warmest, funniest and most acces- sible performance. Anyone who sticks to an intensive study of Franco’s work develops an intimate relationship with his repertory play- ers and, after decades of seeing this and other films primarily via dupey VHS cassettes, it feels a bit overwhelming to see the likes of Lina Romay, Pamela Stanford, Monica Swinn, Nadine Pascal and the lesser-known but formidably appealing Anne Garrec standing before us with such supernatural clarity and youth. No less accom- plished are the male cast mem- bers—which includes Vernon (looking even pastier than his Dracula, as an impotent old roué to whom Celestine reads salacious passages from Sade), Bigottini and Eurociné stalwart Olivier Mathot— all of whom prove themselves won- derfully adept at playing comedy; it may be the only time Ramón Ardid was called upon to deliver a real performance, and he’s won- derful. Lina’s final closeup in the film, in which she blows a solitary kiss to the sleeping inhabitants of the mansion before sneaking away to new adventures, is now terribly poignant in the wake of her death. Célestine looks ravishing on Blu-ray, noticeably richer and fresher-looking than the accompa- nying DVD transfer. The ana- morphic presentation is accurately framed at 1.66:1. At 37:18, there is some red strobing at frame left that lasts for only a couple of sec- onds, evidently an anomaly of the negative. The visual half of the supplements on the BR disc re- fused to play in our Panasonic Blu- ray player, possibly because they were included as standard PAL in- formation; however, they did play in our multi-standard player on the DVD disc. These supplements consist of a German trailer for Madchen für Intime Stunden (obviously taken from 35mm, not a digital reconstruction) that runs 1m 53s; 12s of additional German
dialogue between Bigottini and Nadine Pascal (the scene in the film begins at 19:24) from a 35mm source; a 1m 37s snippet of Lina Romay walking toward the Count’s mansion dressed only in a bustier, stockings and heels, and being ogled by Ardíd’s character, with leader on either end; and most valuable of all, a 6m 55s “alterna- tive nude scene” between Lina and Anne Garrec that is fully nude, as opposed to the complementary scene in the main feature (63:21- 66:11, 2m 50s) which finds them wearing undergarments with ex- posed backsides. The scene used in the film is more erotic, the alter- native scene showing more flesh and hair but obviously pulling its punches in terms of what the two actresses were willing to do in terms of close physical contact. Franco likely shot the scene as an experiment but went with the more suggestive approach rather than issue a scene that failed to equal or transcend what was oth- erwise becoming available in the marketplace. The two-disc set is also accompanied by a four-page color enclosure (numbered #5) with German notes by Christo- pher Klaese, illustrated with lobby card and poster art, as is the outer packaging.
Made less than a year follow-
ing Célestine... Bonne à Tout Faire and featuring much the same cast, MIDNIGHT PARTY was one of the first non-horror Jess Franco titles to surface on US home video during the late 1980s, first by Unicorn Video in the Span- ish softcore variant edition known as LADY PORNO and credited to “Tawer Nero,” and secondly in its English-dubbed version as a Pri- vate Screenings VHS, one of the few titles to be released by that company under its actual title. For the past 20 years, it has gone back under the radar, not surfacing on DVD until this premier anamorphic widescreen release.
Like Célestine explicitly na- ked but not hardcore, this Franco sex farce was shot simultaneously with two other features: the erotic sci-fi item SHINING SEX and DE SADE’S JULIETTE (which circu- lated only in a Joe D’Amato-su- pervised hardcore re-edit known under various titles, including Video Search of Miami’s JUSTINE AND THE WHIP). It stars Lina Romay as Sylvia, a nightclub stripper known professionally as “Sylvia the Lips” (presumably due to her shaved pubis), who opens the film rolling around on a bed, flaunting her body, and breaking the fourth wall by telling us that she has had lots of sexy adven- tures that she desperately wants to make movies about, and of- fering her sexual services to any- one out there who might help to get these movies made. There is also a point in her spiel where she introduces this first example of her filmed memoirs by saying “Lina Romay in...”—at which point the title of this film should have ap- peared onscreen, but despite this being the one Franco film with the most different titles and variants extant, not one of these versions succeeded in placing its main title card where the footage implicitly said it belonged!
Sylvia’s nickname arguably al- lies this film, in some way, to Franco’s series of tongue-in-cheek thrillers about the “Red Lips” de- tective agency, which began with Labios Rojos in 1960 (featuring lady detectives Christine and Lola) and continued with the 1967 diptych of TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS (aka SADISTEROTICA) and KISS ME MONSTER, which teamed Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni as lady detectives Diana and Regina. As in Labios Rojos, the film’s principal source of menace is a sadistic villain named Radeck, played here by Franco himself, who arranges for Sylvia to be invited to a midnight
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