Jean Rollin Behind the Scenes with The Castel Twins (Various Shots)

Willy Braque's Chute Libre (1969)

I was thrilled to see that Willy Braque's fascinating 1969 short film Chute Libre is now online courtesy of Vimeo. Braque is of course a real favorite in the Rollin community and it is wonderful to see one of his own works. This terrific little film is also of special interest because it was photographed by none other than Jean-Jacques Renon! Enjoy and leave a good comment for Willy over at Vimeo.

Chute libre (1969) from Willy Braque on Vimeo.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Françoise Blanchard)

Intelligent, charming and very talented French actress Françoise Blanchard has brought something special to every role she has played in a film career that stretched from the late seventies up until the early nineties. Probably best known for her work as the title character in Jean Rollin's savagely haunting The Living Dead Girl (1982), Françoise graced a number of notable films from the period including works by directors Jess Franco and Bruno Mattei.
Recalling her career on Encore's terrific interview on the DVD set for The Living Dead Girl, Françoise mentioned that it was a tragedy and a coincidence that set her career in motion in the late seventies. While trying to make ends meet as a hand model, Françoise lost her beloved brother in the late seventies. Around that time she was offered her first role, coincidentally as someone who had also lost a family member. Françoise approached the part sceptically as she remembered that at the the time she was, "aggressive against people but also a bit confused" due to the death of her brother. She enjoyed the experience though and soon threw herself seriously into acting lessons afterwards.
Her career quickly become intertwined with the legendary Eurocine company and soon she was involved in several B movies from the period. "I liked the feel of these B-Movies, especially Horror" noted Françoise to Encore, which perhaps explains one reason she became so popular to several of the most noteworthy genre directors of the late seventies. She also mentioned she didn't mind nudity and even went so far as to pose for Lui magazine in the early eighties.
After several films, for the likes of directors like Pierre Chevalier, Françoise hit exploitation paydirt with her rather unforgettable role in Bruno Mattei's sleazy but entertaining Caligula and Messalina in 1981. The following year she would appear in Jess Franco's confused but interesting Revenge in the House of Usher, and she liked Franco and admired his creativity and fire.
After another sleaze epic with Matei, Françoise shot the rather wonderful Living Dead Girl with Rollin. Françoise is extremely good in the film and delivers one of the most powerful performances in Rollin's canon. The mostly night shoot was difficult and there were many problems with the special effects but, despite some disagreements, she liked and admired Rollin and admitted to Encore that, "he is really nice and is very much there." Françoise also enjoyed working with and admired her co-star in the film, Italian actress Marina Pierro, and noted, "She was very maternal with me."



Françoise would work again with Rollin on The Sidewalks of Bangkok, a film which she had a lot of fun making, and recently she appeared in his newest production La Nuit des Horloges opposite Ovidie. Still a lovely lady, Françoise Blanchard's contributions to Jean Rollin's filmography should not be undervalued.

-Jeremy Richey, 2009-

Jean Rollin Collaborators: Catherine Greiner

Born in the spring of 1956 in Royan, France, Catherine Greiner became of fixture in the French adult cinema of the seventies and eighties when she made her screen debut in 1976. Her career really took off in 1978 when she first appeared under the name Cathy Stewart in one of Jean Rollin’s Robert Xavier productions, Remplissez-moi... les 3 trous. Rollin became extremely fond of her and sensed that the young Greiner was in possession of a lot of talent, and he realized she would be a perfect candidate for one of his mainstream productions.
Greiner would continue working throughout the late seventies, sometimes with Rollin, under a variety of different names. In 1980 Rollin would give her a shot at “legitimacy” with an extremely memorable role in La Nuit des Traquees. Catherine was quite good in the small but haunting part and it should have led her to more work along the same lines. Unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be, and for the rest of her career she would work almost exclusively in France’s adult cinema and video industry. She would pass away at the tragically young age of just 38 in 1994.
Rollin has very fond memories of the young and quite doomed actress, and he shares some of them in Encore’s booklet for The Night of the Hunted:



“The young Cathy Greiner would at last be able to show off her acting skills. Her role was very difficult to play….I was terribly sorry for Cathy Greiner who took so much trouble for her scene in the film and patiently suffered in the scene of the scissors….Cathy Greiner was a real actress. She dreamed about playing and working for a long time on the scene where Brigitte feeds her with a spoon. This scene is a great moment, very moving and she is excellent in it….it was a pleasure to film her, in any kind of movie.”

