VAMPYROS LESBOS

Alice Gordon, an employee in a law firm, has a recurring dream in which a female figure (whom she cannot identify) irresistibly draws her towards a strange villa. The dream images repeat identically each time: a scorpion, a butterfly trapped in a net, a kite, a drop of blood sliding on a glass. One day, going to the island of Uskudar to handle a legal matter, she finds herself face to face with the villa and the dreamed images. A legend tells that on that island, a princess was once imprisoned, sentenced by her husband to die of starvation. "Las Vampiras" represents one of the best films in the prolific production of Franco. The movie is known by a multitude of different titles essentially referring to two distinct versions: the German one (mostly known as "Vampyros Lesbos") which contains the original plot and is characterized by a high level of eroticism; and the Spanish one ("Las Vampiras" and other titles) heavily censored, which is the one that arrived in Italy subtitled. In the Spanish version examined, the homosexual component of the original film has been drastically reduced and some unpublished scenes have been added. The consequence of this addition-subtraction process is that some sequences result irrational or unclear, to the point of almost speaking of two different films rather than differences between the various versions. The plot mixes a female reinterpretation of "Dracula by Bram Stoker" with elements derived from the story "Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and other original ones in the background of an unusual Turkish setting (the film was shot between Istanbul, Berlin, and Alicante). The decent photography emphasizes the sense of decay and abandonment of the places where the film takes place, mostly out-of-season beach resorts and dilapidated palaces. The same effect is obtained also by the singular choice of setting the plot almost always during the day (in broad daylight) and the frequent use of bright colors. Particularly successful is the sequence of Alice's dream: fascinating and charged with symbolism that will clarify only in part at the end. The film, however, after a promising start, gradually loses its way, dragging itself a bit wearily until the cathartic conclusion. Fortunately, the extraordinary performance of Soledad Miranda as the vampire countess Diana of Uskudar manages to support the entire weight of the film, even in the frequent slow and less successful moments of it. The actress, who died shortly after at just 27 years old in a tragic car accident, dominates the scene entirely with her charismatic, magnetic presence and her melancholic beauty from the opening credits. Franco himself revealed that Soledad underwent almost a physical transformation during the shootings. The film unfortunately suffers from some trashy falls typical of the Spanish director, but overall it manages to maintain the dreamlike and decadent atmosphere intact from beginning to end, presenting itself as an unconventional product and permeated by a delicate (at least in the Spanish version) eroticism.