Nostalgia Kinky

Nearly three decades ago, I was fortunate enough to meet maverick Spanish director Jess Franco and his key creative and life collaborator Lina Romay at the Chiller Film Expo and Convention in New Jersey. It was an incredibly exciting weekend for me. I was in my early 20s and it was the longest road trip I had ever taken alone. My girlfriend at the time had dropped out at the last minute, so I was on my own for the long drive between Kentucky and New Jersey. At the time I remember thinking that it would have been nice to have someone to share the trip with, but my own memories of it, even the car ride up listening to 12 hours of mostly Elvis Costello scrambling to read my road map while driving are some of my finest. This was after all the days before GPS, when none of us knew where we were going.

Still dazed from the road trip up, the weekend was a whirlwind of meeting everyone from Ingrid Pitt to Candy Clark and drooling over incredibly expensive uncut Japanese laser discs of films that I only had poor-quality VHS bootlegs of. I still recall holding a hundred-dollar gatefold copy of Fulci’s The New York Ripper, complete with an OBI strip wishing I had the money for it. My major score was getting a reasonably priced beautiful gatefold issue of Zulawski’s Possession which I still have.

The highlight of the weekend, of course, was meeting the great Franco and Romay. Ironically, I ended up standing in line with Craig Ledbetter, who operated my favorite mail-order company, European Trash Cinema. We recently lost Craig and I remain grateful I got to spend a few minutes chatting up the dude who had shipped me so many dupes of what would become favorite films. I particularly remember exclaiming to him how obsessed I was with The Pajama Girl Case, which I had recently received from him.

Just before the weekend, I had watched Franco’s Celestine, which featured one of Lina’s most underrated performances, so completely charming, humorous, and engaging. This performance provided me with such a contrast with her dark Female Vampire persona that I had become so used to that I was curious what she would be like in person. Happy to report that this dark Spanish Goddess was charming, warm, and radiated intelligence in person. I actually barely remember meeting Jess, who seemed charismatically irritated and tired, which I loved. It was interesting watching them together. If Jess seemed short with anyone, Lina would pull them back over with very sweet small talk, understanding that this rare meeting might have significance for film fans.

It was surreal having a moment with a true cinematic genius and iconoclast like Franco. Like his esoteric and wild body of work, an air of nonconformity surrounded him, and it was infectious. There was a charge in the room. The battle scenes he helped create for Orson Welles’ Chimes of Midnight and all those close-ups of Soledad Miranda’s face were zipping through my mind as I mumbled something stupid about liking his films. He promptly waved me off, signing a booklet while Lina pulled me back over, asking where I was from and what I did. She seemed amused that I ran a video store as I told her about some of the big-box Wizard Franco titles we had. A couple of more autographs later, the meeting was over and I got caught up in a conversation with Ledbetter about Jose Larraz. It was all so ideal…

The weekend has so much more added significance to me now that both Jess and Lina are gone…Ingrid Pitt as well. Meeting all so vivid in mind…my first of many film conventions…the first of many legends I have been so fortunate to spend a little time with.

-Jeremy Richey, Revised in 2023 from a December 19th, 2006 post I wrote for Moon in the Gutter-