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Philippe D’Aram)

Even though he isn’t the only composer to work with Jean Rollin in the past few decades, for many of us Philippe D’Aram’s music goes hand in hand with the entire second half of the maverick director’s career.
D’Aram’s evocative music for film has almost exclusively been delivered for Rollin with just a few exceptions, the most notable being Walerian Borowczyk’s striking 1979 production Three Immoral Women. D’Aram’s first film for Rollin would be Fascination, and with that inaugural score the composer would mark himself as a major talent. Rollin wrote in the liner notes of the CD collection The Films of Jean Rollin that he “had the closest working relationship” with D’Aram and that ultimately he found “magic” in the music the composer delivered for him.
Rollin recalled for Fascination that “from our work together came the idea for the musical to accompany ‘the death with its scythe’ so magnificently portrayed by Brigitte Lahaie.” Later for their collaboration on Lost in New York Rollin said that the film’s “theme kept coming back…each time in a different arrangement” and that it finally reminded him of “memories, true or false, real or imagined” and the score formed “the raison d’etre of the film.”



The Films of Jean Rollin mentioned that Philippe D’Aram is said to have been self educated and his career had included everything from Rollin’s films to “tv jingles”. Perhaps the highlight of the composer’s career came in 1992 when he “contributed the official music for the Olympic Winter games in Alberville”…impressive stuff.
D’Aram’s other scores for Jean Rollin include The Night of the Hunted, The Escapees, The Living Dead Girl, Two Orphan Vampires and The Fiancée of Dracula. It is impossible to imagine any of these poetic films without the D’Aram’s magical music.



A wonderful 15-minute interview with Philippe can be found on Encore’s impressive The Living Dead Girl box-set. Here the composer, who comes across as a very nice man, discusses his background, his influences and his working relationship with Rollin. That Encore set also comes with a CD of his score from The Living Dead Girl. The Films of Jean Rollin (which contains bits of several D’Aram’s scores) is sadly out of print but copies of it (or downloads) can still be located. D’Aram’s stunning score to Two Orphan Vampires can be found with copies of Virgins and Vampires, which is sadly out of print as well.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Marie-Georges Pascal)

Born in October of 1946 in Cambrai, France, Marie-Georges Pascal proved to be a fixture in French cinema throughout the seventies. As the lead character in Jean Rollin’s The Grapes of Death, Pascal is extremely memorable and gives what is often just regarded as a gore film a real spirit and heart.
I’ve had a hard time tracking down too much information about Pascal. Rollin himself wrote very little on her in Virgins and Vampires, outside of calling her very “moving” and recalling that she made her character’s descent into madness extremely real. Pascal does give one of the best performances seen in a Rollin film and it’s a shame the two didn’t have the chance to work together again.
Pascal made her debut in front of the camera’s in 1971 at the age of 25 in Jean-Claude Roy’s Good Little Girls, a film which would see her playing one of the leads. This appearance led to a slew of roles in both film and television and in 1973 Pascal landed one of the most memorable roles of her career opposite Thrill of the Vampires star Sandra Julien in Max Pecas’ I Am Frigid…Why?. That role would cause the talented Pascal to almost exclusively be cast in French films of an erotic nature from that point on.
Roles followed for directors ranging from Jean-Francoise Davy to Michel Lemoine to Jacques Scandelari. Some were small, some large but none were better than Pascal’s sometimes-startling turn in Rollin’s The Grapes of Death.
Sadly her lead work in Rollin’s film didn’t help the trouble Pascal’s career and by the early eighties she was working almost strictly in television. Pascal’s final performance came in 1983 with a bit-part in Jean-Pierre Desagnat’s Shock Cops.
Marie-Georges Pascal sadly passed away at the tragically young age of 39, reportedly by her own hand. There is very little information about her online that I have been able to find. Any more information would be appreciated.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Annie Belle)

