“Don't you know that it's different for girls?”:El WIP, heyday and fall of a sub-genre. Between Jesus Franco, Roger Corman and Eddie Romero, 99 mujeres/Black sucks, white it sucks

“I know, to lot of things that you don't
You wanna hear some?” Joe Jackson

WIP or Women In Prison (I do not believe that he needs major explanation the terminology), twisted and viscous sub-genre where they are. With origins that can be traced up to jewels as Mädchen in Uniform (1931) of Leontine Sagan (changing the prison into misses' boarding school), I sing to the freedom and the Sapphic love in a Germany at the edge of the Nazism or to be in clear prestigious precedents as Without Reference (1950), of the recoverable craftsman John Cromwell, a hard social drama written by Virginia Kellogg, one year earlier guinista of the deifying one To red I live for Raoul Walsh and this occasion treating proper experiences.

Jesus Franco gave him color and a perversity hand and re-formulated it in 1968 with this fundacional 99 women … and hence it costs below, thousand times plundered his motives (for proper Franco the first one, although they were the Japanese those who contributed real style and frenzy in things like the saga of “woman prisoner” and in much more frenzied and personalized derivatives), bouncing from Europe America with stop in the Philippines and hence throwing itself over a cliff again the Europe of Ilsa, the wolf of the SS (1975), degradation of the degeneration ambientada, paradoxically, in the death rattles of the Nazism.

99 women (99 women)

The director: Jesus Franco

Year: 1968

Country: Germany / Italy / Spain

99 min.

It photographs: Manuel Merino

Music: Bruno Nicolai

Script: Milo G. Cuccia, Carlo Fadda, Jesus Franco

I distribute: Maria Rohm, Maria Schell, Herbert Lom, Mercedes McCambridge Rosalba Neri, Elsa Montés, Luciana Paluzzi

99 women he supposes, not only one of the most satisfactory and successful qualifications of between the bad-tempered and ungovernable movies of torrential Jesus Franco, but there hoards an incalculable historical value (or this way) to the being the inventor of this feverish subgenre which this movie not only grants nature letter but there stops established a series of narrative, esthetic archetypes and tipológicos that include from the sadism the Sapphic erotísmo, of the unhealthy cruelty and pegajosamente attractive to the composition of a personages' gallery that they will reappear machaconamente in all and the every some of the declarations of the matter.

Like that we find the finished alignment of personages, a collection of samples of personal tragedies and unjust punishments of brutal lack of moderation, all of them visualized by Franco with a staging of authentically his, that is to say the freest and abstract (the violation of the personage of the Röhm), pregnant with motives appellants (Neri as erotic ballerina of impossible wardrobe) and hypnotic musician opposite to the much more suppressed staging (although the formal styling is supported, in moments as I find them erotic between the protagonists visualized with short planes and lacks of focus that decompose the bodies and the space) of the these prison or forest, given scenes for what it is expected from a professional production of low budget.

We already find the innocent person who will end up leading the group, in charge of the marvelous and habitual one of Franco of the epoch Maria Röhm (wife of the producer of the invention Harry Allan Towers), tanned veteran Elisa Montés, the young idealist with connections politician / you would revolutionize that they will make possible the attempt of flight (Valentina Godoy, who would repeat shortly with the director in The city without men), which does not support the anguish and it succumbs, the most nice Luciana Paluzzi almost like Janet Leigh in Psychosis (1960) … and of course the perfidious guardesa interpreted here with excesses big Mercedes McCambridge who is in charge of facilitating fresh meat to the repulsive local governor whom a Herbert Lom characterized with a few immortelles interprets with genius gafitas of the sun round, beard and a brown and shaved skull that collaborate to give him an unforgettable aspect of villain of tebeo (and that leads a scene purely sadiana of interposed violation and voyeurismo perversely doing that Rosalba Neri abuses Maria Röhm in the infirmary of the jail, showing this way this sense of the domain across the sexual perversity that is a genuine feature of the best Franco). The cast becomes wealthy with a pair of indispensable characters more, placed both like beatific and harmful points in opposite places of the scales: the idealistic official who comes to clean the prison and who will smash against a wall of the lucid pessimism typically franquiano and who is to charge, neither more nor less than of the glamorous Maria Schell (remembered especially by his big role in this strangest western of Delmer Daves that it is The tree of the hanged person, 1959) and finally there stays the most memorable presence of the movie, an imprisoned shepherd's staff, depredadora sexual, treacherous and dangerous (although parcilamente redeemed by the true tenderness that protagonist feels with regard wing to that corporeiza with his irresistible physicist mentioned Rosalba Neri (brilliant his presentation placing itself a few averages) with his hard condescension gesture, stealing each and everyone of the planes in which it goes out and even some of those in which it does not go out.

The result, beyond this character fundacional that I bring to the movie a few extraordinary benefits (and it opened quickly the faucet of the imitations / derivations in which the same Franco would re-affect, for example in The lovers of the island of the Devil in 1972 without going further, degrading the formula up to dispossessing of his attraction less obvious and rude attractions), turns out much benefited by the habitual roominess (inside what it fits) from the productions that it attacked for Allan Towers (between them his entertaining contributions to the Fu-Manchú saga) and especially of the splendid share-outs that he handled during the epoch. All this operates for the sake of a finished resultón of European cómic of adventures that whose interior appellants of the author shelter some of the obsessions concerning the “human servitude”, the degradation or the power, all this finished off with an inexcusably pessimistic end and desesperanzado that exhibits the component of terrible game of fighter that had the brief exploit of our heroines.

