VAMPYROS
LESBOS (1971) Director: Jess Franco
Image Entertainment
VAMPYROS
LESBOS (1971) This
highly erotic vampire film is undoubtedly one of director Jess Franco's best efforts.
The film is a showcase for the talented Soledad Miranda (here billed as "Susann
Korda") who died in a car accident in 1971. Franco was molding her into his
star attraction, but tragedy took away this beauty while she was still in her
twenties. Previously available on DVD in the U.S. from Synapse Films, it's now
been re-released by Image Entertainment with a much improved 16x9 transfer.
The plot has Miranda as Nadine Carody, a vampire countess who lures blonde businesswoman Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Stroemberg) to her isolated castle to help her complete an inheritance. The two become obsessed with each other and engage in some heavy lesbian petting. Meanwhile, the girl's boyfriend enlists the help of Dr. Seward (Franco regular Dennis Price) to regain his manhood and get his woman to stop swinging the other way. Euro trash regular and Franco favorite Paul Muller also stars as a sympathetic psychiatrist and would-be vampire hunter. Franco himself appears as nut who tortures women in a cellar.
The
film is in German, with removable English subtitles, and the dialog is really
fresh and interesting. One scene shows a brilliant contrast between Linda lying
down, talking to her psychiatrist, to vampire Nadine, lying down, talking to her
henchman Morpho (José Martínez Blanco). She tells him that over
a 100 years ago, when she was a little girl, a pillaging soldier raped her. She
was saved by Count Dracula, who pulled the soldier off of her, stabbed him to
death, and saved the girl from the torture of this moment by bringing her into
the world of the un
dead.
Her hatred of men had carried on for the rest of her life, justifying her bizarre
habits.
Price is
still in decent shape; this is several years before his boozing caught up with
him and transformed him into a bloated curiosity in Franco's two Frankenstein
films. There's even a female Renfield type character named Agra (Heidrun Kussin),
an inhabitant of Dr. Seward's clinic who is fixated on Nadine and shows it in
a maniacal and orgasmic fashion. Franco's direction includes some clever 
(probably
spontaneous) reflection image shots amongst the pointless zooms into crawling
salamanders! This, along with the excellently sensual performance of the bewitching
Miranda (you can't keep my eyes off of her whenever she's on the screen) make
it really unique and enjoyable. 
When Synapse Films originally released their DVD in 1999, they couldn't locate the proper elements, and thus the transfer suffered from excessive grain, blemishes and "mysterious black slugs" that blanked out the image intermittently throughout the film. Apparently, the original elements where found, and Image was now able to present a noticeably improved transfer, redeeming the aforementioned problems (though there is still some grain on occasion), and Franco's colorful, erotic vision is strikingly brought to life in this uncut DVD presentation. Overall, the picture quality has clean and sharp detail, and the director's blend of stylish lighting and off-the-wall photography can now be fully appreciated. The image is letterboxed at 1.78:1 and given anamorphic enhancement. Also included is the neat German language trailer that over-emphasizes the "Dracula" legend, a German trailer for SHE KILLED IN ECSTACY, and a still gallery that includes some behind the seen shots. Look for the popular soundtrack CD that contains a notorious psychedelic jazz/rock fusion score. (George R. Reis)