With porcelin white skin, hair cut close to the scalp, volutptous body and undeniable charisma, Annie Belle was quite unlike any other figure in seventies exploitation cinema. Born in France in 1956 as Annie Brilland, Belle proved herself to be one of the most memorable, if often overlooked, screen goddesses of the seventies with a series of varied roles in both French and Italian cinema.
Interviewed in the nineties for the Italian book 99 Donne, Belle recalled that her career began to take shape when she attended the Rue Blanche Acting School in Paris under master Virilo, whom she described as being, “a great cinema and theater actor.” Coming from a family of engineers, acting might have seemed an odd career choice for the young Brilland but she was quite a natural at it, and her manager led her to her first role before she had even turned eighteen, in Jean Rollin’s Bacchanales Sexuelles (Fly Me The French Way) in 1974, where she had a small but memorable role that would endear her to the director who would cast her in her first starring role just a year later.



Billed as Annie Briand in Rollin’s hypnotic and poetic Lips of Blood in
1975, Belle showed herself to be quite a mesmerizing presence and one wonders in hindsight how her career might have gone had she stay in France making movies. Belle relocated to Italy shortly after Lips of Blood though, and within a year she was on her way to becoming for a brief time one of the most in demand actresses in Italian exploitation cinema, with three major films occurring in 1976 alone.



Of the three Italian films Belle appeared in ’76, the erotic Laure is probably the best known thanks to Severin’s recent special edition DVD of it. The film would mark one of a handful Belle shot with actor Al Cliver, the man she would become involved with off screen for several years in the mid to late seventies. Remembering Laure as being, “not very good”, Belle seemed to have better feelings towards Massimo Dallamano’s End of Innocence, a film in which she was granted a co-writing credit on.



Calling Dallamano, “a great professional and talented man”, Belle's great work in End of Innocence is unfortunately hard to see in an English language friendly version, although it is one of the key works of her career.



One of Belle’s most controversial and enduring pictures finished out 1976, and thankfully Brunello Rondi’s audacious Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle (a film that teamed Belle with lovely Laura Gemser) is readily available now in a beautiful uncut print also courtesy of Severin. It would be the first of a few films Belle would shoot with Gemser and in the 99 Donne interview she remembers the iconic beauty very fondly.



Annie Belle continued to work steadily throughout the seventies in both erotic and comedic pictures. In 1980 she appeared in one of the most notorious Italian productions of the period, Ruggero Deodato’s House on The Edge of the Park, a brutal but unforgettable film that Belle remembered as being very, “cruel”, but also very, “interesting.”



Belle would also work a couple of times with legendary Joe D’Amato in the early eighties, a director Belle absolutely adored. Calling him a great director with actors, and going so far to say that he could have indeed been, “one of the greatest filmmakers ever”, had he the right sized budgets and support, it’s a shame Belle and D’Amato weren’t teamed for better films, although there is much to admire in both Absurd (1981) and The Alcove (1984).
Personal problems slowed Annie Belle’s career down in the eighties and by the end of the decade she retired from the screen for good. Returning to France, Belle is now reportedly doing well after going to school to get her degree in Psychology. She currently works in Social Work helping others who have had to battle with personal demons in their lives.
Although she is not often considered one of Jean Rollin’s premiere actresses, this is really because they only worked together twice. Annie Belle is an unforgettable figure and as more of her films become more readily available, the cult around her will only grow.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Jean-Francois Robin)

