Gwendoline / Changing Evolution
From acclaimed master of erotica Just Jaeckin (“Emmanuelle” “Story of O” “Lady Chatterley’s Lover) comes “Gwendoline”, one of the most sought-after ‘guilty pleasure’ movies of all time! Filled to the brim with enough female flesh and fetishistic imagery to satisfy the most demanding of voyeurs, this is one cult fantasy film you definitely won’t want to miss! Follow the adventures of the sweet and innocent Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen of “Bachelor Party” and those legendary Whitesnake videos) in which she travels as a stowaway to the Far East with her sexy friend Beth (played by French actress and model Zabou) on a mission to track down her father, who has mysteriously disappeared whilst on a mission to find a mythical butterfly. Rescued from a group of lecherous seamen by the hunky adventurer Willard (actor and male model Brent Huff), Gwendoline persuades him to make up their trio and embark on a daring journey to the land of the Yek Yeik, a country ruled by a diabolical dominant Amazon queen and an army of female fetish-clad Amazonian warriors! There, Gwendoline must defeat the evil queen and prevent Willard from being forced to spawn a new race of female warriors – or face certain death. Gwendoline is a bizarre adventure like no other, freely adapted from John Willie’s acclaimed erotic comic strip, which fans will be talking about for years to come.
1984 – Certificate: 18 – French Film
Rating Details: Strong violence
7.5 out of 10
Right now I’m sitting here drinking a bottle of Batemans Victory Ale; (6% and Vegan Society approved), thinking how great the summer is. I know, every year the weather’s a bit of a disappointment, but somehow it’s still loads better than the winter. However crappy the weather is, it’s still always a lot lighter in the summer than the rest of the year. In the summer, the sun goes down to the right of that tree over ‘here’. In the winter, it goes down behind the tree over there; (trying to hide its embarrassment, no doubt). It’s 8:42 pm right now, warm and light enough to sit and read in my lounge without a light or coat on. In the winter at this time it would be freezing cold, dark and depressing dank outside. If I ever own a time machine, I’m going to go way, way back, to the point where humans (or whatever we were then), evolved away from hibernating during the winter. Out will come a very sharp pair of secateurs and whatever genetically mutated freak of nature caused us to stay awake all year, is going to find itself well and truly snipped away from the evolutionary tree. Bastard! This film is about natural history too.
I thought this was one of those nature documentaries, where we’d follow an intrepid explorer searching for new species of something, in this case a butterfly. So you can imagine my surprise when I was confronted with a chisel-jawed anti-hero, two beautiful woman who’s tops fell off slightly more often than was strictly necessary, a lot of bald chicks in leather bikinis, a lost tribe of women and a quite imaginative torture chamber. Then again, I’ve never been on as expedition to search for anything, so perhaps Sir David Attenborough runs into things like this all the time. I guess that would explain why nature documentaries are so popular. Nevertheless, it is a film all about a hunt for a butterfly and without wanting to spoil the ending, it looks a lot like a blacker and larger version of a Swallowtail. Normally I’m not exactly inspired by trashy films like this. It’s certainly another of those vegan-unfriendly, birds-in-leather with whips films. However, this one’s funny enough (both intentionally and unintentionally), well-made enough, epic enough and silly enough, to provide a highly entertaining and fun watch. It looks really good and the acting is pretty spirited too. Brent Huff at the hero Willard is a hoot and Tawny Kitaen, (who goes from innocent convent-educated girl to kick-ass, gladiatorial warrior in less than 100 minutes), looks… good. The movie starts with an establishing shot in a busy, crowded, claustrophobic market near a harbour; I think it’s meant to be in China. In the first three minutes we see someone nearly get run down and his cart of fruit tipped over, a fight break out, a theft of goods from the quayside with some associated shooting as the crew attempt to stop the getaway lorry, a group breaking into storage boxes, someone stealing food and someone else having a trolley taken from him; whilst two mounted police look on magnanimously, clearly on the lookout for some real crime under their noses. That pretty well sums this movie up, as does the “Barbarella meets Indiana Jones” line on the DVD’s cover art. It’s interesting that the BBFC’s “insight” (that’s what we call the rating details), now just says “strong violence”. When it was first released it had 194 seconds cut out of it to enable it to get a cinema release in the UK; whilst America suffered from a version 16 minutes shorter. Clearly, chariots pulled by semi-naked woman have lost their impact in the 21st Century.
In a B movie kind of way, this film has quite a decent soundtrack. There’s not a lot else I can say about it really.
Recommended for naturalists, lepidopterists, heroes and anyone with a convent-based education.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? Willard first appears in the film by crashing through a window. He then takes a few moments to adjust his hat and smile, before dispatching all the bad guys with a display of high quality, hand-to-hand combat and rescuing two women from human traffickers. That’s badass. I’ll never be that cool. :-(
Penny's Gallery
Saving the Planet – July 2010
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