With the recent release of the two Image discs and a couple of Blue Undergrounds out in January, the number of Jess Franco movies on DVD is swelling. I've collected a handful thus far -- SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY and VAMPYROS LESBOS (from Image) and all the Blue Underground titles except SADOMANIA.

Now that Mobius is back up (woo-hoo!), I thought a thread on Jess Franco DVD recommendations might be helpful to many of us here...

...I'd personally appreciate any comments about the Region 1 discs of TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS and VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD.

For me, VIRGIN is a bit of a sad case.

It's one of the best Franco's I've seen, the disc has a typically terrific Tim Lucas essay insert, and includes the Rollin-directed zombie scenes as a supplement. The transfer is very good (with English and French viewing options) with one major (for me) caveat: it's from a PAL source, clumsily converted to NTSC. Everything's sped up and smeary, killing the sensation of watching something shot on film.

For me, it really kills the experience, so much so that the last time I spun the disc, I had trouble paying attention to the film itself and had to turn it off. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I don't recommend TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS. It's the non Franco editing, full-framed and badly dubbed in English.

A VIRGIN AMONG A LIVING DEAD is in my opinion a very good edition. Correctly framed, with the original French track with English removable subtitles (the English track is included, too, but it has a different, bad music score and a very poor dubbing) and with a good image quality. And this is definitely one of Franco best films.

If you can see Region 2 discs, I recommend you very much X-Rated's LES DEMONS, LA FILLE DE DRACULA and LA MALDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN.

My favorite Franco films available on DVD, of the 32 that I own, are

THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF
THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS
THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z
NECRONOMICON
THE BLOODY JUDGE
NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT
EUGENIE DE SADE
VAMPYROS LESBOS
SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY
EXORCISM
JACK THE RIPPER
DORIANA GREY
LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN
BLUE RITA
FACELESS

I'm also very excited about the soon to be released VENUS IN FURS from BU.

I second that, although I imagine you could get it used pretty cheap(if you go to Amoeba Music on Sunset in LA you'll probably find mine still there). :P Early Anchor Bay, so pretty lame.

The Orloff box is pretty nice so far(halfway through it), loved his films from BU's Christopher Lee box, also various others. For some reason the Soledad Miranda Franco films bore me to tears though(Vampyros Lesbos was my first, followed soon after by She Killed in Ecstacy, so maybe it's that occasionally noted "first Franco" syndrome). Recently rented Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun reg2 and it was decent, looked good, though cut by 6 minutes or so apparantly.

Funny you should say that: it was a used copy at Amoeba that I was thinking about picking up...
:o

When it comes to transefers, proper aspect ratios, etc., etc. I'm not nearly as keen as most members of the forum. So if you're just an average fan (like myself) I don't think you'll have any trouble focusing on VIRGIN. It's probably my second favorite Franco disc in my collection; BU's JUSTINE being my first.

My favorite Franco by far is:

EUGENIE...THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION (1969)

My second favorite is DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER.