The Bloody Judge (1970)

History and cinema have always had a fraught relationship, with the medium always insisting that factual fidelity play second fiddle to entertainment when it comes to making feature films based around real events and persons.  Which is understandable - we're talking about an art form where the primary focus should always be dramatic satisfaction for the audience, rather than trying to give them a history lesson.  Besides, more often than not, films which try to be scrupulously accurate with regard to historical fact are pretty dull because, well, reality generally isn't dramatic in the way that cinema needs to be.  All of which brings me, in roundabout fashion, to Jesus Franco's The Bloody Judge (1970) - released by AIP in the US as Night of the Blood Monster - a film purportedly portraying the life of the notorious Judge Jeffries (Christopher Lee), one time Lord Chancellor of England, against the background of the Monmouth uprising.  The end result, however, has less to do with either historical fidelity or dramatic licence than it has with financial expediency.  Bloody Judge is one of the movies Franco made for nomadic producer Harry Alan Towers, (during this period Towers was effectively 'on the run' from authorities in several countries, variously accused of espionage and living off of immoral earnings amongst other things), which were, in effect, international co-productions, with complex finance deals underpinning them.  This latter aspect, as Franco himself noted in interviews, meant that the productions were inevitably shaped by the demands of the various financiers as much as by any artistic vision.  On the simplest level, it resulted in having a certain number of actors, for instance, of a particular nationality to satisfy financiers from that country.  Or, it might dictate the use of locations in certain countries to satisfy other financiers.  

But the need to satisfy individual backers could also influence the final shape of a film itself:  Bloody Judge might well have started life as a lurid historical drama, but the finished film seems to be trying to satisfy several different demands from different backers: some seemed to want a sex film with plenty of female nudity, others a gory horror film, while another group seemed determined to cash in on the popularity of Witchfinder General (1968).  Inevitably, the final product doesn't satisfy as any of these things, with the various elements jarring against each other and frequently leading the narrative off down sub-plots that never really come to anything.  Characters seem to vanish for long periods as the narrative switches to other sub-plots and the historical under-pinnings of the plot are poorly and confusingly related.  The witch-hunting sub-plot is the most jarring, its subject matter an ill-fit: by by 1685, when the film is seemingly set, witch-hunting in England was, as far as I'm aware, pretty much a thing of the past.  Certainly, I don't believe there is a record of Jeffries ever presiding over any trials for witchcraft.  But it provides an opportunity to insert some scenes of dungeons where naked women are brutally tortured, not to mention giving a reason fro leading lady Maria Rohm to be stripped and variously abused in a sexually provocative manner.  In an attempt to more firmly embed this sub-plot into the historical plot, we have the rebels consulting and being guided by a local 'wise woman' or white witch, representing the 'old ways' which are being suppressed by the establishment, (which was rather reminiscent of one of the plot threads of the contemporary Vincent Price vehicle Cry of the Banshee (1970)).  

The sex film aspects of the production are also inserted, somewhat awkwardly, into the story, with Jeffries abusing his position to obtain sexual favours of the women brought before his court.  Apart from the fact that there seems to be no historical record of the real Jeffries being such a lecher, the centrepiece of this sub-plot - Jeffries' ravishing of Rohm - has obviously been inserted into the film after the main production had been completed.  At the crucial moment, when we see Rohm, naked, in Jeffries' bed, all we see of him is a hand, variously groping her, a hand which pretty obviously doesn't belong to Christopher Lee, (one can't really imagine Lee ever agreeing to shoot such a sequence, hence the use of a 'hand double' in a scene probably filmed after he'd completed the rest of his filming and inserted into the middle of the sequence where Rohm is brought to his chambers).  When it comes to the historical aspects of the film, Lee gives a typically professional performance as Jeffries, doing his best to lift the character above the status of one-dimensional pantomime villain.  He is, however, undermined by a script that never properly develops the character - its most promising aspect, the idea that Jeffries' insulates himself from any moral responsibility for what happens to those he sentences in jail by ensuring he has no knowledge of how these institutions are actually run, is never fully explored.  It is eventually dismissed in throwaway fashion at the film's climax as an imprisoned Jeffries must now face the same fate as those he had himself sent down.  The real Jeffries, of course, was a complex character, known for his irascible and frequently outrageous court room conduct, his partisan interpretations of the law, his loyalty to Charles II and eccentric judgements.  Most of his popular notoriety rests upon his conduct of the 'Bloody Assizes' which dealt with those involved in the Monmouth Rebellion - most were sentenced to hang.  But the film passes over this incident lightly, preferring to focus on the sex, torture and blood of its sub-plots.

Even taking into account that Jesus Franco was a director who rarely allowed little things like plot or narrative coherence to stand in the way of striking visuals and bizarre incident, The Bloody Judge presents a disjointed narrative.  But, in fairness, this time around this has more to do with the script and Towers' chaotic production financing than anything else.  As discussed earlier, the script was clearly designed to satisfy the requirements of international financiers - most of whom probably weren't even aware that Jeffries was a real historical figure, any more than they would have known what the Monmouth rebellion was or when it occurred - rather than to produce a cinematic portrait of a controversial historical personage.  Franco is also hampered by a limited budget, which renders some of the film's set pieces, (notably the confrontation between the rebel forces and the King's army, which, I presume, is meant to represent the Battle of Sedgemoor), somewhat underwhelming.  The script's telescoping of history, (William of Orange's arrival and the 'Glorious Revolution' seem to come hard on the heels of Monmouth's defeat at Sedgemoor - in reality they happened three years later), robs the film of any sense of historical progression.  While the locations used look great and are well-used by Franco, they look nothing like the West of England, (having been filmed in Spain).  Then again, the film's sense of geography is shaky, with Leo Genn playing  'Lord Wessex' and much of the action taking place in the 'County of Wessex', (Wessex was the ancient Kingdom of the West Saxons, it was never a county - judging by the film's dialogue, its 'Wessex' seems to correspond loosely with the real County of Wiltshire).  Yet, despite all of these problems, I have to say that The Bloody Judge ranks as one of the better films that Franco made for Harry Allan Towers.  In spite of a low budget, production values are decent, Christopher Lee and the rest of the cast give the best performances they can from a confused script and Franco himself is relatively restrained in his direction.  That said, he can't resist zooming in om Maria Rohm's nipples in trademark fashion, during her bedroom scene with the phantom hand.