DR.
ORLOFF'S MONSTER (1964)Director: Jess Franco
Image Entertainment
DR.
ORLOFF'S MONSTER (1964)This is Franco's first of many sequels to his super THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF (1962), and it goes by several other titles such as "The Secret of Dr Orloff" and "The Brides of Dr Jekyll." Actually, it's an "Orloff" sequel in name only, as the principal mad scientist is called Fisherman (though in some versions, he's referred to as "Dr. Jekyll"), and we assume he's a descendant of the infamous Howard Vernon character. Speaking of Vernon, he's badly missed here, and DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER imitates its superior predecessor to the point of being a disjointed rehash.
The muddled plot has Dr. Fisherman (Marcelo Arroita Jauregui) killing his brother Andros (Hugo Blanco) after discovering him having an affair with his wife. Fisherman then brings Andros back from the dead, and using a radio wave signal (warning: the sound of this may be damaging to your hearing!) to employ him as an animated zombie killer. Later, Fisherman's student niece (Agnes Spaak) comes to visit his castle during the holidays, only to learn that the deceased father she never met is now an automated maniac.
As Dr. Fisherman, Jauregui is very boring (looking like a listless Fernando Rey) and compares unfavorably to the fine character abilities of Vernon. As Andros, Hugo Blanco (also in THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS) looks like Vince Vaughn with a facial peel mask on, and he's not the least bit frightening. The lovely Perla Cristal (wonderful as the evil botanist in Paul Naschy's FURY OF THE WOLFMAN (1970) is a cabaret singer, and her second number is a hoot in Espanol! Even Franco can be spotted as a cigarette-smoking jazzy pianist.
This DVD version of the Spanish-Austrian-French production is the uncut French one (we saw it here on the tube through AIP TV), and includes lots of female nudity never before shown in the States. These are mostly extended scenes of cabaret dancers stripping off their clothes or being attacked by Andros while in the nude. These scenes don't really help the film much, and despite some interesting cinematography and beautiful old-world Austrian locales, the film represents one of Franco's lesser efforts from his early black and white period (bring on a DVD of THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z!).
Image's DVD of DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER is letterboxed at 1.66:1 and 16x9 enhanced. The black and white source material has some light lines and is a tad soft at times, but is overall very smooth-looking and satisfying. The mono sound is playable in French or the English-dubbed version. Both tracks suffer from some minor scratchiness that clears up after the first few minutes. There are also optional English subtitles.
Extras include a few minutes of deleted or alternate scenes. This footage is silent and mainly deals with more drawn out nudity, but it also proves that Franco did in fact shoot a particular scene more than once, at least one time in his career. Also included are French and Italian trailers, and the insert contains brief but to the point liner notes by an unidentified writer. (George R. Reis)