Day 9 of Franco February finds us exploring a pair of Jess Franco early-60's noirs that are absolute gems, and while I freely admit that Franco is an acquired taste this pair of monochromatic thrillers should appeal to any fan of noir and crime films, and you might even be surprised by how well-made and stylish they are.
FRANCO NOIR:
DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES (1962)
& RIFIFI IN THE CITY(1963)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region Free
Duration: 81 Minutes/85 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Audio: Spanish DTS=HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with optional English Subtitles
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Conrado San Martín, Danik Patisson, Perla Cristal, Georges Rollin, Manuel Alexandre/Fernando Fernán Gómez, Jean Servais, Laura Granados, Antonio Prieto, Robert Manuel
DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES (1962)
Set in New Orleans but quite clearly shot somewhere more cactus/palm tree tropical the noir crime thriller Death Whistles The Blues (1962) is an early outing from Jess Franco, well before his he became a purveyor of smutty euro-cult. At the time he was a more mainstream director, hot of the success of The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962), as evidenced by this swanky and quite stylishly lensed crime film. In it Lina (Perla Cristal, The Corruption of Chris Miller) is a woman married to nightclub owner Paul Vogel (Georges Rollin, I Accuse), who a decade earlier was a gun-runner going by the name Radeck. The film opens a decade before the movie proper with a prologue showing how Radek double-crossed a pair of musicians Julius (Manuel Alexandre) and Castro, the later of whom is gunned down at a bridge checkpoint. Castro's wife is now married to Vogel/Radek, and while at a club encounters the recently paroled Julius who is now a jazz trumpeter, catching her attention with a song written by her late first husband, the haunting song "Blues de Tejado", which figures quite prominently into the story. This is a terrific noir that has an intriguing premise, a swanky jazz score and inspired shadowy cinematography - with none of the later-era Franco zoom-ins. I'm mostly familiar with Franco's post-60's stuff, and I'm a fan of a lot of it, but it is quite interesting to see these earlier noir films, which are well-composed, linear and quite good in a general audience friendly sort of way. Also figuring into the plot of a nightclub singer/police informant Moira Santos (Danik Patisson, The Secret Killer) who suddenly appears at Radek's side, and a mysterious sailor Joao (Conrado San Martín, The Awful Dr. Orloff) who may or may not be Castro, both of whom threaten to expose Vogel's true identity.
RIFIFI IN THE CITY (1963)
Franco's Rififi in the City has nothing to do with the Jules Dassin's Rififi (1955) other than its a crime thriller and also features Jean Servais (The Devil's Nightmare) who also appeared in that film. He stars here as untouchable crime lord/rising politician named Maurice Leprince. While he might seem above the law police detective Miguel Mora (Fernando Fernán Gómez, Spirit of the Beehive) takes a personal interest in bringing him down when the corpse of a police informant is thrown through his front window one night.
After being beaten into a coma by the crime bosses thugs and left for dead Mora continues his investigation, but interestingly someone is picking off Leprince's crime associates on by one. This sort of prefigures a familiar Franco trope later seen in several films including the phenomenal She Killed In Ecstasy, which is one of my favorites. A top-notch crime boiler with an even more swanky and lounge inflected Jazz score and some stylish deep shadowed lensing that is noir to the core with some wonderful homages to Orson Welles The Lady from Shanghai (1947) which might be what landed Franco the gig as Welles assistant on Chimes At Midnight (1964). Franco sort of remade this film with Kiss Me Killer (1977), and now I'm very curious to finally check that one out, here's hoping Severin manage to get their hands on it and give it the deluxe treatment.
Audio/Video: Death Whistle the Blues (1962) and Rififi in the City (1963) arrive on region-free Blu-ray from Severin Films with HD scans from the original negatives for the first time ever for each film, framed in 1.78:1 widescreen in 1080p HD. They look pretty snazzy on Blu-ray overall, though there's some occasional white speckling, softness and blemishes evident on both films, with Rififi in the City faring the worst, but it still looks pretty great to these eyes. The new scans are quite pleasing with organic looking grain, solid black levels and pleasing grayscale and contrast, highlighting the deep, shadowy cinematography.
Audio comes by way of Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with optional English subtitles Both tracks are fairly clean and deliver the Spanish dialogue without issues, and the jazz scores from Antón García and Daniel White are a definite highlight and sound great. I do wish that this had been a 2-disc BD/CD combo, would love to own these soundtracks!
There's only one extra but its a dilly, the 67-minute Franco Noir — Interview With Stephen Thrower, Author Of “Murderous Passions: - The Delirious Cinema Of Jesús Franco”, who gets into Franco's early career, working for the likes of León Klimovsky and Orson Welles, the literary inspirational, the way race relations are portrayed and censorship concerns. Its another fantastic Franco throw down from the always fantastically informed Thrower. The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster framed-up in a double-feature layout.
Special Features:
- Franco Noir — Interview With Stephen Thrower, Author Of “Murderous Passions: - The Delirious Cinema Of Jesús Franco” (67 mins)
Severin have released many of wonderful Jess Franco platters on Blu-ray to the delight of many a euro-cult fan, but these early-60's noirs are absolute gems and might be the most revelatory of them all, even more so if you have unfavorable feelings for his erotic and often fever-dreamish later films. I fully admit that Franco can be an acquired taste, but this pair of thrillers should appeal to any fan of noir and crime films, and you might even be surprised by how well-made and stylish they are.
