I first-watched this on Boxing Day 2004 in the wake of my DVD viewing of Georges Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960), which clearly inspired it; being in Spanish with no subtitles, I recall admiring the film's undeniable pictorial qualities but only ended up rating it **1/2 (incidentally, I know I jotted down notes back then but never opened these up into a proper review and, regrettably, I seem to have misplaced them in the interim!). Going through it a second time, in English now (its Spanish origins – again, this was allotted the French "Eurocine" stamp – are given away by the songs being performed in that language), the film proves every bit the solid effort the director's hardened fan-base has always claimed it to be! For the record, I am not sure off-hand how long the original was, or how it may have differed from this current copy, but the latter runs for 83 minutes. Anyway, Franco's fourth feature (but only the Spaniard's first genre outing) is naturally a seminal work within his vast canon but also the "Euro-Horror" movement since the title character (subsequently spelled with an added 'f'!) would become something of an icon and appear in myriad other (though usually unrelated) 'vehicles'!
As I said, THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF – by the way, I much prefer the original title, which translates to SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT – looks great (especially given the period setting) but obviously also benefits from lead Howard Vernon (previously relegated to eccentric character parts)'s star-making turn and the presence of his unforgettably bug-eyed assistant Morpho (again, for whatever reason, Franco's filmography is littered with mute and vaguely sinister manservants, sometimes played by the director himself!); incidentally, it was an inspired touch to have Morpho introduced emerging from a closet and, needless to say, his nightly rampages for fresh victims constitute some of the film's definite highlights. The "DVD Savant" review rightly remarks of the incongruity of Morpho's condition to diligently carry out his tasks (for one thing, he has to be guided by Orlof's tapping of his cane!), but is not that part of what makes these films endearing to begin with?!; similarly, Morpho regularly attacks his victims by biting their necks ("Savant" suggests this is an externalization of the audience's own desires, with the obvious detachment represented by the assailant's own disability!) which, blind as he is, he might damage their visage...then where would he (and, more importantly, Orlof) be?!
Two other recurring devices (which I also denoted in reviews of recently-viewed titles by this notorious exploitationer) are the chanteuse and the cop (a Police Procedural sequence here, unfolding two very diverse identikits of the presumed assailant, would virtually be replicated wholesale in Franco's much-later JACK THE RIPPER {1976} who even gets stuck with the Orloff moniker!). In this case, however, they are adopted by the figures of the heroine (played by the stunning Diana Lorys, with whom Orloff becomes obsessed because apparently she looks like his daughter: the actress was later the protagonist of NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT {1970}, dealing with another much-reworked Franco premise i.e. the hypnotized assassin) and hero (called Tanner, who also recurs a lot in Franco's oeuvre though, typically, he is depicted as lacking the insight to be anything like the villain's equal, when he decides to shun a letter – even if it keeps turning up – until it is nearly too late!).
The plot, then, is among the first to rehash the afore-mentioned Franju masterpiece: practically contemporaneously there were MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN from Italy and THE WITCH'S MIRROR from Mexico – the three of them, along with Franco's own subsequent THE DIABOLICAL DOCTOR Z (1965) and the French-made THE BLOOD ROSE (1969), actually constitute the best of countless variations over the years though none really came close to recapturing the deft (one might even say, audacious) mix of haunting poetry and in-your-face realism that marked the original. One significant shortcoming here is that the fire-victim daughter whose face Orloff intends to restore remains nothing more than a cypher throughout, being confined to a bed the whole time and deemed of only a handful of shots along the way (unlike the poignant Edith Scob, with her eerie blank mask, in EYES WITHOUT A FACE)!
In the end, Orloff commits an imprudence by eliminating another (female) aide when objecting to more killings and especially his assertion that, for the operation to be a complete success, the face-grafting has to be done when the (unwilling) donor is still breathing! Since she had been sympathetic to Morpho, he rebels and cuts short Orloff's plans – and life – when inconveniently (indeed literally) stumbling upon her body at the climax! When he takes up the abducted Lorys to the roof of Orloff's castle (his intentions unclear – is he going to toss her over the walls or will he be keeping her as a personal prize for his pains?), Morpho is promptly shot by the nick-of-time arrival of the hero – a scene which is practically recreated in the first loose sequel to the film, namely DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER (1964; also helmed by Franco).
As I said, THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF – by the way, I much prefer the original title, which translates to SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT – looks great (especially given the period setting) but obviously also benefits from lead Howard Vernon (previously relegated to eccentric character parts)'s star-making turn and the presence of his unforgettably bug-eyed assistant Morpho (again, for whatever reason, Franco's filmography is littered with mute and vaguely sinister manservants, sometimes played by the director himself!); incidentally, it was an inspired touch to have Morpho introduced emerging from a closet and, needless to say, his nightly rampages for fresh victims constitute some of the film's definite highlights. The "DVD Savant" review rightly remarks of the incongruity of Morpho's condition to diligently carry out his tasks (for one thing, he has to be guided by Orlof's tapping of his cane!), but is not that part of what makes these films endearing to begin with?!; similarly, Morpho regularly attacks his victims by biting their necks ("Savant" suggests this is an externalization of the audience's own desires, with the obvious detachment represented by the assailant's own disability!) which, blind as he is, he might damage their visage...then where would he (and, more importantly, Orlof) be?!
Two other recurring devices (which I also denoted in reviews of recently-viewed titles by this notorious exploitationer) are the chanteuse and the cop (a Police Procedural sequence here, unfolding two very diverse identikits of the presumed assailant, would virtually be replicated wholesale in Franco's much-later JACK THE RIPPER {1976} who even gets stuck with the Orloff moniker!). In this case, however, they are adopted by the figures of the heroine (played by the stunning Diana Lorys, with whom Orloff becomes obsessed because apparently she looks like his daughter: the actress was later the protagonist of NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT {1970}, dealing with another much-reworked Franco premise i.e. the hypnotized assassin) and hero (called Tanner, who also recurs a lot in Franco's oeuvre though, typically, he is depicted as lacking the insight to be anything like the villain's equal, when he decides to shun a letter – even if it keeps turning up – until it is nearly too late!).
The plot, then, is among the first to rehash the afore-mentioned Franju masterpiece: practically contemporaneously there were MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN from Italy and THE WITCH'S MIRROR from Mexico – the three of them, along with Franco's own subsequent THE DIABOLICAL DOCTOR Z (1965) and the French-made THE BLOOD ROSE (1969), actually constitute the best of countless variations over the years though none really came close to recapturing the deft (one might even say, audacious) mix of haunting poetry and in-your-face realism that marked the original. One significant shortcoming here is that the fire-victim daughter whose face Orloff intends to restore remains nothing more than a cypher throughout, being confined to a bed the whole time and deemed of only a handful of shots along the way (unlike the poignant Edith Scob, with her eerie blank mask, in EYES WITHOUT A FACE)!
In the end, Orloff commits an imprudence by eliminating another (female) aide when objecting to more killings and especially his assertion that, for the operation to be a complete success, the face-grafting has to be done when the (unwilling) donor is still breathing! Since she had been sympathetic to Morpho, he rebels and cuts short Orloff's plans – and life – when inconveniently (indeed literally) stumbling upon her body at the climax! When he takes up the abducted Lorys to the roof of Orloff's castle (his intentions unclear – is he going to toss her over the walls or will he be keeping her as a personal prize for his pains?), Morpho is promptly shot by the nick-of-time arrival of the hero – a scene which is practically recreated in the first loose sequel to the film, namely DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER (1964; also helmed by Franco).