Bolero

Back in 1984, B movie giants Golan and Globus decided to team up with the married, soft core kings John and Bo Derek. It seemed like a teaming written in the stars. The end result however was the laughably awful Bolero.

Bo stars as Mac, a virgin who is a recent college grad. Infatuated with Rudolph Valentino, Mac decides to roam the world to find a Valentino esque lover to lose her virginity to. Aided by her best friend Catalina, Ana Obregon, and the family chauffer, George Kennedy, she travels to an Arabian country and sets her sights on a sheik, who turns out to be a dud. The three then travel to Spain, where Mac falls for the matador Angel, Andrea Occhipinti. Angel makes her a woman, but is wounded in a bullfight the next day. The injury leaves him unable to perform in the bedroom, so Mac tries to nurse him back to health. She also decides to become a bullfighter so she can take down the bull that injured her lover.

Yes, this movie is as silly as it sounds. But it is also dreadfully dull. John Derek has this gift, or curse, where he almost makes sex boring. He crams so much nudity and sex in his films that it almost becomes boring. On this picture, that might have been the fault of Golan and Globus, who pushed the Derek's for more sex scenes. The film ended up with an X rating, causing MGM, the studio that was going to release it, to drop it. Golan and Globus released the picture on their own. It was a very limited release however since most theaters wouldn't carry an X rated film.

The acting is pretty laughable. I'm not sure what Kennedy is doing in this. John Derek was always able to get a respectable actor to appear in his films. He had Richard Harris in Tarzan, the Ape Man, and Anthony Quinn in Ghosts Can't Do It. I guess the appeal of hanging out on set all day with beautiful, naked starlets is the appeal for them. I can't say I blame them.

Definately a must for lovers of trashy and laughably bad cinema.

It's available on dvd and coming soon to blu ray.