This is the first major film by controversial Spanish director Jess Franco. Though dated, it serves as a key to his later work. The film reveals his methods, imagery, and obsessions that will play out over the course of an almost absurdly prolific career (over 200 titles). For the first time we see his infatuation with stylish, offbeat fantasy, an unhealthy mix of eroticism and horror, a casual disregard for character development and narrative logic, and a strong defiance of convention (in particular, a weird nude scene that was highly radical for its time).
But what is most surprising about this medium-budget feature is how good it looks. The atmospheric black and white cinematography, the careful lighting and framing, the attention to detail, and the overall production reveals a professionalism that is sadly absent from his late-period filmography. After a string of interesting, visually striking fantasy/horror films in the '60s and early '70s, the quality of his work went steadily downhill. By the '80s his movies had become so cheap and nasty (and violently misogynistic) that he was written off as a shameless and depraved hack. Clearly, the later films have ruined his reputation, and possibly his legacy, as a director. But it seems a good time to take a stab at rehabilitating Franco by reviewing the early phase of his career starting with this film.
During a delay on a film in 1961, Franco dragged his reluctant producers to see "The Brides of Dracula". At the time, horror movies were not taken seriously in Spain, but Franco admired Hammer's style and adult-themed stories. The film confirmed that the genre had great commercial potential. Franco dashed off a script in a few days and the result was Spain's first horror movie, "The Awful Dr. Orloff".
Set in 1912 Paris, the story is a mix of old-fashioned police procedural and Gothic horror. Franco cobbled together ideas and characters from three highly-regarded thrillers. The main plot, about a mad scientist who abducts women, is largely a remake of the contemporary horror classic "Eyes Without A Face" (1960). The historical setting, which concentrates on shadowy, nocturnal views of the back alleys of Paris, has the atmospheric feel of "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (Universal, 1932) starring Bela Lugosi. As the sinister Dr. Mirakle, Lugosi also abducts beautiful women for scientific experiments. Assisting him is the creepy, ape- like Janos who looks like a hairy refugee from "Island of Lost Souls".
Franco's titular Dr. Orloff is taken from another Lugosi film, ''The Human Monster'' (UK, 1939). Lugosi/Orloff is a sadistic criminal who runs a home for the blind. He also has a hulking brute for an assistant. Jake, a blind monstrosity with a deformed face, does Orloff's dirty work. In Franco's film, Orloff (Howard Vernon) also has a hideous, blind henchman named Morpho to do his bidding. And Morpho, like Jake, eventually turns on Orloff after the doctor kills his only friend.
Franco's Orloff is a former prison doctor who abducts beautiful cabaret singers from nightclubs and carries them off to his suburban castle. There he uses them for skin grafts in a futile attempt to restore his daughter's fire-scarred face. He is simply portrayed as a cold, morally bankrupt man with no compunction about murdering people to achieve his goal. He is not a sadist or an obsessed madman and his character remains undeveloped. Similarly, nothing is revealed about his daughter who just lays around on a lab table for the entire story.
One of the better sequences is a remake of a scene from ''The Human Monster''. Orloff locks one of his intended victims inside a dusty, vacant château. There the tall, shambling Morpho, guided only by his hearing, tracks her down and renders her unconscious with a bite to the neck. The biting, and Morpho's long black cape, is an obvious, almost humorous, reference to vampire films. Although Morpho is a mindless oaf, he – much like Lobo in Ed Wood's "Bride of the Monster" – shows feelings for the women he abducts, making him an almost sympathetic character at times.
Police Inspector Tanner is a typically bland hero, and a bit of a dope. He ignores many obvious clues (all the victims were abducted after singing at a music hall. Duh!). Much time is spent on him and his gorgeous fiancée (Diana Lorys) who appears to have more brains than the detective. When he finally puts the pieces together this concludes with a fairly suspenseful, if not entirely logical, "King Kong" type ending at Orloff's castle.
Franco shot two versions of the film. The unedited print has a half-minute scene of a topless girl on an operating table as Orloff makes a chest incision. A rather perverse, non-erotic use of nudity. In 1962 this was considered shocking, even in the permissive milieu of Paris. A second version without nudity was made for British and Spanish audiences. Over the years the film (like most of Franco's work) has been re-edited several times. In the version watched for this review, the operating scene was reduced to a mere five seconds.
Unoriginal story aside, the film is mainly an exercise in style. Moody German Expressionist lighting recalls Universal's '30s heyday and '40s film noir. There are some wonderful large compositions and tight detail-shots (such as evocative close-ups of a spooky owl and a black cat). Eerie organ music and atonal noise are also used to great effect. But there is more here than simply an homage to the past. Franco also appears to be looking forward, anticipating the daring and shocking Giallos, slashers, and sex-horror films lurking just around the corner. For anyone making a study of modern horror films, "The Awful Dr. Orloff" seems like a good place to start. (This film can be seen at the free Veehd.com movie archive.)
