My name is Scott MacDonald and I am addicted to Jess Franco films. If you’ve been reading this website for the past 13 years as I’m sure at least a few of you have, you might be aware of this, so needless to say when this found its way into my mailbox it immediately become priority viewing. Early Franco is a tricky beast for me. Objectively, it’s actually better made, and better structured than his later efforts, but since he was working on building a professional career here, rather than work in a world of his own creation. I know that might seem a bit absurd, but it seems after the Tower’s period of the mid to late 60’s he was able to seemingly create bizarre cinemascapes, while grabbing financing from one producer or one company, while not having to compromise his vision.

However, the most interesting thing about early Franco films is how every “Franco” they are. When you watch films like the Sadistic Baron Von Klaus or the Awful Dr. Orloff, they read as Franco. When watching this new Severin release Franco Noir, which consist of 2 Franco films before Franco had even hit the double digits with his filmography. The films included are Rififi in the City and Death Whistles the Blues, and both feel like Noir-ish prototypes for what Franco would do throughout his career.

Death Whistles the Blues is the first film in the set. This film sees a woman named Lina become obsessed with a musician, Julius, she sees at a jazz club, that is in some way connected to her late husband, Frederico. Lina mentions this to her current husband Paul, who then has Julius murdered. As it turns out Paul was responsible for Federico’s murder, and a whole lot more, and the cops are closing in. Death Whistles the Blues is a solid noir entry from Franco. It shows his obsessions with jazz and nightclubs right on its sleeves. It’s fairly straight forward, but it is fun. Franco would remake this about 15 years later as Kiss Me Killer.

Rififi in the City has zero to do with the Jules Dassin film, but if you know anything about Eurofilms of this era you might expect that’s the case. The film begins when a corpse is thrown the window of a police detective. The detective, Mora, had been working on a case involving a criminal kingpin, Maurice LaPrince (Jean Servais, who yeah OK did appear in Rififi). As Mora gets closer to LaPrince bodies begin to pile up, and he begins to have to go into renegade cop mode to get his man. This one I think is the better of the two films, again a lot of jazz and nightclub scenes. We have an excellent score, and solid cinematography with nice atmospherics.

Both films are presented 1:78:1 in 1080p and look quite nice. Both are black and white with solid contrast and detail. Audio is in Spanish mono with subtitles and comes through without issues. Extras include an in depth issue with Stephen Thrower which is informative and fantastic.