Hello!

I recently got hold of the HARDCORE ed of Franco's LES CAUCHEMARS NAISSENT LA NUIT and seeing it I was pleasanltly surprised that it was so good.
Someone on IMDB called it "disappointing".
Tohill & Tombs in their IMMORAL TALES book call it " a lifeless Edgar Wallace thriller"(?!).
For me, it is certainly well above average Franco.
The story is simple but told in a interesting and simple way.
This is a sort of Franco chamberplay with the two main female protagonists in the centre of the action.
As usual Franco cites himself, for example the theme of hypnosis refers back to SUCCUBUS.
There is a great dreamy poetic atmopshere to it, very simple yet effective.
Soledad Miranda of course only has a minor part, but she is of course excellent in every film she's in (however small the part) and her mere presence gives each film a magical atmopshere.
The disappointing aspect of this disc is that the print is severely pan-and-scanned with some shots being quite severed, such as in the scene with Soledad where she lays naked on a bed when she later on stands up her head is cut off from sight :-(.
Still, I guess it is due to the obscurity of the title.
The photography is great with a greenish saturation and the score is absolutely one of Bruno Nicolai's best.

The interview with Franco is very informative, though it's hard to hear what the man's saying due to his loss of teeth.
The interview is broken at a point due to the man still being overwhelmed with emotion talking about the death of his greatest female star Soledad Miranda
which is very understandable.
The Eurocine documentary is also very good with some amusing scenes from various films.

Now hopefully we'll soon see the release of SEX CHARADE.

Mathias

It is indeed above average Franco - since I've seen it, I think it's become one of my favorites.

As far as the Hardgore disc goes, you should've gone for the NTSC release from Shriek Show. While it does not contain the Eurocine doc, it features a French language track with English subtitles which is superior to the dub track (also on the Shriek Show disc) - I find that I can't listen to the dub track for more than a couple seconds.

I think the film is supposed to be fullscreen. Whatever the case, Eurocine was working from all they had left for the film.

Yes, the dubbing is another big minus of the disc as it is so poorly done.
The french dubbed version most be much better.

Mathias

If you liked LES CAUCHEMARS in English, you will love it in French.

The way this film is demolished in Immoral Tales can appear surprising, but this is what happens when one looks at Jess Franco as a genre director («a lifeless Edgar Wallace thriller...»). All the Franco films are disappointing if ones measures them using the genre metre. And LES CAUCHEMARS NAISSENT LA NUIT is indeed one of his more personal, experimental and elusive works.
Waiting for SEX CHARADE, if somebody succeeds in finding it!.....

I have to disagree on this one. I found just about every aspect of this film from editing to plot progression & even individual performances to be dull & uninspired. Having seen some stills on this & 1 or 2 other sites, I had high hopes for this film but instead I found myself in a state of irritation & boredom which....though this seems to the effect that Franco films have on many....is an unusual occurance for myself. I'm certainly aware of & really agree with the argument (especially as F. Cessari has elaborated) that Franco's cinema should be seen as an ongoing work in progress but this viewpoint does not always save certain films from just being bad. I think Tombs & Tohill would agree as they have shown a keen understanding of Franco's work and have led others (such as myself) to a greater appreciation of these films. In this case I don't disagree that Nightmares is a lifeless genre piece (throw in a couple of extra genres such as 'erotic' or 'exploitation') & would also like to make the point that , while Franco should not be couched as a 'genre film maker', the genre in Franco's cinema as well as EuroCult cinema in general is both the arena and also a very important tool and frame of reference. No art exists outside of such limitations & I think in the best cases Franco exhibits a keen awareness of the importance of the genre as a general framework within which he can explore his personal obsessions.

Would it be either a good or a bad film, it's difficult to consider NCAT a thriller. This is the typical out-of-genre movie, which usually means also out-of-market ....
The first time I saw it, it seemed also to me a little boring, but I definitely enjoyed it the second time.

I agree with you that Franco sometimes uses genres as general frameworks, but I also see a sort of detachment in these cases. He tends either to deconstruct them or to "quote" them. However, I was wrong in my former message: not all the Franco films are disappointing if ones measures them using the genre metre. I think, in particular, to some of his early films: RIFIFI EN LA CIUDAD, which is his absolute best genre film, LA MUERTE SILBA UN BLUES, EL LLANERO (western), LA REINA DEL TABARIN and VAMPIRESAS 1930 (musicals) and the better know early horrors, before the more personal MISS MUERTE. He did some serious genre films also in 1970s and 1980s, like UN SILENCIO DE TUMBA (1972), LA NOCHE DE LOS ASESINOS (1973), JUEGO SUCIO EN CASABLANCA (1984). But the key is already in his first feature film: TENEMOS 18 AÑOS (1959), a film in which two girls invent some stories, each of them belonging to a different genre but all of them just tales, just fantasy. At this point of his career, comedy, horror, melodrama are still divided (one per episode/tale), but very soon Franco will learn how to mix his cocktails and cause the viewer to lose his bearings. See, for example, the "quotations" of western genre in a WIP like SADOMANIA. WIP, western, softcore and, to me, also peplum are all present in SADOMANIA, but in order to appreciate this film, you mustn't measure it on one genre metre any more. It's a Jess Franco cocktail and a much more personal cinema than in his early years.