Before exploitation film legend Jesús Franco Manera – usually known as Jess Franco – met arguably his most memorable muse and eventual wife, Lina Romay, he made six films in 1970 with an actress that would surely have appeared in many more if fate hadn’t intervened. Shortly after completing Franco’s The Devil Came from Akasava, Soledad Rendón Bueno – known professionally as Soledad Miranda or Susann (Susan) Korda (Korday) – died in a car accident at the age of 27 (her husband, who was driving, was injured but survived). Franco was devastated, but then he met Romay, and the rest is history. As for Miranda, several of those 1970 productions were released from 1971-1973 and became cult classics that are also regarded as high points in Franco’s oeuvre. Now, Severin Films has released stunning 4K transfers of two of them: Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy.
Before we take a look at each of these movies individually, let’s look at how both films reflect Franco’s unique voice, and how they preserve Soledad Miranda’s incredible presence for posterity.
Soledad Times Two
Franco is what you might call an acquired taste. I’ve often found him to be closely linked with fellow filmmaker Jean Rollin (they did cross paths once in a while); where Rollin tended to be more poetic, Franco was more exploitative. In these movies, however, there’s more restraint than you might expect, and if you go into a Franco film with the right mindset – expecting more performance art piece than straightforward narrative – you could be in for a good time… certainly an interesting one. While Franco could craft truly artistic moments, he also indulged some of his worst tendencies over the course of a long and controversial career, and the results are the very definition of “cult cinema.”
Franco had more than a passing fascination with the Marquis de Sade, a subject he explores in many other films. In both of these movies, Franco himself plays a character that winds up in a sexually charged torture scene with one of his female leads. But he also demonstrates a real sense of style, displaying spectacular architecture and avant-garde interiors populated by Star Trek-ian Tulip chairs and splashes of red against stark black and white furniture. There are intense close-ups, long takes, and extreme depth in shots that linger in the mind as well as on screen. Franco’s films are indeed a feast for the eyes, but they’re also somewhat…random. And through it all, incongruous jazzy music blares so continuously, you almost expect the go-go dancers to show up; are you ready, boots?
As for Miranda, she has an alluring intensity that buoys both films. While she’s strictly only a vampire in the first film, she plays distinctly vampiric characters in both and arguably exhibits even more vampire-like behavior in She Killed in Ecstasy. In that one, she seems to mesmerize victims against their will, and feeds on Franco’s blood in his obligatory de Sade-esque scene with her.
As we’ve come to expect from Severin, these restorations are immaculate. Franco could never have imagined how absolutely stunning his work would look today, with the saturated colors, lurid lighting, and even the skin texture of his cast (more of which is on display in She Killed in Ecstasy) all presented at a level of clarity and detail that has to be seen to be believed. Let’s take a closer look at each movie…
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