Janine Reynaud
Janine Reynaud, photo still unidentified
Janine Reynaud in
Les Félines (1972) - Daniel Daert
Eurosleaze
Eurosleaze afficionados will also want to catch the Janine Reynaud vehicles Marianne Bouquet and The Felines. Reynaud, who starred in Jesse Franco's Succubus, is the prototypical big titted old lady with a sensuous scowl, a Gallic Dyanne Thorne. The film Marianne Bouquet is a series of entertaining romantic entanglements directed by and starring Janine's husband, Michel Lemoine. A stud in French sex films since the early sixties, Lemoine has the unsettling looks of an early cosmetic surgery indulgent. The Felines features Janine as a Parisian high fashion lady. It's truly for fans of Janine: you see her cheat on her husband, fondle herself and watch stag movies at wild parties. The film integrates hardcore inserts shot domestically. The stag movie at the party features a surprised Eric Edwards fucking and getting head from three women, including Darby Lloyd Raines.
Copyright 2002 Alpha Blue Archives, accessed and copied for research purposes from http://www.alphabluearchives.com/euro.html on Jun 2004
Necronomicon / Geträumte Sünden / Succubus (1968) - Jesus Franco
- Necronomicon / Geträumte Sünden / Succubus (1968) - Jesus Franco [Amazon.com]
I must immediately make clear that the version of Succubus I watched was the American one with the shorter running time. I have absolutely no idea what has been cut and how different this is from what Jess Franco originally intended. Even so, this is a remarkable movie, and one of the most interesting Franco movies I have seen.The beautiful Janine Reynaud plays Lorna Green, an enigmatic erotic dancer cum performance artist who stages odd, sadomasochistic events at a nightclub. She is plagued by hallucinations (?) and begins to confuse fantasy and reality, a common Franco scenario. I have to admit by the half way point I didn't have a clue what was going on, or who was who, but I didn't mind. Plot in 'Succubus' is secondary. Atmosphere, aesthetics, babes and surreal dialogue which name-dropped everyone from Stockhausen to Spillane to Mingus to De Sade, make this movie essential viewing. Reynaud is stunning to look at, there's some tasty jazz on the soundtrack, and there's the added kick of seeing the legendary Howard Vernon, a Franco regular who also appeared in everything from Godard's 'Alphaville' to Polanski's 'The Ninth Gate'.
Beginners should check out 'Vampyros Lesbos' first, still the most satisfying Franco I've seen, but make 'Succubus' a close second. You'll see nothing like it anywhere! --infofreak, imdb, 2002
Va-va-voomish Janine Reynaud (Kiss Me Monster) plays Lorna, the star of an underground nightclub's Grand Guignol theater who harbors a dark, haunting secret. She performs elaborate S/M fantasies nightly with a bound naked couple before she pretends to kill them, but she's losing her grip on reality. Dreams, flashbacks, and erotic fantasies blur with her waking world and pretty soon she's murdering her sexual partners for real... or is she? The answer may have something to do with a furtive stranger on the fringes of her consciousness and a plot to drive her insane, but it's hard to tell for sure. Sexploitation master Jess Franco creates an alienated but gorgeous vision of the decadent grotesque-chic world of European high society with oblique camera angles, distorted images, and disorienting editing, turning a kinky erotic thriller into a heady (if abstract) psychological fantasy. If it's ultimately too obscure to make sense, it's nonetheless an ambitious, intoxicatingly dreamy piece of Eurotrash cinema. German leading men Howard Vernon and Adrian Hoven lend their aristocratic bearings in costarring roles. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
Kiss Me Monster (1969) - Jesus Franco
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Kiss Me Monster (1969) - Jesus Franco [Amazon.com]
It's hard to tell whether Spanish exploitation legend Jess Franco actually planned to make a surreal spy movie, but Kiss Me Monster (originally titled Besame Monstrou) plays like a psychedelic parody of secret-agent thrillers and Hitchcock mysteries. A pair of stripteasing artist roommates, who bunk in a groovy little bungalow practically lost in deep shag carpets, turn freelance detectives when they stumble upon a secret message hidden in the strains of a song. Before you know it they've tracked the source to a Caribbean island where an ancient castle hides a mad scientist experimenting on (usually naked female) captives in his bid to create a strain of supermen. It's almost impossible to follow this incoherent mix of horror, sexploitation, and science fiction-a-go-go, but the absurdist dialogue (seemingly translated by someone who speaks English as a third or fourth language) and simply ridiculous situations are only enhanced by the overripe acting and clumsy dubbing. Flashy editing, garish sets, a terrific score that runs the gamut from lounge to big band to Latin to rock instrumentals, and enthusiastically awful performances by Janine Reynaud and Rossana Yanni help raise this entertaining mess to the level of guilty pleasure. Also stars German romance idol Adrian Hoven, who coproduced the film. Reynaud also appears in Franco's equally surreal but altogether more serious Succubus. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
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