JAILHOUSE WARDRESS - BLU-RAY REVIEW

If we’re to believe the phony Anglicized credits, JAILHOUSE WARDRESS (1979) is just another routine women-in-prison film, but seldom have distributors sought so earnestly to camouflage a film’s true origins and pass it off as an entirely new picture like the lovable hucksters at Eurociné. Perhaps best known on these shores for producing several Jess Franco films such as FEMALE VAMPIRE (a.k.a. EROTIKILL, 1973), this Paris-based distribution outfit and production company has also become synonymous with a number of hastily cobbled-together films, of which JAILHOUSE WARDRESS is probably their most infamous. Following the success of Jess Franco’s far superior WIP film BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975), which Eurociné distributed and owed the rights to in France, they decided to offer their very own contribution to the genre. But rather than take the time and trouble to shoot an all-new film, Eurociné instead ransacked Franco’s picture, stretching out miles of ‘previously viewed’ footage with a handful of ‘all-new’ insert scenes overseen by in-house director Alain Deruelle, which they probably threw together over a single long weekend. It shows. 

 

Essentially a re-hash of BWD, JAILHOUSE WARDRESS is a jumbled, schizo mix of mismatched scenes, a conflicting mix of characters, and paltry budget. Care of re-dubbed footage taken from Alain Payet’s SPECIAL TRAIN FOR HITLER (a.k.a. HELLTRAIN, 1977), a twitchy SS Colonel (Roger Darton) is forming a plan to eliminate “traitors and defeatists” from the Third Reich during the waning days of WWII, and upon Hitler’s own recommendation, Fraulein Elsa Ackermann (Monica Swinn) is ordered to run the operation. Next, we’re in a cramped apartment in modern day France, which possibly doubles as a Mossad safehouse (we know this because there is a large Israeli flag in the living room) where Jewish secret agents discuss the “red Heidelberg file”, which details the ongoing search to find and kill the SS Colonel from the opening who killed “thousands of Jews in concentration camps.” It develops that this Colonel has fled to South America with Elsa (“You know the story...”), where they are now running a local prison, which sets the stage for the rest of the film. 

 

Virtually the entirety of BARBED WIRE DOLLS (minus most of its sexually explicit material) seems to have been recycled here, albeit with its continuity drastically rearranged. Adding to the confusion, newly-shot footage with Eurociné regulars Nadine Pascal and Pamela Stanford as a pair of jovial prisoners clashes severely with Franco’s original downbeat scenario, and does nothing to propel the story forward; they merely lounge around the prison in constant states of partial or total undress discussing nothing in particular, and despite utilizing large portions of BWD, much of that film’s dreary - and highly potent – atmosphere is completely eliminated here. More in line with some of Eurocine’s other piecemeal films such as HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS (1974) or OASIS OF THE LOST GIRLS (1981), few of the disjointed storylines and newly-shot scenes ever properly gel, while disconnected pages of seemingly unrelated scripts seem to have been cut together using third-hand gaffer’s tape. When Nestor (Didier Aubriot, who poorly replaces the always watchable Eric Falk from the original) has his way with the prisoners, the film resorts to some flaccid attempts to instill some excitement, but much of the potentially offending scenes come across as laughable (“Close your eyes! There’s nothing to it!” remarks one of the girls.), which is made doubly ineffective by Daniel J. White’s crudely inserted and wholly inappropriate jazzy interludes; and it’s also hard not to notice the black-painted balsa wood doubling for solid iron bars! Following various prison subplots and backstories (including Lina Romay’s and Jess Franco’s infamous slow-motion death scene from BWD), our Jewish operative from the beginning finally reasserts his omnipotence with a bonus minute of action…

 

