INTERVIEW WITH JACQUES SPOHR (L'INSATIABLE ZINE), FROM SHOCK#56
Who is the mysterious Frenchman Jacques Spohr, whose zine we presented in the news section of Shock#55 and in fact he helped very much with the Greek Cinema Special of Shock#56, with advice and rare photos? Here is my interview with him, which was conducted at a tavern in the area of Exarchia, Athens in 2021, while he was in Greece for about a week. He is a man with tremendous knowledge about Greek cinema and our country in general and a guy with a golden heart. We talked about many things of common interest, thus forging the everlasting friendship of L'Insatiable and Shock. 'Ελλάς-Γαλλία, Συμμαχία' ('Greece, France, Alliance' in Greek), that is, just like the political slogan in the late 70s (under D'Estaing and Karamanlis) and the mid 80s (under Mitterand and Papandreou). I should also note that L'Insatiable is in French but it is a fanzine professionally designed and printed, which excels in light years over the Neanderthal graphics and the whole logic of Shock. In the following lines, Jacques talks about his zine but also offers an insightful overview of the phenomenon of Greek erotic -and not only- cinema, in a much better and informed way than I would.
How did you start L'Insatiable?
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| Anilikes Amartoles |
The main principle is what several other fanzines or labels that release DVD or Blu-Ray do: I work with pre-sales. Right from the first issue, once I had the text and the design ready, I created a group on Facebook and made a special price for pre-sales, along with some other small gifts - but no so-called goodies; I hate this idea of goodies. I had 66 pre-sales and some support from Mondo Macabro for the first issue, so I got the money to print two hundred in total. They were sold out in a month, so I was happy but also a little bit pissed off, because everything was gone. I made the second issue during the pandemic lockdown. Actually, that issue was supposed to be the one with the Nikos Nikolaidis special, but I thought it wouldn’t be the right time to publish it, because people were already depressed. So, issue 2 had the special on Love on a Horse (To koritsi kai to alogo) by Vangelis Serdaris and horses in erotic fantasies, which had a lighter tone and it was funnier and original. I also reprinted the first issue in one hundred copies, because I thought people who got the second issue would like to get the first one as well. I had 140 pre-sales, so I printed 500 copies of issue 2. I didn’t sell them all, but I can either give them away or sell them later. When the issues arrive from the printing shop, I give them to people hand-to-hand, by post or through some shops in Paris, like Metaluna store. Metaluna is a movie store that also has books, DVDs, fanzines and old magazines about cinema. There are some people from other countries who order the zine, for example Canada, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and even Greece. It wouldn’t be so easy without the internet and especially Facebook.
Even big magazines have faced problems getting printed and their sales have dropped or they even had to close. Didn’t that scare you?
Big magazines have a lot of people, but I am just myself in L’Insatiable, so the risk is limited. To print the copies of each issue costs around 1.500 euros and if I have pre-sales, they are enough for me not to lose money.
Who does such professional artwork, layout and design for your fanzine?
I can’t afford to pay anybody, so I do most of the artwork by myself, but I also have a friend, Achille Parmentier, who helps me to fix everything properly. For example, he finds the fonts and helps me correct some things, like adjusting the position of the text and the photos. However, I do the general canvas of each page on InDesign, I choose the photos etc. This is actually time-consuming, especially if I need to scan photos and then process them in Photoshop. I had to learn how to do all that, especially how to work with specific photo formats, like jpeg or tiff, which have different properties.
Where do you actually find all those rare photos, lobby cards and alternate posters?
The majority is photos that I bought, but there are other sources. I have a friend, Lucas Balbo, who is a collector and he helped me in the first issue, about a special on the French producer of Jess Franco, Robert De Nesle. He has more than one million photos in his collection and he is an old-timer from the 80s fanzine era. I also know someone in Greece who has connections with everybody and gets me stills. For example, if I want some photos of films by Errikos Andreou, he can make some scans and send them to me. I also do a lot of research online, of course. For me, the photos supporting the text and vice-versa is something very important. If you talk about a kind of cinema that many people don’t know much about, you have to give them a lot of pictures, so they can get a clearer idea. The logic of creating the ‘kavlorama’ segments in my zine is also based on that principle (editor’s note: 'kavlorama' is a kind of photo romance included in every issue of the zine, with all the photos Jacques could find from a specific movie. So far three films have been 'kavloramized' : Ena Elefthero Koritsi, To Koritsi kai to Alogo and Pio Thermi kai apo ton Ilio).
