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Plot: Waldemar Daninsky faces Countess Elisabeth Báthory… again!

El Retorno del Hombre Lobo (or The Return Of the Wolfman, released in North America as The Craving in 1985 and, at a later stage, internationally as Night of the Werewolf) was the first of two El Hombre Lobo episodes produced during the eighties. Times were changing and audience tastes were no different. The wicked and wild excesses of the 1970s had given way to the staunch conservativism and rampant debauchery of the 80s. The American slasher had become the new horror standard and suddenly Paul Naschy no longer found himself to be the trailblazer he once was. He experienced increasing difficulty in securing North American distribution for his features and back at home in Spain box office returns weren’t what they once were either. It was the dawn of a new age and Spain’s fiercest proponent of the macabre and the fantastic found himself out of step with what the younger generation was producing. As daunting as the circumstances might have been Naschy forged onward. As legend has it this was a personal favorite of Naschy’s and it’s easy to see why. Waldemar Daninsky never was in finer form in the more recent episodes than he is here.

That the Eurocult wave was cresting was apparent by 1976 and four years later the situation was even more dire. The death of Generalísimo Francisco Franco in late 1975 not only meant the slow crawl towards democracy and increased freedom on all fronts, it also signaled the end of mass government funding for the arts, including domestic cinema. If it wasn’t terrible enough Spanish and Italian exports had a hard time competing with big budget Hollywood box office hits as The Exorcist (1973) and Jaws (1975) (which didn’t stop both countries from trying and producing a veritable deluge of alternately obnoxious and hilarious no-budget imitations and knockoffs) and were only getting limited theatrical engagements in North America, once their primary market. To add insult to injury, the home video market was about to explode in just a few years from where they were. Naschy however refused to go gently into that good night and saw these newly-imposed restrictions as an opportunity to cut costs by writing, producing and directing his own features. He had made a television documentary on Madrid's Prado Museum and its art collection for Japanese company Hori Kikaku and they extended their gratitude by providing finances for whatever Naschy wanted to make. Thus he got together with partners Augusto Boue, Masurao Takeda from Dálmata Films, and Julia Saly and formed Acónito Films. Acónito (the scientific term for wolfsbane) would be responsible for all prime Naschy films this decade. Acónito Films produced a spate of features but only a few fall within the purview of this review.

While Mark Of the Wolfman (1968) set the stage it was from the much protracted first sequel Assignment Terror (1969) onward that the El Hombre Lobo became a recurring character in the Naschy canon. Sequels would appear annually (or every other year) up until and including The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975). In that five-year stretch Paul Naschy explored other avenues such as history, superstition and religion. In the decade of the international slasher craze and the domestic Cine-S movement Naschy staunchly stuck to his guns and produced an El Hombre Lobo installment on the 1970s model. Never below milking production assets, plot contrivances and locations for all they were worth The Return Of the Wolfman arrived a year after his Biblical parable The Traveller (1979) and will look and feel instantly familiar. By this point Naschy had accumulated enough experience in front and behind the camera to direct the productions which he had written. There’s a point, and a valid one at that, to be made that by the time The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) rolled into cineplexes around the world that the series had strayed too far into the action-adventure direction. If there ever was a time to reinstate the franchise to its gothic horror roots, that time was now. Still, there’s no denying that after a decade-plus of sequels the formula was starting to wear thin. Which isn’t necessarily to its detriment as this one is thoroughly entertaining.

Hungary, 16th century. In the royal court of the Habsburgs Kings of Hungary and the Palatine of Hungary Countess Elizabeth Báthory (Julia Saly, as Jully Saly) is tried and executed. Báthory has been accused to torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women. She’s to be walled up in her chambers in Castle of Csejte in the Little Carpathians near Vág-Ujhely and Trencsén (or present-day Nové Mesto nad Váhom and Trenčín, Slovakia) where she’ll be left to die. Two of her vassals are executed for their involvement in her heinous crimes. Also on trial is Polish nobleman Waldemar Daninsky (Jacinto Molina Álvarez, as Paul Naschy), a known lycanthrope and scourge of the region, is tried for his killing sprees in wolfen form and his association with Báthory. On top of these individual accusations the two are accused of witchcraft, vampirism, and diabolism. A dagger made of silver of the Mayenza chalice is driven through Daninsky’s heart and an iron mask is secured on his face to keep him from biting.

