Despite the fact that the gorgeous Maria Rohm is naked through much of "Venus in Furs", it manages to be a very boring and glacially slow film. What makes this worse is that the story idea was excellent and SHOULD have worked. The problem is not just the pacing but the style of the film--which tries to be artsy but which comes off as cheap. An odd combination indeed.

The story has very little dialog and is practically a silent movie with voice-over by the leading man, James Darren. However, it is MUCH slower-paced than a silent film. If you speed up a silent film, everyone looks funny as they move about wildly. If you speed up "Venus in Furs" it STILL looks very slow in places.

It begins with Darren working as a musician at a fancy party. When he takes a break, he sees a weirdo foursome--with a woman and two men torturing and drinking the blood of a gorgeous blonde. It seems, despite everything, consensual and Darren leaves them to their weird sex revelries. Soon, however, he's walking on the beach and finds this same blonde dead! Darren leaves Turkey where all this occurred and goes to Rio. There he sees the dead woman very much alive. Well, not exactly. Although they have a lot of sex (though often it's out of focus or focuses on anything but the titillating parts),the woman is almost zombie-like through much of the film. However, periodically, she disappears and appears at the homes of the three who killed her. Then, she gets naked and kills them all--one by one.

While this sounds like an interesting and sexy idea, it certainly isn't. Too many pieces of what appear to be stock footage used as filler, too many LONG and silent and seemingly meaningless montages, too many seemingly random edits, too many periods where there was no editing whatsoever yet there should have been LOTS and too little dialog or life make this seem like a French art film merged with "Night of the Living Dead"--but with far, far, far less energy. Overall, a completely boring film that seemed to drag on forever. This isn't art, this isn't soft-core porn and this isn't horror--it's just a dull and artless waste of time.

In Istanbul, the trumpet player Jimmy Logan (James Darren) is dazed and confused on the beach and finds his musical instrument buried in the sand. Then he sees a woman in the sea and he pulls her body from the surf. He recognizes her as Wanda Reed (Maria Rohm),a gorgeous woman that he saw in the party of the playboy Ahmed Kortobawi (Klaus Kinski). Then he saw her being whipped and raped by Ahmed and his friends Percival Kapp (Dennis Price) and Olga (Margaret Lee).

Jimmy travels to Rio de Janeiro and spends the Carnival playing with a jazz band and his girlfriend Rita (Barbara McNair) in the nightclub of Herman. One night, Wanda Reed comes to the club and Jimmy becomes obsessed on her. Sooner he leaves Rita and stays with Wanda. Meanwhile, she kills Percival, Olga and Ahmed dressed in furs. When the police seek out the woman, Jimmy discovers a secret about Wanda Reed and him.

"Venus in Furs" is a surrealistic film by Jess Franco with James Darren (from The Time Tunnel) and his muse Maria Rohm in the lead roles and Klaus Kinski in a minor role. James Darren's narrative is boring and the annoying music may please jazz fans only. A jazz band playing in a club in the Carnival of Rio is a joke from someone that does not even know the Carnival in Rio. The resolution of the plot is actually a senseless mess but the atmosphere is intriguing. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Venus in Furs"

Traumatized trumpet player Jimmy Logan (a solid and likable performance by James Darren) discovers the beautiful dead body of mysterious femme fatale Wanda Reed (smoldering and mesmerizing blonde Maria Rohm) on the beach in Istanbul. Things take a turn for the strange after Wanda shows up still alive in Rio. Logan and his singer girlfriend Rita (a delightful portrayal by the delicious Barbara McNair) soon find themselves caught up in a dangerous whirlpool world of deception and debauchery that also involves predatory lesbian Olga (luscious brunette Margaret Lee),depraved rich playboy Ahmed Kortobawi (Klaus Kinski in peak suavely slimy form),and art dealer Percival Kapp (a brief appearance by Dennis Price).

Director Jess Franco, who also co-wrote the abstract, yet intriguing script by Malvin Wald, relates the engrossingly outer story at a hypnotically deliberate pace, does an ace job of crafting an arrestingly far-out, oblique, and enigmatic dreamy atmosphere, pulls off a neat supernatural twist ending, makes nice use of the exotic locations, and delivers a satisfying serving of tasty female nudity along with a sizzling smidgen of sizzling S&M-flavored soft-core sex. Angelo Lotti's stylish cinematography provides a sumptuous bright look and boasts lots of funky visual flourishes. The supremely groovy jazz score by Manfred Mann and Mike Hugg hits the swanky'n'swinging spot. Both Frnco fans and aficionados of oddball 60's psychedelic cinema should totally dig this one.