It’s still Lina Romay Month here at B-Movie Enema and this week, it is time for to put away the Marquis de Sade and all the really weirdo sex stuff for something that has a bit more in the way of lesbianism (ooh!), murder (okay, you have my attention)… incest (uh oh)… and sadism.

Goddamn it.

Well, I did mention previously that Jess Franco is a bit of a weird dude. I don’t know if he was more interested in mixing sex into these various other ideas, up to and including stuff by Marquis de Sade, or if he was truly a sex pervert. Either way, his filmography has all sorts of erotic thrillers and fairly depraved shit from the 70s through the 90s. This week’s featured movie, The Hot Nights of Linda, is no different.

I’ll admit it. I wanted this movie because of its title. I kept seeing it on the Severin site. It kept enticing me. Lina Romay there, just licking that banana. How can I possibly not buy this movie and then either watch it in peace or cover it on the website?

Lina isn’t alone in this movie. There’s lots of other people connected with Jess Franco in this as well. Alice Arno stars as Marie-France Bertrand. Arno had appeared in Franco’s Female Vampire with Lina Romay. Monica Swinn was also in that movie as well, and a featured player here as well. Paul Muller is in this too. Muller, a veteran of many, many European movies, is in Franco’s Barbed Wire Dolls. This movie is so full of Franco actors that Jess Franco HIMSELF is here too!

There’s no point in dilly dallying around anymore. I want to know more about these hot nights of this Linda.

Now, supposedly, this DVD/Blu-Ray set I got from Severin includes a third disc containing the hard-to-find “Banana Version”. I put that in to see if that’s the route this post would take as well. It looked like a snuff film unstuck from a porn theater’s floor. So, I decided to go to the other version. I put that in, and the menu came up and I have to ask…

If this is not the “Banana Version” of this movie, then what the hell does she do with that banana?

I press play, and, right the fuck out of the gate, the movie starts. Alice Arno’s Marie-France Bertrand is trying to get a job. Jobs are hard to come by, but she says she’s a nurse. She’s got skillz. The movie still looks a bit rough, even on DVD, but it only looks like it was scraped off the floor of a porno house and probably not a snuff film.

The job agent dude says that there is something she is suited for, but she would have to leave Paris and work in the country. It’s likely a contract job which would mean quite a decent pay and steady work. The agent warns that the family is a little odd, and one of the guy’s daughters is paralyzed.

And so, as the credits start, Marie-France heads home while we get some lovely shots of Paris. She goes home and reads a romance novel she has next to her bed and falls asleep after pondering the sexiness of having someone coldly look at her as she, like, I dunno, probably doing something mundane.

We see her arrive in the French Riviera. She’s met by a guy, Abdul, at the house who helps her with her bags. He speaks mostly in grunts and seems to be an unfortunate sort. That’s been something somewhat on display in this month of movies as well. She meets with her employer, Paul (Muller). He tells Marie-France that she will need to be with his daughter Linda at all times to help her. He also mentions Olivia (Romay). Olivia is cared for like a daughter, but it is a niece. She’s physically healthy, but he thinks there is something going on psychologically. She’ll need to be watched.

By the way… I like the idea of the name Marie-France. I think I want to change my name to Geoffrey-United States of America. Geoffrey-United States of America Arbuckle. Don’t you motherfuckers forget it.

Marie-France is shown to her room by Abdul. When he kind of grunts at her and doesn’t leave, she kicks his ass out. She’s kind of mean to Abdul and I’m not exactly sure why, unless she’s playing some sort of angle. Anyway, Marie-France goes to meet Olivia. Olivia just hangs out in her room, filing her nails, smoking cigarettes, and drinks wine. She’s extremely bored. Olivia offers a glass of wine and toasts her new friend that she just met. She hopes Marie-France sticks around because she’s a sympathetic person to Olivia’s malaise.

Considering this is a Jess Franco movie with Lina Romay, I don’t know if I should be excited or very concerned that she hoped I’d stick around.

Olivia decides to give Marie-France a complete look. She basically just outright stares her down and even raises an eyebrow to seeing how far down Marie-France’s shirt is unbuttoned. Marie-France seems both bothered and curious about this, but decides to move on.