Centuries later grave robbers Veres (Ricardo Palacios) and Yoyo (Rafael Hernández, as Rafael Hernandez) remove the dagger and the mask. Released from bondage the tortured nobleman takes up residence in his castle where he lives with his servant Mircaya (Beatriz Elorrieta). One day parapsychology students Erika (Silvia Aguilar) and Karen (Azucena Hernández, as Azucena Hernandez) arrive in the Carpathians with Barbara (Pilar Alcón, as Pilar Alcon) joining them shortly after once she has removed her old professor (Narciso Ibáñez Menta, as Narciso Ibañez Menta) from the equation. The three are able to locate Báthory’s tomb and the find leads to Erika becoming obsessed with Báthory and falling under her hypnotic spell. Her obsession leads Erika to perform a resurrection ritual. Waldemar Daninsky falls in love with Karen and when he realizes Báthory has been revived and is feeding on the local population he turns against his former mistress vowing to protect the woman he loves at his own peril.

If the above summary didn’t make it abundantly clear The Return of the Wolfman is more of a “greatest hits” rather than a straightforward sequel. After the insanity of The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) the series had been absent for half a decade. For that reason instead of breaking new ground with the character Naschy borrows liberally from prior key episodes and its contemporary surrounding productions. The mainplot is a slightly condensed composite of The Wolfman versus the Vampire Woman (1971) and The Return Of Walpurgis (1973) with varying shades of Horror Rises From the Tomb (1973), Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974) and Devil's Possessed (1974) as well as assorted individual plot elements from Fury Of the Wolfman (1972) and Doctor Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972). With Beatriz Elorrieta’s Mircaya there’s the obligatory nod to Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla and Pilar Alcón’s Barbara could be seen as a loving wink to British cult icon Barbara Steele, the once-and-future queen of vintage Italo gothic horror. As Waldemar Daninsky had been away for half a decade perhaps a reintroduction was needed. Call it truth in advertising but The Return Of the Wolfman does indeed feel reinvigorated and acts as a symbolic return and a new beginning. To its everlasting credit The Return of the Wolfman opens with a sun-baked pool scene prescient of the Cine-S movement where you halfway expect to see a buck naked Eva Lyberten, Vicky Palma or Andrea Albani splashing around, but somehow never do. On top of that it has a disco theme that makes the theme to Cannibal Ferox (1981) appear sensible.

After the relatively low-key (at least in terms of casting) The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) the first El Hombre Lobo episode of the eighties is brimming with familiar faces. Naschy was in the habit of casting the most beautiful Spanish women and here there’s the delectable trio of Silvia Aguilar, Julia Saly and Azucena Hernández. Aguilar had been in The Traveller (1979) and the Eurocrime romp Human Beasts (1980) (that also co-starred Julia Saly) and the sex comedy The National Mummy (1981). Saly usually worked behind the scenes as a producer and sporadically acted in that which she produced. In that capacity she could be seen in, the fourth and final Blind Dead episode Night of the Seagulls (1975), The People Who Own the Dark (1976), Inquisition (1977), Demon Witch Child (1978), the sex comedy Madrid al desnudo (1979) and The Cantabrians (1980). Hernández was Miss Catalonia 1977, had briefly worked as a model which naturally led to acting. Prior to her excursion into Spanish horror with El Hombre Lobo she could be seen in the Cine-S precursor Intimate Confessions of Stella (1978), and Bacanal en directo (1979). In the early 1980s Azucena transitioned into acting on the stage, did television and participated in zarzuelas. Her ascension to superstardom was cut tragically short when in the night of 15 to 16 October 1986 she was involved in a serious car accident in Las Rozas de Madrid. In the collision she sustained severe spinal cord injuries that left her paralyzed.

Also present are Beatriz Elorrieta (not using her Beatriz Lacy alias) from Necrophagus (1971), Narciso Ibáñez Menta from The Dracula Saga (1973) and Ricardo Palacios from 1001 Nights (1968) (with Luciana Paluzzi) and Juan Piquer Simón's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1977). In a rather unthankful role as a senior bandit is Luis Barboo, he of The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (1971), Female Vampire (1973), The Loreley's Grasp (1973), Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Witches Mountain (1973), Night Of the Assassins (1974), The Pyjama Girl Case (1977), Supersonic Man (1979) and Conan the Barbarian (1982). Unfortunately Naschy never found the time and space to cast German sex comedy starlets Ursula Buchfellner, Olivia Pascal, Betty Vergés, Edwige Pierre, Christine Zierl, or Biggi Ludwig in one of his features. Imagine what Paul Naschy could have conjured up with someone like Sabrina Siani, Florence Guérin, Olivia Pascal, Andrea Albani or, god forbid, Maribel Guardia.

In the decade of the American slasher and the Italian gore epic Naschy produced what, by al accounts, was a deliciously baroque gothic horror throwback. His association with Julia Saly allowed Naschy to produce a number of more artistic ventures across a variety of genres. The Saly years was Naschy’s last brush with relevance, both artistic as in terms of box office returns, of any kind. Whereas The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975) was the last vintage offering The Return Of the Wolfman and the Japanese co-production The Beast and the Magic Sword (1983) were the last of the Daninsky saga to turn a profit. From the mid-180s onwards (coinciding with the fall of Cine-S which had begun in 1980) Naschy and Spanish horror at large would experience a dark period from which El Hombre Lobo, the Spanish Lon Chaney never truly recovered. In the following decades only two more Waldemar Daninsky episodes would materialize. For a number of years Spanish fantaterror was nothing but a relic from a distant past until Álex de la Iglesia revived Iberian horror with his The Day Of the Beast (1995).

Plot: the Ibéricas make a splash, but not for their athletic ability. Hilarity ensues!

There’s a lot of things you can say about Las Ibéricas F.C.. It’s probably one of Spain’s most famous ensemble comedies of the 1970s. Ensemble comedies either work, or they don’t. Las Ibéricas F.C. obviously works, but nothing of it has anything to do with the screenplay. Not only is Las Ibéricas F.C. an ensemble comedy, it is an ensemble sports comedy – which means that there’s plenty of slapstick to be had and since there’s plenty of beautiful women about, some of the humor will be derived from a dire lack of fabric. The cast comprised of some of Spain biggest stars and young talent. It had a catchy yé-yé theme song that remains popular to this day and it pushes a strong women’s lib message as many of continental European productions did in the early 1970s. However, Las Ibéricas F.C.’s reputation as some of the worst Spanish comedy isn’t unfounded…

Las Ibéricas F.C. tells, if not the true story, at least a story of the first Spanish all-women soccer team. The real Las Ibéricas F.C. was RCD Espanyol Femenino, a national all-woman team formed by Rafael Muga around 1970. The team was not recognized in official capacity as soccer was considered an unsuitable sport for women by the Royal Spanish Football Federation and the National Movement’s Women’s Section. In 1971 RFEF (Real Federación Española de Fútbol) president José Luis Pérez-Paya stated, “I’m not against women’s football, but I don’t like it either. I don’t think it’s feminine from an esthetic point of view. Women are not favored by wearing shirt and trousers. Any regional dress would fit them better echoing the patriarchal norms of the day. Contact sports were forbidden in Spain during the nearly 40-year fascist regime of Francisco Franco (from 1939 to 1975). They required a strength that was deemed masculine and thus clashed with the fragility of the feminine ideal as envisioned by government sanctioned National Catholicism. Practitioners of the sport were condemned as sinners and it was disapproved of by Franco’s Youth Front. The sports were considered inappropriate for women as under the National Catholicism guidelines their roles were strictly traditional, confined to those of child-rearing, family care, and motherhood. In other words, Iberian women’s right to self-determination were anything but common in 1970.

Pedro Masó was a Spanish director, screenwriter and producer who initially got his start as an actor in Sáenz de Heredias' El Escándalo/The Scandal (1943). He parlayed that into working behind the scenes in minor capacities through 1953. He started writing scripts and was soon promoted to production manager. In 1958 he wrote the screenplay for the Rafael J. Salvia comedy Las chicas de la Cruz Roja/Red Cross Girls which provided him with the opportunity to produce more domestic comedies for different companies. Having amassed the necessary experience Masó found his own production company Pedro Masó P.C. in 1961. Masó specialized in comedies most of which were directed by Pedro Lazaga and found great commercial success in the years that followed. One of Masó’s protégées was Javier Aguirre and he was responsible for discovering a young actor by the name of Javier Bardem. It wasn’t until the seventies that Masó sat in the directorial chair for Las Ibéricas F.C. (1971). Las Ibéricas F.C. is indeed memorable but mostly for all the wrong reasons. In the 1980s Masó’s cinematic output came to a crawl as he focused his energies on his lucrative career in television.

Ensemble casts are almost as old as Hollywood itself. An emsemble comedy will be broadly appealing to the masses, but it still is only as strong as its screenplay. Las Ibéricas F.C. is legendary. Legendary for all the wrong reasons, but legendary all the same. Where else are you going to see Rosanna Yanni, Ingrid Garbo, Claudia Gravy, Tina Sáinz, Puri Villa, María Kosty, Colette Giacobine, as well as José Sacristán, Antonio Ferrandis, and Luis Induni in the same movie? The cast is absolutely stellar and Las Ibéricas F.C. would have been a lot better had the screenplay been tighter. Whether Las Ibéricas F.C. is supposed to be protest against the patriarchal norms of the day, or a mere reflection of them, is never really clear through out. What is evident is that its legend as one of the worst Spanish comedies is not unfounded. For the most part Las Ibéricas F.C. is but a flimsy excuse for Masó to extensively shoot all of the lovely women’s legs, derriéres, and bellybuttons as its star players run and bounce around in short shorts and tight-fitting soccer shirts. The humour is seldom genuinely funny and it never aspires to anything but lowest common denominator chicanery. In its defense Las Ibéricas F.C. made Ingrid Garbo into a national sex symbol overnight. The theme song “Once Corazones” sung by Rosalía Garrido, one of the more popular yé-yé girls of the day together with Massiel and Karina, remains a staple in Spanish soccer to this day, and it was a fitting finale to a celebrated and loved yé-yé girl at her fin de carrière.

Don Gregorio (Antonio Ferrandis), a wealthy entrepreneur, has seen the lucrative potential of underground women soccer clubs that start to spring up across the country. Prescient of what the sport-loving citizenry wants he decides to put together his own all-women soccer team, Las Ibéricas F.C.. In order to give his newly-minted team the best chances of winning he hires trainer Bernardino (Manolo Gómez Bur, as Manuel Gómez Bur), masseur Bonilla (José Sacristán) and arbiter Agustín Miranda (Adriano Domínguez). After some selections the team consists of Chelo (Rosanna Yanni), Luisa (Ingrid Garbo), Menchu (Claudia Gravy), Julia (Puri Villa), Loli (Tina Sáinz), Piluca (Encarnación Peña Gómez, as La Contrahecha), Tere (María Kosty, as María Kosti) and unnamed supporting extras played by Colette Giacobine, Carmen León, Isabel Titilola García, and Luisa Hernán. Before long the Las Ibéricas are becoming a national sensation, and many of the girls find themselves becoming celebrities in the process. How will they deal with the success? Will they be able to overcome the patriarchal prejudices of their old fashioned parents - and will they marry the men they love? Las Ibéricas F.C. has all the answers, but none of it is particularly interesting.

