Despite my print being in Spanish (a language I don't speak) I quite enjoyed this early, non-horror outing from Franco until about half way through when it suddenly lurched into a comedy-thriller narrative. Up to that point it had been a quite amusing romantic comedy based around the last days of silent cinema: the performances were engaging and the frequent musical numbers pretty (especially the one at the guest house for musicians). There is an interesting moment when newspaper headlines proclaim the advent of talkies and the death of silents, which sees the main characters become destitute overnight. This could have been developed into an intriguing plotline, dealing with an often ignored period of cinema history but, Franco being Franco, he decides to up the ante and take the film into a whole new, almost entirely unconnected, area. It then becomes a pretty lame rip-off of SOME LIKE IT HOT, made the previous year. Never one to miss a trick Franco has made them not only cross-dressers but black impersonators too, piling bad taste on to bad taste. Naturally the film has nothing to do with vampires, except for the pre-credits scene showing a film being made, where one the actors wears a set of false vampire fangs.
2 Reviews
Franco non-vampire entry
BandSAboutMovies22 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
As the era of silent films ends, there are those that can't make the transition to talkies. One of those actors is Dora (Mikaela, who looks like the epitome of Jess Franco obsession, save that she was possibly too classy to follow him down his path; she's also in From the Orient with Fury and High Season for Spies as Anne Bardot, which is a great name), who has the public perception as the cold and cunnin actress she portrayed on the big screen, not the decebt woman who she truly is.
I say that, but then realize she's part of a group of former actors and musicians who trick an African-American jazz group into taking a train to Siberia so that she and her friends can put on black face and crossdress at the same time - look, if Franco is going to offend you, he's going to really offend you - and play the club dates that that missing band is missing.
It's also Franco making Some Like It Hot which is just as weird as a movie with a vampire title only referencing the movie they're making at the beginning of the movie.
I say that, but then realize she's part of a group of former actors and musicians who trick an African-American jazz group into taking a train to Siberia so that she and her friends can put on black face and crossdress at the same time - look, if Franco is going to offend you, he's going to really offend you - and play the club dates that that missing band is missing.
It's also Franco making Some Like It Hot which is just as weird as a movie with a vampire title only referencing the movie they're making at the beginning of the movie.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews