Woman of Desire

This could have been a good film if only Bo Derek's acting was as fantastic as her body. Like any erotic thriller, there is a mystery to be solved: in this case Christina Ford (Bo Derek) accuses captain Jack (Jeff Fahey) of killing her husband and raping her. This is further complicated when it emerges that the husband has a twin brother (both roles played by Steven Bauer). The question becomes, who really went overboard on that fateful night? This is the question that the lawyer played by an almost sleepwalking Robert Mitchum must answer. The film reaches its resolution in a muddled way and it comes from an unexpected quarter.

It is a pity that Bo Derek cannot show any sort of acting ability. Her face barely changes at any time during the film, always showing a sort of half-smile all the time despite the crimes that have supposedly been committed against her. She does get to show off her body though at several points in the film, especially in the motorcycle scene, but director Robert Ginty could have done better, after all Miss Derek is not shy when performing these scenes. Never mind though, Miss Derek does compensate for a mediocre film.

I have seen a few versions of this film, VHS and DVD; the Hong Kong DVD has Miss Derek's pubic area blurred; and the Dutch DVD has most of the nudity and sex scenes deleted but adding some extra dialogue between Christina and Jack.

Apart from "10", the career of actress Bo Derek is essentially one terrible film after another...most of which seem to include her taking off her clothes. Among her infamous appearances, along with their current IMDB scores, are "Tarzan the Ape Man" (3.4), "Bolero" (3.0), "Ghosts Can't Do It" (2.2), "The Master of Disguise" (3.4), "Boom" (2.3), "Sunstorm" (3.5) and "Orca" (5.8). While possibly not the worst actress of all time, she certainly is in the running. Now the odd thing about all this is that in several films, very well respected actors appeared in these films...such as Anthony Quinn in "Ghosts Can't Do It", George Kennedy in "Bolero" and "Woman of Desire" with Robert Mitchum.

The story begins with a twist. There's a nude person lying on the beach (no surprise) but it's NOT Bo ( a BIG surprise). It happens to be the captain of a yacht who claims he was washed overboard. However, he's shocked to hear that the woman aboard the boat, Christina (Derek), claims he raped her and murdered her husband. The film is about the investigation and court hearing to determine exactly what really happened.

As I mention in the summary, Robert Mitchum is one of the stars in this film. Now considering how well respected an actor he was AND how bad Derek's reputation was, you wonder why he wanted to make the film in the first place. I can only assume it was all about the money. Thank goodness for small favors that at least he keeps his clothes on during the film considering he was 76 in 1994.

So, despite a lot of very gratuitous nudity, is this film watchable? Note that I am not saying is it good but is it watchable. Well, not really. While this film is supposed to be about rape and murder, throughout the course of the film you keep seeing flashback after flashback with Bo getting naked! It really cheapens the notion of rape...almost making it seem sexy...which is just disgusting. And, the acting and writing in between is not especially good. Frankly, why not just make a porno film and skip all the stupid dialog and plot? So what this means is that if you want a good story, look elsewhere. And, if you want good porn, you can probably find a lot better and a bit more explicit on the internet.

By the way, despite this being a bad film, Mitchum, despite badly choosing to be in the movie, is pretty good.

For a trip to South Africa and a hefty paycheck the four principal players all American did Woman Of Desire. Heading the cast was that most desirable of women Bo Derek playing a Paris Hilton type who has two brothers played by Steven Bauer and Jeff Fahey panting hot and heavy after her. One fine day on the yacht that's captained by Jeff Fahey, but owned by the brothers Bauer, one of the brothers goes overboard in a storm. So does Fahey who's is found nude and alive on a beach. Derek says he killed the one brother, the one she's married to.

Bo's quite the party animal so she's not necessarily believed, but Fahey is not a sterling character either. So there is an inquest and Fahey gets Robert Mitchum to be his lawyer.

According to Lee Server's biography of Mitchum, Woman Of Desire was part of a package deal he owed the producers of African Skies, a short lived television series he did a couple of years back. So to fulfill contractual obligations and I believe to get to play a few courtroom scenes to round out his career, Mitchum did this film. His famous old rumple eyes barely registered at all, but he still outclassed the cast except when Bo Derek was running around topless.

Everyone here has the satisfied look of folks when a large paycheck cleared. Nothing to write home about. In fact with the film shot in South Africa it seems more to be located in the Caribbean. Yet the official police and courtroom parts are clearly South African. No accents from that country though. It's all kind of weird.

Twin brothers Jonathan and Ted Ashby (Steven Bauer) with Christina Ford (Bo Derek) are in a complicated relationship. They hired Jack Lynch (Jeff Fahey) to be the yacht captain. Jack is accused of killing Ashby and raping Ford by the police. He insists that Ashby fell overboard in a storm and he didn't rape her. He hires semi-retired defense lawyer Walter J. Hill (Robert Mitchum).

My cheese-dar goes up when Bo Derek gets naked with twins and a couple of familiar B-movie names. Then Robert Mitchum shows up and one has to give this movie a fair shake. This is a hard-boiled erotic thriller but it moves at a snail's pace. Mitchum is older and slower but there is still a power to his acting. It's too bad that he is wasted on this weaker B-movie material.

If you are like any good, red-blooded, heterosexual American male, you probably just wanted to check out Bo's bo-dacious body--She delivers probably her best on screen nudity in this one, including a pretty heavy sex scene on a motorcycle. You definitely won't be disappointed!

But if you go off "fast forward" and hit the normal speed "play" button, you find that this is a really engaging, entangled ball of yarn that will keep you guessing until *after* the end. I have seen it a couple of times, and I still don't know, besides Bo, who was in on the caper.

This film really delivers on the sexy film noir.