What kind of Greek films are you actually focused on in your zine?
I mostly deal with Greek films from the 60’s and 70’s that came abroad, for example Greek films that arrived in France. These don’t include everything, of course. For example, you can’t find films with Kostas Gousgounis in France. I find more material (stills and posters) about Greek films that have been exported to Italy and Germany, which are more or less the same ones.
Weren’t you afraid that your zine’s very specialized content would cause you trouble finding an audience? For example, I was surprised when I found out about your zine and that there are people from France who are interested in Greek exploitation cinema.
The B-movie sector is quite dynamic in France. There are several labels that restore old and obscure films on Blu-Ray. People like to rediscover old Italian movies as well, like giallo or old erotic and horror films from America and Japan. I was intrigued to do something like that but I wanted to focus on Greece and find out what the stories behind those films are. Since people didn’t know anything about it in France and I had stories to tell and photos to show, I hoped it would interest people, which eventually happened. The first issue sold three hundred copies, which are not amazing figures, of course, but it was a nice surprise. I was also proud of making a special on Nikos Nikolaidis, who doesn’t belong to that kind of cinema exactly and he is practically uncategorizable. I felt he deserved to be known abroad and not only for Singapore Sling. I like all his films, even his last one, The Zero Years. They are difficult films, but they all have something unique. His fetishism and his provocation are not like those of Gaspar Noe for instance; they are shown with a more emotional and deep romantic touch. His films actually became sadder through the years.
Were the French versions of Greek erotic films different from the Greek ones?
Yes, they were different. They were dubbed in French and some were available in different edits. Back in 1972, VHS didn’t exist, so people had to watch those films in the cinemas. So, a Greek company like GD films would export their films in Europe, like Germany, Italy, Spain, France or even in Turkey, Lebanon, USA and Japan. They actually had soft and hard versions of their films, with hard-core inserts, which was amazing back then. The first hard-core French film, Black Love by Jose Benazeraft, actually came out in 1974. But, Pio Thermi Ki ap’ton Ilio and To Koritsi kai to Alogo came to France earlier in 1974, while they were filmed in 1972. When they played in France, it was before the election of the French president, Giscard d’Estaing, who promised to abolish censorship, so they were shown in French cinema with hard-core inserts. That’s why you can find French VHS rips that may have hard-core scenes. I even saw a 35mm French print of Ena Elefthero Koritsi which had hard-core inserts, definitely made by the Greek team. They had the same actors, the same settings etc. Actually this copy was harder than the French VHS of this film that came out later. On the VHS they had removed all the close-ups.
Can you give us a general idea about the whole phenomenon of Greek erotic cinema?
I am not the main guy to tell you that, but to my knowledge, the erotic aspects in Greek cinema started in the early 60s, for example Amok with Zeta Apostolou, because you can see her naked breasts in 1961. That was quite soon for commercial movies in Europe. Of course it existed in other countries. Most of the Greek films that started to get exported in foreign markets did that mostly thanks to their erotic and sensual content. It was either life in the sun, bikinis, love on the beach, etc. However, there were good productions and even played at festivals, for example 1963’s Ta Kokkina Fanaria by Vasilis Georgiadis, which was about the lives of girls working in a bordello or 1966’s Dama Spathi by Giorgos Skalenakis, which actually started the career of Elena Nathanail as a Greek sex-symbol. Those were serious films but for adult audiences. 1966’s O Fovos by Kostas Manousakis, a masterpiece, even came to Germany and was a success at the Berlin Film Festival, but it didn’t do that great in France. There were also smaller films, like 1966’s Oi Angeloi tis Amartias by Andreas Katsimitsoulias or 1968’s To Syrtaki tis Amartias by Giorgos Papakostas. Some of them came to France later, like Amok in 1969.
