Les nuits brûlantes de Linda, The Hot Nights Of Linda, Who Raped Linda?

Softcore master piece.

Today's entry will be a return to the very roots of this cult cinema blog: Sexploitation! a genre which despite its name, offers way more than softcore/hardcore scenery for usual wankers, and as you can see, our blog has been completely redesigned for the first time since 2008! The original template grew old and the back up files that gave it that retro design died a couple of weeks ago since the original website who had them ceased to exist forever. Nevertheless, our humble blog remains the same: Regular people like you and me enjoying films that belong to an entirely different category, a sort of Anti-Hollywood vision, not against Hollywood, but against Hollywood movies stereotyped labels like blockbuster, must-watch, summer hit, watchamacallit, Julia Roberts-Type-of-Film, you name it. Hoping you enjoy our new updated design (with integrated social networking and a newly enhanced like system) 

In order to celebrate we have chosen a Euro Cult classic that was recently re-released in home format for the first time ever in High Definition. Today's entry is one of the best creations of film maker Jess Franco and her lifetime wife Lina Romay (believe it or not, it's not a hardcore film) Les nuits brûlantes de Linda is a 1975 must watch, so let's cut to the chase. 

The original crappy VHS edition.

The newly restored Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack.

Number one Euro-Sleaze film maker, Jesús Franco AKA Jess Franco was a dedicated artist with a wide filmography that steps into softcore, drama, comedy, straight pornography, hardcore and then softcore again, his list is nearly impossible to label under one category since he wrote and directed approximately 200 films. Franco’s The Hot Nights of Linda is actually titled But Who Raped Linda? onscreen and the direction is credited to one J.P. Johnson (an American jazz pianist whom Franco admired). Franco used dozens of pseudonyms. Many of his films are cut and recut and retitled, with hard-core sex scenes added or removed, depending on the whims of distributors. Franco inserted identical scenes from his own films into different movies he directed. His films referred increasingly to his previous work. Franco created his own universe, his own mythology. In his earlier movies, Franco was capable of classical construction and a cinematic elegance that waned as the speed at which he cranked out movies escalated.

The Hot Nights of Linda was made in 1973, one of the busiest years in Franco’s career, with 11 films completed and three films started but incomplete. The early 1970s was the white heat of Franco’s creativity, according to Thrower. Franco craved cinematic freedom but at the price of discipline and rigor. His later work was often shoddy and slapdash. Once in a while, Franco made a good, solid film: Venus in Furs (1969) is an extraordinary fantasy-thriller about a woman who returns from the dead, but Franco followed it with the abysmal Count Dracula (1970), which wasn’t the step up from the Hammer Draculas that Franco and Christopher Lee hoped it would be.

The banana fellatio scene.

Sure go ahead!

To be honest with my fellow connoisseurs, I've never been a diehard fan of Franco's work. To me he was number one B movie film maker in a time where I didn't have any idea about what made a good movie in the first place. Nevertheless, I did understand why he constantly worked with her wife Lina Romay in most of his films. The love they had was surely a big thing, since she had no hesitation on working on straight pornography for him. Today, I can tell you he's a varied film maker with his hits and misses like many directors who are still out there. However, his rich contribution to the Euro-Sleaze label can neither be denied nor diminished. He was the best at what he did and The Hot Nights Of Linda prove it with ease.

According to film writer Stephen Thrower, The Hot Nights of Linda delivers on basic softcore thrills but can be viewed as a psychological chamber piece that doesn’t have any really obvious exploitation hooks, which is one reason it may have been overlooked in the Franco canon. The themes of The Hot Nights of Linda are incest, a family patriarch who is concealing a dreadful secret, and the family unit in decay. The Hot Nights of Linda is one of the strangest and most claustrophobic of Franco’s films.

I love reading in the nude.

I love listening to music in the nude.