Despite its lowly pedigree, JAILHOUSE WARDRESS has seen more than a few releases during the digital era, beginning with Videofilm Express’ NAZI FILM COLLECTION, a 6-disc box set from 2010, which saw it issued alongside several other Eurociné Nazi-themed war films. This Dutch Region 2 PAL DVD was touted as a 16x9 release, but was weirdly stretched to accommodate a 1:85 image, so in order to watch the film in its intended 1.66:1 framing, viewers had to manually adjust their aspect ratio settings on their DVD player. The film was in English and included optional Dutch subtitles. In 2017, UK based label Maison Rouge released a slightly improved transfer of the film (albeit now weirdly in a 1.40 widescreen format) with marginally better colour timing, but for most casual viewers, the film’s differing film stocks and poorly recycled footage will make for a frustrating viewing experience. Earlier this year, thanks to MVD Classics and their continuing relationship with Eurociné, JAILHOUSE WARDRESS made its worldwide Blu-ray debut, and much like Maison Rouge’s UK disc, this is virtually the same transfer with a very minor uptick in quality thanks to the higher bitrate, but this still remains a poorly prepared transfer, which is littered with surface scratches and fluctuating contrast that lacks any real detail. As an interesting side note, the prominent swastika which adorned Maison Rouge’s DVD art is conspicuously missing from MVD Classics’ otherwise identical BD cover image, which in this day and age, is not surprising. 

 

There are no extras to speak of, other than a few newly-constructed trailers for some of MVD Classics’ other Eurociné product, which for the record include Pierre Chevalier’s CONVOY OF WOMEN (1m03s, 1974), Jess Franco’s GOLDEN TEMPLE AMAZONS (1m50s, 1984), Amando De Ossorio’s Canadian-set western HUDSON RIVER MASSACRE (1m30s, 1965), and Alain Payet’s NATHALIE ESCAPE FROM HELL (1m13s, 1978). 

Although still of interest to the more fetishistic Jess Franco fan or indiscriminate Eurotrash completists, JAILHOUSE WARDRESS has the arguable distinction of being one of the poorest films in the entire Eurociné catalogue! And that’s really saying something! 

 

HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS - BLU-RAY REVIEW

Barely released in this digital age, Pierre Chevalier’s HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS (1974) was produced by the budget-conscious specialists at Eurociné, a still-active French distribution and production company based out of Paris, who are probably best-known for producing Jean Rollin’s & Julián Esteban’s aquatic zombie snoozer ZOMBIE LAKE(1980) and a number of Jess Franco films, including The AWFUL DR. ORLOF (1962) and FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973, a.k.a. EROTIKILL).

 

Better known as The HOUSE OF THE LOST DOLLS to the few Eurotrash cineastes that have actually seen it, this is one of Eurociné’s notorious patchwork efforts starring Silvia Solar and Sandra Jullien (from Jean Rollin’s The SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES [1971] fame), which utilizes redubbed footage from Gianpaolo Callegari’s AGENT SIGMA 3: MISSION GOLDWATHER (1967), an Italian spy flick also starring Solar (which undoubtedly accounts for all the reused footage) and Franco regular Jack Taylor as the titular agent.  Of course, this slapdash bit of cinematic manipulation is nothing new for Eurociné, whose alternate version of Jess Franco’s A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (1971) contains numerous added reshoots (courtesy of Jean Rollin) of zombie mayhem not seen in Franco’s original edit.  Probably one of their most notorious fusions of sleaze is Alain Deruelle’s JAILHOUSE WARDRESS (1979), which utilizes newly-shot footage cobbled together around redubbed scenes from Jess Franco’s BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975) and Alain Payet’s HELLTRAIN (1977)!

 

Like most of these quickly thrown-together efforts, the minimal storyline is usually lost among a variety of differing footage and redubbed dialogue, which strives desperately to make some semblance of coherence; HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS is no exception.  Opening against the supposed “House of Cruel Dolls” (the same house from Jean Rollin’s zombie reshoots, and the very same house from the opening of Jess Franco’s GOLDEN TEMPLE AMAZONS [1986], no less!), nudity fills the screen from the opening shot as Yvette (Magda Mundari) accepts “a date” with Mr. Gaston (Raymond Schettino), but he actually wants to bust her out of this prison/brothel, even though she has abandoned (quote) “all hope”. This way-out-in-the-woods, clandestine destination of sin can only be accessed via a very bumpy dirt road – which doesn’t allow our escapees to drive very quickly! – and then, in a mind-boggling bit of idiocy, our couple decide to celebrate their successful escape with a little hanky-panky in the woods.  They eventually make it to a lowly police station where, via flashbacks, Yvette proceeds to recount her story to a highly doubtful police inspector. 