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| Dama Spathi aka Queen of Clubs (1966) |
The erotic peak reached every country in the 70s and hard-core pornography also took its first steps, from countries like Scandinavia or in the USA with 1972’s Deep Throat. America had some earlier tough films that were called ‘roughies’. To my opinion, Efstratiadis was the beggining for real erotic Greek cinema. Actually, I found out recently that Greek filmmakers were linked with a Greek woman from the USA called Chelly Wilson, who ran a chain of porno theaters, for example some in Times Square and also some gay cinemas. She would import Greek films and even invest in films of directors like Joseph Sarno. She was quite known for investing in films in the 60s, including 1960’s The River and 1963’s Mikres Afrodites, both directed by Nikos Koundouros. There isn’t much information about her, apart that she was a little strange, stingy and maybe a lesbian. However, she made a contract with Efstratiadis, who flew to New York to for seven months make a film, but he never did it. That’s probably where Efstratiadis experienced first-hand the boom of pornography and discovered that he could maybe make films with hard-core scenes. Proof of that is that his 1972 film Pio Thermi ki’apo ton Ilio has a German VHS release that I don’t know if it’s the same shown in the porn cinemas back then (it played in Germany in 1973), but it has hard-core porn scenes. These are not extra inserts of close-up scenes. You can actually recognize Christos Nomikos having sex in them. His 1972 film Diamantia sto Gymno sou Soma may have had hard-core scenes as well, the same as 1975’s Ta Eidola. In some of his other films, like 1973’s Ta Paidia ton Louloudion or Erotiki Teleti, Gymno Fotomontelo or To Milo tou Satana -those three from 1978-79- it’s obvious they had hard-core scenes and collectors found them.
Another interesting aspect of erotic movies from Greece is that most of them have noir or crime elements, involving a police matter or a murder. They were not light-hearted films, like sex comedies. It’s also interesting that the boom of Greek exploitation movies occurred in the years of the military junta.
There are rumors that the Greek junta had connections with some filmmakers or producers. Have you heard anything about that?
Somebody told me recently that maybe those films were a way to control people, like getting all the bad guys in the cinemas to watch these kinds of films. Another explanation could be that if people had their mind in sex, they wouldn’t care about politics. I think Efstratiadis said that they weren’t allowed to make movies about politics, but they could make films about sex, which was subversive, in a way. I don’t know for sure. Maybe people who lived that era would know for sure, but again it might depend on their political views.
So, Greek exploitation cinema took its first steps in the 60s and it peaked in the 70s. What the hell went wrong when the 80s arrived?
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| Kynigimenoi Erastes aka Image of Love (1973) |
Therefore, was the production of erotic movies in a way destined to die in the 80s, so the filmmakers decided they could survive only if they just entered the arena of VHS?
Practically, yes. Apparently, decent filmmakers from the 60s and 70s were obliged to move to straight-to-video productions. For example, Andreas Katsimitsoulias, who made Oi Angeloi tis Amartias in 1966 and Kaftes Diakopes in 1976, did more than thirty films within two years, 1986 and 1987; it was almost two films per month! However, these were cheap shot-on-video movies. Efstratiadis also had to make movies like these. It was the new era of Sotiris Moustakas, Stathis Psaltis etc. Stathis Psaltis actually started his career in the 1976 film Diamantia sto Gymno sou Soma by Efstratiadis. It was just a small part and he didn’t play in any sex scene of course, but that was his first role ever.
Who were the golden starlets of Greek erotic cinema?
