Sometime in 1967, French cineastes witnessed a truly rare event. Fritz Lang, famous for his antipathy for erotic movies, attended a screening of a sex film called NECRONOMICON in Paris. He was accompanied by Howard Vernon, one of the film's leading men, whom Lang had befriended during their work together on THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE ["Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse," 1960]. Vernon dared Lang to see what he considered a little masterpiece, knowing perfectly well that Lang had walked out of every erotic film he had ever seen. Given this fact, it was quite something when Vernon saw the director still in his seat as the end titles started rolling! Lang then made an historic statement. He said that he considered NECRONOMICON a beautiful piece of cinema because it presented its erotic content with refined style, rather like an excursion into a slaughterhouse.

With its classy, surreal Lisbon locations, beautiful cinematography and elegant costumes by Karl Lagerfeld, NECRONOMICON certainly wasn't the usual skin-flick people might have expected to see at the time. It wasn't comedy, nor was it sleaze or camp. It was a darkly romantic fairy tale for adults, as provocative as it was ambitious.

"We had dwarfs, gorgeous women with leather whips, S&M stage shows, and daring scenes unknown to audiences of the time," says producer Pier A. Caminneci. "Somebody had to get the stone rolling." NECRONOMICON caused quite a fuss when the scandalous film premiered to a packed house at the Berlin Film Festival in 1967. When the film was retitled SUCCUBUS for its release in English-speaking countries, it became a smash hit all over the world. In a career of more than 150 films, it stands as director Jess Franco's most accomplished work, one of the few occasions where he was able to completely focus his talent and vision without losing himself in his personal obsessions and urge for making films. It displays the distinctive technique and affinity for brooding atmosphere so evident in Franco's previous films, while foreshadowing the weirdness and preference for strange eroticism and female domination which would characterize his work in subsequent years. With French actress Janine Reynaud, it was again a strong woman who took Franco's screen by storm. Her face, her movements and her "style" provided a blueprint for the strong, hot lethal women portrayed by Soledad Miranda and Lina Romay in Franco's later works.

Encouraged by the film's success, Pier A. Caminnecci and his partner Adrian Hoven retained the majority of NECRONOMICON's winning team for their subsequent productions. In HOW SHORT IS THE TIME FOR LOVE, Reynaud returned as the tempting spouse of a race driver who becomes involved in criminal activities. Officially credited to Caminecci himself, it is rumored that actor/director Michel Lemoine (also Reynaud's husband) actually helmed the shoot. In Ramon Comas' DEATH ON A RAINY DAY, a spicy, fast-paced semi-parody of the James Bond craze, Adrian Hoven battles the evil Dr. Kung and his wild bunch without forgetting the more joyful aspects of a super agent's life. And THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING, a sexy vampire comedy starring Ferdy Mayne (Count Orlock of THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS), found Hammer director Freddie Francis supervising the sucking of blood and other things. In the landscape of German production companies, Aquila Films was unique. Decidedly commercial on one hand, there was something else which did not really jibe with other representatives of the economic-miracle type of cinema in Germany. Aquila made films for the international market, with lots of fast cars, luxurious ladies, and sex and violence galore, and their films were made with class and style, full of strange influences and the sort of mischievous, subversive ideas that only an auteur like Franco and his international ensemble could have devised.

While none of Caminecci's other productions repeated the success of NECRONOMICON, they were all highlighted by the jazzy, surreal horrotica music of Dutch jazz composer Jerry Van Rooyen. In spite of the films' shoestring budgets, Van Rooyen's music did not merely support images with harmonies, but stood on its own as a labour of love. Haunting drums, brass horns, romantic violins, everything swirls together in a wild cocktail of swinging, prehistoric 60s acid-jazz.
After his work for Aquila, Van Rooyen never worked for films again. For the musician, it was a new experience into which he stumbled by chance. A dedicated jazz fan, Caminecci had bumped into Van Rooyen—then the leader of a prominent radio-orchestra in Germany—at a party and, after exchanging some ideas, hired him straight away. It was the best thing that could have happened to those films. As it is in life, the very best things are often purely accidental.