 

It seems Mr. Raski (Olivier Mathot), along with his accomplice Sylvia (Solar), is running a white slavery syndicate where he conveniently gets to sample the goods.  The women are then put in large wicker baskets and shipped to the titular location run by Madame Zozo (Gillian Gill), but once again, are repeatedly taken advantage of by Raski’s henchmen, led by Eurociné stock player ‘Yul Sanders’ / Claude Boisson.  Much of the film unfolds through a seemingly endless parade of women being groped in grungy garages and the ship’s cargo hold, which does nothing to enhance the film’s already flimsy plotline.  With the help of Yvette’s testimony, some mysterious government agency gets involved and recruits Special Agent Jack (Jack Taylor from SIGMA 3) to help infiltrate this seedy organization, which takes him from Tangiers to Barcelona.  Of course, all of jack’s scenes are taken from the aforementioned Callegari film, which is mostly relegated to car chases and cut-rate punch-outs, while the unscrupulous Sylvia kills a snooping woman with poisonous fingernails.  Then, much like Bela Lugosi was hilariously “doubled” by Tom Mason in Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959), Jack Taylor is also doubled by some anonymous guy in a few of the sleazy, nudity-filled ’70s scenes.

 

After getting some solid intel from Barcelona about that mysterious cargo ship, the case is reassigned to Magda (Sandra Jullien), who ends up in Raski’s office with promises of a luxurious getaway, but is instead drugged and seduced on Raski’s office floor.  Like the other girls, she too ends up being raped in the ship’s cargo hold in yet another protracted, nudity-filled scene. Eventually, Magda manages to escape after karate-chopping Sylvia, and then Jack shows up for a shoot-out on the docks as the film clumsily moves between SIGMA 3: MISSION GOLDWATHER and Chevalier’s newly-shot footage with Jullien.

 

Director Pierre Chevalier (sometimes credited as ‘Peter Knight’) is probably best-known on these shores for his hokey, invisible woolly-monster movie The INVISIBLE DEAD (1970) and his cheap Sybil Danning action film, PANTHER SQUAD (1984). Like most of Eurociné’s output in the ’70s, it’s incredibly cheap-looking, with harsh lighting and flat photography, this time courtesy of Franco regular Gerard Brissaud, unlike Eurociné’s usual stock DP, Raymond Heil.  Incidentally, Heil went on to shoot ‘John O’Hara’ / José Jara’s similar-sounding OASIS OF LOST GIRLS (1982, a.k.a. POLICE DESTINATION OASIS), which also used many of this film’s sleazy sequences!  

 

Originally released on Dutch PAL videocassette (courtesy of EVC) in English with Dutch subtitles under its original export title THE HOUSE OF THE LOST DOLLS, the film made its digital debut in 2006 thanks to Austria’s XT Video. Although marketed under its German release title DAS SCHIFF DER GEFANGENEN FRAUEN (“The Ship of Imprisoned Women”), the print itself sported the film’s alternate, and rather nonsensical, English language export title POLICE MAGNUM 84.  Unfortunately, XT’s disc only contained German and French language audio options and a smattering of extras, including the film’s original theatrical trailer, alternate video credits and a small still gallery. 

