Angel (1984)

Writer-director Robert Vincent O'Neill's film was a wildly-successful New World Pictures' production raking in $23 million - the first in a series of trashy sexploitation films. It was followed by lesser films, with the third chapter featuring rampant nudity and misogyny:

Angel Series Films (1984-1994)
Avenging Angel (1985) (starring Betsy Russell)	Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988) (starring Mitzi Kapture)	Angel 4: Undercover (1994)

This infamous film was one of the most popular teen prostitute tales ever made, although it was very tame. It teased with the tagline:

"High School Honor Student by Day, Hollywood Hooker by Night -- Her two worlds are about to collide. It's her choice. Her chance. Her life."

It starred 25 year old Donna Wilkes in the title role as an innocent-faced, flat-chested, pig-tailed teen prep school student named Molly Stewart/Angel who was abandoned by her parents and masqueraded as a Hollywood, Lolita-like prostitute and vigilante (against a necrophilic, raw-egg sucking serial killer (John Diehl) dressed like a Hare Krishna). Angel was protected by well-meaning, off-beat street eccentrics, including paternal transvestite hooker Mae (Dick Shawn), her foul-mouthed bull dyke landlady Solly Mosler (Susan Tyrell), and B-movie actor-turned-street-roaming cowboy Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun).

Shower/Locker Room Scene (unknown actresses)

For a film of this kind, it was unusual that there were basically no sex scenes or nudity from the main star. There were only two basic instances of nudity - a gratuitous girls' locker room and shower scene, and a few quick glimpses of nude female slasher victim Lana (Graem McGavin) who asked her potential killer: "What are you waiting for, honey? Why don't you take your clothes off?" - before her body was discovered by Angel, bloodied in the shower.

L'Annee des Meduses (1984, Fr.) (aka Year of the Jellyfish)

This pretty-to-look-at exploitation film, a tale of sexual intrigue from France, based on writer/director Christopher Frank's own book, masqueraded as an art-house film. Amazingly, Caroline Cellier won the Cesar Award (French) for Best Actress – Supporting Role. In the same year, its sexy star Kaprisky also appeared in the artsy La Femme Publique (1984, Fr.) (aka The Public Woman) - see below.

It featured the tagline regarding the central female 'jellyfish' character:

"Summer, the south of France... She's 18, less than perfect, and dangerous."

The erotic thriller opened on the gorgeous beaches of the South of France at Saint-Tropez, introducing various young females, including:

• Dorothee (Betty Assenza), known as "a bimbo"
• Miriam (Charlotte Kady), Dorothee's slightly older friend

The main characters of the erotic thriller were a mother/daughter pair who were both vacationing in S. France:

• Chris Riveault (Valerie Kaprisky), 18 years old, a pretty, but conniving femme fatale nymphet; she was a sexually-fixated, vixenish female who was symbolically compared to a stinging jellyfish with a fatal sting; she actually sustained a jellyfish sting on her left breast while rescuing a young swimmer, which she showed off later in the casino bar; she was told by Romain that the sting-scar would never go away but admitted he didn't care

Chris (Valerie Kaprisky) at Beach and in Casino

• Claude Riveault (Caroline Cellier), Chris' 38 year-old mother, who was feeling that she was aging too rapidly: ("I'm old, inside. Nothing's like before anymore...I'm afraid...of not being able to hang it up"); her non fun-loving husband Pierre (Pierre Vaneck) remained in Paris (but would soon arrive on the scene)

Claude (Caroline Cellier) - Chris' Mother

A menage a trois competition, including an exhibitionist sexual rivalry of mother-daughter toplessness, was fought between Claude and Chris for the attentions of:

• Romain Kalides (Bernard Giradeau), a rakish, smarmy gigolo Don Juanish lover whom Chris had called a misogynistic "pimp" at the port and in the villas because "he hunts the girls on the beach. He's a provider"; he had nicknamed Chris "Salome" - referring to the seductive temptress who caused the beheading of John the Baptist

Chris grew suspicious of Romain, because she knew that he often lured topless sunbathers to his yacht Alauna III for sex, such as Dorothee, and then pimped them out to others. [There were hints in the film that Chris also been lured there as a 16 year-old schoolgirl by him.]

