The creative legacy of actor, screenwriter and director Paul Naschy, Jacinto Molina, one of the figures around whom the precarious industry known as Spanish fantaterrorism has revolved, continues to be recalled periodically. His titles are reissued in Spanish video markets (see the work done by Ediciones del 79 with a multitude of titles, or by Divisa, whose contribution stands out for the dissemination of a good digitization of the forgotten The Frenchman’s Garden) and international. And his figure plays an important role in the study of state fantastic cinema, as is the case in the recent book Desecrate the sleep of the deadsigned by Ángel Sala, director of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in Catalonia.
The first of Croton the Great On September 19, as part of the B-Retina festival, held in Cornellá del Llobregat (Barcelona), there will be an opportunity to recover the almost unpublished cinematographic materialization of another script written by Naschy. It all began during the problematic shooting of Naschy’s last film as director, EmpusaThe actor began discussing with veteran cinematographer Luis Colombo the possibility of bringing an additional story to the screen.
This screening coincides with the announcement of the premiere of Call me Paulat the next Sitges Festival. Directed by Víctor Matellano and written by him and Ángel Sala, it is a documentary about the figure of Paul Naschy. All this in the month that Jacinto Molina would have turned 90.
The illness that would end the interpreter’s life meant that the collaboration did not go as planned. Colombo remembers: “We ended Empusabut it got worse and there was no way. We had talked about how we were going to bring it to the screen Croton the Greatbut he didn’t manage to get a single shot off. The director says he had filmed about 20% of the work at the time of the performer’s death and that “he took the project on his shoulders, a bit as a tribute to Paul.”
The director of Croton the Great He describes the shoot as “fast, discontinuous and without a budget.” Filming ended around 2015. Post-production was also extended, he explains, “to decide on certain scenes or study if something could be improved.” Colombo says he finished the project in 2016 or 2017. Until the next screening at Cornellá del Llobregat (Barcelona), the result had only been seen in a retrospective of the director’s work held in Alicante.
Two rascals in a miserable Spain
Croton the Great It’s about two fairground workers who wander through a Spain marked by Francoism and collaboration with Nazi Germany. Croton acts like a strong man, but he uses tricks to achieve this because he no longer has the strength of yesteryear. The lack of income pushes him to search the graves of apparently rich people in search of their jewels. With his companion Gideon, he recruits a woman who allows them to diversify their numbers and whom they will both covet. She will also be desired by a shady businessman played by a classic face of state horror cinema: Antonio Mayans.
The story incorporates a certain autumnal sensibility, an awareness of aging, rarefied by this mood. pulp so frequent in Naschy’s works, where unexpected mixtures abounded. It was the spirit of crush universal monsters, The Gypsy and the Monsterswhere Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man appeared at the same time. Naschy went further: he not only matched the characters, but also mixed the genres.
Paul was a little upset, in a good way, because putting a Western scene in a post-war film about people who run circuses in cities and rob graves…
Luis Colombo
— Director
Croton the Great is both a picaresque drama with elements of fantasy horror and a film of nazisploitation with perverted (and lecherous) German generals. There’s also a gunman who looks like something out of a spectacular and crazy Western comic strip. Colombo considers that “Paul was a little crazy, in a good way, because putting a Western scene in a post-war film about people who make circuses in cities and rob graves…”.
The Valencian director remembers that Naschy spoke of a certain inspiration in The roadby Federico Fellini, who broke with his usual attachment to the fantastic cinema of the 30s and 40s of the last century. Get closer to the world of the circus, so admired by the author of Amcordcould have made sense: the Madrid filmmaker also offered shows with a popular vocation, rather artisanal and undervalued in intellectual circles. According to Colombo, Naschy also took into account an urban legend: the girl on the bend.
The fantastic element is there, but perhaps the acrimony of the narrative stands out more. There is hunger, despair, needs and base instincts. Oligarchs appear who feel unpunished for their contacts with those in power, who threaten to shoot and leave in the gutter those who oppose them. However, Colombo decided to focus more on the fantastic part: “Franco’s social criticism is also there, but I consider it a little secondary.” For the director, the dictatorship serves as a setting designed by a Naschy “who had nothing Francoist, even if he was not a communist either. He tried to survive, like most people, because if you were unhappy with the regime, you had the political-social brigade above you. It was not something that was to be taken as a joke.”
The miserabilist fresco of “Croton the Great” and its climate of abjection include businessmen who sexually exploit their actresses, trigger-happy fascists and two rogues eaten up by greed.
The miserable fresco of Croton the Great can connect with the horrors of The Frenchman’s Garden and its climate of abjection. It includes businessmen who sexually exploit their actresses, trigger-happy fascists and two thugs consumed by greed. The final twist indicates a possibility of redemption aborted by jealousy. Colombo aligns himself completely with the skeptical, almost misanthropic worldview that the film projects: “The film is about the harshness of human survival. In extreme circumstances, we act in extreme ways. I have little faith in redemption. It makes me feel that human beings are born good, but quickly become evil.
Tell a story however you can
The technical finish of Croton the Great This corresponds to the extreme precariousness of Empusa. Watching it transports us to a time when digital tools could generate a certain euphoria: they promised to make it possible to film stories that previously would have required much more expensive logistics. The downside is that the lack of technical and human structures and equipment continues to condition the result. In the case of Colombo’s film, this is felt in every second of the film: in the non-direct sound, in the inharmonious editing, in the low-definition digital images with a certain bad appearance, etc.
The film is about the harshness of human survival. In extreme circumstances, we act in extreme ways. I don’t believe much in redemption. It makes me feel that human beings are born good, but quickly become evil.
Luis Colombo
— Director
Colmbo considers himself to have made “combat cinema.” “You want to tell a story, but you don’t have a production, so you make it the best you can. It’s something as old as cinema itself. Ed Wood’s, for example,” he says. The project had added difficulties concerning Empusa: Setting the film in the post-war period, including armed military groups, further strained the logistical possibilities. The director does not complain: “If I wanted to be faithful to Paul’s script, I had to earn my living.”
B-Retina, B Film Festival, offers low-cost film screenings. There is an abundance of acting and, often, an ironic look. A way of enjoying fantastic cinema that often upset Naschy who took his craft very seriously. It is to be expected that a film so marked by an obvious precariousness of means, by a certain tonal strangeness (reinforced by the music), by a general voluntarism and amateur interpretations, will be received with laughter and gaiety, like the version of Star Wars with Brazilian actors (The trapalhões in the war of the two planets) or the South African imitation of AND (Nukie) with which it shares its programming.
Colombo does not seem to care about the audience’s reception. He says he is aware that his film “is a diversion made by people who like to make films, it is not a Scorsese or Coppola film. We make B movies, opting for Z. You accept it or you don’t accept it. Looking to the future, the director hopes that Croton the Great You can find your audience through a video platform in streaming.