Actually Linda isn’t the main character, which makes the storyline all the more confusing: Linda (the slim and raven-haired beauty Catherine Lafferière) is a paraplegic who lives comfortably in her uncle’s seaside Greek villa but is constantly hit on by her more strong-willed nymphomaniac cousin, Olivia (Franco’s uninhibited and beloved muse Lina Romay). The estate belongs to Olivia’s debauched father (Paul Muller). The simple-minded manservant Abdul (Pierre Taylou) provides stud service to the sexually insatiable Olivia. The lead role actually belongs to the alluring and statuesque Alice Arno as Marie-France Bertrand, who is hired as a live-in nurse/secretary and whose pulchritudinous presence brings some of the household’s darkest secrets to light, leading to lesbianism, sadism, murder, suicide, horsewhipping and bloodshed. Ultimately, the ending is an “it was all a dream” cop-out.

Multiple versions of The Hot Nights of Linda were released throughout Europe but, as with most Franco films, Linda was never given an American theatrical release. Unfortunately, video versions for all of these versions were absolutely dire, with blurry VHS copies suffering from murky quality, random edits, and brutal cropping of the original scope photography. Considering its dismal history, Severin Films is to be saluted for releasing what can only be termed the first watchable copy of this film ever issued on home video.

Smoking is bad for your health.

Yoga with Lina.

The 80-minute But Who Raped Linda? soft-core release version was Franco’s preferred cut and the longest version out there. The longer 80-minute cut is the primary one on Severin’s dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition, featuring the English language track. It’s a professional dub overall (with only one annoying voice actor), and The Hot Nights of Linda can finally be appreciated for its rich aesthetic beauty—including some scenes absent entirely from the more commonly circulated hardcore version. But the film meanders and The Hot Nights of Linda is too restrained to classify as a horror movie. I’d also advise anyone who doesn’t “get” the Franco phenomenon to give this one a miss. Franco is an acquired taste. You’re either attuned to him or you’re not.

Here's a sample of the film:

El Mirón y la Exhibicionista

A badly improvised DVD cover.

I am a fan of the controversial cinematographer Jess Franco, so my point of view is not going to be shared by many readers, which is OK with me: this is a free world! As a matter of fact, I must confess that I watch every Franco's movie I can get my hands on and, honestly, I find always something intriguing and interesting in his work.  

Today's entry will take us deep into the world of 1986's "El Mirón y la Exhibicionista", a straight forwarded hard core porn movie that offers nothing but sex. Perhaps, compared to the unlimited amount of porn you can get from the internet, you may find this Jess Franco film a horrible experiment in porn, as its actors & actresses are not in their best sunday dress. Lina Romay is not as in shape as she used to be and neither are the rest of the cast. Definitely Jess Franco's intentions were not to turn you on to get a good fap/schlock out of his movie. There is a darker point of view in here. Franco wants us to see regular people getting dirty, and portraying the ugliness and brutality of depraved sex.

The opening scene.

Hey! how rude of you to be looking at my nude wet slutty body!

The plot is very simple: in what appears to be a resort/hotel room, a good-looking woman (Lina Romay, featuring all the looks the 80's could deliver), is reading magazines and listening to music from a tape-deck. She is obviously bored but, after a while, she realizes (what an eye...) that a man is watching her from the window of a conveniently placed building in front of her room. It appears that he has binoculars, which qualifies him immediately as a "skilled Peeping-Tom". She doesn't let the opportunity skip by and starts staging a quite titillating and very arousing show in total benefit of this uninvited, but evidently quite welcome, guest. After that brief opening 101 plot explanation lesson, the film turns into varied sex sequences where Lina Romay's character takes the lead. She knows she's got a peeping Tom in front of her window so she finds that very motivating to continue her dirty sexual escapades which feature masturbation, lesbian action, penetration, fellatio, cumshots, cunni lingus and dirty dancing.

Gee! I can't find my clit in this big bush o'mine!

Haven't you ever thought of using a razor Lina?

I got a find neighbour.