 

As part of their on-going Eurociné Collection, Charles Band’s Full Moon have given this little-seen sleaze opus an unexpected HD debut, which is a vast improvement over XT’s earlier DVD. This time featuring Italian credits (hence the film’s curious re-title yet again!), the transfer, which is (quote) “remastered from the original negative” looks quite good given the inconsistencies of the varying footage, and while it certainly isn’t on par with some of the other Eurociné Blu-rays on the market (Kino Lorber’s ZOMBIE LAKE comes to mind), everything herein looks well-defined with some surprisingly rich colours. Unlike XT’s non-English friendly disc, English is the sole audio option (in either a DD 2.0 or DD 5.1) this time around, which also sounds quite good given the wonky nature of most Eurociné Anglo dubbing tracks. Extras are limited to a handful of re-edited Eurocult promo trailers including one for the present title. 

 

While it may not be the (quote) “lost sexploitation classic”, Full Moon so proudly proclaims it to be, it’s nice to see them digging deep into the Eurociné archives just the same, even if most of the films are not to everyone’s tastes. Order the Blu-ray from Full Moon Direct. The DVD is also available here.

OASIS OF THE LOST GIRLS - DVD REVIEW

Although most widely-known for producing a number of films for Jess Franco, including classics such as THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF (1962), ‘on the side’ (so to speak) the spirited if notoriously cut-price French production company Eurociné (owned and operated by Marius Lesœur [1911-2003]) also dabbled in whatever exploitable genre happened to be profitable at any given time; a business model which resulted in a number of unforgettably tawdry productions, such as Patrice Rhomm’s ELSA FRAULEIN SS (a.k.a. FRAULEIN DEVIL [1977]) and Jean Rollin’s & Julián Esteban’snow-(in)famous nudie horror ZOMBIE LAKE (1980). At other times, out of pure necessity to try and get as many films out into the marketplace as possible on a constant basis, while cutting as many corners as they could in the process, Eurociné at times also, in true Frankensteinian fashion, stitched-together whole chunks of pre-existing films with newly-shot and/or redubbed footage: the kind of cinematic schizophrenia of which “John O’Hara” / a.k.a. José Jara’s OASIS OF THE LOST GIRLS (1981) is such a prime – if that’s the proper word to use! – example. 

Taking cues from Eurociné’s earlier, equally cobbled-together Pierre Chevalier film HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS (a.k.a. THE HOUSE OF THE LOST DOLLS, 1974), OASIS likewise employs the same tried-and-trusted ‘white slavery’ template to provide the, um, thrust of its narrative. This time round, young women from around the world are routinely drugged, abducted and shipped-out to a remote brothel (quote) “somewhere down in Africa” known as The House of the Lost Oasis. At the outset, Annie (Françoise Blanchard from Jean Rollin’s THE LIVING DEAD GIRL [1982]) and her friend are picked up by a couple of guys at a local nightclub to be sold off to white slavers, whose henchman (Eurociné stock-player Yul Sanders / a.k.a. Claude Boisson) is assured they are (quote) “Real top-quality goods…They’re real bangerinos!” Following a long, drawn-out voyage during which the girls are repeatedly taken advantage of (a sequence utilizing footage from THOTLD and that film’s makeshift cargo hold), they eventually arrive at their destination, where they are greeted by the house’s stern warden-type disciplinarian (Shirley Night), who looks like she just stepped out of a Jess Franco prison film. 

Upon slowing-down considerably thereafter, the slack action goes on to reveal many of the kidnapped girls (semi-clad in no more than skimpy undies or see-thru nighties!) recollecting how it was they somehow got mixed-up in all of this, a plot device which conveniently allows the filmmakers to further pad things out with reams of recycled footage culled from the Eurociné archives. When Nadine (Nadine Pascale) – one of The Oasis’ numerous nubile captives – reminiscences about her nightclub act back in Las Palmas, those cheeky folks at Eurociné brazenly insert she and Lina Romay’s entire kinky striptease from Jess Franco’s TWO FEMALE SPIES IN FLOWERED PANTIES (1980). And not only that, but in order to add further fetishistic fervor to the proceedings, Nadine’s prolonged torture at the hands of Irina (Joëlle Le Quément) and Mr. Forbes (Yul Sanders yet again!) from said film is also ‘smoothly’ worked into the script.  