This brings her to Linda’s room. Linda is humming a song like a child would as she plays with the hair on her doll. When Marie-France tries to speak to her, she becomes scared and defensive. She doesn’t just seem to have much of a vocabulary like Abdul, but Linda specifically seems childlike. When Linda rings for help, Abdul comes to her aid. Marie-France, again, tells Abdul to beat cheeks, but he carries her out to the balcony and undresses her to sunbathe. Linda seems happy for Abdul to help her and he seems tender with her.

Meanwhile, Marie-France just gives them the stink eye…

Marie-France is a very strange lady. I get it she’s a serious nurse, but she is so mean to Abdul. On top of that, she seems almost jealous that she can’t make immediate friends with Linda, and that the poor girl would rather get help from Abdul (who I think maybe she has a thing for). Meanwhile Marie-France is just a tad cold.

That probably won’t help her in this house of depraved Jess Franco characters.

But hey! Here comes an extremely sexy Lina Romay coming down the hallway and sneaking into her room to see what’s going on with this sexy new nurse. Olivia hears that Marie-France is showering. She decides to watch. Marie-France is perfectly okay with this stating that, between women, it’s no big thang. Olivia says that she thinks Marie-France has a nice body and that it must please men. Marie-France is all like, “Yeah, but you got a nice little package on you too.” Olivia talks about how she likes her breasts and how she likes to look at them.

Well, that makes two of us.

Marie-France gets on bed. No, that’s not a typo. She’s naked and lies on top of the bed to prepare to go to sleep. She hears some moaning – like the sexy kind. She discovers Abdul is peeping on her. She bitches him out and sends him away.

It must be summer there in the Riviera because Marie-France is SLEEPING ON TOP OF THE BLANKETS NUDE. That’s gotta be cold, man. Even when it’s warm when I go to bed, or I’m overly warmed up (potentially due to watching a naked Lina Romay looking at her own breasts), I can’t stay on top of the blankets for long. I gotta get under there, man!

Anyway, the next day, she tries to ask some questions about Linda. She tries to offer some ideas about her treatment. Paul gets angry and storms off after saying she’s the daughter of sin and there’s nothing that can be done to help her, other than to tend to her needs. After he storms off, Olivia makes mention that he’s afraid of ridicule and shame. He then gets angry at Olivia and slaps her.

Across the way, there’s a guy who is keeping an eye on the home. Apparently, there is some question as to whether or not Paul killed his wife. That’s a common thread in a lot of Franco movies. Eventually, a member of an authoritative body (i.e. a doctor, an inspector, government agents, a private investigator, etc.) gets involved with the story. It almost always gets introduced either at the end of the first act or early enough to still be satisfactorily established as a character introduced in the second act. I don’t so much think this is a product of Franco’s own style or if it is unique to a particular region’s films (Spain, Germany, Italy), but it is always there in Franco’s movies. It’s missing from Oasis of the Zombies and Cries of Pleasure, and both of those movies would have done well to have included that sort of character or storyline.

Abdul takes Linda on a walk and they seem legitimately happy together. Look at those two simple bastards. Smiling and enjoying their time together. Call me kooky. Call me sentimental, but I’m rooting for these two. Too bad they are in a Jess Franco movie.

Olivia has a dream that flashes back to when she witnessed someone who seems to fit Paul’s description discovering his wife Lorna having sex with another guy who is most definitely not Paul. He killed the man and left the room.

This dream gives Olivia the vapors as she moans and writhes around in bed. This is what Marie-France heard the night before apparently. She followed it to Olivia’s room and asks her what the deal is with this dream. She keeps saying that she recognizes the room she was in during the dream and how someone she thinks is her uncle Paul coming into the room. She makes sure to say that she is pretty dang sure she hasn’t had sex with Paul. She knows she has not had sex with Paul because she’s never had sex. She just plays with herself. She likes playing with herself.

Well, that makes two of us.

She tells more about her dream, how it makes her feel, and how it kind of sticks with her while she’s conscious too. All the while, they are framed in a really cool with to use the darkness, red tinting, and what have you.

Olivia says she’s happy to have someone like Marie-France to speak to. She never really had anyone before. She doesn’t have any memories of her real mother. She does have pleasant memories of her aunt, though. However, I think some of what she said about how her aunt would kiss her good night each night may reveal something there.

