Day 3 of Franco February offers a first-time review of the later-era Franco flick Downtown Heat (1994), an anti-drug cop actioner made for Eurocine starring Mike Connors from the 70's hit TV show Mannix, plus a few familiar Franco regulars! It's pretty chaste and played fairly straight for a Jess Franco flick truth be told, but it still has plenty to offer. The flick is making it's North American disc debut on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features as a stand alone release or as part of the 6-film The Eurocine Collection Vol. 1 set.
DOWNTOWN HEAT (1994)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 98 Minutes 22 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Lina Romay, Philippe Lemaire, Craig Hill, Oscar Ladoire, Josephine Chaplin, Mike Connors
Downtown Heat (1994) is another late-era actioner from Jess Franco made for French exploitation film studio Eurocine, strangely enough starring Mike Connors, the star of the popular 70's TV show Mannix). At the start of the film a paisley-shirted cop named Alberto (Óscar Ladoire, The Age of Lulu) and his partner witness two thugs throw a woman inside a van, douse it in gas, and push it with their Jaguar over the edge of a cliff. The cops attempt to intervene but are a bit too late to save her, and Alberto's partner is killed in the process. It's a pretty efficient and high-energy start to the flick. We then meet a female cop named Maria (Josephine Chaplin, Jess Franco's Jack the Ripper) and a jazz saxophonist Tony (Steve Parkman) who are investigating the deaths of the their loved ones, which leads them to Barcelona crime lord Don Miguel (Craig Hill, Night of the Eagles), who is also connected the the murder at the start of the film, which connects to Barcelona cop Alberto, as well a rogue American cop named Steve (Mike Connors, TV's Mannix), all of whom are dead-set on bringing down Don Miguel and his drug cartel, eventually resorting to operating at the drug lord's level by kidnapping his sexy daughter, ending with an assault on his compound. We also get an appearance from Franco's beloved muse Lina Romay (The Hot Nights of Linda) as the lesbian leader of a gang of junkyard punk rockers, with Romay is a short cropped hairdo and some dramatic egyptian eye make-up - she's quite a sight, and this movie needed more of her and her junkyard gang!
This is an anti-drug action-thriller with some decent set-pieces, it's well shot, and I sort of love the bongo-heavy jazz-soundtrack by Daniel J. White (Shining Sex). The biggest drawback here is that there are a few too many muddled detours along the way that drag it down, it should have been kept a bit tighter and gotten wilder, but there's a lot of time dedicated to crooked and craggy-faced cop Baldar (Philippe Lemaire, Spirits of the Dead) and his turn of conscious and other stuff that sidetracks the core story, but this is still one of Franco's most interesting late-period ventures in my estimation. I like this quite a bit more than I did both like Angel of Death or Night of the Eagles which were filmed during this era. I probably would have liked it a bit more if there were more Franco-isms on display. While the lensing is solid with some nice movement, it lacks Franco's wilder cinematic proclivities, and the sleaze-factor is near zero, though we do get a bit of cheesecake nudity but not much else. Sadly, the jazz saxophonist angle does not lead to any shenanigans close to Lucio Fulci's The Devil's Honey.
I still think there's plenty to enjoy for deep-dive euro-cult enthusiasts and Franco-philes though, we get Lina Romay and a bunch of other Franco regulars, including Antonio Mayans (Night of Open Sex), plus Victor Israel (The Witches Mountain, Horror Express) shows up in a small cameo, but it just feels a bit flat and lacks the delirious Franco passion and fevered pitch that I love so much about his earlier works. What it does have is a helicopter assault filmed with a cheapo R/C helicopter that made me laugh,
a butch-looking Romay driving around what looks like a George Barris reject from The Munsters, and a finale chock full of bullets, explosions, goofy knife throwing, and white mice crawling over a corpse in the trunk of a car. Not great cinema by any means but still entertaining, if a bit neutered by regular Franco standards.
Audio/Video: Downtown Heat (1994) makes it's North American disc debut on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.66:1 widescreen, advertised as being sourced from a new HD transfer remastered from the original negative. The source is in terrific shape, the image looks fairly healthy, it's not overly compressed, colors are strong and black levels are pleasing. There;s some decent detail in the close-ups as well, and the skin tones look natural. Audio comes by way of English 2.0 or 5.1 Dolby Digital with no subtitle options. The 5.1 does not impress but it does open up the score a bit. The only extras are a selection of Eurocine Trailers.
Special Features:
- Euro-Cult Trailers: Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (2 min), Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters To A Portuguese Nun (3 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women In Cell Block 9 (1 min)
Screenshots from the Full Moon Blu-ray:
Downtown Heat (1994) is available as either a stand alone Blu-ray or as part of the 6-film Eurocine Collection Vol. 1 box set from Full Moon Features.
Purchase the Downtown Heat (1994) Blu-ray through our Amazon Affiliate link, Commissions Earned: https://amzn.to/3UrVFbM
Also available as part of the 6-film Eurocine Collection Vol. 1 Blu-ray box set: https://amzn.to/45lLjgo
