Jesús in Furs

My original idea had been...

to make an unreal love story...

between a black trumpet player...

and a beautiful white girl...

who would be almost unreal...

who does not really exist anywhere...

except in the trumpeter's mind.

In fact, the origin of this story was a conversation I had...

in Paris one night with Chet Baker.

He said, ''When you're playing a solo...

''you're inspired. By something.

''It could be someone you love, or someone that's there.

''And you play on...

''and you get the impression that you're living something unreal.

''Love stories you've never really had...

''or experiences...

''that are superb and dreamlike.

''And you get a feeling like when they say...

''a drowning man sees his whole life...

''all his desires, everything...

''flash before his eyes.

''Then the solo's over and you raise your head...

''and barely three minutes have passed.

''I am always thrown when this happens.

''I feel like...

"I've got to get out of this game...

''and go live these amazing emotions and experiences.

"And then the same idiot's sitting in front of you...

"either listening or not, and nothing's happened.

"Except inside of you."

And I thought this idea was amazing.

The film was called Black Angel...

which I thought was a very nice title for the film.

So I wrote the script together with Harry.

And we finished. Great, this is what we're going to do.

Then problems began...

because, in principle, it was the story of a black musician.

I had in mind for the musician...

much more Miles Davis than Chet Baker.

The story of his desires...

was much more comprehensible...

if the musician was black...

because at the time...

black musicians were much more ostracized...

from society than white musicians.

And so the fact that the black trumpeter...

should have love fantasies, never real...

about a white goddess...

worked.

But the producers wouldn't allow it because they said:

"The American public are not ready to see...

"a black man and a white woman in bed."

But the thing is they were fine with...

a white man sleeping with a black woman.

But never...

a black man...

sleeping with a white woman.

Because it's a shame on her race.

You understand, of course, she might bear a black child!

Impossible!

But once a black man couldn't sleep with a white woman...

there was no longer a story.

So we had to rewrite and tell another story.

So these were the first blows...

to the project I had in mind.

The only thing I could try from that point on...

was to create a relationship...

like Chet Baker might have had...

with one of his black mistresses.

Mistresses, flings, whatever you want to call them.

And so I dug in and did my best...

to stay as close as possible to the original idea...

that I'd had based on Chet Baker's story...

he'd told me in a Paris club one night.

We got Manfred Mann...

who was at the start of his career then...

and his band.

And his band were excellent.

And although I didn't know Manfred Mann personally...

once I got to know him...

he's like a lot of rock or pop musicians...

who are important and serious.

They are jazz musicians.

For example, when we were shooting, he'd be here...

and we'd have a half hour break for lights...

and he'd start to play Thelonious Monk.

He wasn't playing, I don't know, Petula Clarke.

He'd play Thelonious Monk and others like that.

That is to say modern jazz.

And he knew it well.

Plus, he was a real musician...

not like so many of these jokers...

in pop and rock these days.

So the problem, as usual, with Harry...

was that it was a co-production between 60 or 65 countries.

So we had to have ltalian actors...

and who knows what else.

But in this case it was...

a very intimate story with three characters...

and the others were just small roles.

In these roles, I couldn't care less...

if they were French or Italian or Chinese.

Maybe not, because there was no role for an Oriental.

But the rest, fine.

And we shot the film...

in Italy, in Rome.

We started in Rome.

Then we went on to Marbella.

We also shot a lot of stuff in Istanbul.

Then we shot a little in a studio...

in Barcelona.

We did a few scenes in Barcelona...

because there were things...

that began to appear during the shoot...

that were the ideas...

of the AIP people...

who wanted the film to be Venus in Furs.

They had already talked to me about Venus in Furs, and I knew the novel well.

And I said, "Sure, of course."

But they wanted this film that we were shooting to be Venus in Furs.

So I thought to myself...

"I'm making the film, I'm not changing it now."

I only accepted that in the imaginary world...

of the trumpeter's mind...

this woman...

would appear once or twice at the top of the staircase...

and take a few steps wearing animal fur...

and do a couple of things like that.

But no more. I would not do more.

Because it was out of place.

No, they simply wanted Venus in Furs on the poster...

and to have a photo of Maria Rohm...

with the fur coat dragging on the ground.

And with that they won...

this little battle about nothing.

So the production office gave me a short list...

of actors, based on their box office.

So the first name on their list...

was James Darren.

James Darren was an actor that I liked...

because I had seen him in an American series...

and I also knew him from...

The Guns of Navarone.

So James Darren.