Bolero (1984)

BIBLICALLY AWFUL!

After blank-eyed beauty Bo Derek achieved stardom playing a contemporary wanton in the 1979 hit 10, her Svengali, husband John Derek, took her red-hot career in hand and went further than he had with his earlier lookalike wives, Ursula Andress and Linda Evans: he became Bo's exclusive auteur, miscast her as period-piece virgins, and with just two Bad Movies to Cherish, brought her reign as a love goddess to a screeching halt.

In the second of these gems, Bolero, Bo is a `20s heiress who tells school pal Ana Obregon, "In the ways of love, we're kindergarten toddlers." Bo wants to head for Morocco to "learn of ecstasy. What a beautiful word: E-X-T -- " "No, no," Obregon interrupts to correct Bo's spelling, but if you ask us, Bo knew full well what she was spelling -- "Extasy," the name of the `80s "hug drug" that could go a long way to explain this frenzied love-in of a movie. "Let's go wallow in it, do the backstroke in it!" Bo exults. Yes, let's.

Desert Sheik Greg Benson slurps honey off Bo's naked torso, but then passes out cold, leaving Bo to complain, "I'm all dressed up with no place to go!" So Bo tries her luck in Spain, chasing after matador Andrea Occipinti. In a sex scene of jaw-dropping exhibitionism that is exceeded only by later scenes in this same film, the naked Occipinti pulls apart Bo's legs, and we recall (not for the first time, and certainly not for the last) that it is Bo's husband who has staged and photographed this sequence. In case we're unable to follow what's happening as the actor gamely humps away atop her, Bo helpfully remarks, "I'm not a virgin anymore." (Thank you for sharing, Bo.) As often happens in real life, the matador is gored by a bull . . . yes, there.

In John Derek's signature "I wonder if the idiots who watch my movies can possibly follow the plot?" style, he has Obregon ask Bo the obvious: "You don't care if he can never make love again?" A foolish question, if you know Bo's healing powers. Certain that "the doomsday doctors" are wrong, Bo goes to her lover's side to tell him, as she points at his crotch, "That thing is going to work!"

(How? Glad you asked.) Bo learns to fight a bull, natch, bringing a whole new meaning to the term "bareback" as she rides around the bullring in the buff. This accomplished, she returns to Occipinti and commands, "I want ecstasy," whips her wet hair across his naked torso, climbs astride him, and applauds. (You'll want to cry "Bravo!" but you won't need to -- Bo does that, too.) Their lovemaking is so fine, dry-ice smoke wafts in, colored lights flash, and a neon sign comes on, reading "EXTASY," (So we won't mistake Bo for a tramp, the movie ends with the couple getting married.)

Bolero is hysterically, biblically, awful. It's painfully, egregiously, aggressively, and endearingly inept. Plus it's got George Kennedy in it. Oooooo, our head! August 12, 2007

Hunky male co-stars a definite plus, but ...

This movie is mediocre. Not real good, not real bad. I watch it for the hunky Scotsman and the hunky Spaniard. The Scotsman has a very seductive voice, and isn't bad looking; the Spaniard looks like Hugh Jackman. The Arab sheik, forget. One of the characters was right when they said he could pass as 'your sister' - too pretty to be a real man.

The sets were nice, the locations were fabulous. Weak, almost non-existent plot. The best thing for me was seeing the nude male co-stars, and I do wish there had been more emphasis on that, and also the sideline romance between the Scotsman and the Spanish woman. Got a good laugh when the Arab sheik made a kidnapping attempt.

Just my female viewpoint. June 21, 2007

Car wreck for undersexed juveniles.

