La vie amoureuse de l'homme invisible

ORLOFF AND THE INVISIBLE MAN (1971) *** Howard Vernon, Brigitte Carva, Fernando Sancho, Paco Valladares, Isabel del Río, Evane Hanska. In this 1971 French-Spanish co-production, the irrepressible Howard Vernon returns for his second turn as Dr. Orloff. This time, he's created an invisible man who feeds on human blood. It's fairly typical Eurosleaze fare: there's the usual muddled plot, cheap special effects (wait until you see the invisible `man'!) and a fair amount of gratuitous nudity (the rape of the servant girl by the invisible man, with shots of Vernon leering through the whole thing, is especially tasteless). But a good score, nice atmosphere and fairly brisk direction by Pierre Chevalier manage to keep things interesting.

Orloff and the Invisible Man (1970)

** (out of 4)

Answering the call of a medical emergency, a young doctor avoids all warnings and goes to the home of Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) where he is told about a medical breakthrough where Orloff has created an invisible man. Vernon would play the Dr. Orloff character several times in his career so it's obvious a role he has no trouble in doing. ORLOFF AND THE INVISIBLE MAN (one of its many titles) is a decent time killer if you don't expect anything too good or too serious. The entire film suffers from a very low-budget and it appears that director Pierre Chevalier doesn't have much faith in anything that he's doing. Most of the scenes seem extremely rushed or at least made quickly without too much effort put into them. There really isn't any story of vision on display here as it almost seems as if Chevalier was just a director-for-hire who got the film in the can as quickly as he could. It's certainly not on the same page as THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF or DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER but there are a few interesting ideas here. It's funny how the entire doctor coming to the castle is handled because it's clearly ripping off the start of Dracula. The entire relationship between this young doctor and Orloff is a tad bit weird to say the least and the story never really bothered to explain why we need this younger doctor around. At just 75-minutes the film certainly goes by pretty quickly, although, to be honest, not much really happens in regards to the invisible man. The strangest sequence comes towards the end when a woman is stripped totally naked and sexually assaulted by the invisible man. Obviously the special effects aren't that good and the actresses acting isn't all that good either so we're left with an extremely weird sequence that belongs in the Euro Horror Hall of Fame. Vernon is good in his role and the supporting players aren't too bad either. There's plenty of nudity to keep fans of that entertained and there's some mild humor as well.

I always assumed that it was Jess Franco who had a monopoly on this type of cinema, namely: the routine euro-exploitation flicks with an always-returning villain (Dr. Orloff), absurd story lines (invisible ape-creatures??), truckloads of sleaze and absolutely no logic at all. Every small detail in "Orloff Against the Invisible Man" has got Franco's name written all over it, so it was quite a surprise to find out that he actually hasn't got anything to do with it. But still Franco admirers don't have to fear that this will be a 'soft' film, because director Pierre Chevalier proves himself to be "Godfather of Sleaze" as well and his movie is delightfully trashy and nonsensical. Howard Vernon (normally a Franco-regular as well) stars as a totally insane man of science who created an invisible monster, supposedly for his daughter that got traumatized after being buried alive when she was 16. How exactly this creation helps the poor girl's situation is entirely beside the point, as are many other sudden twist in the script. Everything eventually revolves on the sexual aspect when the invisible ape-man goes completely berserk after graphically raping the housemaid (sickly illustrated by an overlong scene showing the poor woman struggling naked on a pile of hay). Every normal film-loving person will most likely detest this film, but for exploitation-fans, there is always the weird atmosphere and morbid set pieces to admire. Orloff's castle is genuinely ominous, with lots of dark cellars and secret tombs and Howard Vernon looks uniquely sinister again. Great entertainment for the slightly more demanding cult-freaks among us.

Moody terror movie about a mad doctor and revolving around an invisible man . The newcomer Dr. Garondet (Francisco Valladares) is called for healing sick professor Orloff (Howard Vernon) , but people in his village are afraid of going to his castle . The insistent doctor asks for his whereabout but the feared villagers tell nothing . The newcomer Dr. Garondet reaches the castle and the servants send him to talk to Cécile Orloff, who is the daughter of the professor and is worried about the insane health of her daddy . Eventually , Dr. Garondet meets professor Orloff and he tells what happened to Cécile sometime ago . But results that evil scientist has created a murderous , invisible ape man-lookalike . Due to strange circumstances , Dr. Garondet has to spend the night in the creepy location and soon he learns there's a dangerous being stalking the castle .

