Une cage doree (1976)
** (out of 4)
In my never ending goal of tracking down and viewing every Jess Franco film I came across this French production that has very little history behind it apparently. My usual online sources turned up nothing on this film so I wasn't able to get any type of story description, which didn't help as I watched the film since it was in French without any English subs. Even after watching the film I honestly couldn't tell you what it was about but it had something to do with a strip club in Hong Kong being ran by Roger Darton. He has countless discussion with other groups of men but what the dialogue was about is a mystery to me. I've had to watch countless Franco movies without subs and they are usually easy to follow but that wasn't the case here as this film seems to be bits and pieces are various films just thrown together. Apparently Franco quit the project or was fired because you can easily see that there are two people directing this stuff. The Franco footage, which appears to be perhaps 10-20 minutes, is easy to spot and mostly takes place inside the club with him playing a character. These scenes are a bit more graphic sexually, although nothing hits the hardcore range. The film opens up with some very fast cuts and a bloody gun fight and these here were clearly not directed by Franco. There are a lot of other sex scenes in the film and to my eye Franco wasn't involved with these either. I'd only recommend this to those, like me, who must see everything Franco did and the footage of his here isn't really worth much anyways. If this movie ever got released with subtitles I'm really not sure I'd go back and watch it again. The movie only runs 76-minutes and for the most part it kept me mildly entertained even though I didn't know what was going on. Alice Arno, another Franco regular, has a small part.
