Review of Bolero (1984) by Tiffany F — 23 Jun 2010

"Live fast. Die young and leave a good looking corpse.?

Those are the words that made John Derek a young star from the film Knock On Any Door (1949). But he was a bit of a rebel who felt he had something to say but did not like the control of the studio system. At his acting peak, he turned down a lot more than he accepted. With this free time, he practiced writing screenplays and photography. He would soon have a real knack for capturing beauty and finding it, marrying Ursula Andress and later Linda Evans both of which were stars while married to him. In the 1960s, Derek began directing very small budget idiosyncratic films that he wrote directed and photographed. In the early 1970s, he filmed Fantasies in Greece and fell for his newest discovery, Mary Cathleen Collins who soon changed her name to Bo and married John a few years after the film wrapped. Fantasies went nowhere, desperate for cash, John was offered a million bucks to do a tv show but sold his house instead. Him and Bo traveled around and lived in a van. He even shot a porn film (Lovin You) to make a few bucks. Bo loved this time traveling around but they needed work. She went to a casting call for 10 (about a man?s obession with the perfect female), got the part and sudden fame. She turned down big offers (she did not feel comfortable being directed in starring roles, having never carried a film completely) for Sheena Queen of the Jungle and Brenda Starr. One day her husband said, People love the scene in 10, why don?t we do a small movie and just call it Bolero (a sex scene in 10 was very famous for using that piece of music). Out of half baked ideas, fine movies (sometimes) emerge.

Bolero (1984) opens in the 1920s, a theater showing The Sheik starring the most sexualized star of the time Rudolph Valentino. Lida MacGillivery (Bo) is turned on by the film. She is with her friend Catalina both are to graduate from private school tomorrow, Lida with a very large inheritance. She plans to use some of this inhertance and lose her virginty, find a sheik in Moracco.

But first, she graduates and after years of being prim and proper, she moons her dorm building as she is leaving.

This kind of scene has been done before in some 80s skinemax films but none of those followed that scene with a long affecting apology scene (0:05), Lida apologizing to her driver Cotton, who witnessed the display, for possibly offending him, and further still, George Kennedy likely would not have played the part in the other films (he adds a real gravitas to the proceedings). Additionally, most sexy films don?t bother with references to old Hollywood and its allure versus the reality of life. When Lida meets her sheik, he went to Oxford and cannot pick her up on a horse the way Valentino could. The sex scene between them played out on a big harem bed is played like a silent film (since it is Lida telling the story of what happened to Catalina and she relates it in this fashion) with title cards [Where is the milk and honey]. The sex scene is unerotic, the milk and honey is handled with drool, but the sheik, it turns out, is not the lover for her; he passes out from too much opium before they get started. She soon takes up with a bullfighter in Spain and the film disregards the Hollywood/reality track but it is picked up again toward the end of the film as the sheik reappears to try to kidnap her and take her in his plane. She jumps out of the plane and into the water in the best illogical silent actioneer like scene I ever saw.

Before I move onto the bullfigher, it is worth noting that the Valentino connection is also interesting because Bo was also seen as one of the most desirable in her time: after all in the film, she is kidnapped for love, given great gifts and able to make the bullfighter rise again after suffering impotence (hard to say if John Derek is using the sleepy sheik or the impotent fighter to represent himself, after all he was much older than Bo and with a heart condition, or if the more sturdy George Kennedy represents him. I do know that the themes or bullfighting, wine, machismo and good looks are very much a part of Derek?s persona so maybe he is the bullfighter and maybe Bo helped him to rise again, just a thought) from being gorged by a bull. All this is to say Bo equals beauty and her husband knows it and knows how to capture it whether its her headdress that resembles the dreds from 10 or the Lady Godiva or (kinkily enough) the Clint look. It all works.

What also works are the sex scenes once she finds her bullfigher lover.

Romance is in the air for all the character (except a young one Paloma that they pick up along the way and is not quite mature enough). Cotton and Catalina both hook up with lovers but Lida gets the sex scenes, both with Angel the bullfighter and both about 7mins in length. She licks his ears; he bites her neck too hard; it is not the bodice ripper novel sex (but what is) and it goes on for a long time (as it should); I cannot tell you how many films are unintentionally funny with their 30 second sex scenes (talk about a dud), at the end of the last sex scene the word ecstasy appears in the air, now that is talent.

For blurring the line between reality and fantasy and being yr idiosyncratic and interesting self I say well done John Derek.

Grade A+.