Born in France during World War Two, Cinematographer Jean-Francois Robin has had a fascinating four decade career behind and in front of the camera. The Cesar nominated Robin got his start in French film in the early seventies on a couple of horror shorts. He made his feature film debut as cinematographer on the legendary Jean Rollin’s haunting and influential Lips Of Blood. Robin’s excellent work for Rollin would mark him as one of the most talented, if lesser known, photographers that came out of French cinema in the seventies and his work has only improved since.
Like most of Rollin’s greatest works, Lips Of Blood didn’t make much of a splash at the time, so Robin wasn’t able to immediately capitalize on his excellent work. He spent the rest of the seventies and early eighties shooting a variety of relatively minor French films for directors like Alain Cavalier and Patrice Leconte before landing a huge assignment for famed Polish director Andrzej Zulawski with
1985’s L’Amour Braque in which he was able to photograph Sophie Marceau.
The demanding Zulawski got the best out of Robin and his work on L’Amour Braque received a lot of attention from critics and other directors. One director who was most impressed by it was Jean-Jacques Beineix who was prepping his follow up film to Moon In The Gutter, 1986’s Betty Blue. Robin was hired for Beineix’s iconic and popular film and immediately became one of the most sought after French cinematographers due to his work on it.
Robin would continue to work with Beineix on his next couple of films and also struck up a partnership with the great Claude Sautet. This collaboration would prove to be a fruitful one and it produced the career best work of both men, the glorious 1995 film Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud. Robin continues to be a successful cinematographer and has even acted in a couple of films for some of his directors.

***A version of this article originally appeared at my blog dedicated to the career of Nastassja Kinski, Nostalgia Kinky.***

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Jean-Loup Philippe)

Writer, actor, director and artist Jean-Loup Philippe has had quite a wild career that has taken him from the stage to the screen and back again. The male star and dialogue writer of Levres de Sang, one of Jean Rollin’s most poetic films, Philippe probably could have had a more substantial film career had other interests not pulled him away.
Born in France after World War Two, Philippe recalled on the excellent interview on Encore’s Lips of Blood set that he fell into acting essentially because he felt he, “wasn’t good for anything else.” A massive understatement at best, Philippe already had a strong literary backbone thanks to his childhood surrounded by some of France’s top post-war authors. Still, acting became an essential part of his life and by the mid sixties he was forging a successful stage career for himself, with his most popular role being opposite none other than Ingrid Bergman in Tea and Sympathy.
Philippe met Rollin in the early sixties and he recalled to Encore that the two initially came together because of their mutual love of literature. Fitting then that it is the lyrical Lips of Blood that remains their major collaboration together.
Rollin’s film marked the first major screen role for Philippe, although he had already appeared in small roles in half a dozen French films, and he is quite good in the part. Projecting a fragile vulnerability and working incredibly well with the exquisite Annie Belle (acting as Annie Briand in her first major role), Philippe is one of the most memorable male stars in a Jean Rollin work.
A few film appearances followed Lips of Blood, including the infamous Le Sexe qui parle (1975) opposite Lips of Blood co-star Sylvia Bourdon but Rollin’s film marks his first and last truly important role in front of the cameras. After the film Philippe would return to the stage, now as a director, and it continues to be his passion to this day. Philippe has maintained a close relation to Rollin though and he worked with him on both Les Paumées du petit matin (1981) and an unfinished project based on a Duras story that he details in Encore’s interview.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Joëlle Coeur)

With the exceptions of Brigitte Lahaie and Marie-Pierre Castel, no actress was ever as suited to Jean Rollin’s particular cinematic landscape than the unforgettable Joëlle Coeur. Unlike Lahaie and Castel, who both appeared in multiple Jean Rollin features, Coeur only worked with the legendary director three times and only once on a film in which the director signed his own name.



Information on the delectable Coeur is extremely hard to come by. The IMDB doesn’t list a date or place of birth and has no other information listed besides her filmography, which spans a relatively short eight year period from the early to late seventies. A glance over her film credits shows her as an actress who almost exclusively appeared in the French sexploitation films that populated cinemas before hardcore all but buried the genre in the late seventies. Rollin himself would mention that it was the legalization of hardcore that would cause Joëlle Coeur to retire from the screen as the new permissiveness held no interest for her and, as Rollin recalled in Encores The Demoniacs booklet, “She did right to have never taken the plunge.”



