An Evening with Klaus Kinski: Jess Franco's Jack the Ripper (1976)

Over the years, there have been many people who’ve tackled the role of Jack the Ripper. From Tom Savini to Ian Holm to Anthony Perkins, many actors have stepped into the role, but when Jess Franco began his production on the classic tale, there was only one actor in his mind, Klaus Kinski. Franco never met a script that was full of violence and sex that he didn’t like, and with 190 films to his credit, I always think of him as the spiritual forefather of prolific filmmakers like Takashi Miike. Like Miike, Franco also never shied away from trying his hand at a variety of material. Still many people consider Jack the Ripper (1976) to be his most uncharacteristic film.

The film concerns itself with Dr. Orloff (Klaus Kinki), a physician whose practice is floundering with a string of low-income clients who can’t afford to pay. By night, the good doctor moonlights as Jack the Ripper terrorizing the back alleys of White Chapel. The case is taken up by Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkoff) whose only leads are the vague impressions of a dowager and the smells picked up by a blind man. The Ripper eludes capture at every turn and continues his reign of terror aimed at London’s ladies of the night. When Selby’s girlfriend Cynthia (Josephine Chaplin) goes undercover without Selby’s knowledge, it’s a race for the Inspector to find Cynthia or the Ripper before she becomes the next victim.

If you’re looking for a film that bothers with historical accuracy, then you’re looking in the wrong place. You’re better off with the pseudo-history in the Hughes Brother’s film From Hell than taking a lesson from Professor Jess Franco. Very little in Franco’s film is even vaguely accurate, but that’s not what he was striving for. He was interested in portraying Jack the Ripper as a sexual sadist with seriously twisted oedipal issues. In one of the films most interesting scenes, Dr. Orloff has a vision of Cynthia dressed as a prostitute who provokes his ire by taunting him with his mother’s own past as a whore. That night to find his release, Orloff in Ripper mode hires a woman for sexual pleasure and cuts off both of her breasts. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see the symbolism is his choice of victims or the acts he perpetrates on them.

Most films about Jack the Ripper spend little time on the killer’s motives or modus operandi, and instead they turn their focus on the detective on the prowl for the murderer. While Jack the Ripper is far from a great film, it did spark my interest by pairing the mythos of the White Chapel murders with the sado-sexuality of Franco’s other films such as Eugenie or Justine. The film also maintains an air of creepy, voyeuristic sexuality though the lens of cinematographer Peter Baumgardener. He was well versed in erotic, or perhaps more accurately, sexploitation films from his pervious work on films such as Naked Stewardesses (1971) and Swedish Nympho Slaves (1976). From the aforementioned breast dicing to a scene where Dr. Orloff humps the body of another victim, the depraved sexual nature of the killer is definitely the film’s most interesting contribution to the cinematic persona of The Ripper.

Klaus Kinski was the perfect actor to play the deviant version of Jack the Ripper. With a face like a gargoyle, his perfectly placed blonde hair, and steely blue eyes, Kinski manner easily gives the impression of a man with a darkness barely contained behind his eyes. His performance in the film gives the whole of the proceedings weight, and there is never any doubt that he was the star. That being said, unlike his run-ins with Werner Herzog that I detailed last week, both Franco and producer Max Dora have praised Kinski for being communicative, easy going, and more than willing to give his best to help the film. In an interview on the DVD I watched, Dora even went so far as to say that Kinski pitched in and directed some of his own scenes. The version I watched which included the interview was from the official Jess Franco collection, and the special feature was enlightening and very interesting. However, the disk only contains an English dubbing that was middling at best. While it also had the film in its original German, it didn’t provide an English subtitle track to match up with it. I would have much rather heard Klaus deliver his lines in his native tongue rather than the clumsily dubbed voice, but I tried hard not to let this detract from my enjoyment of the film.

The supporting cast rarely rises above their roles although there are a few scenes sans Kinski that do stand out including a questioning session in Selby’s office that hit was sharply scripted. Andreas Mannkoff performance as Selby was serviceable, but he didn’t have enough of a presence to make an impression. Thankfully, he only shared a single scene with Kinski or his flaws would have become more apparent. More entertaining was the officer who always accompanied Selby. The actor that played him is not important. What made the character interesting was the performer who dubbed the voice. The voice he chose to give the officer was a broad caricature of a homosexual that would have been more at home in a dubbed version of La Cage aux Folles.

As usual with Jess Franco films, there is a bevy of beautiful, and generally fully naked, naked on display. Franco’s muse Lina Romay shows up as an Austrian girl in a dancehall before becoming one of the Ripper’s victims, and Esther Studer, another Franco regular, also plays a victim. The oddest casting among the beauties was Josephine Chaplin as Inspector Selby’s gal pal Cynthia. Chaplin was the daughter or Charlie and just getting her start in the business. Though she did not stack up in the looks department with many of the other women, her performance was interesting, and her scene as Dr. Orloff’s vision was undoubtedly her shining moment in the film.

