Horror Culture Fan: JESS FRANCO

Born Jesús Franco Manera in 1930, in Spain, Jess Franco began his film career in 1924. He worked for several years, writing scripts, composing scores and many other tasks before deciding to get into directing. In 1960, inspired by the Hammer film The Brides of Dracula, he decided to get into horror. The rest, as they say, was history.

His first big hit was The Awful Dr. Orloff (1961). The film starred Howard Vernon, who would go on to star in many of Franco’s films. It also established another convention frequent to Franco movies; he shot two versions of the film, one with and one without the nudity, in order to appease the censors (he was after all, releasing these films in multiple countries).

Prolific is too small a word to describe his filmography, having directed over 150 films. He achieved some success in horror, and even directed a non-Hammer version of Dracula with Christopher Lee, but he was increasingly seen as a porn or exploitation director. A lot of his movies were erotic in nature and some were rather explicit.

Like other directors, Franco preferred to work with certain actors. Most of his best known films starred one or more of four different women. While making Count Dracula with Christopher Lee, he discovered Soledad Miranda. She starred in 6 more Franco films, including what may be his most famous, Vampyros Lesbos. Tragically, she died in a car crash in Portugal, just as her career was taking off. Two other ladies often appeared in his movies, often together, Anne Libert and Britt Nichols. Their most memorable was the lesbian-witchcraft-nunsploitation film, Les Demons.

Of course, his most frequent star and collaborator was his lady love, Lina Romay. Romay worked with Franco for the rest of her life. They were obviously lifelong companions but didn’t officially marry until 2008. She died young, at the age of 57, from cancer, in 2012. Franco followed her into the afterlife a year later.

Though he was marginalized by the film industry for the last few decades of his life, he never stopped working. He was shooting movies to the very end of his days. Though the term “exploitation film” is usually used derisively as a way of classifying a film as appealing to the baser instincts, Franco made a career of artistically exploring violence and lust. The digital age has enabled the restoration of many of his old films and new generations of fans are getting to discover, and appreciate, his works.