Le Bel Étalon

"The Stud" and its sequel "The B*tch" were based upon novels by Jackie Collins and starred her older sister Joan. (As the third Collins sister, Natasha, remarked, "One of my sisters writes trash, the other acts in it"). Despite being almost universally panned by the critics, both films were huge commercial successes, the most successful British films of the seventies apart from the Bond franchise. There is, however, an explanation for this apparent contradiction. The films are little more than soft-core porn, and in an age when porn, whether hard- or soft-core, was much less easily available than it is today, any film involving nudity and sex scenes was virtually guaranteed to be good box-office.

In "The Stud" Joan plays Fontaine Khaled, the British wife of a wealthy Arab businessman. She was to play the same character, by then a divorcee, again in "The B*tch". Her husband Benjamin is played by Walter Gotell, best remembered as General Gogol in the Bond films. Fontaine owns a London nightclub and is having an affair with the club manager, Tony. The late seventies were the golden age of disco music and the producers hoped that the film could be a British "Saturday Night Fever", a film which had appeared the previous year. Many scenes are set in the club, and we hear a lot of disco songs on the soundtrack.

Although Fontaine makes it clear that Tony owes his position more to his ability to satisfy her sexual demands than to any managerial ability, he loses interest in her and begins a relationship with her young stepdaughter Alexandra, Benjamin's daughter by a previous marriage. This explosive situation becomes yet more so when a videotape emerges of Fontaine and Tony having sex in a lift.

These films may have been successful in their time, but most people today would side with the critics rather than the audiences who flocked to see them. "The Stud" and "The B*tch" helped to revive Joan Collins's career by reinventing her as a middle-aged sex symbol, but (along with "Dynasty" in which her character Alexis Carrington was essentially Fontaine Khaled toned down to meet the more puritanical standards of prime-time television) they also helped fix the idea of her in the public mind as a one-trick pony who could play sultry, promiscuous femmes fatales and little else. That idea would be an injustice, as she had a much wider range than that, but she seems fated to go down in history as a film star best remembered for two of her worst films.

Of the two films, "The Stud" is probably the better. It has something closer to a coherent plot, centred upon (as well as the sexual elements) Tony's attempts to raise the finance to open his own club. Collins makes more of an attempt at acting than she was to do in "The B*tch", where her performance is marked by a total lack of sincerity. Of her supporting actors, Gotell and Oliver Tobias as Tony at least make an effort and seem to know what they are doing, something which cannot always be said of her co-stars in the sequel.

"The Stud" shares with its successor a general sense of incompetence and pretentious tackiness. It may be the better of the two, but the difference is not a great one, and to say that a film is not quite as bad as "The B*tch" is to damn it with the faintest of praise. 3/10

A goof. The glamour model Felicity Buirski, who has a minor role in the film, refers to herself as "Felicity", but according to the cast list the name of her character is "Deborah".

The R2 double-feature DVD of this film, along with its sequel THE BITCH (1979; see below), had been available for rental through my local DVD outlet for quite some time - and, though I had been tempted to check it out time and again, I finally took the plunge after having watched star Joan Collins in another sexy role in ...CAN HEIRONYMUS MERKIN EVER FORGET MERCY HUMPPE AND FIND TRUE HAPPINESS? (1969).

Based on the lurid novel by Joan's own sister, Jackie Collins, the film isn't for anyone looking for quality cinema; cheesy, sleazy trash - set in London and accompanied by a dated disco soundtrack - that's filled with copious but unerotic nudity. Collins, at least, is clearly having fun with her bitchy role; Oliver Tobias is the would-be stud who finds himself to be merely a pawn in her game (and who, predictably, finds real love in the arms of Collins' teenage step-daughter); while Walter Gotell (a regular in the James Bond extravaganzas) is her betrayed but vengeful diplomat husband.

although the movie was not as explicit as the book, it had it's moments.

joan collins plays the part of the bitchy hedonistic adultering wife( a role she embodied in Dynasty as Alexis for almost 9 years!!) to the tee. she has all the moves, the look and the body language. she plays the part of the manipulative, dominating and captivating 40 yr old woman in her prime to such perfection,that it leaves oliver tobias, to play his role as the "stud" with all the enthusiam one could muster for such a role(not much to do but perform on call and bonk the remaining women in the cast).

walter gotell ( the head of the kgb in bond flicks) is wasted in what could have been a meaty role.

emma jacobs does her best as she transcends from an innocent girl who beds the "stud"(after she meets him the first time and finds out he is "doing" her step mom)to one who uses sex as revenge(when she rejects his amorous advances during his visit to her mother's house) and is then promptly not shown until the end of the movie. sad, because it could have been penned into a longer and more interesting role.

the rest of the movie is pretty slow as it follows the tacky night life of the 70's in london, especially the end where after a new year's party, tony blake is happy to be out of the night ife( i would have thought it would be from too much sex)

A part not to be missed is the "orgy scene" in the swimming pool...that was quite a scene!!!!

only worth a watch for joan collins fans who want to catch a glimpse of the early shades of Alexis Carrington Colby..

Like most seventies softcore the film that put Joan Collins back on the map contains far more talk than rutting; and like anything thinking it's being really with-it it now looks far more dated than anything made in the fifties; compounded by the constant pounding disco music on the soundtrack.

As it meanders along it's garrulous way you also have plenty of time to marvel at the fact such a sorry collection of fashion disasters got so much more sex than any other generation before or since.

The Stud (1978)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Incredibly silly but sleazy "drama" about Fontaine (Joan Collins), a woman married to a very rich man but whose having an affair with Tony (Oliver Tobias), the stud running their club. Poor Tony is good looking and has an unlimited number of great looking women wanting to sleep with him but before long the stud begins to feel sorry for himself.

THE STUD is a pretty awful movie that came out of nowhere and somehow became a very big hit. Who knows why something like this would have become a hit but I'm going to guess that part of the reason was the awful disco era that was going on at the time and the fact that someone like Collins was going full nudity and trashy with the material. Yes, the film is sleazy, campy and at times trashy but that still doesn't make for a lot of entertainment.

The biggest problem with the film is that none of the characters are all that entertaining. I've read some reviews that complained that none of them were likable but that I really don't care about. You don't have to have likable characters for a movie to work but you do need to have some that are interesting. All of the characters here were rather forgettable and boring. The same could be said for the performances but it seems the two leads are having fun with their roles and especially Collins and her bitch quality.

The film became somewhat notorious for the various bits of nudity and sex. The highlight of all of this is a bizarre pool orgy sequence, which is just campy enough to where you can have a good laugh at its expense. The film is certainly a very bad one but it remains mildly interesting just because of the weird stuff going on. Did I mention the awful title song, which was clearly ripping off the SHAFT theme?