She goes to Linda’s room and asks to stay with her. Olivia says she feels uneasy. However, this leads to Olivia deciding to essentially rape her invalid cousin. Paul hears the shenanigans going on in the other room, and goes to check it out. But he doesn’t go to Linda’s room. He goes to an empty room, but imagines the dead body of Lorna and begs for answers about what she did to him.

Abdul finds Linda’s body face down and rushes to put her on her back again. In walks Marie-France and scolds him about entering the girl’s room. She then slaps him a couple times and tosses him out. She is VERY mean to Abdul. Like so much so, I am very uncomfortable about it. Now, I do admit that he does like to peep. That’s weird, but the next night, he peeps on Olivia, and she pulls him in and makes out with him. He runs away (probably knowing this is indeed a Jess Franco movie, and this cannot end well), and returns to his room to cry about how unfortunate it is make out with Lina Romay.

Later, like in the very next scene, while Olivia rides Abdul like a wild Arabian stallion, Paul barges in and beats the shit out of Abdul and takes him out of the room. I am starting to believe that this movie should be called “Let’s Be Mean to Abdul”. I wonder if we could get a new soundtrack from Paula Abdul while we’re at it. But no, seriously, this is not a good time for Abdul. Paul chains him to a wall and whips him mercilessly. And then just leaves him there afterwards.

In another room, we see someone writhing around on her bed and moaning like she just took a deep one from Abdul too, but before you think it is that weirdo Olivia, no! It’s actually Marie-France. I don’t know what’s going on there, but she told Olivia earlier that she’s afraid the place has begun affecting her. The beauty of the place, the constant nude sunbathing, etc. – it’s all making her feel like she can never run away from that place.

Sure enough, she goes to the whipping room and finds Abdul chained up. She checks out his whipping wounds and starts making out with him. I’d say this movie is weird, but is it? Is it as weird as the two Marquis de Sade movies that I watched the last two weeks? We know the answer. The answer is actually no. The rest of the world is weird for NOT having people engage in nothing but utter debauchery or whipping house servants while they are chained to the wall or berating someone one day and making out with them the next.

These Jess Franco movies are kind of like the book in In the Mouth of Madness. Once you peer into the abyss, you are not the same. You’re changed. You get a brief hunger for rough sex, but not for you to do the rough sex, but for you to have rough sex done to YOU. You want to go off to some Spanish coast town and buy the dumbest, most lavish house you can find and just walk around naked. Maybe get your nuts pierced. The sky’s the limit for the duration of the runtime of one of these movies until about, oh, maybe a few hours later.

And that’s a little disconcerting.

As the movie rolls on, we begin to learn, along with Olivia, what happened to Lorna. Olivia was in the room the night Lorna returned with her lover. She confessed her love to this man and the intention to leave with him. Paul came in and did indeed kill the lover. In the present, Paul admits to his ghost of Lorna that he knew Olivia saw it. We also learn the man was his best friend.

The next day, Olivia says she will free Abdul for one thing in exchange. She wants the key to the room her “father” keeps locked. If he procures that for her, she says she will be very appreciative. Abdul agrees to those terms.

Outside, the photographer and investigator who are watching Paul’s home climbs the gate and enters into an open room. They are found by Abdul. He overpowers the investigator and tackles him. However, the photographer lady knocks out the servant and they decide that maybe they need to go elsewhere.

We get to the moment in this movie that’s so good they put it on the cover and have an entire different cut for. Olivia is teasing Abdul with the banana and enticing him to come to her so he can, I suppose, cum on her. She reaches out for him and he backs up scared. By the way, he seems pretty okay after being knocked out by intruders. But whatever, he’s still got a little bit of head injury because he runs off and doesn’t do anything about that Lina Romay business. I can assume what the “Banana Version” is. The scene ends with Olivia untying her panties. I’m gonna guess that other version makes a mess of things.

I’m guessing some stuff either didn’t get filmed, didn’t have the budget to get filmed, or whatever, because the scene then goes to Olivia and Abdul making love in bed. Outside, on the terrace, Linda rolls herself by. Curious what’s going on, she looks in to see her cousin, and her favorite guy doing the naughty stuff. Dejected, she wheels herself away.

She goes to the edge of the property and looks over the side of the cliff and decides to throw herself to her death.

