Las chicas del tanga (1987) - Jesús Franco-Erotica Films

03/03/19

Las chicas del tanga (1987) - Jesús Franco

LAS CHICAS DEL TANGA
Prod Co : Manacoa films (S) Dir : Rosa Almirall (= Lina Romay) DP : Juan Soler Sc : Jesus Franco Mus: Fernando Garcia Morcillo Head of Prod : José A. Mayans M-U : Juana de la Morena Asst Cam : Francisco Beringola
With : Lina Romay (Lola Claviro), Eva Leon (Lola’s secretary), Silvia Montez (= Muriel Montossé / Muriel), Analia Ivars (the figure skater), Juana Plaza (mother of the girls), Gina (Charro, the transvestite), Antonio Mayans ("Artesani"), Juan Cozar (Felix, DDutch tourist), Agustin Gil (Paco, bodybuilder bouncer), José Llamas (a playboy), Ramon R.Garci, Flavia Hervas, Vanessa de la Morena
Fujicolor, 81mns

Benidorm is a gigantic tourist complex located on the Spanish coast getting overrun each year by pretty girls vacationing from all over Europe, and spanish playboys on the prowl for lonely tourists. LAS CHICAS DEL TANGA draws us into the lives of some of these characters, sharing with us their joys, brief love affairs, hopes and despair within this tourist trap.

Thus, we are acquainted with a rather old-fashioned but eminently sympathetic spanish playboy; with Muriel, a pretty French tourist suffering from an incurable illness and who will probably love for the last time; and with Lola Clavino, a cabaret artist, who has come to Benidorm accompanied by her strict secretary, wishing to forget the weight of the years and a recent heartbreak.

We also meet Felix, a dutch student in architecture who is properly fascinated by the extreme ugliness of the futuristic tourist complex; Paco, a bouncer who takes in a prostitute whom he falls in love with before finding out that she’s a transvestite; and the mother of two small girls searching for her husband who left her four years earlier and is now hiding under the guise of a transvestite and working in a nightclub.

These futile but very human destinies cross paths within this artificial paradise which dies a little every year after all the tourist has departed.

“Benidorm is Saint Tropez for losers. There are at least fifteen transvestite shows, cheap playboys… The movie is almost a documentary.”
(J.F.)

LAS CHICAS DEL TANGA is another movie that is set apart from other works by the Franco-Romay couple. This is undeniably a movie from the heart that aims for commercial success under the veneer of light comedy, hiding tons of sweetness for this touching ensemble of losers that we get to know for about forty-eight hours of their lives – the realities, hopes, sadnesses and small pleasures of these highly sensitive and maladjusted beings, some of whom exhibit involuntarily monstrous behavior.

The cast is uniformly excellent, headed by Antonio Mayans as a middle-aged playboy pathetically hitting on the character of Muriel Montossey who has never been as good as in the role of this french tourist, a slightly offbeat girl cruelly hit by fate.

Jess’ usually careful directing is evident here as well, and he obviously aims for a wide audience with this movie which is one the Franco-Romay couple’s most realistic outings.
The story finds its essence in the everyday life of Benidorm, a place so perfectly nicknamed “Shit City” in LOS BLUES DE LA CALLE POP.

It is a movie which could only have been made by a bighearted director, a movie which is in turn funny, tender, touching and sad – just like life itself…

from Jess Franco ou les prosperites du bis
by Alain Petit