"VAMPYROS LESBOS" (1971)

Starring

Ewa Strömberg

Soledad Miranda

Dennis Price

Directed by Jess Franco

86 minutes

This review may contain plot spoilers, but, to be frank, none of you are going to watch this anyway so it scarcely matters. And this is only one of a few of my older reviews where I haven’t gone back to give the film another go, for reasons that will hopefully become obvious.

I can already hear a collective raising of eyebrows at the latest little epic under the Barnes microscope. Whether you believe me when I tell you my motivation for purchasing and viewing "Vampyros Lesbos" is neither here nor there, though I will say in defence that if I wanted to get myself some steamy lesbian sauciness I'm sure that there are hundreds of better places in which I could have found it. No, my purpose for watching this was to see the depths to which such a fantastic actor as Dennis Price, the star of "Kind Hearts and Coronets" about 22 years earlier, was forced to sink to in order to pay his bills. It truly is a depressing experience, though, remarkably, Price manages to escape "Vampyros Lesbos" (which appears to have about fifty alternative titles) with most of his dignity intact. This seems an even greater achievement when you consider that the DVD is of a Spanish film dubbed into German with English subtitles (hence the screenshot of the title bearing the German spelling – "Vampiros" rather than "Vampyros", which is presumably Spanish, or a funky new word that Jess Franco thought up in between fiddling with a soft-centre lens and catching scorpions).

Yes, this film was under the helm of apparently one of the most infamous film directors of the 70s and 80s, a one Jess Franco, who made hundreds of cheap porn flicks in his time, though appeared to concentrate on vague horrors in the early 70s - a genre that Dennis Price unfortunately had to grace with his presence, appearing in several Franco "efforts", bizarrely winding up with the role of Dr. Frankenstein twice. Having not seen these I can't say whether he was better than Cushing, though that's hardly the topic of debate here (and, as good an actor as Price was, Cushing was the definitive Frankenstein - though, interestingly, Price also played Van Helsing in a film called "Son of Dracula", released the year after his suicide). In "Vampyros Lesbos" he plays a Dr. Seward, psychologist and secret vampire enthusiast, the latter hobby suddenly being revealed out of nowhere once the plot requires it (and his advice on how to kill vampires is a bit suspect too, as Dennis Price lectures a poor girl on decapitation whilst enthusiastically waving an axe around). You see, despite being given a rather ill defined character to work with (Seward’s motivation changes every other scene), and in direct contrast to the rest of the cast, Price actually acts. Mixing concern with frightened fascination, he draws your attention in whatever scene he appears, and probably gets more close ups in this film than in any other I've seen. It's not a particularly large part but he does have a fair amount of screen time, and it was a joy to watch him. It was a huge shame that I couldn't actually hear him speak his own lines, as the German dubber made the best attempt to deaden any emotion that Price attempted to convey, but his facial expressions were enough, and so I just imagined Price's voice whilst reading the subtitles. Whilst the direction elsewhere in the film can be called into question, Price manages to create a great atmosphere of tension in his encounter with Countess Nadine, pleading with her to give him the secret of vampirism. The only real slip-up is in his death a few seconds later in which, upon realising that his life is distinctly on the line, he gently canters down some stairs rather than make a bolt for it, allowing Nadine's burly henchman to effortlessly catch up with and throttle the life out of him, though I suspect this is more a directing fault than anything that could be blamed on Price himself. And it must be said that the strangling is rather unnerving.

However, after Price dies we still have fifteen minutes left until the end of the film, which we must spend with the other characters that we've been presented with throughout the duration, and this is where the film falls down - every scene lacking Dennis Price is absolutely dire, as he is the only actor capable of giving a decent performance, and the story holding everything together is so flimsy that it might as well not be there. And indeed isn't, for a majority of the time. Price's Dr. Seward is actually in one of the many seemingly pointless subplots peppered here and there, which also include a scary pervo bloke who gets his kicks him tying up women and threatening them with a hacksaw, and an insane woman throwing herself about a clinic waiting for Countess Nadine to return to her and give her a bit of a seeing to, in the mean time rubbing what can only be called a dildo (I feel so dirty typing that word) that has the head of a clown on the end of it. These characters serve no function at all, and quite frankly are rather tedious. As is most of the film.

The main plotline concerns itself with Linda, who is apparently worried about the frequency of erotic dreams she's been having about a woman she's never met before. When her boyfriend, a shifty looking spiv type, takes her to a strip club (?!) she recognises the "dancer" (that's being charitable) as being the woman in her dreams. Turns out the woman is Countess Nadine Carody, a vampire with connections to Dracula himself. Linda goes to Nadine's estate to help her with insurance, or something, and from then on has various encounters with her during the running time. Narrative consistency is thrown out of the window when, despite being frightened of Nadine when they first meet, she quite happily goes skinny-dipping with her (?!) and then lies nude with her on the beach - "It's good to lie naked in the sand. Especially when you're with somebody." "Yes." Good grief. And in the next scene she's once more a bit suspect about the whole deal.

I know what you're thinking - "It's lesbo porn, it doesn't need a plot!" But there isn't really much of the steamy shenanigans going on to uphold such a claim, and the few scenes of "Near naked ladies snatch a few fumbling kisses," are played so stiltedly that any erotic tension is immediately dissipated. The director seems to think that propping a few nude women here and there automatically means "sexy" when it, well, doesn't. It just gets tedious and laughable more than anything else. It comes to something when I was far more willing to watch Dennis Price writing in his diary than two rather nice-looking ladies having it away with each other. And the same bloody bit of organ music is played throughout every "erotic" encounter that gives them all the sensuous promise of a night out to the Red Light District with Nicholas Parsons.

The rest of the story involves the Countess, who initially thought that she was in control of her cravings, slowly realising that she wants to be dominated by the increasingly curious Linda. Cue more stilted scenes in which she coaxes her into drinking blood, and then lays down on a bed and allows her to bury her head in her private area. With much gasping. And organ music.

The direction is full of "clever" and "artistic" shots of scorpions and moths and a kite (with organ music), which are meant to make us nod our heads sagely and say "Ahh, mmm..." but just come off as pretentious and silly. We're also forced to endure a bizarre striptease performance (in which Nadine removes her clothes and puts them on her partner, who seems to be pretending to be a mannequin) twice, and both times it's as dull as concrete. Fortunately the group of 40-somethings in the club appear to be enjoying themselves, though since they staggeringly fail to notice Nadine killing her partner on the second run-through and clap anyway, I'm not so certain that their opinion is entirely worth considering.

Apparently this is a cult classic, with its dire soundtrack (the sitar has never been my favourite instrument) achieving acclaim in some quarters. Probably shady ones, populated by those with big plastic mackintoshes. I can't say that I was disappointed with this film as I knew it was going to be rubbish to start with. Fortunately it was vaguely worthwhile watching simply to see Price's performance, though it's certainly a disc that won't be given another spin in quite a long time. At the very least, I'm glad it was only £6, I can tell you.

Score out of Ten