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The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco
Murderous Passions, Volume 1: The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco
This book - the first in a two-volume set - delves into the first half of Franco's career and shines a light into the darkest corners of the Franco filmography and uncovers previously unknown and unsuspected facts about their casts, crews and production histories.
Jes�s 'Jess' Franco is an iconic figure in world cinema. His sexually charged, fearlessly personal style of filmmaking has never been in vogue with mainstream critics, but for lovers of the strange and sado-erotic he is a magician, spinning his unique and disturbing dream worlds from the cheapest of budgets.
In the world of Jess Franco freedom was the key, and he pushed at the boundaries of taste and censorship over and over again, throughout an astonishingly varied career spanning sixty years. The director of more than 180 films, at his most prolific he reached a supercharged frenzy that yielded as many as twelve films per year, making him one of the most prolific filmmakers of all time.
Franco was the winner of a Lifetime Achievement prize at the 2009 Spanish Goya Film Awards, but his appeal does not depend upon mainstream respect; instead fans around the world have embraced his cinema, first on video and then more and more frequently on DVD and Blu-Ray. Where once he was castigated for slapdash haste, many fans today not only accept but even revel in the rough edges of his work. His delirious improvisations and raw, punkish spontaneity turn the basics of popular cinema, sex and violence, into a whirl of sensations, a seductive and bewitching spectacle that could only be the work of one man.
Franco's taste for the sexy and horrific, his lifelong obsession with the Marquis De Sade and his roving hand-held camera style birthed a whole new strain of erotic cinema. Disturbing, exciting and defiantly avant-garde, films such as Necronomicon, Vampyros Lesbos, Virgin Among the Living Dead and Venus in Furs are among the jewels of European horror, while a plethora of multiple versions, re-edits and echoes of earlier works turn the Franco experience into a dizzying hall of mirrors, further entrancing the viewer who dares enter Franco's domain.
Stephen Thrower has devoted five years to examining each and every Franco film. This book - the first in a two-volume set - delves into the first half of Franco's career: from his avant-garde comedy Tenemos 18 a�os in 1959, through the groundbreaking surgical horror story The Awful Dr. Orlof and the art-horror masterpiece Necronomicon, to his grisly psycho-killer opus Exorcism in 1974. Ably assisted by the esteemed critic and researcher Julian Grainger, Thrower shines a light into the darkest corners of the Franco filmography and uncovers previously unknown and unsuspected facts about their casts, crews and production histories.
Unparalleled in scope and ambition, Murderous Passions brings Franco's career into focus in a landmark study that aims to provide the definitive assessment of Jess Franco's labyrinthine film universe.
Jes�s 'Jess' Franco is an iconic figure in world cinema. His sexually charged, fearlessly personal style of filmmaking has never been in vogue with mainstream critics, but for lovers of the strange and sado-erotic he is a magician, spinning his unique and disturbing dream worlds from the cheapest of budgets.
In the world of Jess Franco freedom was the key, and he pushed at the boundaries of taste and censorship over and over again, throughout an astonishingly varied career spanning sixty years. The director of more than 180 films, at his most prolific he reached a supercharged frenzy that yielded as many as twelve films per year, making him one of the most prolific filmmakers of all time.
Franco was the winner of a Lifetime Achievement prize at the 2009 Spanish Goya Film Awards, but his appeal does not depend upon mainstream respect; instead fans around the world have embraced his cinema, first on video and then more and more frequently on DVD and Blu-Ray. Where once he was castigated for slapdash haste, many fans today not only accept but even revel in the rough edges of his work. His delirious improvisations and raw, punkish spontaneity turn the basics of popular cinema, sex and violence, into a whirl of sensations, a seductive and bewitching spectacle that could only be the work of one man.
Franco's taste for the sexy and horrific, his lifelong obsession with the Marquis De Sade and his roving hand-held camera style birthed a whole new strain of erotic cinema. Disturbing, exciting and defiantly avant-garde, films such as Necronomicon, Vampyros Lesbos, Virgin Among the Living Dead and Venus in Furs are among the jewels of European horror, while a plethora of multiple versions, re-edits and echoes of earlier works turn the Franco experience into a dizzying hall of mirrors, further entrancing the viewer who dares enter Franco's domain.
Stephen Thrower has devoted five years to examining each and every Franco film. This book - the first in a two-volume set - delves into the first half of Franco's career: from his avant-garde comedy Tenemos 18 a�os in 1959, through the groundbreaking surgical horror story The Awful Dr. Orlof and the art-horror masterpiece Necronomicon, to his grisly psycho-killer opus Exorcism in 1974. Ably assisted by the esteemed critic and researcher Julian Grainger, Thrower shines a light into the darkest corners of the Franco filmography and uncovers previously unknown and unsuspected facts about their casts, crews and production histories.
Unparalleled in scope and ambition, Murderous Passions brings Franco's career into focus in a landmark study that aims to provide the definitive assessment of Jess Franco's labyrinthine film universe.
- GenresFilmNonfiction
464 pages, Hardcover
First published March 16, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 6, 2015
Stephen Thrower is responsible for my favorite film book ever published (Nightmare USA) and he nearly equals it with this first in a two-volume set covering the filmography of the incomparable Jesus Franco. Though many find it bewildering, I adore Franco's cinema. As far from Hollywood as you can get (a great thing in my book), Franco's cheap, strange and personal films are certainly not for everyone. The best of them, though, utilize cinema to capture a truly strange dream world that moves to its own unique rhythm. This book--covering all of Franco's films up through 1974 (the rest to follow next year in volume two)--is an exhaustively researched, loving tribute to a truly unique filmmaker (and to his muses, especially Lina Romay.) While everyone is at the theater watching the new Star Wars, I will happily be at home, watching or re-watching a Franco film. Thank you, Stephen Thrower and thank you, Jesus Franco.
November 16, 2017
Insightful and informative work on one of cinema's greatest directors. Stephen Thrower's work on Jess Franco is invaluable and treats this master of exploitation cinema with the respect he truly deserves. Not a book to be read in one sitting but a fantastic book to dip into after watching one of Franco's films, or to look up fascinating notes on the production of these movies A must for Jess Franco fans!
June 8, 2016
Join Stephen as he hacks his way through the tricky jungle of Jess Franco with enthusiasm education erudition edgy energy and without embarrassment and with just a little of his own insanity to attempt to find the heart of this master of the dark Jess Franco.
By the end we are only half way there ! But we have reached a port. Ships will b by soon. One will take u home (if u survive the incoming storm) the other will drop us on the next and final island 'Volooomtoooo'.
It's volcanic they say.
Thoroughly recommended for fans noobies and nudies.
By the end we are only half way there ! But we have reached a port. Ships will b by soon. One will take u home (if u survive the incoming storm) the other will drop us on the next and final island 'Volooomtoooo'.
It's volcanic they say.
Thoroughly recommended for fans noobies and nudies.
November 8, 2025
An epic undertaking, Stephen Thrower and Julian Grainger dive deep into every film Franco made up to the year 1973. Cast and crew lists, alternative versions, potential release dates and filming dates [the latter two become increasingly murky as we get to the 70s] and then Thrower gives us his own personal reviews, which are informed, witty and illuminative.
So glad I managed to get hold of this sadly rare treasure, it deserves to be on the shelf of every book store.
So glad I managed to get hold of this sadly rare treasure, it deserves to be on the shelf of every book store.
March 12, 2022
First in a massive 2-volume tome dedicated to Jess Franco and his movies. Insanely well researched and one of the best film books of this century.
August 4, 2022
Essential for any follower of Jess Franco!
January 17, 2025
One of the biggest instigators of unreliable information in the Jess Franco story is the man himself, but Stephen Thrower aims to deal only in verified facts for the first volume of this priceless tome that covers his filmography from 1959 - 1974. If the book ever returns to print, I will purchase a second copy just in case anything were to happen to the original - I simply love it that much. If you are without this book, it’s worth even the most outrageous eBay prices.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews