The Hot Nights of Linda (Jess Franco, 1975)

You're initial thought might be, as you begin to enjoy Jess Franco's The Hot Nights of Night (a.k.a. But Who Raped Linda?), how much longer do we have to watch Alice Arno–who is, to the best of my knowledge, not wearing nylons on her shapely, Arno-ian legs–walk around Paris, France in a bulky winter coat? However, once she has finished walking around Paris, France and arrives at the location of her new job, you will no doubt start to miss the streets of Paris, France. In fact, you will probably wish they would cut to anywhere in the world after you have spent a day or two with the Steiner family in their Greek-style castle/home on the ocean, or was it on the sea? No matter, the film, like the best Jess Franco's films, manages to create a world unto itself. You see, by ignoring what's going on beyond the walls of the film's primary location, the film slowly begins to develop its own unique ecosystem. And if, say, you were to own a noodle factory similar to mine, the first thought you would have is: Why can't I get a job at a Greek-style castle/home where a nympho-virgin prances about in black stockings and where said nympho-virgins eat penis-shaped fruit in an erotic fashion? And after that thought had subsided, your second would most likely be: Are the women in this film writhing on their beds in order to escape their dreary existences or are their backs simply itchy?

First of all, there's nothing dreary about living in a Greek-style castle/home with a nympho-virgin. (Yeah, maybe for you, but what about the nympho-virgin? Don't you think she wants more out of life?) And secondly, you're kinda right. They do want to escape. And best way to do so is to grind your naked body into the bed your currently lying on.

(Are you sure that's the best way? I mean, wouldn't the front door be a more effective way to escape?) It's true, doors are a terrific root to go when trying to leave somewhere (as someone who has used doors all his life, I can attest that what this person just said is indeed a factual statement), but The Hot Nights of Linda isn't about providing easy ways out, it's a... (Wait, let me guess, is it a psycho-sexual maelstrom of perverted proportions?) Hell yeah. That's exactly what is.

Let's see how that looks when written out as a semi-proper sentence: "The Hot Nights of Linda is a psycho-sexual maelstrom of perverted proportions." - Yum-Yum, House of Self-Indulgence

Oh, yeah. We have a winner. Put that sucker on the box, baby. Do it. What are you waiting for?

What do you mean Severin Films isn't going to put that quote on the back of their handsomely produced The Hot Nights of Linda Blu-Ray + DVD Combo Pack? You're not going to come across a better blurb than that. What's that? Uh-uh, I see. Well, it would seem the reason my quote is nowhere to found on the artwork of the combo pack is because it's already in stores. Meaning, I'm a little too late. *sniff*

Anyway, getting back to grinding and writhing. Even though it's physically impossible to grind your way to freedom by writhing on your bed without any clothes on, the message you are sending to the world is loud and clear.

While the primary purpose for the all writhing is no doubt connected to the desire to flee, you could argue that a large chunk of the writhing has a lot to do with pent-up sexual frustration. Speaking from personal experience, whenever I find myself writhing in the nude, it usually has nothing to do with wanting to getaway and everything to do with heterosexual ineptitude.

(Enough about writhing, what's this film actually about and is it any good?) Uh, yeah, about that. Believe or not, but those are some pretty tough questions you're asking there, budski. I mean, I could try to explain the film's plot. But then again, I don't want to damage my brain while doing so. As for being good. What does "good" even mean? Seriously, can you tell me?

(I'm sorry, pal. I can't help you there. What I can tell you is, if you patiently wade through this film's...) "psycho-sexual maelstrom of perverted proportions"? (Yeah, that... you'll be generously rewarded with the sight of Lina Romay sunbathing in the nude, Lina Romay peeling and sort of eating a banana, and Lina Romay putting on black stockings--roll them up into a little ball and slip them onto your sturdy legs, you brown-eyed harlot.)