Austerily eerie terror film that contains thrills , chills , fantastic events and being mostly set at a sinister castle . This so-so Spanish/French co-production is generally characterized by botcher images , sleaziness , nudism and contaning a symbolic attack on the ethics of science . Although the film passed European censors upon its original release in 1970 the nudism , grisly killings and the susprising rape by the invisible monster still caused controversy , existing a double version , both , a light Spanish and another hard French one . Being produced in short budget by Marious Lesoeur : Eurocine , Célia Films and Producciones Miguel Mezquíriz . Initial releases of the film were met with negative reactions from film critics , while the general critical reaction had been poor , however ,today is considered an acceptable terror picture . Nice acting by Howard Vernon as Doctor Orloff , his classic role who would repeat over and over again . As Vernon is brilliant as a demented researcher/scientific/surgeon haunted by a past tragedy. Functional acting by the Spanish Francisco Valladares as the doctor who figures out the mysterious events . By the time , Valladares getting big success thanks to his role in hit Spanish TV series as Ana Karenina and Diego de Acevedo . And secondary acting by the great Fernando Sancho , the Mexican antihero in hundreds of Spaghetti/Paella Westerns .The motion picture was regularly directed by Pierre Chevalier . He was a director and assistant director, known for Escuadrón pantera or Panther Squad (1984) with Sybil Danning , Pigalle carrefour des illusions (1973) and La maison des filles perdues (1974). He made various exploitation films , though in his starts he directed A-films with known stars , such as : Micheline Presle , Raymond Pellegrin , Fernandel , Gino Cervi or Eddie Constantine.

This is third entry on the long series about Doctor Orloff , a former prison doctor who tries to use skin of his victims to repair his beloved daughter's fire-scarred face and whose role subsequently to show up in various flicks mainly directed by prolific writer/producer/director Jesús Franco . The Orloff character starred a saga , using the same shots in more than one film ; some of his actors relate how they they were hired for one film and later saw their name in two or more different one . Orloff was habitually played by Howard Vernon who initiated the terrifying saga in ¨Gritos en la Noche¨ (1962) , the best of all them , also titled "The Awful Dr. Orlof" , considered to be one of the best films in his first period and deemed to be the first movie of the ¨Spanish Fantaterror¨. This vintage horror motion picture , a classic in some circles , was well directed by Jesús Franco who never considered the film to be a terror story , but instead felt it was tale of "anguish" . Here Franco established his uniquely poetic , stunningly filmed in black and white and expressionist darkness with visually striking style , including unforgettable images that owed a great deal to early cinema in general and German Expressionism in particular , though imitating to classy "Eyes Without A Face" (1960) , the masterpiece directed by George Franju , packing a haunting poetic fantasy . It's followed by ¨El Secreto del Dr. Orloff¨ (1964) aka "The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll" - USA . It's gone on by " Orloff y el hombre invisible (1970) aka "Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster" , ¨Ojos siniestros de Doctor Orloff¨(1973) . Furthermore , ¨El enigma Del Ataúd¨ (1969) aka "Only a Coffin" and ¨El Siniestro doctor Orloff¨ (1984) aka "The Sinister Dr. Orloff . Finally, ¨Faceless¨ or ¨Depredadores de Noche¨(1987) in which Orloff appears as a secondary role and of course, performed by Howard Vernon.

Possibly the biggest challenge in watching this Spanish/French horror extravaganza is the dubbing. As is sometimes the case, less than a scrupulous translation of the dialogue can produce unintentionally hilarious results. Some would say that adds to the charm. Perhaps they are right.

You may be led to believe this is a Jess Franco production. I was. It is in fact directed by Pierre Chevalier who delivers a comparatively accessible yarn filled with genre cliches used to fairly good effect. Once again playing Orloff is the mighty Howard Verson (who had played the character for Franco before, and would do so again in the future), the hero-type is Dr. Garondet (Frances Valladares), and the vampy young lady of the piece is Cécile (Brigitte Carva). If you're ready, there's also an invisible ape who gets up to all sorts of nasty business - again, some of his vile antics do unintentionally (I presume) raise a smile.

The story seems to have bits and pieces from most of the horror classics thrown in. You might recognise elements from Dracula, and Frankenstein, and there are dark tunnels and a hero who delights in wearing a red-lined cloak. It's all here and is delightfully unconventional in places and darn right ridiculous in others.