JESS FRANCO MONTH: House of Cruel Dolls (1974)

Directed by Pierre Chevalier (using the name Peter Knight, the same he’d use for Panther Squad) who co-wrote this with A.L. Mariaux — but come on, we all know that that’s Jess Franco — this Eurocine film is a cut and paste marvel that uses footage from a movie made seven years before, Agente Sigma 3 – Missione Goldwather, so that explains why this starts as a sleaze film all about a house of, well, cruel dolls, and ends up a spy movie. Eurocine did it one better by taking these leftovers, warming them up and re-releasing them eight years later as Police Destination Oasis, also adding in some of Agente Sigma 3 – Missione Goldwather and a pinch of Franco’s Two Female Spies In Flowered Panties.

In those first few moments, a regular customer falls in love with cruel doll Yvette (Magda Mundari) and helps her escape. They go to the police and…cue the Jack Taylor Eurospy footage.

Speaking of cobbling together multiple movies to make a new narrative, this was released on blu ray in the U.S. by Full Moon, the same company who often edits shortened narrative destroyed versions of their films into make no sense anthologies and had the absolute gall to rip off Bruno Mattei’s Hell of the Living Dead and turn it into Corona Zombies. Yes, Full Moon ripped off a movie that ripped off Zombie which was ripping off Dawn of the Dead and also stole footage from Yeti Giant of the 20th Century and the mondo films Des morts and Nuova Guinea, l’isola dei cannibali while also ripping off music from Buio Omega and Blood and Diamonds.

Notice how my morals are: I am perfectly fine with Franco and Mattei robbing other movies but I draw the line at Charles Band.

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