The Devil Came from Akasava

Devil Came from Akasava, The (1971)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Fred Williams and the beautiful Soledad Miranda star in this campy film that tries to pay homage to your 60's spy movies. A mineral, which can kill and then bring the dead back to life, is stolen so it's up to the Secret Agents (Williams/Miranda) to get it back before more trouble breaks out. Sadly, Miranda died just after finishing this film, which was shot at the same time as Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy. Both of them films are a lot better but Miranda turns in a good performance here, which makes her death all the more sad since it's clear she would have had a great future. The film itself is meant to be campy but it just didn't make me laugh. I also thought the story was rather poorly written, which is another reason I couldn't stay entertained. Howard Vernon, Paul Muller and Franco himself have roles as well. This film is mainly recommended to those who need to see every Miranda film but her other Franco's films are a lot better.

This is a kind of a silly spy spoof like the ones that were big in Europe at the time. Jess Franco did any number of them ("Kiss Me Monster", "The Girl from Rio"). It also might by be loose adaptation of an Edgar Wallace mystery, which were really big in Germany where the film was produced (although more likely it's based on a work of his much less talented son, Bryan Edgar Wallace). The story involves a bunch of characters all chasing after this mineral a murdered professor has discovered that can apparently do everything from waking up patients in narcoleptic comas to turning worthless metals into gold. The mineral is really a "McGuffin" though, in fact, the whole plot is pretty much a McGuffin. The real fun to be had is watching all these bizarre characters crossing and double-crossing each other.

Franco regulars Paul Muller and Howard Vernon are on hand, the latter playing a pretty unconvincing hired assassin. Ewa "Vampyros Lesbos" Stromberg also has a small role, but she keeps her clothes on this time. My favorites though are the lead villains--a husband who is apparently confined to a wheelchair and his prim, matronly wife who wields a mean sword cane! The real reason to watch this movie though can be summed up in two words: Soledad Miranda. Soledad Miranda had what the French (and a a lot non-French pseudointellectual types)called "je ne sais qoi" (basically "I don't know what"). She was very beautiful, standing out even among the many beautiful actresses Franco worked with. She was also talented having made many movies before she started working with Franco. She was always willing to take her clothes off and display her beautiful body, but she was classier and much less unabashedly exhibitionistic than her successor Lina Romay (who probably should have been more "abashed" about doing hardcore porn or letting Franco practically explore her colon with his zoom lens). Maybe it was because she died tragically young. She was always a sexy but ethereal actress whose erotic presence haunted even silly, nonsense movies like this.

As his fans know, Franco himself as director had a certain "je ne sais qoi" with some of his films. (With others though it was more like "je ne sais why the hell I am watching this crap!"). He's especially zoom-happy in this movie, but it actually works pretty well with the frenetic, pop-art style plot. It's not a great movie by a long shot, but the movies Franco did with Soledad Miranda are all pretty special, even the slightest ones like this.

Soledad Miranda plays a British spy in this movie and is not believable in the slightest; but thank God she is in it because if she weren't, this Krimi-style James Bond send-up would have been a complete dead loss. This movie is rather strange all round. It's based on an Edgar Wallace story and therefore is shot in the same style as the popular Krimi films from the sixties and seventies; but it's directed by Jess Franco, who is more famous for his trashy euro-exploitation flicks, and it takes obvious influence from James Bond; although the suave spy featured here is a sexy female. The plot is complete nonsense of course and focuses around some mineral that has been discovered by some researchers. It has unique properties; it can turn ordinary metal into gold and...wait for it...humans into zombies. Naturally this mineral becomes pretty sought after and it is soon stolen. Shortly thereafter, Scotland Yard sends spies to investigate its disappearance and stop whoever has stolen the mineral.

Soledad Miranda made a handful of films with Jess Franco before her untimely death in 1970; and it's unfortunate really that this had to be one of them. She was in her element in films like She Killed in Ecstasy and Eugenie De Sade, whereas here she's out of her element and it's not really a very good performance. One of the most noticeable things about this film is the score. It's groovy and entertaining, but it's also constant and it does become a bit grating after a while. The madcap plot starts to wear thin rather quickly also and to be honest I was getting bored long before the movie ended. The whole zombie plot might make you believe that there'd be some horror element to the movie, but this is hardly touched on...although that might be a good thing as the quality of this production is very low even without that. It all bubbles up some stupid conclusion that fits the movie well. Overall, The Devil Came from Akasava is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. Soledad fans will of course want to track it down, however, and it is worth seeing just for her.

This film begins with a man by the name of "Joao" (Antonio Padilla) discovering an extremely valuable crystal which has the potential to turn ordinary metal into gold. It is also highly radioactive and unless a person takes extreme precautions will either kill or severely debilitate him into a shell of his former self. To that extent, as soon as Joao emerges from the cave carrying a lead-lined box he is shot and severely wounded by an unnamed assailant. Even so he manages to get back to his workplace but is subsequently murdered by that same person when his boss "Professor Forrester" (Angel Menendez) temporarily leaves his side to find medical help. Not long after that Professor Forrester also goes missing and the box containing the stone is stolen. The scene eventually shifts to the professor's nephew "Rex Forrester" (Fred Williams) boarding an airplane from London to a tropical region known as the Akasava to search for him. Following him at a distance is an agent for the British Secret Service named "Jane Morgan" (Soledad Miranda) who is also investigating the disappearance of Professor Forrester and the murder of his assistant. But what neither Rex nor Jane realize is that they are being closely followed by several different people who each have their own agendas. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a mediocre James Bond clone which not only lacked the suspense necessary for a film of this type but also stretches any sense of realism beyond the breaking point as well. It does, however, have two beautiful actresses in Ewa Stromberg (as "Ingrid Thorrsen") and the aforementioned Soledad Miranda who has several semi-nude scenes throughout the film to keep things somewhat interesting. But that's about all it had going for it. That being said, while this may not have been a great spy film by any means, it wasn't necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

If you´re an admirer of Jess Franco and the unforgettable Soledad Miranda, who died shortly after the production of this film, which has been produced back to back with Vampyros Lesbos and Sie tötete in Ekstase, in which she starred also, this one´s definitely a must-see. Everything in this movie is adorable (besides gorgeous Soledad, who is credited as Susann Korda): the plot (hilarious secret agent/conspiracy stuff), the actors (watch out for Horst Tappert), the production values (you might remember from Vampyros Lesbos) and, of course, the unbelievable groovy 70s soundtrack. It´s got everything you wish from a typical Jess Franco movie. And if you haven´t seen one yet, this is a good one to begin with.