Venus in Furs, by Jesus (Jess) Franco, is pretty good. It's about a jazz trumpeter, played by James Darren, who finds a naked, dead woman washed up on the beach, and then things get weird.

It seems that Jimmy Logan recognizes the dead girl as Wanda Reed (Maria Rohm). In fact, he dimly recalls her murder - or did he dream it? Or is he dead himself? Welcome to 1969, where apparently this kind of hazy reality was, like, a reality.

Sometime after finding Wanda's body, Jimmy runs into...Wanda. Wait, isn't she dead? Who knows, man, but next thing anyone knows, the gang she was hanging with is joining her in the thereafter. Guys like art dealer Kapp (Dennis Price) and fashion photog Olga (Margaret Lee) and Klaus Kinski. Well, someone played by Klaus Kinski, but either way, weird.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's falling hard for Wanda, who - again - is probably dead. He likely isn't, because he has a girl named Rita (Barbara McNair), a singer in the combo wherein he jazz trumpets. And Rita can see Wanda, so it's not like Wanda appears only to Jimmy. So maybe Rita's dead too. It's not really important.

Visually speaking, this isn't a bad effort. And the score, particularly the jazz, is really cooking. James Darren isn't a bad actor. Also helping? The multiple naked women. I mean, they're in almost every scene.

"I tried not to remember why I buried my horn" his voice-over says, in a state close to euphoria he philosophies about things like this playing trumpet on a beach, then he travels to Rio de Janeiro. The voice-over follows throughout, always in the lingo of the time, while he is getting in the groove in a jazz band, making love to women and so on. All in all the music is the most important for this movie, together with the nudity of course. Drama is heightened by the frenzy of samba and slowed down by a few slow jams, but mostly the tune is post-bop.

Its sensual, hazy, surreal and a great film. Manfred Mann and Jesus Franco play in the jazz band. Klaus Kinski makes his menacing appearance and the girls are good looking and well acting, what more do you want?

Jazz musician Jimmy Logan finds the dead body of a beautiful girl Wanda Reed on the beach outside his home in Istanbul, a girl he recognizes from a party he was at the previous night. Jimmy is haunted by her vision and memories of how she was raped and tortured at the party and how he didn't step in to help. Two years later he is now living in Rio and finally has his musical career back on track, but he is stopped in his tracks when a woman who appears to be Wanda walks in to the club where he is playing, is it really her, can she still be alive or is it all a dream. Bizarre, trippy, love story with some Noir overtones, it has a fantastic jazzy score that creates a hypnotic mood, its beautifully filmed with a striking use of colour, touches of sadomasochism and lesbianism add even more to the mix, there's even time for a great twist or two at the end.