Jack the Ripper does not look like a Jess Franco film, but the characters sure act as if they’re in one. To my knowledge, only Franco’s film has perused the idea of Jack the Ripper as a tortured sexual deviant, and taking this spin on it and focusing primordially on Jack set it apart from the dozens of other films on the subject. Jack the Ripper was not made as a piece of historical fiction, but instead, it serves as kind of psychological examination of the speculative motivations of the Ripper. It’s not going to be a film everyone loves, but if you enjoy Franco when he’s at his best, then this is one definitely worth your time.

Bugg Rating

B.L.O.G Presents Female Vampire (1973)

Since in the last couple of weeks I’ve been fulfilling requests on Tuesdays, I thought I would take up a suggestion that was thrown out a few weeks back for this week’s B.L.O.G entry. Tonight we get to take another look at Jess Franco as he attempts to blend horror and the erotic with the help of….

Lina Romay was actually born Rosa Maria Almirall in mid-fifties Spain, and when she began acting took her stage name from a singer/actress who was once part of Xavier Cougat’s band. Starting with 1972’s The Erotic Adventures of Frankenstein where she played a bit part as a gypsy girl, Romay became Jess Franco’s muse appearing in over 100 of his films. She also stole the director’s heart, and while they have never married, their professional and personal partnership lasts even until this very day. 

It was in her 6th film with Franco when she first took on a lead role. It was a role would be the first in a long line of brazenly sexual roles Romay would portray. It is not perfect film, far from it, but it is the tale of the Countess Karlstien, known as…

Female Vampire [French: Les Avaleuses] (1973) starring Lina Romay, Jack Taylor, and Jess Franco. Directed by Jess Franco. 

After a rash of killings begins to plague a resort town, Dr. Roberts (Franco) begins to investigate the killings and soon begins to suspect that the murder is a vampire. His prime suspect is the beautiful, but mute, Countess Karlstien who is vacationing at a local resort. It seems the Countess comes from a cursed family, and to stay alive she feeds on blood and the hormones of her victims when they are in the throws of an orgasm. She leads a sad lonely life, but soon finds herself attracted to the handsome, mustachioed Baron Von Rathony (Taylor). The Baron feels like they are destined to be together, but the Countess is unsure. The couple retreat to the Countess’ family home high in the mountains, but with Dr. Roberts on her trail, the life and the love of the Countess may well be at an end. 

The Bugg Picture

Wow, that was a really hard movie to synopsize. While all of the events (and a few others) happen in the film, the majority of the running time is not devoted to plot development. Instead, from the first frame of film on, we are treated with a continuing series of scenes and situations which are devoted to keeping Romay in as little as possible. In fact Romay only has 3 costumes in the entire film. The first is a simple spring number: vampire cape, belt, and knee high leather boots. See in the world of Female Vampires, covering one’s breasts is overrated. That’s what she doesn’t bother with either off her other outfits either. A white dress she wears while tanning, yes, tanning, is basically sheer, and then her last outfit is a tight black dress with a completely transparent top. If anyone thinks they might want to see Lina Romay’s breasts, well, you get all the chances you will ever need in this film. 

That’s not to say I did not appreciate them, after all, to paraphrase a certain sitcom, they are real and fabulous, but as with anything that becomes a constant in a film, after a while the effect wears off. Romay of course does not stop at exposing her breasts, and you pretty much get to see every character (except thankfully Dr. Roberts) in their birthday suits. While one or two of these folks who get sexed to death by the Countess have entertaining scenes, again it becomes monotonous and fills up too much of the picture. 

How much does it fill up? Well, we are an hour into the picture until the love story even begins to kick off. While we have shared many a scene with Jack Taylor by this point, (including getting a Dr. Manhattan worthy look at Taylor’s junk as he trims his ‘stache), his scenes are entirely too melodramatic and full of what Franco was trying to pass as “philosophy”. As far as Romay’s acting what is there to say. Mostly, she roams around named, and she’s mute. So I really don’t have anything to say about her various styling’s when nodding ‘yes’ or shaking her head ‘no’. The only real standout acting comes from Franco whose Dr. Roberts is consistently entertaining each time he takes the screen. Also the blind spiritualist, Dr. Orloc (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou), is a totally creepy dude, and I would especially like to see him in the 1978 film The Raisins of Death.

 

In the end while there is some cool plot points, some scenes that work dramatically, and some moments where the film has a very aggressively erotic tone. The problems I have really come down to too much or not enough. The sex scenes where mostly uninteresting and long, and lusting after Romay became pointless when she is naked for virtually the whole of the film. Then there’s the fact that the characters are never really developed, and the plot is never given any chance to grow. There’s too much of the sleazy Franco and not enough of the artful director who struck a better balance two years earlier with Eugenie. 

Bugg Rating

Here's a long (5min) cut from Female Vampire. I did not review the whole clip myself, but I can pretty much assure you that some parts may not be safe for work. 