If you watch Les Nuits Brûlantes de Linda, a rare cut of the film that comes with the Severin Films Blu-Ray + DVD Combo Pack (limited to the first 2500 copies), you will be generously rewarded with the sight of Lina Romay sucking on some retards uncut cock, Lina Romay performing cunnilingus on a couple of well-made cunts, and Lina Romay allowing the genitals attached to some retard spew their probably retarded load all over her stomach. Oh, and when I say, "retard" and "retarded," I don't mean it in a Lindsay Lohan sort of way, the retard in question is actually retarded.

The best part about this particular cut of the film is the fact that the scene where Lina Romay puts on black stockings includes some garter belt adjustment--the softcore version omits the garter belt adjustment scene all-together. (Are you sure the best part of this particular cut wasn't the sight of Lina Romay wiping up a dollop of the retard's snot-like jizz with her hand and proceeding to consume with her mouth?) Oh, I'm sure. It should go without saying, but garter belt adjustment is way hotter than eating pearly droplets of spunk.

In order to not cause any unnecessary confusion, I'll stick to referencing to the softcore cut of the film from now on. Even though, deep down, I kinda prefer the hardcore version. (Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, Lina Romay rapes her invalid cousin with a banana in the hardcore version.) A banana, eh? You know what? I'll mention both. Let unnecessary confusion reign!

If you're wondering where Alice Arno fits in all this... What's that? You weren't wondering that. I see. Well, either way, she plays Marie-France Bertrand, and she gets a job working as a nurse/teacher at the home of Radic Steiner (Paul Muller), who lives with his invalid daughter Linda (Verónica Llimera from Tombs of the Blind Dead), his sex maniac niece Olivia (Lina Romay) and Abdul (Pierre Taylou), their retarded houseboy.

Since the sex scenes in the non-hardcore don't take up as much time, the running time needs to be padded with filler. And that's where a photographer (Catherine Lafferière, who played the sex-crazed mental patient in black hold up stockings in Lorna the Exorcist) and a detective (Richard Bigotini) come in. They appear onscreen every now and then. But don't ask me what their connection to the main plot of the film is, cause I haven't the slightest idea. Well, that's not entirely true, I have a general idea, but it's not really worth getting into.

The only aspect of this subplot that held my interest was when we get a Jess Franco orchestrated close up of Catherine Lafferière's creamy thighs as she is attempting to climb a fence.

Highlights of the softcore version include: the scene where Alice Arno meets Lina Romay for the very first time. Filing her toenails, smoking a cigarette, and drinking Champagne (the girl knows how to multitask), Lina tells Alice that life in this town is monotonous and dull (hence the reason she writhes so much). What makes the scene so great is that Lina and Alice stare at each with a fiery intensity.

You gotta love the film noirish scene where Lina and Alice chat while smoking.

And the scene where Lina, who is wearing black boots, toys with Abdul by peeling a banana in a–you guessed it–erotic manner. You probably already know this, but Lina Romay does everything in this movie in a manner that could be construed as erotic. (Everything?) Yeah, you heard me, everything.

These three scenes are not in the hardcore version, so... enjoy them, I guess, because nothing in the hardcore version comes close to topping them in terms of  non-threatening titillation.

My only complaint, besides the boring bits, is the fact that the lovely Monica Swinn's part as Lorna, Paul Muller's dead wife, is so skimpy. There's a scene where she is having straightforward bedroom intercourse with her lover while wearing back hold up stockings, but the lighting is so dark, you can't really appreciate the shape of Monica's Jess Franco-approved curves.

 

The Demoniacs (Jean Rollin, 1974)

The sea giveth and the sea taketh away. Is that a famous quote or something? Don't worry, I'm going to commence describing–in excruciatingly precise detail, of course–the deceptively robust contours of Lieva Lone's shapely lower half in a matter of moments. The only reason I ask is because the expression feels strangely familiar. Either way, I think it applies to Jean Rollin's The Demoniacs (a.k.a. Curse of the Living Dead), as the sea plays a vital role in this film. One minute you're enjoying the sound of the waves as they gently crash against the shore, and the next you're fighting to keep your head above the water as chunks of slippery seaweed begin to antagonize your increasingly panic stricken extremities. While the sea can be cruel, humankind can be even crueler. Imagine surviving a horrific shipwreck only to be raped and murdered when you stagger ashore. I'm sorry if you don't want to imagine something so awful, but that's what happens. Now, make no mistake, you're tolerance for watching scenes that involve abject brutality will be tested in the early going. But the oddly beautiful and beautifully odd places this film ends up going will cause you to feel that the barrage of unpleasantness you had to endure at the beginning was worth your while. Really? Yeah, totally. And, no, I'm not just referring to Lieva Lone's tasty stems when I say, "odd and beautiful." Though, it should be noted, they're the film's biggest draw from a perverted point-of-view. Actually, according to one of them dictionary thingies, the word "perverted" usually refers to something that is sexually abnormal. And I think most of you will agree that there's nothing abnormal about appreciating Lieva Lone's legs, or any other part of her organic structure for that matter.
 

 

Anyway, my point being, this film has a lot to offer besides seaside rape and scrumptious gams. For starters, it's lyrical and haunting. Which is quite the achievement when you consider the fact that the four lead characters are admitted scoundrels. Wait a minute, don't you mean three? No, no, no, Joëlle Coeur is a scoundrel, too. Don't let her big, blue eye shadow adorned eyes fool you, she's despicable.
 

 

The reason I called the four lead characters "admitted scoundrels," as supposed to just plain scoundrels, was because they seem proud of their wickedness.
 

 

Since only a handful of people know what a "wrecker" is, we're given a wrecker refresher course at the beginning of the film. Now, some might say this so-called "refresher course" insults the audience's intelligence. I, on other hand, found the brief lesson on wrecking, and, not to mention, the backstories that fleshed out the four main wreckers, to be not only helpful, but informative as well.
 

 

Imagine, if you will, a pirate without a ship. Pretty weird, right? Well, what a wrecker does is, they lure ships to their doom by causing them run around in tide affected waters; they do so by lighting a large fire that causes those on board the doomed vessels to believe they're close to a port. And as the hulls of the wooden ships are split open by the jagged rocks of the shoreline, the wreckers simply collect whatever cargo washes ashore.
 

 

Four wreckers are doing just that on the night this film opens. Each carrying a lantern in order to see in the dark, a wrecker known simply as Captain (John Rico) leads Bosco (Willy Braque), Paul (Paul Bisciglia), both former sailors and reputed scumbags, and Tina (Joëlle Coeur), who apparently devours men with her ravenous "she-wolf jaws," scour the shore for wayward booty.
 

 

Coming across a couple of trunks, one containing a gaudy gold necklace, the wreckers seem pleased by the haul so far. When all of a sudden, they hear someone crying for help in the darkness. Staring into the empty void with the intensity of a thousand suns, the wreckers wait patiently for whoever is in need of assistance to appear. If you thought for a second that the wreckers were going to help those in need, then your faith in humanity is stronger than most.
 

 

The sight of Lieva Lone and Patricia Hermenier struggling to make it ashore is the film's first indelible image. And I say "first," because The Demoniacs is full of images that could be construed as "indelible." Anyway, my mind is currently racing, as I can't quite decide what to call Lieva and Patricia's characters. Sure, they're listed in the credits as "Demoniac #1" and "Demoniac #2," but I don't care for those names. I was thinking about calling Lieva "the shapely blonde" and Patricia "the skinny blonde," but I don't care for those, either. What I think I'll do is, just call them by their real names, as I like the idea that Lieva and Patricia's characters don't have names. And why would they? The wreckers are too busy raping and killing them to bother to asking them what their names are.
 

 

You heard right, after getting the nod from the Captain, Bosco and Paul run toward Lieva and Patricia (who are wearing long, white nightgowns, and leaning on each other for support) and proceed to rape and kill them in a scene that does not shirk from depicting their cruelty. To make the scene seem even more callous, we're occasionally shown shots of the Captain and Tina trying on clothes in a cavalier fashion as Lieva and Patricia scream for their lives. 
 

 

If the object of this scene was for us to despise the wreckers when all was said and done, it totally worked. These four individuals are too loathsome for words. And, yes, Tina, that includes you as well. So don't bother waving those big tits of yours in my general direction. I am unmoved. That's right, put them away. And besides, I'll take Lieva Lone's unpretentious gams over your jiggly mammaries any day of the week.
 

 

Didn't you hear me, Tina? I said put your tits away. For some strange reason, Tina, no doubt confused by my lack of interest in her breasts, decides to hop on top of a giant rock and starts to hurl her hairy vagina in every possible direction. Apparently, Tina's hirsute crotch revue wasn't for my benefit. Get this, it was her way signalling to the Captain that she was ready to be penetrated. Just as the Captain was about to mount Tina, Bosco and Paul starting tossing Lieva and Patricia around like a couple of wet ragdolls. It should come as no surprise that Lieva and Patricia probably won't survive this ordeal. Or will they?
 

  

First of all, I would definitely hang out at a bar that had the cock-stirring Monica Swinn as one of its resident floozies. As most people know, I can be quite bashful when it comes extolling the virtues of the women I find attractive. But I have to say, Monica Swinn has got it going on in this film. However, given that her character is listed in the credits as "girl in tavern," she doesn't get anything substantial as far as dialogue goes. You just sort see in the background acting like a trollop; albeit, a leggy trollop in a sparkly choker-style necklace.
 

 

At any rate, the reason we're at this bar is because it's where the Captain likes to get his drink on. Sitting alone at a table in the corner of the bar (a bar, by the way, that has a morbid decor), sipping from a mug of beer and chomping on a cigar. If the Captain thinks the decor of his favourite bar is morbid now, wait until he sees Lieva's bloodied, lifeless body lying on his table. Bolting from his seat, the Captain, the sleeves of his puffy shirt soaked with sweat,  notices a bloodied Patricia lying in the same lifeless state at a nearby table.
 

 

Are they ghosts? Are they zombies? Are they... demoniacs? Whatever they are, they're freaking the Captain out like you wouldn't believe.
 

 

If you were to ask me to provide a rough facsimile that encapsulates my aesthetic point-of-view, I would show you some stills from The Demoniacs. Which ones in particular, you ask? Well, for starters, I would go with the shots of Lieva and Patricia posing while covered in blood in the bar, as I love robotic, new romantic-style posing.
 

 

After that, I would go with anything that involves Lieva Lone and Patricia Hermenier being lead through the ruins by a leggy clown in red pantyhose.
 

 

Wait a minute, leggy trollops, leggy clowns, are you sure...don't forget, leggy demoniacs named Lieva, okay, leggy demoniacs named Lieva, are you sure this film wasn't directed by Jess Franco, a.k.a. the only director who knows how to properly shoot leggy women under duress? No, I'm sure it's a Jean Rollin joint. Besides, I can tell already Jean Rollin has a thing for scenes that feature two women, whether they be vampires or demons, standing side by side in a manner that can best be described as alluringly sinister. I don't know about that. How 'bout, seductively menacing? Either way, they're standing next to one another and they're both creeping me out and turning me on at the same time.
 

 

"Pale and covered in blood," are just some of the lyrics of a song Louise (Louise Dhour), the bar's owner/psychic madame (the place is a brothel as well), sings for the Captain, Bosco, and Paul. Disturbed that Louise seems to know exactly what just occurred out on that slimy beach, the wreckers, including Tina, are determined to kill Lieva and Patricia. I know, didn't they already do that? Well, they plan on killing them again. And they better do it fast, because according to Louise, if Lieva and Patricia make it to the ruins, some nasty shit is in store for the wreckers.
 

 

When their attempt at stopping Lieva and Patricia from reaching the ruins fails, all the wreckers can do is await their fate. I bet you're dying to know what's so important about these so-called ruins. Well, let's just say, the Devil (Miletic Zivomir) is trapped there, and all that it would take to extricate him from the ruins are one leggy blonde and one skinny blonde.
 

 

When Lieva and Patricia arrive at the ruins, they're greeted by a...let me guess, a leggy clown in red pantyhose? Damn, you're good. No, you mentioned her before. Oh. At any rate, the Clown (Mirelle Dargent) gives them a fresh change of clothes (those nightgowns were starting to fall apart) and takes them to see a character listed in the credits as an "Exorcist." Personally, I thought he looked like this guy I see every so often browsing the new age section at Seekers Books.
 

 

While that's interesting and all, what kind of clothes did the Clown give them? Yikes! Sorry about that. I can't believe I almost let that slip by. Yeah, the outfits. Well, let's see, Lieva is given a salmon shirt-dress and Patricia is given a purple shirt-dress. Actually, I don't really think they're "dresses" per se. It would seem that they were just not given pants. And, I have to say, thank you, leggy clown in red pantyhose. Thank you for making Lieva and Patricia, who were already sexy to begin with, even sexier.
 

 

I'll admit, the reason I was more drawn to Lieva Lone had a lot to do with the shape of her legs. I'm sorry, but Lieva's legs were more my thing. However, I also admired the fact that Lieva Lone does most of the heavy lifting when it came to the many scenes that involved sex, rape, and violence.
 

 

Poetic and lyrical, The Demoniacs is a must for fans of arty horror films that manage to provide the sleaze and untoward titillation us normal people crave on a regular basis. Speaking of sleaze and untoward titillation, be sure to check out the outtakes on the Redemption DVD, as they give us extended softcore sex scenes that feature Joëlle Coeur and Isabelle Copejans.

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Barbed Wire Dolls (Jess Franco, 1976)

I've seen women tortured, raped, beaten, degraded, belittled, and even killed by deranged prison wardens who profess to be sex-crazed lesbians. But in almost every case, their lesbianism, sex-crazed or otherwise, always seems to come off as being a tad insincere. I mean, I'm just not getting much of a muff-diving vibe from some of these so-called lesbians, no matter how hard they try to dyke it up. Maybe that's problem, they're trying too hard. Well, someone who doesn't have that problem is the warden, or "directress," as she likes to be called, in Barbed Wire Dolls (a.k.a. Frauengefängnis), as she literally oozes sappho from every pore. Combining butch mannerisms with an awkwardly feminine wardrobe, it should come as no surprise that the directress of this unnamed seaside prison is the most convincing authority figure to appear in a women in prison movie. Why? Isn't it obvious? The film is directed by Jess Franco (Diamonds of Kilimanjaro), a cinematic artist who not only knows the proper way to film a distressed naked woman writhing on a bed, but knows a thing or two about to how to create a compelling female villain. Whether it be Pamela Stanford in Lorna The Exorcist, Nadja Gerganoff in Bloody Moon, Eva León in Golden Tample Amazons, or Brigitte Lahaie in Faceless, Jess has an excellent track record when it comes to femme fatales, perverted psychopaths, and heinous henchwomen. And you can add the wonderful Monica Swinn to that impressive list, as she brings an alarming amount of cuntish charm to the role of the evil directress, a woman so dedicated to her malicious craft, that she considers Albert Speer's memoir "Inside the Third Reich" to be light, pre-cunnilingus reading. Or was it light, pre-anilingus reading? You see, I couldn't quite see what dark hole her lips were caressing during a moment of mouth-to-undercarriage tenderness; hence, the lingual confusion.
 

 

Anyway, while I could talk about lingual confusion for hours on end (let's just say both areas received a tongue bath on that day and move on), I would much rather be talking about the important role makeshift hold-up stockings play in the Barbed Wire Dolls universe. In fact, as I blathered on about Miss Swinn's prowess as a lesbian, Peggy Markoff's makeshift hold-up stockings were never far from my mind. Okay, as I'm sure some of you are wondering, what the heck are "makeshift hold-up stockings"? Originally, I wanted to play it coy, and not explain in great detail what the difference is between hold-up stockings and makeshift hold-up stockings. But then it dawned on me, I'm dying to tell you what the difference is.
 