There's no doubt in my mind that the people who created this load of celluloid sewage knew that featuring Bo Derek getting her bones banged just shy of aggravated battery would have a draw, particularly for juveniles with unrestrained hormones. And that's the only reason anyone would watch this movie. The script is straight out of a fantasy contest, the acting abysmal, and the whole premise ludicrous. They do their best to create a fantasy atmosphere, indulging in the beauty of Spain for romantic backdrop and give us a Bo Derek pleading for sex. For most of this movie's audience, that's enough. For lovers (no pun intended) of quality film it isn't even close to a reason to spend a quarter watching this crud. Oh, I admit, I watched it several times whilst in my college years. But that's what college age guys do. And I would venture to guess that the demographic for this movie is 90% male, mostly from 18-30. Frankly, watching Bo get her brains banged out is worth the price of admission, especially for that group. But everything else about this movie isn't just bad, it's purely comical. I wondered to myself what was George Kennedy thinking when he accepted his role in this. If he'd have dug into his Dragline character from "Cool Hand Luke" the movie would have at least conceded to it's absurdity and not tried to be taken the least bit seriously. I find it hilarious that Amazon realized this to the point that they conceded by giving out the times in the movie where Bo gets banged. That alone should say something- that anything outside those time slots isn't worth watching. I know lots of 40 somethings that would have liked the same thing for "Lolita," though those encounters are less frequent. All in all, this movie ranks (pun INTENDED) in the hall of fame of incredibly bad movies. The 1 star is for the Bo sex scenes, otherwise, ZERO! June 3, 2007

BOlero!

John Derek will go down in history as one of the worst directors of all time. One could call him the antipode to Stephen Spielberg. However, Derek did have ONE thing going for him in his movies: showcasing his lovely wife naked!

It is odd that these days many people are too young to remember Bo Derek. Growing up in the 80s, she was the undisputed queen of eroticism, and this film shows why that was so. I just watched it again this morning & I had almost forgotten just how perfect her body is & how her long flowing hair looked while riding a horse.

If it were not for Bo, I doubt if anyone ever would have heard of John. In fact, he is already quickly becoming a footnote in the annals of Hollywood. To be sure, this is a "B" movie and it's not very well done. 90% of the scenes look like they were thrown in as an afterthought. The movie attempts to be comical at times, and fails miserably. For the most part, it is a yawner.

The one factor that just barely elevates it to 4 stars is Bo Derek shedding her clothes @ will. If you're a Bo Derek fan, this movie is a can't miss! When it comes to John Derek movies, this is as good as they get. January 14, 2007

"I had so many years of being so very proper. I had good-girl claustrophobia."

The alternate title for the film Bolero (1984) is Bolero: An Adventure in Ecstasy...after watching the film last night a better one might have been Bolero: An Adventure in Stupidity...written and directed by the late John Derek (Tarzan, the Ape Man), the film starred his most current wife at the time Bo Derek (10, Tarzan, the Ape Man). Also appearing is George `Anything for a Buck' Kennedy (The Dirty Dozen, Cool Hand Luke), Andrea Occhipinti (Conquest), Ana Obregón (Monster Island), and Olivia d'Abo (Conan the Destroyer, "The Wonder Years"), in one of her first roles.

Bo Derek plays Ayre `Mac' MacGillivery, a woman who (get this) is preparing to graduate from an English college and once she does, she'll trade in her diploma for a vast inheritance. Once that happens she plans to travel the world and learn the ways of love because, as you see, she's still a virgin. Okay, wait a minute...Bo's pushing thirty and she's just graduating from college? I can buy off on that, but I'm having a much harder time with the notion she's untouched, I mean seriously...anyway, after seeing one too many Valentino films (the film is supposed to be a period piece, set in the early 20th century I guess), Mac hits the road with her trusty chauffeur Cotton (Kennedy) and college friend Catalina aka `Cat' (Obregón), the trio heading towards the Middle East as Mac thinks it would be the ginchiest to get bagged by a real, honest to goodness sheik. After a failed attempt (the sheik got stoned on magic smoke and passed out, but not before covering a nekkid Derek in warm honey), Mac, with entourage in tow, makes her way to Spain with the intent on hooking up with a handsome matador, and she finds one named Angel (Occhipinti), who, when not faux fighting bulls or shagging fourteen year old gypsy girls produces wine, and lots of it. With the help of Angel's tagalong gypsy girl named Paloma, played by Ms. d'Abo sporting a ridiculous Spanish accent, Mac worms her way into Angel's bed after agreeing to use her vast fortunes to buy his wine, the deal sealed with a good shagging (I find Spanish business negotiations quite agreeable). Following this there's some more idiocy, capped off by Angel getting his doodle gored by a bull, and now unable to perform, much to Mac's dismay (no more zoom zoom in the boom boom). So anyway, while Cat's getting friendly with Mac's kilted Scottish lawyer and Cotton gets his groove on with Angel's sassy cook, Mac tries to draw Angel from his depressed funk in the hopes she'll be able to cure his condition by prancing around his room nekkid. When not sadistically teasing a man who can't perform, Mac begins taking up bullfighting for some odd reason or another.

