THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX (1983) Blu-ray
Director: Jess Franco
Severin Films

Jess Franco takes his two most dependable stars on a schizoid, sadomasochistc action adventure with THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

Moira (Lina Romay, EXORCISM) is a nightclub dancer whose acts include masturbating on the hood of a crashed car and rolling around with porno mags on a shag carpet. She is recruited by boyfriend Vicas (Miguel Ángel Aristu, OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES) to torture and extract information from fellow dancer Tina (Juana de la Morena, REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER), impersonating her to pose as the daughter of dying General Klaus (Albino Graziani, TWO SPIES IN FLOWERED PANTIES) who gives her the cryptic clues to the whereabouts of Nazi gold. Also after the gold are a fellow dancer (Lorna Green, MACUMBA SEXUAL) and her gangster boyfriend (Tony Skios, THE INCONFESSIBLE ORGIES OF EMMANUELLE), but private detective Al Crosby (Antonio Mayans, CECILIA) is several steps ahead of them, killing Vicas and raping Moira who decides to team up with him to search for the gold, puzzling out a riddle that leads to a jungle mansion and a riddle involving classical composer Liszt.

One of Franco's lesser-explored filmic threads was his use of Edgar Allan Poe's adventure "The Gold Bug" as a springboard for exploitation, with the best-known version being the unfinished workprint of JUNGLE OF FEAR. THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX is such an adventure, but plotted in a very unpredictable way, with the tone shifting from amusing and explicit stripteases to brutal rape and torture with a couple murders thrown in casually. Mayans and Romay are an engaging comic duo, with their penchant for having sex at the most inopportune times providing the requisite explicitude as well as some laughs (Crosby reckons that Moira cries out "My Tarzan" with all of her lovers, and her sexual performance in a number of scenes may actually be the same bit of looped dialogue repeated). The torture by curling iron of Tina manages to be naively realized on a technical level (as usual with Franco and his dislike of special effects) but it remains a disturbing scene, and the way in which Franco – who cameos as an aristocrat in a bit with some throwaway dialogue offering up some class commentary – is able to successfully shift the tone several times over into lighter territory suggests that the film was partially improvised.

Transferred from a 4K scan of the original camera negatives, THE NIGHT OF OPEN SEX's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen presentation looks dupey and grainy during the shots with credits opticals but the intercut shots of the nightclub act and the bulk of the film looks crisp and colorful with some real pop in the art direction and wardrobe (the resolution is such to make the gold bars during the climax look more like foil-wrapped chocolate). In spite of a sometimes scratchy LPCM 2.0 mono soundtrack, the presentation cannot help but best everything that has come before since both the VHS release and the more recent Spanish digital cable broadcast were both cropped to 1.85:1 while the complete frame here reveals no such fading or light leaks that might have motivated such an approach with the earlier digital transfer (especially since some of the other digital TV masters of Franco films from this period were more accurately framed). Optional English subtitles refer to Vicas as Vickers but are otherwise without issues.

As with companion release CRIES OF PLEASURE, Severin has outfitted the release of this minor Franco film with some nice extras. "In The Land of Franco Part 2" (15:27) continues Franco writer Stephen Thrower's tour of the Portuguese locations from Franco films, including the Palácio de Monserrate that appeared in Franco's CECILIA and SWEDISH NYMPHO SLAVES, as well as the jungle-like grounds and ruins that stood in for the tropics in DEVIL HUNTER and other production, along with the chateau used for SINFONIA EROTICA, and the castles that appeared in DAUGHTER OF DRACULA and DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN within view of one another. "When Donald Met Jess and Lina Part 2" (9:34) is a continuation of Donald Farmer's 1993 set visit to JUNGLE OF FEAR in which Franco discusses his ways of shooting coverage for Romay and others to edit, conceiving productions on a scale guaranteed to make back money even when minimally marketed to other territories, as well as his feelings about Eurocine's video deal with Charles Band for Wizard Video (feeling that the Lasoeur family would get themselves killed one day for continually re-releasing the same films under different titles). "The Night of Open Jess" (20:30) is an interview with Thrower that focuses on Franco's iterations of "The Golden Bug," the "tone collage" approach to the film, noting how we are supposed to sympathize with Romay's character after she has tortured and murdered another woman, as well as Mayans' private detective after he has raped a woman who then becomes his partner against another pair of characters who are supposed to be the real villains. Drawing from his research into Franco's scenarios and scripts of the time as well as the recollections of Mayans, Thrower too suggests that the film could only have come together with Franco's love of spontaneity and giving Mayans and Romay the freedom to interpret scenes without regard for an overall plan. The disc is available separately or in The Open Pleasure Bundle with co-feature CRIES OF PLEASURE or in The Astrologer's Open Pleasure Bundle with the aforementioned Franco feature and fellow February release THE ASTROLOGER. (Eric Cotenas)

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