Shameless Self Expression

Theatre actor Duke Moore (with Dudley Manlove narrating his inner thoughts) has just wrapped up performing a play. Staying behind in the empty theatre, his mind starts to play tricks on him. Or so he hopes it’s just in his mind.   Someone deprived us of an Edward D. Wood Jr. ( “Plan 9 From Outer Space” , “Glen or Glenda?” ) anthology TV series and I’ve never been madder about something not happening several decades before my birth. Filmed in 1957 but not recovered until 2012 after being thought lost, this isn’t actually a film. It’s a 20-odd minute pilot for a proposed TV series, and it was written with Bela Lugosi in mind for the lead before he died. Written and directed by Wood, it’s obviously terrible in the best Ed Woodian way possible. It’s little more than a curio, but if you’re a film buff or an Ed Wood fan this is one you simply must track down in whatever format you possibly can.   Several Wood hallmarks are here, including the casting of Duke Moore (in the L...

Set in 18 th century France, Romina Power and Maria Rohm play Justine and Juliet, sisters forced to leave their convent after their mother dies and their father basically abandons them in financial ruin. Juliet finds employment and shelter in a brothel, whilst Justine goes it alone and encounters a series of mostly users and abusers. Akim Tamiroff is the first such abuser who hires Justine as his servant, Horst Frank is the creepy Marquis de Bressac, Mercedes McCambridge plays a prisoner, whilst Jack Palance and Howard Vernon play a members of an Ascetic order who are really just sexual deviants. Klaus Kinski appears as the Marquis de Sade himself in wraparound scenes.   When you notice the music and costuming in a Jesus Franco film, something is clearly amiss. A great cast fails to inject much life into this lush but fairly boring 2+ hour (in uncut form) costume drama from the king of zoom lens Spanish sleaze, director Jesus Franco ( “99 Women” , “Vampyros Lesbos” , “Eugenie ...