In other words, Las Ibéricas F.C. features everybody that was somebody (and a few nobodies) in Spanish cinema. Rosanna Yanni was in The Mark Of the Wolfman (1968), Fangs Of the Living Dead (1969), Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973) (that also featured Ingrid Garbo) and The Amazons (1973). Claudia Gravy was in Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969), Adios Cjamango! (1972), The Nuns of Saint Archangel (1973) and Kilma, Queen Of the Amazon (1976). Tina Sáinz was in The Dracula Saga (1973) (as was María Kosty), as well as Colette Giacobine from Jess Franco's Nightmares Come at Night (1972). Apropos of nothing there's also Encarnación Peña Gómez (or La Contrahecha, as she’s popularly known), one of the country’s most famous bailaoras or flamenco dancers. It's a question for the ages why Silvia Tortosa, Betsabé Ruiz and Barbara Capell weren’t given a part in this.

The humour? So juvenile and daft that it would probably make Jing Wong happy. At the first try-out game the girls find out that the shorts are really, really short and that the tops barely cover their wealthy bosoms. Chelo, the designated matriarch of the team by no choice of her own, loves smoking cigars, and is continually and relentlessly chased by press mosquitos Emiliano (Luis Sánchez Polack, as Tip) and Antolín (José Luis Coll, as Coll). Luisa always attracts attention everywhere she goes, even if she’s pretty average as a soccer player. Her mother (Carmen Martínez Sierra) doesn’t like her playing soccer, and Luisa’s seeing a psychiatrist (Pedro Osinaga) to deal with her frustrations. Menchu, the queen bee of the team, is always adjusting her make-up. Loli, the youngest of the group and something of a tomboy, loves eating candy – and her mom faints each and every time she scores a goal. Luis (Simón Andreu) takes a liking to Loli. Piluca dances (and when she dances she goes and goes). Of course her old-fashioned father (Valentín Tornos) disapproves of her new hobby. The men universally and uniformly are either horndogs and/or idiots, exactly as you’d expect them to be in a lowbrow comedy like this. Two construction workers will stop at nothing to spy on the girls’ dressing room (unsuccesfully). Arbiter Agustín Miranda will whistle at the most minor of infractions, or regardless of actual faults. Meanwhile team masseur Bonilla is always looking for any and all excuses to feel up the girls. The supposed humor is offset by a far darker, and somewhat cynical tone reflecting the societal expectations of women at the time. The girls are constantly derided, ridiculed, and castigated for their hobby by anybody and everybody, be they authority figures or members of their own family. It’s exactly as groan-inducing, tedious and terribly unfunny as it sounds.

To its credit Las Ibéricas F.C. was clear proof that Rosanna Yanni, Claudia Gravy and Ingrid Garbo were indeed leading ladies that were capable of carrying entire productions. Of the supporting cast Tina Sáinz and María Kosty are the most recognizable as they would share the screen two years later on The Dracula Saga (1973). Sáinz, apparently forever the tomboy, has her own romantic subplot with Simón Andreu and judging from her performance here it’s no wonder she was eventually given the occasional lead part. Forever exploited for her innocence and tomboyish looks Sáinz’ Loli is an endearing character in what is probably the only plot worth following besides the Las Ibéricas F.C. rise to fame and fortune. Yanni and Gravy were experienced veterans by this point and their role as team matriarchs played up to their strengths. It was obviously aimed at the broadest audience possible as the inclusion of La Contrahecha evinces. Las Ibéricas F.C. is lowest common denominator comedy swill that not even an all-star cast like this could save from the terribly unfunny humor the screenplay revels in. Las Ibéricas F.C. is unfortunately maligned for all the right reasons. Claudia Gravy, Ingrid Garbo, María Kosty and Tina Sáinz all look good in soccer uniforms – but to base an entire feature around just that perhaps wasn’t the wisest decision after all. Every one of them had had starred in far better movies before turning up here.