Chris (Valerie Kaprisky) on the Topless French Beaches

Chris also recommenced an awkward affair with an older man - it was a reunion with a long-time acquaintance:

• Vic Lamotte (Jacques Perrin), a long-time family friend and married businessman (with two young boys) to Marianne (Béatrice Agenin); he was middle-aged, gray-haired, and still guilt-ridden - he had impregnated Chris two years earlier, and she had no choice but to have an abortion; he still retained lingering affection for her (although she was now toying with his love - described by the narrator as manipulation: "She was enjoying that kind of satisfaction")

It became clear, through a lengthy flashback, that he had known her earlier when she was just a provocative and amoral 16 year-old school-girl. At first, he had secretly visited her bedroom when she was asleep while he was visiting with other older friends, and they kissed. Then, in her bedroom, they were both naked in bed together. She told him that she needed to be on the pill now that they were having sex: "Are you crazy or what?...I didn't think you would do this..I have to ask my mother for the pill. If you think that's easy." He apologized.

School Girl Chris' Growing Sexual Affair with Vic - One Visit

In a later encounter when he snuck away for a 45-minute quickie from his family to be with her, she eagerly disrobed. He hugged her, and then began to move down to kiss her sexually. She pushed him away: "No, it's not for a man...I don't like it." She expressed her exasperation with her teacher's aide friend Danni who was envious of her and was always monitoring her every action. According to her, Danni had threatened to notify Vic's wife Marianne about their affair, but held off when Chris promised never to see him again. Chris abruptly dismissed Vic: "Your wife must be waiting for you."

A Second Visit Between Chris and Vic

Upon his return home, Vic's wife Marianne told him that Claude had called with worry about her daughter Chris now pregnant at age 16, possibly fathered by a teenaged boy, and would inevitably require an abortion. A short time later in his car, Chris insisted to Vic that their relationship was now over: ("This is where it ends, Vic. Next time, I'll just be the daughter of your friends").

Therefore, the newly-revived relationship between Vic and Chris two years later remained poisoned. She had promised to herself to never get involved with him again, but they continued to see each other on-and-off, and she made herself irresistible to him by continually taunting and teasing him. During their brief get-togethers, they often kissed, and once when they parted, she suggested: "Think of me." Another time, she wondered if they could get married and have children, but in the next sentence, she told Vic to return "to your s--tty comfort, to your s--tty life." She called him "weak" for not leaving everything for her, and then told him: "You don't know what you want." She knew that she always yielded power and sex over him that could lure him back to her.

Meanwhile, Romain was inviting numerous female sunbathers to his yacht Alauna III for sex, including Dorothee, and as Chris had predicted, he pimped her out to an older rich man named Guttaz (Jean-Paul Dubarry). Romain also began to persistently romance Chris' own mother Claude for sex, although initially, she was basically disinterested in him and could see through his lies. She often referred to the personal insult he gave her when he told her she was "too old" for his pimping business. Chris learned that her mother was lying about secretly seeing Romain, and it intensified their love-triangle rivalry.

During Claude's time with Romain on his yacht, after being invited there, Claude initiated his sexual seduction of her by suggestively urging and prompting: "Forget discretion. Start the conversation." During talk afterwards while she was naked in his arms, he asked what she was thinking about, and she responded by bluntly describing the difference between love and sex: "About my Mother. What my Mother said about love. 'I don't understand all this fuss and such a waste of time for a matter of orifice.'" Chris seemed to be jealous that her older (though gorgeous) mother was attracting the attention of Romain, and that they began seeing each other on a regular basis. Soon after, Claude met up again with Romain and they had sex on a nighttime beach, even though she called him "a piece of garbage." Their sexcapades became short-lived when he tired of her.

