Ah, good ol’ Jess Franco, the master of lesbian vampire action, the exploitation master from Spain that both film dozens of softcore trash but also worked with Christopher Lee as either a vampire or the old villian Fu Manchu, that deals in adaptations of Marquis De Sade but also completed the previously (and unfamously) unfinished Orson Welles version of Don Quixote.
I really can’t do him justice, but i did pick one of the films from before he really declined and put out some really atrocious stuff, like the final entries in the Fu Manchu series (the Castle Of Fu Manchu being the subject of a popular MST3K episode ), shit like Dracula VS Frankenstein, or even pseudosequels that cannibalizzed on Franco own’s Dr. Orloff series with reused stock footage to make in name only adaptations of Poe works, in particular his The Revenge in The House Of Usher, which is a mess and a half since it has 3 different cuts (often having different titles as well). 2 of which reuse even more footage from this 1962 Dr. Orloff film that started the series.
But let’s pretend we do not yet know of this, and let’s talk plot.
Which is not quite original, as it’s an amalgamation of Frankenstein and french classic Eyes Without A Face (especially the latter), as the titular Dr. Orloff attracts young women to his castle so he can harvest her skin with the help of a disfigured, blind assistant/henchman named Morpho (a Mighty Monarch approved name indeed).
All so he can try to fix his daughter’s disfigured face from a fire that happened in his labotatory, but – aided by his girlfriend – the officer in charge of the case about the many missing women is on his trail, and gets more than he bargained for, since Orloff many “unwilling skin arbitrage” operations end up not only in failure to transplant the skin, but also killing the women he operates on.
It’s no Dr. Phibes. But there’s not much to fault in a movie that outright calls “awful” his main character mad scientist. He is not even a skilled butcher with delirious goals, he’s an ass, no surprise Morpho has to do most of the work and basically be the muscle of the two.
Thankfully the detective is also not the brighest bulb, as it takes comparing two different descriptions of the kidnapper by multiple witnesses (via a pencil sketching the suspect scene that honestly goes on a bit more than it needs) to make him entertain the notion that there might be more than one man involved. Heck, even that was a suggestion of his fianceé, she should have been doing the detective work, since she immediatly and instinctively recognizes this strange man as one of the suspects.
If nothing else, the black and white fits with the movies its ripping off, there are some echoes of that classic Universal monster era, despite some really obnoxious opening music, and the overall cheapness, especially notable in Morpho’s fake eye that looks like it’s sculpted from cheese wax, it’s kinda funny how he looks worse off than Orlof’s daughter with her “disfigured” face, since Morpho does look a human crash dummy given life by a curse, especially with his bug eyes.
Speaking of which, Orlof isn’t quite Victor Von “Frankenstine” either, there is an attempt at making him symphatetic since he does it all to restore his daughter’s face after an incident he feels responsibile for, but even his relationships with “reverse-Frau Blucher” and Morpho end up being manipulative, which makes sense.
He is the “awful Doctor Orloff” that was promised, a decent but kinda forgettable mad scientist, undeniably Howard Vernon has some presence and menace to his character, it just lacks the carisma of the 30s insane scientists, and it’s too tame compared to later incarnations, like Peter Cushing as the amoral, cunning and vicious Doctor Frankenstein seen in Hammer Films’ series.
But to be fair, nor he or the actor are the problem, neither are the characters, scenography (which looks quite good) or script, which are actually quite solid: it’s the pacing that befits more the old horror movies it rips off, which even back in 1962 must have had that dusty, sleepy quality, and felt a bit too dated for audiences. The old fashioned locations, being shot in black & white and with the story set in 1912 didn’t really help it at all in looking “fresh” to audiences.
Nor did the very 30s style ending that has everything wrap up in very little time and then FIN.
I personally don’t mind too much, but it’s hard to shake the feeling The Awful Doctor Orloff it’s old hat and was so even when it released during the gothic revival that also saw the Corman Poe adaptations, devil worshipping cults, and movies like The Horrible Doctor Hichcock.
but its still decent, and a reminder Jess Franco did know how to make movies, before he completely dedicated himself to a “pump em out by the dozens quick” model of film making so fast and cheap to make Roger Corman blush, but fate itself also dealt him a shitty hand to play cards with, and the rest is quite the interesting history left for cinema student to learn about.
And also a lot of Franco sticking the Orloff name in many unrelated films of his, pillaging it for stock footage for Revenge In The House Of Usher, made a couple of remakes with The Sinister Dr. Orloff and Faceless/Les Prèdateurs De La Nuit, THEN recycling the script for The Vengeance Of Doctor Mabuse and Erotico Profondo/Jack The Ripper.
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