Black sucks, white it sucks

The director: Eddie Romero

Year: 1973

Country: The Close / Philippine States

87 min.

It photographs: Justo Paulino

Music: Harry Betts

Script: H.R. Christian, Joe Viola, Jonathan Demme

I distribute: Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, Sid Haig, Lynn Borden, Zaldy Zschornak, Laurie Burton, Eddie Garcia, Alona Alegre, Dindo Fernando, Vic Diaz Tras to have resisted the holder's temptation this critique “Ebony and ivory” and departing from the irrefutable premise of which alone disfrutable talks each other of a honey-coated fritter in very special conditions, to clarify that nevertheless he does not lack interest, for two I motivate, the first one for there is the terminal and deformed image of that one 99 women treated above, across that it remains well clear that the nature involutiva of the exploitation and his shining degenerative speed (between 1969 and 1973) and in the second term his value as historical piece to know the brief Philippine long journey of Roger Corman, this man who saw the grass growing.

So better to start with a small history on as it came there: at the beginning of the seventies Corman visits in the Philippines his friend John Ashley, bad actor and ancient fashion-plate / singer of the 50 settled down in the country where a producer had founded along with the director, also villain, Eddie Romero. After seeing the ready refreshment stall to roll and to roll with everything, Corman moves a produto style WIP (although with fits of the effervescent blackexploitation, which was necessary to cover well the bogey) which Jack Hill had ready to be filmed in Puerto Rico to the Philippines and this way everything begins. Hill would take charge of a pair of qualifications (The big doll house and The big bird cage in 1971 and 1972 respectively) invoiced in a consecutive way (and acceleration) and for those who would be brought to two actors of the racing team: Pam Grier and Sid Haig. The result is a financial victory (that is of what all this goes) and this way the chain of assembly follows either with the local pieceworker Rosemary directing up to 73-74 where Corman sees that that one either it declines and looks for new horizons. Of such a way this is one of the last exponents of the Philippine production of the A.I.P, what does not mean, much less that one was stopping squeezing the thing, the proper Rosemary would try to prolong the business in the same 1973 with Woman Hunt, apparently to the style evil Zaroff (1932). (For all this it turns out to be very advisable to use, as introduction the Sheer Macabre one of Pete Tombs, published in Spain in 2003 for Latin Circle and the festival of Sitges)
And now the matter in if: What it begins like a canonical piece of sub-genre (to the minute four we already have all empelotadas in the showers while one of the prison guards one is a pleasure spying) with his abuses and his sadisms (much light, of course, although the metallic box with naked them back against espalada has the alone one his that one) and his guardesas divided between the beatific and comprehensive one and the vicious pervertidilla (the onlooking one of earlier interpreted by the blonde Lynn Borden) derives quickly in crusty reformulation and despechugada of that one famous Fugitives (to which there are added not few elements of Franco's movie) of made aware drubbing Stanley Kramer with Curtis and Poitier fleeing chained. Two parts are almost equal of deplorable, but the second one the poverty in every respect already devours the whole invention (in whose script Jonathan Demme played, as it seems) that scarcely there is cheered up by the undeniable beauty of the duo protagonist (attention that each one shows braguitas of his corresponding color), round Pam Grier as hard girl and reedy Margaret Markov of pijilla revolutionist (I dress the result of this union both would repeat one year later in much more frenzied The Arena (1974), like gladiadoras in an inexcusably decadent Rome, and in that certainly, there was appearing Rosalba Neri as slaves' malignant chief. A movie reasonably nice and locatis inside his presupposed perroneros directed by Steve Carver: with help of Aristide Massaccesi, aka Joe D'Amato, beyond the photo? -, signatory of the despendolada A mom without brake in 1974 with Angie Dickinson prolonging the exploits of the anthological Bloody Mom of 1970 but with many more folleteo) that will organize the whole escape plan to help his "pseudoguevariano" noviete in his revolutionary attempts against the corrupt local government. What gives cause for a horrifying final third that tries to play the epic disappointment (sic).

The charismatic presence of Sid Haig stays (recovered by Rob Zombie in his sobrevaloradísima The house of 1000 corpses, 2003) in one of his eccentric personages, in this case a villain dressed in cowboy and lover of the country music, or a pair of repulsive moments led by Vic Díaz, there attends appellant of the Philippine infracine. This way the odyssey includes painful action, funny humor, sullen eroticism and the sultriest fight never filmed (or almost) and it is not even redeemed by his ceporra quality of irredento exploit of the exploit.

Filed bajo:60's, 70's, 99 women, action, Adventures, Black sucks white breast, Joint production, Eddie Romero, Erótika, the Philippines, Union of craftsmen, Politique give auteurs, USA Tagged: 99, I abuse, action, Germany, Adventures, Black sucks white breast, jail, punishments, cómic, cruelty, Eddie Romero, Elsa Montés, exploitation, the Philippines, gurdianas, Harry Allan Towers, Herbert Lom, flight, injustice, Italy, Jess Franco, lesbianism, Luciana Paluzzi, Margaret Markov, Maria Röhm, Maria Schell, Mercedes McCambridge, women, imprisoned women, Pam Grier, Sid Haig parodies, perversely, revolution, Roger Corman, Rosalba Neri, sadism, sex, sub-genre, violation, violence, WIP, women, women in prison Streaming Family Guy S08E13 Go, Stewie, Go! free