Blood and Roses

Blood and Roses (French: …Et mourir de plaisir (Le sang et la rose), lit. ‘…And die of pleasure (The blood and the rose)’) is a 1960 erotic horror film directed by Roger Vadim. It is based on the novella Carmilla (1872) by Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, shifting the book’s setting in 19th-century Styria to the film’s 20th-century Italy. This film was conceived in both French and English-language versions, with the principal actors shooting their scenes in both languages.

Plot

Set in the modern day at a European estate, Carmilla is torn emotionally by the engagement of her friend Georgia to her cousin Leopoldo. It is hard to tell for whom she has the strongest unrequited emotions. During the masquerade ball celebrating the upcoming marriage, a fireworks display accidentally explodes some munitions lost at the site in World War II, disturbing an ancestral catacomb. Carmilla wearing the dress of her legendary vampire ancestor wanders into the ruins, where the tomb of the ancestor opens slowly. Carmilla returns to Leopoldo’s estate as the last guests depart. Over the next few days she proceeds to act as though possessed by the spirit of the vampire and a series of vampiric killings terrorize the estate.

Cast

Mel Ferrer as Leopoldo De Karnstein

Elsa Martinelli as Georgia Monteverdi

Annette Vadim as Carmilla

René-Jean Chauffard as Dr. Verari

Marc Allégret as Judge Monteverdi

Alberto Bonucci as Carlo Ruggieri

Serge Marquand as Giuseppe

Gabriella Farinon as Lisa

Renato Speziali as Guido Naldi

Edith Peters as The Cook

Giovanni Di Benedetto as Police Marshal

Carmilla Stroyberg as Martha

Nathalie LeForet as Marie

Production

Blood and Roses was filmed at Hadrian’s Villa in Italy.

Release

Blood and Roses was released in France on 14 September 1960. It was released in Rome in January 1961 under the title Il sangue e la rosa. It was also released in the United States in September 1961.

Thus far the only DVD of Blood and Roses is a 2014 German release featuring the original French-language version and a German-language dub with optional English subtitles.

Reception

In a contemporary review Monthly Film Bulletin noted that “despite the elegance and beauty of the backgrounds in and about Hadrian’s Villa” and “Claude Renoir’s Tehnicolor-Technicrama photography, this expensive attempt at an art horror film is nothing short of a travesty-both of the genre and LeFanu’s marvellous short story.” The review noted that the film was “awkward and pedantic” and that the “vampire story is ruined by leaden dialogue, stridently dubbed, and by the sometimes bathetic acting” and that the “film suffers badly from comparison with Dreyer’s much freer adaptation of the story, Vampyr.”

The March 1962 issue of the pro-gay magazine ONE noted that “We hear the latest fad for some gay girls after seeing the spook vampire movie with a lesbian lilt, Blood & Roses, is to tattoo two little marks above the jugular. Wanta neck?”

See also

List of French films of 1960

List of horror films of 1960

Lesbian vampire

Vampire film

References

External links

Blood and Roses at IMDb

Blood and Roses at Rotten Tomatoes