Bolero

Of the many questionable erotic offerings the year 1984 was chock full of, John Derek's tale of sexual awakening is too dull even to stir up much controversy. Far less enjoyable than Body Double but far less pretentious than Crimes of Passion, it features superior acting to its sister globetrotting erotic adventure flick, The Perils of Gwendoline, but it is somehow less sexy than the PG-rated Sheena: Queen of the Jungle. Bo Derek stars as Ayre "Mac" McGillvary, a young orphan heiress to a vast fortune who embarks on a journey around the world in pursuit of the ideal lover. With the help of her friend, chauffeur, and traveling companion (George Kennedy), she arranges couplings with an Arabian sheik and a Spanish bullfighter. Along the way, she meets up with a 14-year-old Gypsy girl (Olivia d'Abo) and takes her under her wing.

Writer/director John Derek had a storied career (though of the kind that would only get published in a brown wrapper). He was born Derek Delevan Harris and renamed by Humphrey Bogart when the screen legend cast him as an unrepentant killer in a film Boggie's Santana Productions was producing. Groomed for stardom after serving in the last days of World War II, he had a key role in 1949's Best Picture Oscar winner All the King's Men. He followed that up by starring in a number of swashbuckling action pictures, but Derek disliked acting and moved to directing as soon as he had the chance. He was married four times: to Russian-American prima ballerina Pati Behrs Eristoff, then to the first Bond Girl, Swiss bombshell Ursula Andress, then to TV actress Linda Evans, and finally to high school dropout Mary Cathleen Collins, who he met while scouting a film with Evans in Grease when Collins was 16 years old. He had an affair with the youngster, divorced Evans, waited till Collins was 18, and then married her, at which point she changed her name to Bo Derek. Not long after their marriage, Bo starred in Blake Edwards's 1979 run-away hit comedy 10 and achieved instant international fame.

Composer Maurice Ravel's "Boléro" plays a significant role in 10, which undoubtedly led to the idea for this picture in some way. Bo and John had followed up 10 with the long-delayed release of the film they had shot in Grease when they met, now titled Fantasies, Bo Derek's Fantasies, and various other titles. They followed that up with an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, told from Jane's perspective, called Tarzan, the Ape Man, in 1981. But these films were not hits. John was resentful that he’d not been able to make a film as popular as Blake Edward's 10 and complained, "All the public wants to watch is Bo fuck to Boléro,” so that’s what he decided to give them (even though not a note of Ravel or mention of the tune appears in this movie).

Bolero was financed by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus of Cannon Films, who probably didn't care what the movie was about as long as it had this title and Bo Derek in a lot of nude scenes. That probably accounts for why the plot feels lifted from a soft-core porno. But the movie is not especially arousing because both it and Bo's character are so dull. In addition to writing and directing, Bolero is nicely shot by Derek, who served as his own cinematographer. But Bo, who also produced the film, is not a compelling screen presence. Much of what was so effective about 10 was that it builds to the realization by Dudley Moore's character that the girl of his dreams is far less attractive to him once he gets to know her as a person with whom he has nothing in common, rather than a fantasy object. Bo Derek played that part well, but here, she's expected to carry the picture, and she's just not up to the task. It's not that she's a bad actor; I'm not sure who could carry a movie with this storyline.

The movie is now more infamous for its ick factor than its titillation ability. Its most notorious aspect is that Olivia d'Abo, who plays the 14-year-old Paloma, really was 14 years old when she made this movie. While she isn't in any sex scenes, d'Abo does appear completely nude in bathing scenes with Bo Derick. She also looks a bit like a younger version of Bo Derick, making it feel like the director is auditioning his next child bride, especially considering how much Bo looks like a young Linda Evans. Korina Longworth explores all this in depth in her excellent Erotic '80s podcast episode on Bo Derek, but Bolero is so lightweight and dismissable that it hardly merits an accompanying viewing.