Review of Gwendoline

Introduction

Originally released in the US with the much more unwieldy title "The Perils Of Gwendoline In The Land Of The Yik-Yak", this 1984 ultra-softcore fantasy adventure is described as one of the ultimate guilty pleasure movies. DVDWorld put their finger on the pulse of the movie (and are quoted on the box art) when they said the movie was "Barbarella Meets Indiana Jones". I`d go further and say that Barbarella got Dr Jones stinking drunk, had her way with him and this movie is the result.

I`m reminded of a royally daft pulp fiction teleseries from the 1980s called Tales Of The Gold Monkey, where square-jawed ex-Trek star Stephen Collins had sub-Casablanca-style adventures in the 1930s Pacific. Gwendoline has that same sort of vibe.

As a casual observer of French sci-fi, I`d say Gwendoline has all the hallmarks of the genre - a totally off-the-wall visual style, a distinct streak of kinkiness and an inclination towards indecipherability. The movie`s 18-rating is deserved. The picture is studded with boobs and lubricated with some moments of startlingly out-of-milieu bloodletting. If anything it underlines a distinct difference between Anglo-American style movies and European movies. You wouldn`t see soembody impaled in the neck with a grappling hook in Barbarella, or having their ears torn off by pushing their head through prison bars in Indiana Jones. The moments of grue are intended to be humorous in a nod-to-Hong-Kong-chop-socky movies kind of way, but jar given the kind of movie Gwendoline represents itself as.

The movie stars Tawny Kitaen - her off those jaw-dropping Whitesnake videos of the 1980s, and Mrs Hercules in the pilot episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Voyages. She is backed up by square-jawed moron Willard (male model and wooden actor Brent Huff) and friend Beth (actress Zabou) as they search for Gwendoline`s father in the land of the "Yek Yeik". The Yek Yeik (apparently the correct French spelling of Yik-Yak), are a tribe of Amazonian warriors - presumably discovered by Sid James - who decide they want Willard as a one-man sperm bank to spawn a new generation of warriors.

Director Just Jaeckin is known more notoriously for the original Emmanuelle movie, The Story Of O and Lady Chatterley`s Lover. Gwendoline was his first attempt at a more mainstream and (slightly) less erotic movie. Like Barbarella, Gwendoline is based on a comic strip (emphasis on the strip) - The Adventures Of Sweet Gwendoline by John Willie. Adapting the screenplay himself, Jaeckin wrote a story that to be honest has a lot of his other movies in it. There is a strong, distinctly misogynistic streak of the Story Of O style and plenty of sadism and bondage. If it lacks anything, it is the fact that the sense of humour of the story completely fails to translate.

Video

The movie is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1, in anamorphic widescreen. Colours are very vivid, and the image is very sharp and clean for a European movie.

Audio

The audio for the movie has been comprehensively remixed from the original recording stems to produce a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix.

Features

The movie comes with an audio commentary by Just Jaeckin. There is also a featurette on Jaeckin called "The Perils Of Just"; a list of cuts ordered by the British Board Of Film Classification in 1984; the US version of the title sequence; the theatrical trailer; a UK promotional reel; a photo gallery and a slideshow of Tawny Kitaen`s tie-in glamour shoot for Lui magazine. The movie carries full English subtitling - if you watch the French language version of the movie. That had to be pointed out to me (sorry Nucleus) on account of I hadn`t watched the film in French because je ne parle un seule mot de Francais. Pas un petit jot.

Conclusion

This movie is a real oddment. I`d heard about it on its original release, but I`ve only now caught up with it on DVD. In some ways it`s a disappointment. I`d expected something pottier. Something with more of the Barbarella sensibility than this. On the other hand, it is a pretty wild picture and will go on my shelf alongside Barbarella, Jane and The Lost City, The Shadow and The Rocketeer. I`d give it a resounding Meh.

I`d like to single out French actor Jean Rougerie as D`Arcy, the scientist working for the Queen of the Yek-Yeik. He`s that detective that Grace Jones killed with a poisoned butterfly at the Eiffel Tower in A View To A Kill. His resemblance to Terry-Thomas in this movie is remarkable.