Rather jarringly introduced late into the episodic, disjointed narrative is an extended subplot involving Interpol agents Arturo and Roland (the latter of whom is played by Jack Taylor using still more recycled-and-redubbed material, this time from Gianpaolo Callegari’s sub-Bondian Eurospyer AGENT SIGMA 3: MISSION GOLDWATHER [1967]). The pair of operatives are trying to infiltrate the white slavers’ prolific kidnapping ring, much as in Chevalier’s aforementioned THE HOUSE OF THE LOST DOLLS, which also supplanted it’s running time with elements of Callegari’s antiquated spy yarn. In OASIS, a number of unconvincing ‘doubles’ are seen and disembodied voices coming from off-screen are heard, intended to sub for the by-then-long-since-absent Taylor in many of the film’s newly-shot scenes; even AGENT SIGMA 3’s sultry femme fatale Catherine (Silvia Solar) is also reworked herein, with her now becoming the boss of the white slavery operation!

Unbelievably slipshod and cut-rate across the board, OASIS OF THE LOST GIRLS does endeavour to inject at least some semblance of coherence into its flimsy plot with all of its hastily slapped-together, redubbed and mismatched footage. Lacking any sort of polish whatsoever, this patchwork creation’s main reason-for-being is of course its scenes showing bare flesh, which is ladled-on plentifully in Jara’s ‘all-new’ material (flatly-shot in quickie setups by Eurociné’s in-house ‘go-to’ DP, Raymond Heil). All of this is further offset by THOTLD’s other sleazy sequences. When not being shipped inside large straw baskets like produce to market, the girls are periodically stripped, groped and raped (“No! Stop pawing me!”) in a number of sordid – if awfully amateurish – sequences wherein nothing much else transpires (real lowest-common-denominator fare, this! But Eurociné fans know what to expect in advance). Typical of such slapdash movies, there is also a lot of back-and-forth between these more commercially-viable aspects and the much older and less-exploitable ‘retrofitted’ material from AS3: MG, which boasted higher production values and far spunkier pacing but lacks the sleazy punch of the newer material. Attentive viewers should also listen out for the pilfered score, which features both Daniel J. White’s languid opening track from ZOMBIE LAKE and Jean-Jacques Lemêtre’s cheerful (albeit wholly inappropriate) ditty from Alain Deruelle’s CANNIBAL TERROR (1980).

Released stateside onto Hispanic home video in the ’90s as EL OASIS DE LAS CHICAS PERDIDAS courtesy of Spanish-language home video specialists Million Dollar Home Video (MDHV) as part of their Caliente sub-label, this Eurocinépatchwork effort made its digital era debut in 2002 via Germany’s X-Rated Kult outfit. Released under the similar-sounding OASE DER GEFANGENEN FRAUEN (trans: “The Oasis of Imprisoned Women”), picture quality was decent for the time, although it was presented in a flat 1.66:1 aspect ratio and only featured German audio. Given that Charles Band’s now-iconic VHS imprint Wizard Video introduced many a Eurociné film to unsuspecting U.S. viewers back in the ’80s, it’s actually quite fitting, and most welcome indeed, that Band’s Full Moon has decided to dig deep into the Eurocinévault yet again with this release. Sporting the on-screen title of FILLES PERDUES (trans: Lost Girls), OASIS OF THE LOST GIRLS comes to DVD in an excellent 16x9 transfer retaining the film’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but given its erratic nature and the various film stocks used (some of which differ by 14 years!), the picture quality naturally fluctuates wildly amid all this casually-mismatched footage. While it sounds fine for the most part, the English audio track option also points to the film’s rather-too-hasty post-production, and is at times, somewhat inaudible. Alas, no extras are included other than trailers for some of Full Moon’s other product. 

Given the film’s zero budget, Eurocinédoes (however miraculously!) manage to put together something approximating a real movie here, and no matter how boneheaded it may be, it should appeal to the more adventurously open-minded - or just plain masochistic- cineaste. Order it from Full Moon Direct or Amazon.

