The Awful Dr Orlof

A succession of girls are being abducted from dance halls by Morpho, the blind zombie-like henchman of Dr Orlof in order that the good doctor can restore his sister's face, disfigured in an accident.

With Inspector Tanner's investigative endeavours coming to naught, his fiancee Wanda decides to take matters into her own hands and, posing as a dancer, duly attracts the attentions of Orlof…

While The Awful Dr Orlof was Franco's fifth film as director, it's easily a more important work than its predecessors. For one thing it marks his first collaboration with the great Howard Vernon. For another it introduces many scenarios – the dance hall, the incompetent investigator – and characters – Morpho, Orlof, Tanner – that would recur, perhaps obsessively, over his subsequent 150+ films.

As it is, Orlof is a transitional film, blending as it does gothic stylings drawn from 1930s Universal – the characters Orlof and Morpho being appropriated from the Edgar Wallace sourced 1939 Bela Lugosi vehicle Dark Eyes of London – with the more explicit approach to sex and violence of Hammer horrors like Terence Fisher's majesterial The Brides of Dracula and George Franju's idiosyncratic, poetic Eyes Without A Face.

Where subsequent Franco entries would up the sex and violence ante and treat the gothic with increasing irreverence and deconstructive irony (Franco, like Godard, is a postmodern film maker before the term even entered common currency) here Franco's genuine love and understanding of and respect for the form are apparent throughout.

Cinematographer Godofredo Pachedo's black and white visuals are atmospheric, sharp, crisp and focussed and the 'horror-movie' score of J. Pagan and Ramirez Angel is effective as the best of James Bernard (whom I admire greatly) and deserves to be better known.

Among the cast Vernon and Riccardo Valle are stand outs, the former imparting a genuine sense of pathos into the character of Orloff and making him something more than the traditional mad scientist, the latter's Morpho bringing to mind not only Christopher Lee's performance as Frankenstein's monster (which the make-up seems reminscent of) but also Boris Karloff's and that of Conrad Veidt as Cesare in the mother of them all, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

The overall result is a film that is essential viewing not only for Franco's admirers, who will find it to be the Ür-text for (so) much that followed, but also his detractors, who may well find it another pleasant surprise that shows how far he could have made more or less conventional "well made films" had circumstances been different.

Image Entertainment's Region 1 DVD presents The Awful Dr Orlof in its 1.66:1 OAR and with a choice of English and French dialogue tracks. The age and nature of the film obviously mean it's never going to be a reference disc, but the damage is not sufficient to excessively detract from one's appreciation of the film.

Tim Lucas contributes the informative, intelligent liner notes.

A good starting point for those interested in seeing what Franco is about.