So what is that that makes Joëlle Coeur, an actress with less than twenty mostly forgotten films to her credit, so special and memorable? Simply put, there is something delightfully tongue in cheek and playful in the sexuality Coeur presented on the screen and I suspect that had she been around in the silent period she could have been one of the screen’s greatest physical comedians. Rollin would refer to her as, “a superb creature” in Encore’s booklet and that he never knew of another actress who knew, “how to make better use of her body”, and it is that remarkable physicality that comes out in her performances, especially with her remarkable turn as the ferocious ‘Tina the Wrecker’ in The Demoniacs.



Coeur all but demolishes the screen in The Demoniacs, delivering an performance overflowing with humor, charisma and sexuality. Fearless and with a wonderful go for broke attitude so often missing from the screen, Coeur makes it impossible for anyone watching to take their eyes off of her in The Demoniacs. The fact that she would only work in film for a few years after is regrettable, and still feels like a major loss for French cinema.



The actress whom, as Rollin recalled in his commentary, had a perfect and “great image” for the screen first appeared on the screen as Joelle Faguet in a small role in Jean Desville’s Jeux Pour Couples Infideles (also known as Hot and Blue). Just a year later she would make her debut in a Rollin film with a large role in his delightful Michel Gentil signed Jeunes Filles Impudiques. Later that year she would also appear in what would become one of her most popular and memorable films, Max Pecas I Am Frigid…Why? (don’t you miss the seventies?), a film that featured another one of Rollin’s most memorable heroines, Sandra Julien.
Coeur would continue working steadily throughout the mid seventies, including a couple of times for important French auteur Jose Benazeraf, before hooking up with Rollin again on The Demoniacs and Tout le Monde il en a Deux (Fly me the French Way, Bacchanales Sexuelles).



Describing her memorably in Virgins and Vampires as a “Lust provoking animal woman” Rollin clearly has fond memories of Coeur and marveled at the way in The Demoniacs commentary how she allowed him to use “her body like it was a statue.” The director would also compare her to legendary Brigitte Lahaie on the commentary track and pointed out that he even went so far as to frame Lahaie the same way he had Couer in The Grapes of Death a few years down the road.
Joëlle Coeur's final film credit according to the IMDB occurred in 1978 with Michel Lemoine’s Jeunes filles en Extase, a film sadly all but lost in time alongside most of her other work from the seventies. While never a major star, Joëlle Coeur is a legend to fans of Jean Rollin’s unique brand of fantastic cinema. Perhaps my favorite thing ever written about her was Tim Lucas’ point in his review of Bacchanales Sexuelles for Video Watchdog 31 that the delightful actress, “probably could have carried the film without a plot” a terrifically dead-on and resonate statement on a film figure who was deserving of more of a career than she got.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Willy Braque)

There is very little information online on wild man Willy Braque. The IMDB for example contains no biographical information of any kind, not even a date of birth. It also contains no information on the films Braque made himself. All that is there is a listing of nearly thirty films and television shows Braque appeared in from 1962to 1989, including the half dozen that he collaborated with Jean Rollin on.
One of the best extras on Encore's box set of The Demoniacs is a twelve minute interview with Braque from 2005. Still looking good with that same mischievous look in his eyes, Braque comes across as a straight forward man with many fond memories of his career and a good sense of humor.
Braque recalls that the first part he ever had in a film called on him to play a schizophrenic and indeed that "served (him) very well." Rollin himself would remember that Braque was "completely crazy" to Peter Blumenstock in Virgins and Vampires and Video Watchdog 31 and that "as soon as the camera's began rolling, he freaked out and couldn't go on."
Of course Braque did manage to go on and along with Rollin he worked with many splendid directors including Jose Benazeraf, Robert Hossein, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Lasse Braun, and Jess Franco. It would be his work with Jean Rollin that would be the most memorable though and in regards to the iconic director, Braque recalls in the interview that he "was sold right away" after seeing Rollin's earliest films.
Braque first worked for Rollin in Jeunes Filles Impudiques and Tout le Monde il en a deux in 1973 and 1974. He would continue working for Rollin in these more 'hidden' films throughout the seventies but it is his roles in two of Jean Rollin's major works (The Demoniacs and Lips of Blood) that are most fondly remembered.
Braque obviously cares deeply about the films of Jean Rollin and the man himself,
and this comes out in Encore's interview. Calling Rollin, "a great filmmaker" who will still be discussed, "fifty years from now", Braque also speaks of his admiration for his two time co-star Joelle Couer, his love for Jean-Jacques Renon, and calls The Demoniacs a, "classic". In fact the only reservation Braque seems to have about his time with Rollin is that the director didn't make more films like The Demoniacs as he loved the "structure and concept" of it.
Willy Braque's final film credit comes fittingly for Jose Benazeraf, the director who gave him his first job in the early sixties. A truly fascinating man, Willy Braque's work with his maverick and highly individualistic directors will be remembered for years to come.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Françoise Pascal, Part Two)

