SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Nigel P With a title like that, and a director like Jess Franco, it's fairly sure that there will be a certain amount of sleaze in this film. I didn't realise how much - in many ways this is his most perverse project. 15 year-old Maria Rosalea Coutinho (Sarah Hemmingway) is spied enjoying a playful kiss and cuddle with a local lad by Father Vincente (William Berger), who then manipulates Mariah's terrified mother into forcing her into life at a convent. Vincente then brings himself to orgasm at the confessional booth after coercing Maria into telling of her mild sexual fumblings.Many raised eyebrows were caused by the casting of Hemmingway, who looks extremely young, and who is tricked, coerced, tortured and humiliated by the hordes of liars, sycophants, perverts and manipulators around her, most of whom cloak their blatant indiscretions behind the veil of their perception of religion.As you might well imagine, there are lesbian scenes between the nuns, complete with dialogue like "You have served the prince of darkness, now I will perform the ritual." These are restrained for Franco, and frankly rather too long. It is the treatment of young Maria which is most effective - a pure innocent who has been cast amongst this nest of vipers because of what they consider to be HER bad attitude! It's not nice at all. Especially as the unpleasant events are conveyed without spectacle, either by Franco, or the benign choral score from Walter Baumgartner.As with all Franco/Erwin C. Dietrich collaborations, this is crisply shot and appears to have been provided with a decent budget. As always, the locations are incredible. An exercise in 'nunsploitation', the use of religion as a veneer of respectability is effective, and Hemmingway appears so naive with her character offering barely any resistance to the horror she finds herself in (excepting her pleas to a mother too stupid/timorous to help). Even Satan appears to join in with the black mass being practiced. Berger is highly convincing as Father Vincente, effortlessly bending others unto his will and gleefully taking advantage of Maria. You get the distinct impression he and others like him are used to getting away with these kind of atrocities and bare them no thought. Even through the barrier of dubbing, it is very easy to despise this rotter. Of all Franco's output, I find this film one of the most difficult to watch.

BA_Harrison Father Vicente (William Berger) catches pretty 15-year-old Maria (Susan Hemingway) flirting with her boyfriend, and has her sent to a convent where he can keep a closer eye on her. No sooner than she is cloistered, Maria is subjected to abuse, ultimately being forced to take part in a Satanic orgy, Vicente and the nuns all being followers of the devil (who makes a special personal appearance to take Maria's virginity!).I admit it: sometimes—okay, quite a lot of the time—I'm just not in the mood to labour over a really in-depth and informative movie review, and am just happy to rattle off some old rubbish to get it out of the way. I imagine this is how director Jess Franco must have tackled a lot of his films… just get the bloody thing in the can and start the next one. Sod the quality!Not so, however, with Love Letters From A Portuguese Nun, which feels like the director actually tried to make something a little more stylish than his usual dross: the locations and scenery are beautiful, the cast are half decent (there's no Lina Romay, whose 'beauty' I simply cannot comprehend), and the cinematography is classier than usual (fewer rapid zooms and out of focus shots). Hell, even the title is fancy schmancy.Unfortunately, at the end of the day, behind this semblance of style, it's business as usual for Franco, his film ultimately being another predictable slice of sleaze, with the vaguest of plots to string together the obligatory scenes of lesbianism, masturbation, orgies and torture, all of which eventually gets very boring. As Franco films go, this is far from his worst, but there are far better nunsploitation films out there (School of the Holy Beast and Sister Emanuelle spring to mind).

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Die Liebesbriefe einer portugiesischen Nonne" or "Love Letters from a Portuguese Nun" is a Swiss / West German collaboration and the film is in German language. The year is 1977, so this one will have its 40th anniversary next year. The director is Jesús Franco and he is known for his violent, pornographic works from that era back then. So this one here is all about a nun who ends up in a monastery where almost nobody seems to be a really devout Christian believing in the Old or New Testament. Or maybe they believe too much in it as the entire 90-minute film is basically about punishing the nun for her dirty thought, even if these were just a dream while all the males in here have dirty thought about her of course too, no matter if they are priests. I must say I am a bit shocked that there actually exists an own genre about nun exploitation films. My innocent mind had never thought of something like that before. The lead actress here is Susan Hemingway and it is her first performance. A couple others (also in Franco films) followed before she ended her acting career fairly quickly. Judging from what I saw here, this is perfectly fine. I can't really see a whole lot of talent that goes beyond her beautiful looks. This is not a failure, but not a good film either. I give it a thumbs-down.

Dr. Orloff Jess Franco's "Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun" is the perfect film to show anyone who thinks all that Jess Franco is capable of is zooming in and out of tasteless sex scenes. Instead of his usual epileptic zooms, the cinematography in this is measured and carefully composed. The acting is also another plus. William Berger's portrayal as the Father Confessor is the epitome of slime and pretense. Let's not forget Susan Hemingway and her effortless performance as the innocent heroine of the title. In closing, this is a MUST-SEE picture and proof that Franco could make a film that would cater to the arthouse crowd.