DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES (LA MUERTE SILBA UN BLUES)
dir. Jesús Franco, 1962
Spain. 81 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

Set in New-Orleans but filmed in Spain, DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES was Jess Franco’s sixth feature film which served as an early love letter to jazz music (Jess cameos as a sax player and composes the score) and American film noir. Crammed with nightclubs and double-crossers, DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES is stitched together by a jazzy number called Blues del Tejado, performed as motif and entangled with pulpy violence and chiaroscuro cinematography.

This early crime film, which remains an oddity for Jess Franco-philes, is also notable as the first film to use the “Al Pereira” character who would later pop up in many Franco films over the following decade.