The career of one of Jean Rollin’s most beguiling leading ladies has been an adventurous one that has taken her from being in the center of Swinging London in the mid sixties, to cult status as a model and actress in the seventies, to finally finding solace as a humanitarian dedicated to helping the under-privileged and elderly.
Françoise Pascal was born on the Island of Mauritius in October of 1949. Educated first in Paris and then later in London, Françoise’s striking and distinctive good looks began to get her noticed as a teenager in the mid sixties. She landed a gig dancing on England’s famed Top of the Pops soon after, and became a favorite of the BBC’s and many viewers who tuned in each week to watch the show.
The Top of the Pops gig led to a blossoming modeling career and interest from many film producer’s for the young Pascal and in 1968 she made a brief appearance as herself in Jean-Luc Godard’s ferociously original Rolling Stones feature, One Plus One.
Françoise’s first narrative feature arrived at around the same time Godard’s docu-drama was shocking and alienating audiences in 1968 and it couldn’t have been any different. Pete Walker’s School For Sex gave Françoise a small but memorable role that highlighted both her sex appeal and comedic skills, two gifts she would continue to use to great effect throughout her carrer.
After an appearance in Norman J. Warren’s Loving Feeling in 1969, Françoise had a banner year in 1970 when she appeared in a scene-stealing role in Roy Boulting’s funny There’s a Girl in My Soup opposite Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn. Françoise also turned many a head when she appeared on the cover and as a Pet of the Month in a 1970 issue of Penthouse Magazine, where Amnon Bar-Tur photographed her. The tasteful spread became one of the decade’s most popular for the controversial Bob Guccioni publication, and it solidified Françoise Pascal as one of the most memorable beauties of the early seventies.
After an injury sustained in 1971, Françoise took a break from the big screen and returned to British television throughout the next few years. In 1973 it was rumored that Kirk Douglas personally offered her a part in an upcoming project he was working on, but Françoise turned him down as her interest had turned her to an intriguing film set almost entirely in a cemetery.

Producer Sam Selsky is reportedly the person who introduced Françoise Pascal to Jean Rollin for The Iron Rose, and while Pascal was initially not what Rollin had in mind for the leading role, the collaboration would turn out to be an inspired one. As the nameless girl who becomes lost in and then entranced by the seemingly endless cemetery in one of Rollin’s most peculiar and brilliant films, Françoise Pascal is absolutely inspired and it is hard to imagine anyone else in the role. Working with a seemingly total abandonment, and with a poetic grace, Françoise would help make The Iron Rose one of the dark horse candidates as Jean Rollin’s best film for not a small number of fans.



