of the few directors that I can always forgive people for hating. I like Franco and I admit he made a lot of crap in his time, but he was always a very  personal & experimental filmmaker which made even his crap worth watching because you never knew what was coming next.
   Years ago at a Chiller show I got the chance to see Jess & Lina as they were guests there. They seemed kind of mystified that all these people had shown up to see them and Lina told practically everyone that asked her to sign something that she had never been asked for an autograph before this time. Starting in 1972 Jess & Lina created an amazing body of work together - sometimes mystifying, sometimes beautiful, often unforgettable and more often then not you just had to say " what the.... ??" They will both be VERY missed.  For an excellent Franco blog and a very nice tribute check out Tom Monell's I'm in a Jess Franco State of Mind .