The film looks & feels as another average porn movie but, believe you me, Jess Franco doesn't want you to masturbate with his flick, instead he wants to create and show the compelling and escalating atmosphere of tension and complicity, which is building up, as time goes by, between "watcher" and "watched". Lina gets "busy" with her body and soul and you can tell she likes what she does, but her eyes constantly run at the window, looking to be assured that "He" is still there and that he likes what he sees. Believe it or not, her facial language is (particularly under these peculiar circumstances) quite expressive and convincing. There is a mounting tension between the two which, in spite of being at least a couple of hundred yards away from each other and linked only by sight and some other person body, which is the "occasional-transfer", have never been so close and this, till the...inevitable conclusion. 

The dialogue is basically non existent. However at one point Lina says (in her native Spanish) to her occasional and cooperating sex friend: "you may think I'm a maniac but...I love this game!".  

Yeah! Diddle her skiddle!

You sure know how to find my clit in the wild woods of my bush.

Overall, "El Mirón y la Exhibicionista" May look like a porn film, and in fact, it is a porn movie but with a strong direction focused on the topic of being watched, and getting turned on by it. The film is presented mostly in dark colors, that I think, resemble the mood of the depraved characters. The sex scenes are accompanied with pleasant jazzy big band music and the babes acting haven't certainly discovered yet the use of a razor, and don't forget the guilt mood that follows the whole film from start to end. Of course, Jess Franco has directed films that are way better than this simple peeping tom fantasy but still this isn't as bad as it looks.

Anyways, next entries will be about "Father's Day" & "Dear God No" the latest gems in Troma's world of exploitation.

Lina just loves sucking cocks dry!

Lina's money shot!

Here a " video highlight" of the film:

Doriana Grey/Die Marquise Von Sade

The greatest spanish import of them all.

If someone wanted to define Jess Franco merely as an erotic/porn filmmaker he would be just miserably missing the point.  Jess Franco was much more than an erotic/porn director. In fact, I'd like to state, Mr. Franco's signature talent was that he developed erotic/porn horror like no other in the industry. He didn’t invent the erotic horror movie, but he took it further than anyone else had taken it up to that point, and further than anyone has taken it since. And in Doriana Grey, AKA Die Marquise von Sade, made in 1976, he took the form to its logical conclusion. 

Given that the movie contains real sex (fellatio, cunnilinguns, penetration, facials and masturbation to be exact), it raises the obvious questions. Is this pornography or art? Is this pornography or a horror movie? The answer is that it’s pornography, and it’s art, and it’s a horror movie, and there in lies Jess Franco's undisputable talent.

Poor girl can't stop masturbating.

See? masturbating is her thing.

It deals with the same themes Franco had already explored in my personal favorite Female Vampire, AKA Erotikill in 1973, and to a certain extent in Vampyros Lesbos in 1970. Vampirism is no longer a metaphor for sex. Vampirism is sex. Superficially these movies seem to equate sex with death, but given that the theme is obviously important and personal for Franco I find it difficult to believe that he’s actually intending such a puritanical message. I’m more inclined to think that he’s equating sex with life, sex as the life force, sex as the alpha and the omega of life. It’s not a case of the blood is the life; it’s sex that is the life.

Doriana Grey is a fabulously wealthy, exquisitely beautiful and eternal youthful woman. She is also a vampire. Like the Countess Irina in Female Vampire she has an insatiable hunger for sex, and like the Countess Irina she drains the life from her victims through sex. But she can never satisfy her hunger; she is incapable of experiencing the physical fulfillment of sex. She has a twin sister, from whom she was surgically separated birth. She was left without the ability to experience sexual ecstacy no matter how much she craves it; her sister was left with little except that ability. They are both incomplete. Doriana has sex obsessively, but it’s her twin who experiences the pleasure.

Yes kids, real actors portray real sex.

Doriana can go from one boy to one girl at ease.

The link to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray may seem somewhat tenuous, and it certainly doesn’t qualify as an adaptation of the novel, but Wilde’s tale was undoubtedly one of the inspirations for the movie. In this case the twin sister takes the place of the painting.

Lina Romay plays both sisters. She looks ravishing, and I doubt that any other actress could have combined the necessary feel for the character with the necessary very high degree of uninhibitedness that the role demands. I personally think she’s a very underrated actress, and this is one of her best performances.

