All language subtitles for Vampyros Jesús (English Subtitles)

It was just after I got
my contract with

Artur Brauner in Berlin.

Brauner was a...

he's still with us,
he's alive, a very rich man.

Very, very, very, very rich.

A third of Kurfurstendamm,
the big boulevard of Berlin,

a third of it
belongs to Brauner,

All the money you can imagine.

I did work for him
before a couple of times,

he was a minor co-producer
of some of my films,

like LUCKY THE INSCRUTIBLE.

We made VAMPYROS LESBOS
just after the Dracula film.

My Dracula.

Why?

Because I discovered
the vampire films

were a good element for
Soledad Miranda.

Because she was pretty,
she had fantastic eyes,

a big personality.

So with Artur Brauner we decided
to make one or two or three

or ten films with her.

Then the series was
interrupted when she died.

But the idea was...

the idea of Artur Brauner
was to make a film

each time more important,
you know,

adding elements —

just to arrive to make
a big, big film.

It was to be Der Postmeister,
the Puschkin novel.

Brauner's idea was to
do it with Soledad

and to change only one element

which was the climate
of the place

because in principal Der Postmeister

is supposed to be in the snow
in the north of Europe.

And she was to be the daughter
with a widowed man,

helping him to be alone.

And the idea was 50/50 Brauner
and me,

and was to arrive at the same
result but with hot weather.

You know, to put it in Mexico
in the desert of Sonora

or something like that.

The places were perfect and
the equivalents were fantastic.

So we decided to make first
two or three films with her

just to arrive to this quality

and then to make Der Postmeister.

And so we started
to do the first,

and I offered the possibility
to make VAMPYROS LESBOS.

It was a script with another title
I wrote some time before.

It's a proposal I made
to Brauner —

"If you want we can do
this kind of film",

and Brauner from the beginning
he was very hot about it,

saying, "Yes, yes, a very
good idea, we'll do it."

And with Brauner
it was very fun because

he's one of the best producers
I've worked with, that's for sure.

One of the most clever,

and knowing more about
the industry —

not only the industry but
the techniques of cinema,

and with very good taste and
also very good taste for actors.

From the beginning he fell
in love with Soledad.

"Oh my God, this is the future,

she can be a very big,
big, big star."

So he liked her
very, very, very much.

From the beginning,
Soledad was so nice.

She was so nice as a person.

Everybody was in love with her.

Everybody.

The director of photography,
everybody.

And the work was very
simple with her because

she was a very uncultivated girl
but with such a facility,

you know, to understand
and to feel things

that the result was
very good immediately.

She was very open minded
from the beginning,

from the first film that we...

the new times on the first film
I made with her

which was LA NUIT A LES YEUX.

In that film Soledad played
completely naked

and made sequences of sex —
simulated sex of course.

And she was very good.

The thing is she was
so sympathetic,

so open minded and so funny.

She had a smile that made
everyone fall in love with her.

Everybody.

Even the most difficult people
like Ewa Stromberg.

Ewa Stromberg was not
an easy woman

but with her she was in
love like everybody else.

Ewa Stromberg was a
Swedish actress,

not very good,

but very good physically
for the part because

I wanted to establish the
difference between

the real vampire and the one who is
as a matter of fact attracted

by this lesbian vampire.

But she doesn't
enter deeply in her.

The other one who is
for me a much more

intelligent actress was...

the thing is she filmed
I think as well as Soledad.

The only thing is that the part was
not as good as Soledad's one,

but otherwise she should be
completely a challenger

of Soledad's.

Heidrun Kussin was an actress
from East Germany,

from the Communist part
of Germany.

You know, that the theatre
there was fabulous.

The theatre based in the
Bertolt Brecht theatre,

my God,
was of wonderful quality.

We made, I think,
a nice work.

We started in Berlin,

then we came to the
south of Spain,

because the action is
supposed to happen

somewhere in a lost
corner of Spain.

But also we were some days
in Istanbul

because the story was placed
in an exotic corner of...

and I thought of Istanbul,
as it's a town that I like for cinema.

I think it's wonderful.

I wanted in principal to do
a co-production with Spain,

but General Franco
didn't let me do it.

He didn't agree.

So we made it in German,

a hundred percent German
production.

Again, like NECRONOMICON.