The Grab Bag: The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966)

At the beginning of March in 1896, some 113 years ago, scientist Henri Becquerel was in his lab investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts, you know the usual, when the Frenchman stumbled onto radioactivity. Now Henri would go on to win a Co-Nobel prize in 1903 for his discovery, which he had to share with Pierre and Marie Curie, Brangelina of the Science set. It had to sting. The achievements of the Curies would become the textbook gospel of every schoolchild, while Becquerel, let’s just say the name doesn’t roll off the tongue. So from this day all those years ago, Becs not only gave birth to one of the building blocks of the nuclear age. He did much more. Henri surely was the first mad scientist. 

And so as the month of March begins, we are visited by our old friend Jess Franco, and a little film about mad science, mind control, spider babes, and killer sunglasses. Welcome to the world of ....
The Diabolical Dr. Z [a.k.a Miss Muerte] (1966) starring Mabel Karr, Estella Blaine Fernando Montes, Ana Castor, and Antonio Jimenez Escribano. Directed by Jess Franco.

When Hans, a killer, escapes from a local jail, he ends up passing out at the gates of Dr. Zimmer’s laboratory, his assistant Barbara (Castor) and daughter Irma (Karr) bring the man inside. Once they bring him in the Dr. and company get to work performing a strange experiment on the man.

When next we see Dr. Z (Escribano), he burst in on a conference at the Institute for Neurology. He claims to be able to manipulate the centers of the brain that causes people to do good and evil, and he can control these impulses with the use of his newly discovered ‘Z’ rays. The attendees call him a crazy fool, but Zimmer is not done yet. He petitions the Institute to let him experiment on a human subject. They laugh in his face, and as the old man defends himself he is overcome and dies from the strain.

Dr. Zimmer’s daughter Irma is overcome, and blames the Institute members who opposed her father for his death. So she devises a plan. First, Irma fakes her own death with the aid of the world’s most convenient victim, a pretty blonde hitchhiker. Irma kills the girl and sets fire to her own car with the girl in it. The she sends out the brainwashed Hans to abduct seductive spider costumed dancer Nadja a.k.a Miss Muerte (Blaine). Irma transforms the not so innocent girl into a vicious killer with poisonous fingernails, and she sends Nadja out to reap her revenge on the scientists who shamed her father to death.

Film Facts

--Mabel Carr appeared as Mirte in the early sword and sandals entry from Sergio Leone, the Colossus of Rhodes.

--This was Jess Franco’s 17th film out of a career which spans 189 directorial efforts.

--Jess Franco has a cameo in the film as an inspector.

The Bugg Speaks

Again Franco continues to shirk off the ‘hack’ mantle that has been placed on him. The further I dig into this fascinating director’s catalog, the more interesting the films get. The Diabolical Dr. Z is filled with tons of style, great camera work, and a brilliant jazz score. Dr. Z, or more appropriately Miss Muerte, is not part of Franco’s Dr. Orloff series, but Orloff is mentioned by Zimmer as an idol before he checks out. The film is strengthened by Mabel Karr’s Irma becoming the main focus. She is both alluring and dangerous, and to top it all off, she gives a great performance that is a treat to watch.

Speaking of great performances, I gotta give it up for the sexy performance art of Miss Murte. Estella Blaine in her sheer body stocking with a spider printed on it is obviously the envy of campy gothic strippers everywhere. While the hilarity of her routine is reason enough to love her, the dispatching of victims with her long black poison nails, makes her one for the ages. One of the greatest scenes in Dr. Z occurs when Nadja goes to take out the first scientist. As she seduces him on a train, it enters a tunnel, and the play with light and shadow is so evocative in this scene, I had to run it back to watch several times. Tied with that is Nadja's kidnapping when the bodystockinged vixen is chased around a theater by Irma and Hans.

There are several other noteworthy turns in the film. The short portrayal of Dr. Zimmer by Escribano is an inspired piece of over the top fun. All the ladies ooze sex appeal, even Ana Castor in her small role as Dr. Z’s assistant. The Number one line of the film has to be when Fernando Montes as Phillipe, a scientist in love with Nadja, is questioned about the girl when she comes up missing this exchange happens:

Inspector: Is she a natural blonde?

Phillipe: Natural blonde! Now you’re asking me too much, Inspector!

As I mentioned earlier Dr. Z has a great look to it. Franco was working with cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa, a veteran of many productions. Ulloa was behind the lens with Fulci on Perversion Story and Conquest, Enzo Castellari’s Go Kill Everyone and Come Back and western/comedy The Smell of Onion, Spanish auteur Paul Naschy’s Human Beast, and also the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee public domain goodie Horror Express. The two men gave this film a unique style, and with the frenetic energy of the climax, the movement of the film feels like it’s taking its cues from the jazz score.

In the end this is a very entertaining piece of cinema, and while not really either a pure horror or thriller title, it manages to straddle the line and deliver. With a trio of gorgeous Spanish actresses, a soundtrack worthy of bopping your head to and a story with enough campy strangeness, The Diabolical Dr. Z will please most fans on Europeans cinema, and give supporters of Jess Franco another reason to be proud.

Bug Rating