EUROCINÉ 33 CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES - DVD REVIEW

Yes, you guessed it, that’s the Paris street address to Eurociné, a lovably awful, but equally daring French film studio which is usually the scorn of snobbish cineastes that, let’s be honest, probably haven’t seen more than two of their films.  While many of their productions were undoubtedly made on the cheap, Eurociné were responsible for a treasure trove of trashy exploitation films mostly in the ’70s and ’80s, but they even managed to put together a few honest-to-goodness gems like THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF (1962) directed by the iconoclastic Jess Franco, easily the most respectable name associated with Eurociné. Subtitled a "A French Exploitation Cinema", Christopher Bier's (directing under the suitably apt "Christopher M. Beer" in keeping with the pseudonymous nature of most Eurociné films) documentary is a highly entertaining look at this modest studio that, to this very day, still operate out of that very same address.

Mr. Bier serves as our host who proudly proclaims the films of Eurociné “are no less exotic to us than BREATHLESS and CHILDREN OF PARADISE.”  He goes on to provide a fairly thorough background history of Marius Lesoeur, the founder of Eurociné, which is nicely cut together with contemporary interviews featuring a number of directors, actors and writers that all worked for Mr. Lesoeur at one time or another.  Some of the interviews include Monica Swinn (her anecdotes regarding the various Nazi-themed films they churned out in the ’70s are quite priceless), Roger Darton, Alain Deruelle (also known as Allan W. Steeve – the director behind such cut-and-paste non-classics as CANNIBAL TERROR [1980] and JAILHOUSE WARDRESS [1979]), Patrice Rhomm, Gilbert Roussel, writer and film historian Jean-Pierre Bouyxou and of course, Daniel Lesoeur, the current head honcho of this once prolific production house.

Christopher Bier, our host and director of EUROCINE 33 CHAMPS ELYSEES

Some of the highlights include a visit to their “studio” outside of Paris, which actually turns out to be nothing more than the Lesoeur’s holiday villa turned into a mini production house.  Anyone even remotely familiar with Eurociné’s output will instantly recognize many rooms within this house, which have turned up in the likes of Jean Rollin’s guilty pleasure ZOMBIE LAKE (1980) and Jess Franco’s appropriately dark and nasty EUGENIE DE SADE (1970).  In a surprise revelation and, to the astonishment of our host Mr. Bier, Mr. Lesoeur even unboxes Soledad Miranda’s knee high leather boots from that very same Franco film!

Of course, much of the fun also comes from the various clips utilized throughout the doc and, while there is no shortage of scenes from such Eurociné staples like Alain Payet’s HELLTRAIN (1976), Patrice Rhomm’s FRAULEIN DEVIL (1976), the aforementioned ZOMBIE LAKE (1980) and Jess Franco’s revamped and re-edited OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (1981), Mr. Bier has also included many tantalizing scenes from a variety of rarely seen titles such as Jess Franco’s early MARIQUITA, QUEEN OF THE TABARIN CLUB (1960), Gilbert Roussel’s RED HOT ZORRO (1972) and The GIRLS OF THE GOLDEN SALOON (1973), Pierre Chevalier’s The HOUSE OF LOST DOLLS (1973), Alain Payet’s HELGA, The SHE-WOLF OF SPILBERG (1977) and many others. 

This hour long documentary is unfortunately rather low on extras but the fact that it contains English subtitles more than makes up for it.  Although a very welcome extra is a rather extravagant poster gallery highlighting many works by poster artist Belinsky whose trashy “anything goes” artwork suited the Eurociné aesthetic to a tee.  By all means, order your copy here and check this out!  Vive la Eurociné!

Robert Foster (aka Antonio Mayans) in Eurocine's most financially successful and widely-seen film.

Christopher Bier (left) enters through the same door as Pierre Escourrou in ZOMBIE LAKE. 

Daniel Lesoeur (left) and Christopher Bier.