Those who dislike Franco’s movies in general will hate this one. Apart from an enormous amount of sex it features the stylistic touches that annoy his critics so much. There’s an obsessive use of the zoom lens, and there’s an equally obsessive and at times bewildering tendency to move in and out of focus, with the focus frequently dissolving altogether. There’s no question it’s a deliberate technique, and it works, conveying very effectively Doriana’s disconnection and alienation from herself (in fact the disconnection and alienation from self of both halves of her personality housed in separate bodies).

Skiddle addict.

Doriana likes to drink cum at tea time.

I think it’s vitally important not to see this movie until you’ve seen Vampyros Lesbos and Female Vampire - they form a sort of vampire trilogy, with each film pushing the theme a little bit further. It’s not a movie for everyone, but then no Jess Franco movie could be described as a movie for everyone. And be warned, I’m not kidding about the sex. It really is explicit and it really is non-simulated. Personally I think it’s a bold and brilliant film. 

Here you can see Doriana Grey getting busy:

Female Vampire

Franco's erotic vampire film stars Lina Romay as a descendant of Count Dracula who - depending on which version you see - needs the blood or the semen of both male and female victims, in order to stay alive.

Franco's personal works are very much an acquired taste. Many people slate him, calling him a hack and dismissing his work as boring garbage. Personally, I think he makes very interesting, highly personal films which can be erotic, entertaining, disturbing and/or very well made. 


'Les Avaleuses' was released  by Redemption Video in a heavily censored form under the title "Female Vampire" (cuts were required by the censors). It was this version I first saw on cable television a lot of years ago, where there was this Argentinean cable channel "I-Sat" (still running) which had a space dedicated to exploitation films only. Redemption Benelux released the uncut version of the film some years later, and is perhaps the definitive director's cut of Franco's film, but that version doesn't appear to be any longer available. In the US, the film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment - again under the title "Female Vampire" - but unfortunately they decided to censor one of the sex scenes, which included shots of Lina Romay sucking a man's penis, pushing the film into hard core territory...thus spoiling what is probably a very nice release, as this is no longer what the director originally intended (and I don't like films that are censored cause you're missing the whole thing)! This version does contain some alternate footage in its extra's from the "blood sucking" version of the film, however, which may be of some interest.

More recently the film has surfaced on DVD in Germany under the title "Erotikill - Lady Dracula 2" (on screen title 'Lusternde Vampire Im Spermarausch'). Not a particularly good image, but satisfactory all the same, it is an uncut German language version of the film, though still not quite the original director's cut. 

As stated above, two versions of the film were shot - a traditional 'blood sucking' version for places where censorship was strict, and for markets that were more relaxed, a more sexually explicit - borderline hard core - 'semen sucking' version. A few years after its initial release, additional full blown hard core sex scenes were shot and inserted into the movie. It is this version that the German DVD offers, with a running time of 105m (PAL). 

In case you can´t maker your way to the full uncensored version of the film, as I do ( I own the Image release) you're not really missing lots of interesting stuff, mostly the porn scenes which in the German edition appear complete but are pretty naff, with sequence mistakes as Romay suddenly sporting red finger nails during a cunnilingus scene, while on the rest of the movie we don't see those red nails, also a fellatio sequence that is repeated twice in two different moments in the movie.


Probably, if you're into exploitation you'll be more than satisfied with the Image Entertainment currently available DVD release, cause overall the movie feels more like an erotic tale rather than a horror film, so it can be classified under the exploitation genre with no doubts. The full version is more like a porn movie with a horror script poorly developed so, whatever version you find take a look at it and see if you dig it, probably the movie it's too much on the side of pointless sex scenes and even the censored edition is borderline with a hardcore sex movie, and there are plenty of exploitation films which were uh, let's say more subtle when dealing with sex and nude scenes.
Still, to date the available editions are not what Franco originally intended...


Now, those into these kind of movies Do know Lina Romay did a long lasting porn career, so talking about plot, scripts and movie directing can probably be a matter of no interest at all, since Romay has an extended fandom list which I'm sure dig her "most dramatic" scenes ahahahha




Here's the opening sequence of the film:



Female Vampire