Gwendoline

Gwendoline, from 'Emmanuelle' director Just Jaeckin, is an erotic comic-book action adventure (think Indiana Jones crossed with Barbarella, only with more nudity) wherein a gorgeous but innocent young woman (played by 80s rock-babe Tawny Kitaen) teams up with a roguish riverboat captain (Brent Huff) to locate her father, a scientist who went missing while looking for a rare butterfly in the hostile land of Yik-Yak.

A one-time fashion photographer, Jaeckin is more than capable of capturing a striking image, whether it be a beautiful vista, the sensuous curves of a woman, or the surreal sight of a bald, naked Amazonian chick being sucked up an down an industrial pipe, but he fails dismally at telling a story, either as writer or director. His terrible script is hampered by dreadful dialogue (not helped by a wooden cast) and his handling of many scenes, most notably the action, leaves much be desired, being unimaginatively executed and ultimately rather lifeless.

Despite all of this, however, the film still manages to be a reasonably entertaining experience—partly due to the silliness of the whole thing, partly because of the often excellent production design (much of which would not look out of place in a major Hollywood film) and some surprising violence, but mostly thanks to all of the S&M-laced nudity, especially from the lovely Kitaen, who can't act, but who has a great bod and isn't afraid to show it.

Gwendoline began life within the pages of John Willie's Bizarre magazine which had a somewhat clandestine existence in the late 40s. The character appeared again in the magazine Wink in 1947 in a serial drawn by Willie and called Sweet Gwendoline. The artist/photographer and his work existed within a twilight world with high heels, bondage, extreme curves the order of the day and a rather shadowy but surprisingly substantial fan base. These days the whole BDSM scene has taken over much of this territory but somewhere the 'schoolboy/boy scout' fantasy element with young ladies bound to trees in the jungle has gone. I guess that old true Brit explorer notion has been replaced with a more high tech version in chrome and shiny black PVC. In any event Just Jaeckin's vague attempt to capture something of the flavour of those old pencil drawn fantasies seems more like cashing in on the name rather than any serious attempt to explore those murky but delightful waters. The script is awful and the early native village, jungle and desert scenes pretty bad and if the later sequences are enlivened by attractive and minimal costumes. John Willie this certainly is not.

The plot is pedestrian (Think "Wizard of Oz" meets "Story of O"), the acting no better than High School and the dubbing flat, but the visuals on this are very artistic. Not only the large amount of female nudity, but the sets and some of the camera angles, especially where Gwendolyn and Beth are being held back-to-back in the dungeon. There were more than a few scenes I wish would have been given more screen time. None of it is great cinema, but the artwork makes for great entertainment. The copy I saw seemed to have been hacked more than edited, perhaps to bring it in line with an "R" rating. I saw it on HBO shortly after it came out, and eagerly awaited a chance to purchase the video. I managed to get an ex-rental copy.

This movie is based on a comic strip I've never seen. The plot isn't much to talk about. It sure isn't as much fun as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or the other Indiana Jones films. And while there is some nudity and bondage (including Tawny) for the most part there really isn't much to the film. Adventure-seekers may want to look elsewhere. Bondage types might enjoy the dungeon scenes (which look more like a European art house than a Gothic-style dungeon) but they're played for erotic-art rather than bawdy sex, and it's always fun seeing Tawny wearing almost nothing for most of the film. Costumes are better than the rest of the film, except for a) the scene where Tawny and Willard find the wreckage of some crates and have a spat, b) the scene where Tawny tries to rescue her friend who has been captured and thrown in the dungeon where a single thread held in her teeth is keeping a bow from skewering her with an arrow, and c) the scene where a female prisoner has been placed, topless, on a wheel and is slowly revolving around and around. Clips from the movie will probably turn up in bondage newsgroups because of this.

A beautiful woman hires an intrepid adventurer to help find her father, who has disappeared in the jungle while searching for a rare and priceless butterfly. Along the way they run into cannibals, a race of Amazon warriors and all the usual attractions one would expect to find in a lost jungle. That's pretty much all you have to know of the plot, which is mainly an excuse to show off scads of beautiful naked women, gorgeous Filipino scenery, some almost competent action scenes, and Tawny Kitaen. That about covers it. Director Just Jaeckin apparently put a fair chunk of the tons of money he made off his "Emanuelle" movies into this one, and it shows; the film doesn't look cheap, at least, and Jaeckin's photography shows off the film's best assets--including Tawny Kitaen's--to their best advantage. Go at it with the right attitude and this film can be a lot of fun.