This is a legitimately sad scene. I mean, look… Linda couldn’t speak. She couldn’t get out of bed without help. She seemingly was uneducated. She was unable to do anything to stop her cousin from molesting her. She seemingly loved a man, but she lost him to the girl who abused her. It’s goddamn sad. Shit… HER FUCKING NAME IS IN THE TITLE!

Guys, I don’t want to be too much of a prude here, but I don’t care for suicide of an unfortunate person in my adult movies.

Oh, who the hell am I to talk? I’m watching a Jess Franco movie. I’m surprised I’m not trying to smother my balls in banana and seeing how my flexibility is.

So Abdul did procure the key for Olivia. She goes into the secret room of her father’s. It’s the room Lorna took Paul’s best friend and fucked the night Paul killed him. She finds some, um, “barely there” lingerie and dances around the room. I think she might be dancing to music only she hears, but I don’t know. She wound up the old style record player, but there was no record on that record player. I think Olivia might be insane?

Anyway, this leads to a whole heap of trouble. First, she attracts the attention of Marie-France. She asks the nurse to come and embrace her. When Marie-France does not wish to do that, she says she shouldn’t be afraid of her. Marie-France gets the fuck out of there. Next, here comes Paul. Paul already has a tenuous relationship with reality as it is. He already imagines Lorna lying in the bed that he goes to and verbally flagellates himself over.

Now, a woman who kind of looks like Lorna IS in the bed and he thinks he sees his wife.

Sure enough, he goes in for the forbidden kiss from his niece. Using the sword that was used to kill his friend previously, Olivia slices the back of Paul’s neck and he dies similarly to how his best friend died. I ain’t gonna lie… I didn’t exactly see that coming.

No, I mean it. I kind of expected Paul to be seduced by Olivia, because why not, right? I didn’t expect her to kill him. There are lots of things you can likely expect in a Franco, but it’s hard to pinpoint conclusions because things normally take a severe left turn at some point. Half the time, it’s a left turn straight into a brick wall.

Speaking of break walls, there’s a hallway in the house that is made of various stones and stuff. There’s some axes and swords there. Olivia grabs one and uses it to kill Abdul. Again, here’s another left turn. I didn’t expect this to turn into a fuckin’ murder spree. Anyway, only Olivia and Marie-France are left. Olivia is walking around the house like a zombie. Marie-France goes for help and finds that inspector and photographer. The inspector comes back with another cop and they check the place out.

But guess what, dear Enemaniacs… As the camera pulls in on Marie-France’s face as the inspector checks out Abdul’s body, it cross fades to her waking up from oversleeping and her job agent ringing the doorbell and telling her she’ll miss her plane to the job. Marie-France says she’s going to turn down the job, annnnnd… That’s it.

It was all a dream!

That was a hell of a left turn, but as it, heh, turned out, the book Marie-James was reading in bed was called something like Who Raped Linda? or something like that. That’s one of the alternate titles for the movie too. She told her agency dude that she had a funny feeling, but whether or not it was just a dream or there would have been some bad stuff at the house, I guess no one can say.

I know what I can say – The Hot Nights of Linda is a not great title. That said, it is the most interesting narrative thus far in Lina Romay Month. We’ve built to a crescendo of a movie that was more or less a straight out adult flick to a movie that was a little bit an adult flick but heavier on plot and characters to a movie that was heavy on plot and characters and reserved the adult flick business. I think I liked this movie even more than Sinfonia Erotica last week. Mainly because I actually was curious about the characters. I felt really bad for Linda and that counts for something. You gotta find a way to feel something for at least one character. If you can feel for that character or sympathize, that’s a great way into the movie.

But don’t worry, I think I’m going to derail that shit next week. We’re going back to 1983 for the fourth installment of Lina Romay Month. Yeah, we’re going to be traipsing along the lines of Cries of Pleasure with a movie that Severin’s back cover of the Blu Ray even states is shocking in terms of violence and depravity. However, unlike one of the Marquis de Sade’s stories, this one is a bit more of a comedic Eurospy caper. Join me next week for a Night of Open Sex!

If that invitation doesn’t have you salivating for more… good. You’re actually rather healthy if you thought that invitation was sexy or something.

Also, why not go over to the B-Movie Enema YouTube channel. There, you can find the first season of B-Movie Enema: The Series. You’ll also find several clips that I pull when I need some extra help fully describing something crazy. Also, check out the site’s Facebook page as well as Twitter too!

See you next week, Enemaniacs!