From the 60s, there was Elena Nathanail for sure, who played in a lot of successful movies in the 70’s as well, like 1972’s Anazitisis, which went to the top five of Greek charts. Also Anna Fonsou, Eleni Anousaki and on top of them, while never naked a lot, Zoi Laskari. For most of them, their careers in cinema came to a stop at the end of the junta or after it. Fonsou and Anousaki both played in films by Efstratiadis, who were actually super-productions for Greek standards back then. He always had good teams of technicians, including cinematographer Aris Stavrou, who later became the director of photography for Nikolaidis. For example, 1971’s Provocation by Efstratiadis had Fonsou, Nathanail, Anousaki and foreign actor Udo Kier, before he became known with Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Frankenstein duet. He made two films in a row with Efstratiadis in the same year, Provocation and Adieksodo (aka Oi Erotomaneis). I also like Gisela Dali. Tina Spathi came later, in 1974 and she didn’t make a lot of films. She is considered the most important of that era, but I have been informed that many films that were supposed to have her as a star, actually didn’t. For example, a Berto production could have a star named Katerina Spathi, but it wasn’t the same actress.
What made these films successful in foreign markets?
I think the key for success was that they were making films about the ‘three S’, meaning summer, sex, souvlaki. In other words, exoticism and free love on the beach. German funding also entered the game, with foreign producers often backing films made by Greeks, with Greek technicians and actors, but with actresses from abroad. Paraschakis made such a film, 1978’s Studentinnen Report, which had soft-core and hard-core versions. Andreas Katsimitsoulias also made Lust-Injektion-Eine Spritze der Lust in 1978.
I remember you have an interesting story about porn cinemas in Greece in one of the issues of L’Insatiable. Can you share some details about it?
They had lots of tricks since the late 60s, in order to avoid censorship. Inspectors would often visit the cinemas, so the cashier had a special pedal with which he could notify the projectionist that he should be careful, because someone was coming to check. The projectionist had another projector with a normal film, so he could switch to that one before the inspectors entered the cinema. Some cinemas would need either two or three projectors, depending if they had to change reels, with one having a normal film and the others having the porno film. In the cinemas of Omonoia, the films of Efstratiadis were probably in soft versions during normal hours and in hard versions during special screenings. People would learn about them through word of mouth. It wasn’t official, of course. Maybe it was easier to show hard versions in smaller Greek cities. It was the same in France.
Was screening hard-core movies illegal both in Greece and France back in the 60s and 70s?
Yes, it was. For example, in Italy it was legalized in the late 70s. There was cinema censorship in Greece even before the junta. It became more relaxed in the late 70s and it was accepted officially in 1981. In France, it was totally forbidden, but in 1974 there was a presidential election and one of the candidates promised to abolish censorship, so many cinemas in smaller cities started showing porn films, without advertising them openly, of course. They say that the first porn film shown in France was a film by Ruggero Deodato (editor’s note : famous for Cannibal Holocaust), with hard-core inserts, 1969’s Zenabel. Other films shown were Fernando Di Leo’s Asylum Erotica (aka Slaughter Hotel) from 1971, with Klaus Kinski (screened with the French title Les Insatisfaites Poupées érotiques du Docteur Hitchcock), with hard-core inserts, and To Koritsi kai to Alogo by Vangelis Serdaris, in a hard version. Then the porn phenomenon spread all around Paris and one film, Les Jouisseuses by Lucien Hustaix made a lot of money in one cinema in Lilles, like two hundred thousand tickets in one cinema. So, cinema owners in Paris started showing porn films from Sweden or Denmark, which they used to cut, but decided not to cut them anymore. One important French film was 1975’s Exhibition by Jean-François Davy. It was like a documentary about porn star Claudine Beccarie and it showed hard-core scenes. It made more than five hundred thousand tickets. 1974, the year of Emmanuelle, which wasn’t hard-core at all, actually gave the whole phenomenon a big push. When cinemas in Paris started to show hard-core films, the police never came, so everybody started to show films in hard-core versions, even if they weren’t originally hard-core films. When it became too much, the government started making laws. For example, hard-core porn was accepted but it should be like side-business and not in normal cinemas or have posters shown in public. It was marginalized.
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| Exhibition (1975) |
We never had proper ‘genre cinema’ in Greece, like western, horror, giallo, sci-fi or women in prison films. Why do you think Greek filmmakers made erotic films but not other 'genre' films?
