14 May, 2021

TANZERINNEN FUR TANGER: To Be or Not To Be a Jess Franco film.....

TANZERINNEN FUR TANGER, a 1977 sexploitation drama/mondo thriller co-produced by Erwin C. Dietrich, features Josiane Gibert, as a World Health Organization reporter investigating an international white slavery operation in Europe and the Middle East. Directed by Guy Gibert, it's being sold as a "Jess Franco" film on Amazon. Curious, because it has the almost exact plot and characters as Franco's candy-colored BLUE RITA, made the same year. It also includes the actors who play the main roles in BLUE RITA, Dagmar Burger and Eric Falk. It also has the same music cues heard in BLUE RITA, by the same composer, Walter Baumgartner. The final scene in the film includes black mass footage, possibly made by Jess Franco, from the 1976 Dietrich production MONDO EROTICO (probably mostly directed by Dietrich), a film credited to Franco on the Jess Franco Goya Collection Blu-ray disc credits and packaging.
You've seen this scenario before in countless Jess Franco/Erwin Dietrich/Eurocine product. Open with an erotic performance in some sleazy Euro dive, proceed with police procedural style scenes of an inspector setting up an investigation of the club, stage more exotic dancing in the background as detectives watch the shows from preferred seating, have regular chases and fistfights here and there, end it all with Interpol and the local cops busting the villains. In Eurocine's UNE CAGE DOREE (1976), Franco was called in to direct some of the stage shows while footage from other Eurocine films (Paul Naschy's CRIMSON) and new scenes directed by Eurocine founder Marius Lesoeur told the tale. However, when Franco himself directed one of these Women In Peril films you could be sure that he'd shoot it all with distinctive camera set ups, Mario Bava style colored gels, and selective use of his patented power-zoom. There's none of that in TANZERINNEN FUR TANGER. 
                                                                Josiane Gibert aka P. Belair

This could all be explained that most of the films discussed above were produced by Dietrich, who was using the similar elements to sell different products. It's nonetheless good to see the talented Josiane Gibert in a lead role for once. She was involved as a supporting actress  in Franco's DEVIL'S ISLAND LOVERS and DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN (both 1971) and dubbed Soledad Miranda in EUGENIE DE SADE (1970). She is also known on various CD compilations and films as the Canadian voice actress/singer P. Belair.  She's can be found on Facebook.
Tanzerinnen Fur Tanger can be found for sale on Amazon or streamed on the Erogarga.com Adult website in German language only.  It's an interesting Franco-related oddity, but not a Jess Franco film.
(C) Robert Monell, 2021