In this sense,
I must say now I have a duty

with the German authorities
and the German cinema.

Because without them,

probably not one of those films
would have been made.

But this is also
because they like vampires!

Don't forget that I came from the
cinema of the expressionist

and the expressionism always...

vampires are an element
of expressionism.

NOSFERATU for me is the
best of the vampire films.

In any kind:
the direction, the creation,

the light, everything.

I like people who were
involved in that film.

And what they did was
so creative I think.

It's a very creative movement,
the expressionism.

I think the best of all.

I will go even further:

I think without expressionism

the cinema would have been
dead a long time ago.

Because listen,

in principle British films
shouldn't be under the influence

of expressionism,

there's no reason why,
but they are.

When you see the first
20 minutes of David Lean's

OLIVER TWIST
or GREAT EXPECTATIONS,

my God,
it's pure expressionism.

I'm very happy because
I recognize my masters,

so I like it very much

and also understand why
they did it that way.

They were always very receptive,
the German guys,

to this kind of story,
bizarre and out of mind.

They have it in the blood,
I think.

I like the creatures
of the horror films.

Some of them I love.

I like mainly the vampire.
Why?

Because vampires are clever.

The vampires are strong.

You can believe
what vampires do.

For instance, if it as a kind
of zombie I don't like at all

because what the hell do
they do, the zombies?

They walk badly,

if someone goes POW
they fall into pieces,

so it's not serious.

But the vampires,
I believe in them.

Not in the real existence
of vampires

but as a literary element
I think it's very good.

And if this vampire
even being very bad but

is at the same time
a beautiful woman,

the film becomes much
more interesting, no?

It's why I made the fantastique
and I still make it,

because
"The children of the night',

as Bram Stoker said,

are very attractive
and very interesting.

As a matter of fact,

in the horror films,

if you've got some kind of
lesbian tendency —

"Carmilla", for instance.

As well as Sheridan Le Fanu,
even Bram Stoker's

got some lesbian elements
in his books,

because we talk about "Dracula"
but he wrote other things too.

Roger Vadim
got the idea to make a kind of

very clever and elegant version
of a vampire lesbian film.

But the result
I didn't like at all.

So the thing was,
I like vampires,

I like lesbian relations
between two women

because I think it's
much more beautiful,

the intercourse between
two lesbian girls.

So we started like that.

It was not important.

We never had the idea that the
film had to be very successful

or anything.

Just one more film.

Taking all the care we have to

because you have to love
the things you do.

It was my case and
the case of everybody else.

For Soledad it was a miracle
because she was 27, 28

when we made the film
and before

she made an important number
of films but very stupid films,

very Spanish films,
from Andalucia: "Ole, mi niña!"

So she wasn't happy about it.

Because she was a girl
without culture

because she knew nothing
about anything.

But she had a
fantastic intuition.

So she realized it was much more
important than all the films

she made before.

So she tried to do her best,
and she did.

In that moment
I got a very nice editor,

a German editor.

A woman,
very clever and she said,

"Who is making
the music for you?"

I said, "I don't know,
I don't know who."

"Listen, I want you to hear
some guys from here in Berlin,

because probably
you will like them,

and in this is the case we
can make an arrangement,

the editor told me,

"With them,
they will do for nothing.

Only for a percentage
of the rights."

I said, "Okay," and we went —

they were playing in a place
in Berlin called Red Rose,

a very nice club
with a lot of class

and I met Manfred Hubler
and Siegfried Schwab.

Siegfried was a
wonderful guitar player,

fantastic.

Spanish guitar, electric guitar,
any kind of guitar,

very good.

And Manfred Hubler
was a piano player,

arranger and things.

And we met,
the three of us together

and immediately I felt like they
were perfection for the film.

And they had all the ideas
for this music that,

as you know,
has been very successful.

And for them it was very
simple and very easy

because they were completely
in the same world.

So from the beginning it was
very simple to make an agreement

to work together.

But they made it by themselves.

I wasn't even there.

It was very simple.

They got all the
elements within.

So after the mix
we had to wait to see

how the audience
accepted or not,

this more or less
new kind of music,

a new kind of film.

But the audience was fantastic.

I like it more than
most of my films,

but it doesn't mean I love it.

I like the memory
of Soledad in it,

I like her
when I watch the film.

I like the atmosphere of the film
and nothing else.