Venus in Furs (1969 Franco film)

Venus in Furs
Italian theatrical release poster
Directed byJesús Franco
Produced byHarry Alan Towers
Starring
CinematographyAngelo Lotti[1]
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byFilmar (Rome)[1]
Release date
  • 19 August 1969 (1969-08-19) (Italy)
Running time
92 minutes
Countries
  • Italy
  • West Germany

Venus in Furs (Italian: Paroxismus) is a 1969 film directed by Jesús Franco. The plot involves jazz musician Jimmy Logan, who becomes obsessed with a mysterious fur-clad Wanda, later finding her dead body washed up on the beach. The film stars James Darren, Barbara McNair, Maria Rohm and Klaus Kinski.

The film was one of the many productions Franco had made with film producer Harry Alan Towers. While earlier material produced with Towers leaned towards more pulp-oriented material such as The Blood of Fu Manchu (1969), Venus in Furs was more related to what academic Tatiana Pavlović described as sexploitation-related material.[2] The film began shooting on October 1, 1968 and was first screened in Italy on August 19, 1969.

When the film was released in the United States as Venus in Furs, the version varied greatly from Paroxismus, being edited by distributors at American International Pictures. This version is what is seen on most releases since. In Italy, the film prints were confiscated after Italian courts found the film in " ‘complicity in an obscene spectacle"[3]

  1. ^ a b c Thrower 2015, p. 185.
  2. ^ Pavlović 2018, p. 120.
  3. ^ Thrower 2015, p. 195.