Two Undercover Angels

As Tim Lucas has pointed out, Jess Franco has made some of the best and some of the worst of European exploitation. The man made so many films that the majority fall somewhere in between, usually falling on the negative side of the spectrum. Two Undercover Angels is one such film. On the plus side are a terrific soundtrack, some good photography, and the occasional moment of genuine Franco lunacy. The downside: everything else. That the storyline is a mishmash of genres wouldn't be so important if Franco knew what kind of spirit or tone he wanted to aim for. The editing alternates between avant-garde and sloppy. But absolutely inexcusable are the English-language script and the dubbing. I have a high tolerance for much of the Franco dialogue that some critics refer to as "relentless and risible," but this was too much even for me. The banality of the dialogue seems inherent to the material: the dubbing-script translation makes matters worse by making much of it incoherent. As far as the technical aspects of the dubbing are concerned, there are repeated scenes in which characters speak but the actors' lips don't move. While not a disaster, this is a far cry from such amazing fare as She Killed in Ecstasy and The Bloody Judge.