But what is most surprising about this medium-budget feature is how good it looks. The atmospheric black and white cinematography, the careful lighting and framing, the attention to detail, and the overall production reveals a professionalism that is sadly absent from his late-period filmography. After a string of interesting, visually striking fantasy/horror films in the '60s and early '70s, the quality of his work went steadily downhill. By the '80s his movies had become so cheap and nasty (and violently misogynistic) that he was written off as a shameless and depraved hack. Clearly, the later films have ruined his reputation, and possibly his legacy, as a director. But it seems a good time to take a stab at rehabilitating Franco by reviewing the early phase of his career starting with this film.
During a delay on a film in 1961, Franco dragged his reluctant producers to see "The Brides of Dracula". At the time, horror movies were not taken seriously in Spain, but Franco admired Hammer's style and adult-themed stories. The film confirmed that the genre had great commercial potential. Franco dashed off a script in a few days and the result was Spain's first horror movie, "The Awful Dr. Orloff".
Set in 1912 Paris, the story is a mix of old-fashioned police procedural and Gothic horror. Franco cobbled together ideas and characters from three highly-regarded thrillers. The main plot, about a mad scientist who abducts women, is largely a remake of the contemporary horror classic "Eyes Without A Face" (1960). The historical setting, which concentrates on shadowy, nocturnal views of the back alleys of Paris, has the atmospheric feel of "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (Universal, 1932) starring Bela Lugosi. As the sinister Dr. Mirakle, Lugosi also abducts beautiful women for scientific experiments. Assisting him is the creepy, ape- like Janos who looks like a hairy refugee from "Island of Lost Souls".
Franco's titular Dr. Orloff is taken from another Lugosi film, ''The Human Monster'' (UK, 1939). Lugosi/Orloff is a sadistic criminal who runs a home for the blind. He also has a hulking brute for an assistant. Jake, a blind monstrosity with a deformed face, does Orloff's dirty work. In Franco's film, Orloff (Howard Vernon) also has a hideous, blind henchman named Morpho to do his bidding. And Morpho, like Jake, eventually turns on Orloff after the doctor kills his only friend.
Franco's Orloff is a former prison doctor who abducts beautiful cabaret singers from nightclubs and carries them off to his suburban castle. There he uses them for skin grafts in a futile attempt to restore his daughter's fire-scarred face. He is simply portrayed as a cold, morally bankrupt man with no compunction about murdering people to achieve his goal. He is not a sadist or an obsessed madman and his character remains undeveloped. Similarly, nothing is revealed about his daughter who just lays around on a lab table for the entire story.
One of the better sequences is a remake of a scene from ''The Human Monster''. Orloff locks one of his intended victims inside a dusty, vacant château. There the tall, shambling Morpho, guided only by his hearing, tracks her down and renders her unconscious with a bite to the neck. The biting, and Morpho's long black cape, is an obvious, almost humorous, reference to vampire films. Although Morpho is a mindless oaf, he – much like Lobo in Ed Wood's "Bride of the Monster" – shows feelings for the women he abducts, making him an almost sympathetic character at times.
Police Inspector Tanner is a typically bland hero, and a bit of a dope. He ignores many obvious clues (all the victims were abducted after singing at a music hall. Duh!). Much time is spent on him and his gorgeous fiancée (Diana Lorys) who appears to have more brains than the detective. When he finally puts the pieces together this concludes with a fairly suspenseful, if not entirely logical, "King Kong" type ending at Orloff's castle.
Franco shot two versions of the film. The unedited print has a half-minute scene of a topless girl on an operating table as Orloff makes a chest incision. A rather perverse, non-erotic use of nudity. In 1962 this was considered shocking, even in the permissive milieu of Paris. A second version without nudity was made for British and Spanish audiences. Over the years the film (like most of Franco's work) has been re-edited several times. In the version watched for this review, the operating scene was reduced to a mere five seconds.
Unoriginal story aside, the film is mainly an exercise in style. Moody German Expressionist lighting recalls Universal's '30s heyday and '40s film noir. There are some wonderful large compositions and tight detail-shots (such as evocative close-ups of a spooky owl and a black cat). Eerie organ music and atonal noise are also used to great effect. But there is more here than simply an homage to the past. Franco also appears to be looking forward, anticipating the daring and shocking Giallos, slashers, and sex-horror films lurking just around the corner. For anyone making a study of modern horror films, "The Awful Dr. Orloff" seems like a good place to start. (This film can be seen at the free Veehd.com movie archive.)