Françoise Pascal would all but abandon the big screen after The Iron Rose, with just a few exceptions, and worked almost exclusively in British television before her retirement in the mid eighties. Her most famous role for British audiences is her two-year stint on Mind Your Language, and her memorable work on the cult comedy continues to bring her new fans each year.
Reportedly very happy and currently living back in England, Françoise Pascal has worked within a charity organization for the past decade or so designed to help the elderly and other people in need. While her career in film is behind her, one would hope that if ever approached for a special edition DVD of The Iron Rose, Françoise Pascal might share her memories on what stands as her most mysterious and beguiling performance.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Francoise Pascal Part 1)

I will be posting a full tribute to The Iron Rose star Francoise Pascal in the next day or so. In the meantime, I thought fans of Pascal and the film might get a kick out of looking at some screen shots from Francoise's second film, Norman J. Warren's Loving Feeling from 1969. Warren's odd film features Francoise in a few scenes as a character only referred to as 'the model' but she proves to be quite unforgettable.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Hughes Quester)

In a career covering nearly four decades, prolific French actor Hughes Quester has tallied up an impressive sixty or so films with directors ranging from Eric Rohmer to Krzysztof Kieslowski. For Jean Rollin fans though Hughes Quester will always be known best as actor Pierre DuPont, the young man who co-starred with haunting Francoise Pascal in The Iron Rose.
Quester was born in early August of 1948. His first film role came as a bit part in 1969 with William Klein’s Mr. Freedom, an ambitious film starring Delphine Seyrig and Serge Gainsbourg (a man who would play an important part in Quester’s career down the road).
Quester would continue working as a bit player in films throughout the next few years before landing his first substantial role in director Yannick Bellon’s Quelque part quelqu'un in 1972 (a film finally released in the United States in 1979 as Somewhere, Someone).
Some television work would follow for Quester before he would land what has turned out to be one of his most memorable roles, as the nameless title character in Jean Rollin’s Le Rose de Fer. Sadly Quester and Rollin did not have a good working relationship, a fact detailed by Rollin in this interview with Peter Blumenstock that can be found in Video Watchdog 31 and Virgins and Vampires:

“I had a lot of problems with the lead actor, Hughes Quester. He didn’t like me, which was quite a problem, because there are only two persons in the film, so we had to work together all the time. This eventually led him to taking his name off the film, so now, Hughes Quester is credited as Pierre Dupont.”

Regardless of the problems behind the scenes, Quester is fine in his role as the doomed nameless young man, although few would argue that The Iron Rose is talented Francoise Pascal’s film all the way. Perhaps this is something Quester sensed while shooting the film. Whatever the problems were between Rollin and Quester, The Iron Rose has survived much longer than most of the other films the young actor shot in this period.
Quester continued to work steadily after his time with Rollin, including a solid turn for Serge Gainsbourg in 1975's audacious Je t’aime moi non plus opposite Jane Birkin and Joe Dallesandro. Many films and television roles followed before Quester struck cinematic gold in 1990 with his role as Igor in Eric Rohmer’s masterful A Tale of Springtime.
Quester would continue his late period resurgence with a role in Kieslowski’s incredible Three Colors: Blue in 1993 and in 2006 he would be awarded the distinguished Commander of Arts and Letters title from France for his long and noteworthy career.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Marie-Pierre Castel)

Whether she is going by the name Pony Castel or Pony Tricot, Marie-Pierre Castel remains one of the most bewitching and memorable figures in the world of French film in the seventies. Lovely, graceful and endearingly witty, several of Jean Rollin's key works are unthinkable without her striking presence.
Information on my favorite Castel is a bit hard to come by. She was born in 1950 and between the years 1970 and 1977 she appeared in just eleven features, sometime with her twin sister Cathy and sometimes without. Of these eleven films, seven were directed by Jean Rollin. The remaining features have for the most part unfortunately been all but lost in time, with the exception of her final film, 1977's Rene The Cane, a film directed by Francis Girod starring Sylvia Kristel and Gerard Depardieu.
These behind the scenes shots from Requiem for a Vampire capture Marie at her peak, filming what would become her most famous and iconic role. More to come on Marie-Pierre here in the future.












***These shots are all taken from the incedible slideshow on Encore's Requiem for a Vampire box set. Please buy the set to the many others.***