 

Here's the deal, the hold-up type (stay-up stockings or thigh-highs, as their sometimes called) have a built-in elastic that allows them to stay up without the aide of suspenders. Whereas, the makeshift variety, the kind Ingrid (Peggy Markoff), a mentally unwell inmate who thinks she's Queen Isabella of Spain, wears throughout this movie, are held up by more unorthodox means. Colour me discombobulated, but that sounds like a confused chunk of uncut madness.
 

 

Your bewilderment is totally justified, as even I was thrown for a proverbial hosiery loop when they first appeared onscreen. My initial reaction when they made their sheer debut was relief, as the prospect of watching a chicks behind bars flick that featured nothing but unadorned legs for eighty straight minutes was an unappealing one. However, my relief soon turned to puzzlement, as I desperately tried to figure out what it was that Ingrid had attached to the tops of her hold-up stockings. It turns out it was string. Determined to not let a little thing like incarceration ruin the visual presentation of her legs, Ingrid has improvised a unique way to keep her stockings up.
 

 

The frayed string used to keep her black stockings up also helped when it came time for me to keep track of the film's two redheads, as Peggy Markoff (Ilsa, The Wicked Warden) shares a cell with another crazed redhead named Rosaria Cortina (Beni Cardoso), a woman we see at the start of the film being deprived food by Nestor (Eric Falk), a sadistic thug/freelance torturer employed by the prison. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that Barbed Wire Dolls has two crazed redheads? Is that what you're saying? Oh, you better believe that's what I'm saying. To put a different way, out of the four main women in this movie, half of them are crazed redheads. Wow, that's truly amazing.
 

 

Getting back to Rosaria, crazed redhead #1 (#1 since she appears onscreen first, not because I liked her more than crazed redhead #2): The exact reason she's chained to the wall and being deprived a just out of reach bowl of food is unclear (as we'll soon find out, it doesn't take much for you to get this kind of treatment), but it does establish the tone of the film early on. If the opening scene is any indication, on top of being beaten while chained to a wall, Rosaria is verbally berated ("Drop dead you stupid whore!"), we should expect a lot of nastiness over the course of the next eighty minutes.
 

 

Arriving like clockwork, a new prisoner named Maria de Guerra (Lina Romay) is being escorted through the castle-like structure to the orientation office by the prison's male warden (Roland Weiss) and a female guard, who is dressed in a nondescript green army uniform. If you think Lina Romay looks cute in her peach trousers and matching vest, enjoy the peachy view while you can (her terrific bum looked sublime encased in the colour peach), because she's about to be given a drab blue smock and nothing else to wear.
 

 

When Maria meets the directress (Monica Swinn), along with a Dr. Costa (Paul Muller) and a guard named José (Raymond Hardy), for the first time, it would appear that she isn't wearing any pants whatsoever. Well, if you closely, you'll notice she is in fact wearing pants, they just happen to be the world's shortest pair of super-short short shorts. Along with a monocle in her right eye (held in place, no doubt, by sheer will power), slicked back greasy blonde hair, a white dress shirt (cinched a the waist with an imposing belt), and a pair of black knee-high boots, the directress is an imposing figure.
 

 

What's strange about the Maria orientation scene, besides Monica Swinn's appearance, is the part where the doctor asks her to sign a document that basically allows them to perform shock therapy on her. The fact they asked her to sign it wasn't the strange part, it was the cavalier nature in which she signed the document. Maybe she thought they said, "sock therapy." Either way, I thought she might have at least protested a little bit. But then again, Maria does spend the first half of the movie in a trance-like state. In other words, she probably didn't hear a thing the doctor or the directress said during her processing.
 