Because there was no money to be made. Maybe they would sell tickets, but they wouldn’t be enough to cover the production costs. Greece had some ‘Poliziotteschi’ or crime action films, for example Diamantia sto Gymno sou Soma or some made by Karayannis, Parashakis and Filippou. But, they needed a bigger budget, stunts etc. Filmmakers and producers were looking for small investments and fast money, so erotic films in fashion were the only way for that. Those films were cheap, with the exception of the films of Efstratiadis, that had better production values. I don’t know how he managed to do it; maybe he was more charismatic and he could convince people to invest. I think he had ambitions and if you actually watch his films and remove the erotic scenes, you still have a film. He shot in different locations and he was trying different things. For example, 1972’s Kynigimenoi Erastes is actually a road movie. Adieksodo with Udo Kier involves a junky and the mafia and Ta Paidia ton Louloudion is also different. He tried to make his own thing and he liked variety. His films were also quite pessimistic and showed a lot about the fear of progress and the fear of the future, along with the refusal of tradition. Greece was somewhere between progress and tradition then. Tradition is still evident in music, the church and stuff like that and there is an attachment to it, but it’s scary at the same time, meaning if you leave that tradition and enter an era of liberation. Even the early films of the 60s with Zoi Laskari and Gisela Dali show that inability to live in an era when you have to get rid of traditions and reach progress; a new life, in a way. The 1972 Esftratiadis film Pio Thermi kai ap’ton Ilio talks about city life. You see scenes of the city all the time, with modern buildings and the husband works in the construction business. There is also the contrast with scenes in Piraeus, with old buildings in ruins and workmen among them. That was a moment in history when people were not into fiestas anymore. As a director, he didn’t show sexual liberation as something happy, even in movies like Ta Paidia ton Louloudion or Ena Elefthero Koritsi. Some people even say his movies were moralistic, but I am not that sure. I should note that the German edit of Pio Thermi kai ap’ton Ilio skips the last 30 minutes of the film, where the heroine gets mad and stops with a far more moralistic happy ending: instead of getting mad, the husband promises to take care of her, have a lot children together etc. The film talks about the institution of marriage, because the woman can not find any place wherever she is, so she goes mad. There is often a feeling of despair in his films. 1975’s Ta Eidola is an amazing film as well. It will blow your mind. It’s the best film by Efstratiadis, I think. It was made right after the junta fell and it talks about violence and politics. It actually shows that both sides, the government and the resistance, are full of hate and that was very provocative for a film.
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| Diamonds on Her Naked Flesh (1972) |
If you had to choose between Efstratiadis and Mylonakos, would you choose Efstratiadis?
Oh yes. Ilias Mylonakos was really bad. His 1980 film Mavri Emanuela was unbearable and so boring. From his films, I was only delighted watching his 1975 film Gynaikes pou Zitousan ton Erota, because it was a bit funny or 1975’s Confessions of a Lesbos Honey, because it starred Tina Spathi and Magda Makri, who was also quite hot.
As a final question, how about Nico Mastorakis?
I have only seen his Greek films Island of Death and To Koritsi Vomva and I think he is an interesting fellow. He has a good sense of framing and he shoots his films quite well. Island of Death from 1976 definitely was a hugely cynical provocation. It wasn’t as good as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was his inspiration, but I like the way he shot the film, giving the maximum shock effect. It’s funny that Greece was the country that made this film, which is one of the most censored films ever on a world-wide scale. It’s also funny that Greece offered one of the first porn films from Europe, Pio Thermi kai ap’ton Ilio (1972). So, I think there is definitely something about sex in Greece...
This interview was conducted in English and published in Greek on issue 56 of Shock, January 2022. It came along with the first part of Greek Cinema Special and reviews of films like Efialtis (Nightmare-1961), Vortex (1967), Assignment Skybolt (1968), Robbery in Athens (1969), Provocation (1971), Diamonds on Her Naked Flesh (1972), The Devil's Men (1976) Dangerous Cargo (1977), Emanuelle, Queen of Sados (1980), as well as more contemporary horror/fantasy/action feature films and short films from Greece.
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