Review: "La Main Noire" (The Black Hand) Speechless

Max Pecas, the smut peddler of french cinema, came up with this ultra-ultra low budget potboiler for his own company called "Griffon", basically trying to emulate Jess Franco's sexy spy films.

We start off with  an interestingly filmed car chase somwhere on the fields with differently tinted filmprints indicating the danger of the situation. In the end, one guy (OG) kills the other with a submachine-gun, takes his passport(s) and sets the car on fire.

While we see the car burning (clearly WITHOUT the other guy in it - who should be there!!!), the credits roll.

Then we switch to a gasoline station, where a hunchback-dwarf (HD) and a dumb witted guy (DWG) mistreat a young blonde seriously in the barn. Of course they want some information, but she can free herself and then wrestles with the hunchback-dwarf (which looks very ... odd). Meanhwile biggydummy takes a red-hot poking iron and abbreviates her prison-break. She is bondaged and then huchback-dwarf kills her.

In between, our (OG) drives by, asks for directions, and then drives off, but this time with a passenger in his trunk - all we see is a black gloved hand - La Main Noire!!!!!

Aaaah, what a start. WHAT A START!!!

On the road, Black-gloved-guy (BGG) opens the trunk and while (OG) stops, he gets out and hits him unconscious. The he checks his credentials and via the stolen passports identifies him as the guy "they" are waiting for and puts him back into his car to regain consciousness alone.

In the castle, Madame (M) and her two adorable but completely dumb-witted nieces (DWNBrunette and DWNBlonde) are talking with Master Guy (MG) about world domination. 

This is too boring for the two nieces and they decide to play rough with each other, leading to some joyous spanking.

Meanwhile (BGG) tells (MG) about (OG), who then arrives in the completely run-down ruin of a castle that is the world headquarters of the unbelievably powerful organisation "The Black Hand". And yes, it is exactly that Serbian Anarchistic Society that drove the world into WW1 by conducting the Sarajevo assassination of the austrian crown-prince in 1914. They still exist and they're here in all their glory. Well, while (MG) rants about the past at the fancy dinner, the servant dog-hunts and shoots down a foreign agent that tries to infiltrate the castle. (MG) now suffers a heart-attack and while he's lying on the floor, (OG) and (BGG) go to bed, because obviously the party is over. Thankfully (M) and (DWNs) get (MG) back on his feet again.

So (M) and (MG) decide to have a look at a film roll that just arrived and find out that it is obviously a "candid" movie about (OG) abducting one of Black Hands agents (so candid that it is a 16mm film, shot right into the face of (OG), great stuff!).

(M) then sends (DWNBrunette) to the chamber of (OG) to have intercourse with him and then to drug him. Drugged (OG) now gets relocated to the cellar where (BGG) and asian-looking FuManchuType Guy (FMCTG) torture him. But (OG) is just too tough. So he must be one of them.

While (MG) is trying to capture the world's trade fleet with his radio transmitter (helped by hunchback-dwarf and DWG in the barn) to gain world control, DWNBrunette, M and finally DWNBlonde fall for (OG) as they walk around the candle-lit ruin of a castle in best Jean Rollin style. Is this a movie or a long dessous advert. 

After two thirds, the movie tries to tie things up with the arrival of the fourth female agent (FFA) who then kills (MG) in a sexy dress, but the movie just ends like a very, very cheap eurospy clone. But basically, I am speechless.

The movie has three parts, the first ten minutes are completely vile and wild, with the second 30 minutes or so being clearly in Jean Rollin territory (basically BEFORE Jean Rollin invented his style). The last part is a pretty bland Eurospy-clone, not far from the first Sumuru film. This is a very interesting obscure curiosity of a film by a director that urgently needs to be discovered outside of and re-evlauated in France.

(M) is played by Janine Raynoud of "Succubus"/"Kiss me Monster" and "Case of Scorpion's Tail" fame. And yes, the movie has an original length of 96 minutes. The french-audio only (no dubs or subs) DVD runs a good-quality print of 86 minutes, concentrating on the spy story. The german cinema print as "Die Sexsklavinnen von Schloss Porno" / The Sex-Slaves of Castle Porno runs a whopping 78 minutes but keeps all the good stuff in and takes the 10 minutes of sex and torture that the french print misses to fill the gap. And instead of an F.B.I. operation, (OG) here is just a PI investigating a girl-smuggling organisation. Oh dear. The italian co-produced version runs 89 minutes.

I am not sure if I should talk you into the (pristine quality) french dvd as all the fun stuff is missing. The other prints are not digitally available. 

I honestly don't know what to say.