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DVD com­pa­nies that spe­cial­ize in cult cin­ema can be sure of one thing: there are always more Jesus Franco films wait­ing to be released in a dig­i­tal for­mat.  This absurdly pro­lific direc­tor has cranked out so many films since the 1960’s that sev­eral com­pa­nies could make a career out of releas­ing his work alone.  No one prob­a­bly has deep enough pock­ets or the reck­less streak required to do that… but sev­eral com­pa­nies have released his work over the years and there’s always room for more.

The most recent com­pany to throw their hat into the Franco-on-DVD ring is InterVision, an upstart out­fit formed by film busi­ness vet­eran Larry Gold.  In fact, the company’s first pair of releases are devoted to films from two very dif­fer­ent eras of Franco’s career: The Sinister Eyes Of Dr. Orloff hails from his 1970’s glory days while Paula-Paula is a video-based effort that rep­re­sents Franco’s cur­rent work.  The results are as dif­fer­ent as the films they contain.

The Sinister Eyes Of Dr. Orloff fares the worst in terms of visual qual­ity: it was taken from an old 1-inch VHS mas­ter and the result is a full-frame trans­fer with soft detail and pale col­ors.  Since it comes from a PAL source, there’s a cer­tain “smeary” qual­ity to its look when­ever the cam­era or its sub­jects are mov­ing quickly.  Sound is mono: it’s a bit harsh-sounding in spots (par­tic­u­larly when the rock star character’s dread­ful song is played) but acceptable.

Paula-Paula offers an anamor­phic trans­fer that does well by its source mate­r­ial.  It was shot cheaply on video and lib­er­ally doused with post-production effects but it boasts solid color rep­re­sen­ta­tion and a decent level of detail despite the dim light­ing.  The sound mix is solid, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing the long stretches where the atmos­pheric Friedrich Gulda score takes cen­ter stage.

Both discs also boast inter­view sup­ple­ments with Franco.  The Sinister disc fea­tures a piece in which Franco offers a lively dis­ser­ta­tion on all things Orloff: he dis­cusses the amus­ing inspi­ra­tion for the char­ac­ter, his mem­o­ries of the shoot and the cast and how the film allowed him to build a work­ing rela­tion­ship with William Berger (who was suf­fer­ing some legal trou­bles at the time).

Paula-Paula boasts a trio of Franco sit­downs (all taken from the same on-camera sit­down) that total about a half hour’s worth of mate­r­ial: there is a brief intro­duc­tion (appar­ently filmed within hours of him fin­ish­ing the film!), a piece in which he dis­cusses the film and how Gulda’s music inspired it and finally a mini-dissertation on the state of con­tem­po­rary cin­ema.  The lat­ter seg­ment is the most entertaining/interesting and fea­tures Franco dis­cussing his feel­ings about the state of film­mak­ing in Spain, how tech­nol­ogy has broad­ened oppor­tu­ni­ties for film­mak­ers and how young film­mak­ers deserve as much seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion as the older, more expe­ri­enced ones.  His cur­rent films might not be the eas­i­est things to watch but his the­o­ries and opin­ions will fas­ci­nate fans of odd­ball cinema.

In sum­ma­tion, the first few InterVision releases show promise despite a few A/V issues.  If they devel­oped a more stan­dard­ized level of qual­ity in their trans­fers, they could become a worth­while force in the Euro-cult DVD market.