Franco Farewells Update.

Before we move on, I just thought I’d do a quick round up of some of the numerous tributes to Jess Franco that have appeared online since I wrote my initial post below.

Contrary to my preliminary grumbling about his assumed absence from mainstream papers and websites, I was happy to see that Stephen Thrower got to write a real nice obituary piece for The Guardian, and to read the compendium of heart-felt remembrances pulled together by Kimberly Lindbergs for the TCM Movie Morlocks weblog.

In addition, Pete Tombs has posted a terrific bit about meeting Franco in a seedy London hotel in the early ‘90s, plus some thoughts on the demise of the “commercial underground” within which he thrived, on the Mondo Macabro blog, and, slightly closer to home, Unmann-Wittering has also rejigged this week’s Sub-Machine Gun schedule for a bit of an impromptu Franco tribute.

Sadly, real-world concerns have prevented me from revisiting Franco’s work as much as I might have liked this week (which is probably for the best, as I’m not sure how well my mental and physical health would cope with the 24/7 Franco/Rollin marathon my life would soon become without such concerns), but all of the above are well worth reading, and it is heartening indeed to see so much love for a man who spent so much of his life languishing on so many film fans’ “most hated” lists.

But anyway – onwards and upwards. Admittedly, the future may not often be the concern of a blog like this one, but the weird, sexy past represented by Jess Franco and his contemporaries won’t just celebrate itself y’know, so hopefully we’ll be back to regular business very soon.