Okay, I first saw this film back in the mid 1980s on cable I was in the hormonally charged state of a teenager coming into his own, so my main focus was obviously on Derek's nekkidness, of which there's quite a bit. After watching this film again some twenty years later, I find I still enjoy the nekkidness, but I have to say the rest is probably one of the more ridiculous efforts I've seen in a long time. I think the intent was to create a rich, erotic drama, but the film fails miserably mainly for the fact Bo Derek cannot act, at least not enough to carry a film. She's certainly attractive, but her ditz factor is incredibly high, not helped any by her husband's completely rotten and moronic scripting (the film comes off like a poorly written Harlequin romance novel). Speaking of her husband, how creepy is that, knowing he wrote and directed the film, especially given the sequences where his wife is getting it on with other guys (he filmed her in some equally steamy sequences in the 1981 moron-a-thon Tarzan, the Ape Man)? The man was pushing sixty at the time (while Bo wasn't quite yet thirty), so the maybe wedding tackle didn't function the way it used to which resulted in his willingness to let his wife dally about on screen with other men (a couple of the intimate sequences looked pretty realistic)...I don't know, but whatever...a good part of the story has Bo's character talking about her virginity like it was some sort of gift she was willing to impart, which, after awhile, got really old (at least she didn't refer to it as her `flower, but she did refer to it as `her fruit' at one point), which ends, mercifully, after she gets her shag on with Angel. As far as the rest of the cast they didn't fare much better. George Kennedy seemed kind of lost, hanging about to pick up a check and see some nekkid broads I suppose, and Olivia d'Abo appeared simple-minded as the young gypsy girl stuck on Angel (eventually she gives way to Mac as she realized she couldn't compete). One of the biggest mysteries for me, besides the actual point of the film, is why it ran an hour and forty-five minutes. Once you get by the juicy stuff (the attractive people being a nekkid), the rest just drags under the unbearable weight of its' own harebrained idiocy. Perhaps the funniest scene in the film comes near the end, as Mac and Angel are getting it on (seems Mac's desirability is such that it can cure a broken doodle) and they're transported to, get this, a smoke-filled plane of reality. Right in the middle of their routine a large, purple neon sign appears behind them spelling out the word EXTASY, as if to really bring it home (yeah, I know it's spelled wrong but that's how it was in the film, intentionally so). All in all if you're looking to see Ms. Derek in the raw, then this film is right up you alley as she's got about five or six scenes, but if you're looking for anything remotely resembling an actual movie (plot, interesting and engaging characters, etc.), best to keep on looking.

The picture on this DVD, presented in widescreen (1.85:1), enhanced for 16X9 TVs, does looks clean and clear, and the Dolby Digital Stereo Surround audio comes through well. As far as extras there isn't much except for a theatrical trailer and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

Cookieman108

By the way, did I mention how creepy (and skeevy) I found it for a man to write and direct a film featuring his really hot wife enjoying the pleasures of other men? Maybe he took some weird sense of pride in showing the world how, even at his age, he could still get with really attractive women...
September 25, 2006

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