 

Holy crap! They don't waste any time do they? Before taking her to her cell, the directress decides that Maria needs a little, you guessed it, shock therapy. Strapped naked to a wire bed frame, Maria is zapped with electricity. Her screams can be heard all the way in the cell that she is soon gonna call home; that is, if they ever stop torturing her. Troubled by her screams, a blonde inmate named Bertha Contrini (Martine Stedil), a murderess with large breasts and Azura Skye-esque cheekbones, is trying her best to block them out. As this is going on, Ingrid can be see admiring her stocking-covered legs on her bed. Thrusting her never-clothed, burnt sienna crotch in a seductive counterclockwise manner while resting her legs against wall of her cell (it's almost as if she views her stockinged stems as an art gallery worthy work of art), Ingrid has decided to take a relaxed attitude towards long-term incarceration.
 

 

"I'm a doll. A real doll. Touch me!" ~ Ingrid
  

 

Cellblock-based leggy lounging is the activity of the hour, as Rosaria, Ingrid, and even Bertha all recline in a fashion that was exceedingly leg-friendly. Bored with lounging leggily, Ingrid decides to wave her pussy in front of Bertha's face. What is it, five o'clock already? Meaning, I have a strong feeling Ingrid does this a lot. As Ingrid was gyrating, I couldn't help but notice that the frayed bits of string that are supposed to be helping keep her stockings up fall to the floor. I'll admit, I was overwhelmed with sadness when the string on her left stocking vacated her thigh area. But when the other one fell, I cried like a baby who cries a lot. I've been this moved by something that has appeared in a movie since that Union soldier yelled, "Give 'em Hell, 54!" in Glory. 
 

 

Realizing that a film can't be just about do-it-yourself lingerie and heaving burnt sienna crotches, Jess Franco slowly starts to introduce conventional plot elements to the film. Such as: the identity of the writer of a mysterious [intercepted] letter bemoaning the conditions at the prison (the directress and the doctor seem quite concerned) and the sordid reason as to why Maria ended up in this awful place. The latter involves incest and murder, and is told via flashback. No big deal, right? I mean, the use of the flashback narrative device is quite common, even in the heady world of Jess Franco. Yeah, but I bet you have never seen a flashback sequence acted out in slow-motion before. You see, instead of slowing down the film, Lina Romay (who's naked, of course) and Jess Franco (who plays her father) perform the scene at a slower rate. Now, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but the sight of Jess chasing Lina at half speed is hilarious.
 

 

The search for the identity of the letter writer is somewhat less comical, as it involves anilingus, stress positions, forced masturbation ("Touch your sex. I will watch. Enjoy it!"), and sadomasicism ("Beat me!"). The anilingus and sadomasicism scenes are both feathers in the acting cap of Monica Swinn, as she gets to channel her feminine side in both. Wearing a frilly, see-through black robe (the kind fourteen year-old boys try on when their mom's not home), Monica uses kindness, as supposed to brutality, to get what she wants. Exploring the softness of Bertha's pert anatomy, Monica hopes to find out who wrote the letter by employing her secret weapon, and that is, properly implemented anilingus.
 

 

While Beni Cardoso and Peggy Markoff do an excellent job of filling the film's crazed redhead quota (their nonsensical gibberish is pure gold) and give my favourite performances in the film, you have got to commend Eric Falk's beastly work as the sadistic Nestor, a man so heinous, that even the guards look it him with disgust. Though, to be fair, the main reason for Eric's greatness has a lot to do with the guy who dubbed his dialogue (it's deranged bordering on psychotic), but you can't tell me that his skill with a horse whip wasn't off the charts in terms of unpleasantness.
 

 

Containing everything you could ask for in a women in prison film, Barbed Wire Dolls is a rousing success. Seriously, in terms of supplying the audience with sex, violence, sex, and degradation, you can't deny that it delivers the goods. My only problem is that the ending is so damn bleak. And I would have liked to have a seen a scene that explained the reason why Peggy Markoff's character was the only inmate who was allowed to wear stockings. So, yeah, if the ending had been softened a bit, and the backstory surrounding Ingrid's stockings had been fleshed out a little more, I would no problem declaring this putrid pile of cinematic sleaze to be one of the best women in prison films the genre has to offer.

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