Venus in Furs (1969)

Although often hailed as Franco's masterwork, the end film Venus in Furs is a long way from Franco's original concept of Black Angel which was to be a surreal love affair between a black jazz musician and a white fantasy woman whom he conjoured up during solo playing. However, the American distributors refused to fund a film with a black man/white woman romance and Franco was forced to rethink the whole story - even the title was a commercial insistance of the American International producers who wanted to capitalise on the sucess of the Leopold Sacher-Masoch book even though the film itself was little related. As it stands, the storyline of Venus in Furs is very interesting and unpredictable with the curious recurrent themes of a jazz piece and the langurious pacing and jumps of a dream. However, the film takes a turn for the worse at the end with a completely unnecessary car chase and police investigation that destroys the dream-like atmosphere of the rest of the picture and seems to serve more as padding than part of the plot. The ending is very strong, although it would probably be more powerful without the final line of dialogue.

Venus in Furs shows off some of Franco's best direction: Dennis Price's character's death in a room full of mirrors is a highlight of Franco's entire cinematic oeuvre; like Eugenie (1970), the sex scenes are filmed very artistically, avoiding the film becoming porographic; a remembered jet-set party has a cartoon feel with completely stationary extras in the background; even the car chase is well shot - handheld cameras in the cars are far superior to the rear-projection work seen in too many Hollywood films of the time. It is worth noting, however, that the final film was not edited by Franco, and many of the curious editing choices were made in post production by someone else - this is evidenced by the frequent use of the same shots in different scenes (notice how the shot of the band at the jet-set party early on is actually from a later sequence in the Rio nightclub), some of the cuts between jazz bar and carnival stock footage are rather jolting to the soundtrack and flow of the film. Generally the soundtrack is very jazzy, with several long sequences in night-clubs - there are several reccuring character themes and some nicely used Middle-Eastern music on the Istanbul scenes.

Like most of the Towers/Franco collaborations, Venus in Furs has a strong cast. American actor James Darren was unusual casting for the lead role, a popular American TV star he was little known in Europe, Franco agreed to cast him after discovering that Darren was a former jazz trumpeter which lends some real autheticity to the musical sequences. Barbara McNair was similarly well known in America as a singer, which allows her character to seem much more authentic (no need to dub the singing seperately) while Maria Rohm as her supernatural love rival was Tower's top name actress and very popular, although probably intentionally she gets little range here, usually appearing mute. The tragic Dennis Price and legendary Klaus Kinski give good but almost mute performances as Wanda's torturers and victims, although with little screen-time. Look out for Franco regular Paul Muller as a bar owner, and jazz musician Manfred Mann as himself, even Franco himself puts in a turn on the piano in one scene.

All text in this review written by Timothy Young - 26th June 2006.
Text from this review not to be used without authorization.

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