Meanwhile at the beach, Chris and Claude had become friends with another married vacationing German couple:

• Peter Casteline (Antoine Nikola)
• Barbara (Barbara Nielsen), Peter's wife

To cause trouble and remain in competition with her mother, Chris encouraged the young couple to join in a threesome with her back in their hotel room after clubbing. She initiated a lesbian-kiss with Barbara that brought issues to the surface, and soon learned that Peter abruptly left to return to Germany the next morning without Barbara who had remained behind. Chris thought Peter's departure was an excuse, and then told Barbara startling news: "He told me he no longer loved you. He did not know how to tell you." According to Chris, Peter had orchestrated the set-up to break up their marriage, and then planned to later meet up with Chris in Paris, but she had refused. This was devastating to Barbara - she broke down.

In a dramatic climactic scene, Chris blackmailed Romain into taking her on a late-night date on his yacht by threatening to reveal his affair with her mother Claude: ("Or else I tell my father everything"). She reasoned about how he could use their date as an alibi: "You could use this as an alibi...For you. I'm protecting the mother. Not, I want to go out with the daughter." The narrator described how jellyfish were invading the shore - the film's thematic connection to Chris:

"The jellyfish were creeping in by the thousands, discreetly invading the shore like a chorus walking on stage before the opening of the curtain."

After a short time at an amusement park, Chris impatiently asked to go to his yacht. On board, the misogynistic Romain described how she was a flirtatious and heartless siren or Medusa figure - a scary femme fatale who often lured men to their doom with her sexuality.

"Poor Salome who tried everything for the last two years. She follows me, tracks me down, owns me, snubs me. She flirts with me. In short, she waits for me. First, it was a 16 year old Salome, then 17 and now 18. Still here, beautiful...I thought she would tire of this, but no. She did not tire of it."

Chris confronted him: "Why did you screw my mother?" and demanded the truth. He dismissed her without answering directly, claiming that Chris was the one who deserved to be abused and dumped because she was a spoiled little rich girl: "You don't interest me. And you can't be of any use to me. Is that clear? You scare me. You're so predictable, ordinary, obvious. It's pathetic." He then predicted what her future life would be in a derogatory and demeaning manner: ("Chris, my beautiful. I know what you will become...You'll be less beautiful than today, but you'll be elegant, a pain in the ass"). He even compared her to her mother, but without the charm or substance: "You'll never have your mother's charm and intensity. You'll be a wife, a mother, a socialite." When he said she would continue playing "power games," she retorted: "Your job is to f--k chicks, so f--k me." He refused even though she said she loved him.

When she turned away from him, she noticed the water below was filled with jellyfish. [Note: She knew that he had a history of sensitivity to stings and anaphylactic shock.] She decided to become "Salome" by performing a dance in front of him: "If you call me Salome, I must be her type." She turned on boom-box music, stripped down completely naked, and shook her breasts back and forth at him. He explained to her, prophetically, why Salome danced: "To have a man murdered."

She then twirled in circles toward him and abruptly pushed him overboard into a sea of jellyfish. She watched from the railing above as he struggled and then went into shock and sank after being stung. Reports were that Romain's stranded yacht was found but he wasn't in it, although his body was found shortly later. Claude was worried by Romain's sudden disappearance, and expressed a desire to leave that evening. After he was reported dead, she expressed some grief, although Chris feigned shock.

In the final scene before leaving, Chris was swimming totally naked and sunbathing au naturel with Barbara in an outdoor pool (where Chris claimed "Bathing suits are not allowed here"). They appeared affectionate toward each other, and Chris called Barbara "cute" - "With this type of body, you don't have a place to hang on to...Usually there's a hefty side, short legs, low butt."

The narrator ended the film - confirming that Chris had become a socialite as Romain had predicted:

Today, Chris is married to a young doctor, and has two children. She is among thousands like her. She is satisfied with her ordinary life. Of the events reported here she has nothing left. But for two scars: one on her right shoulder and the other on her left breast.

Another Country (1984, UK)

This British coming-of-age film, an adaptation of Julian Mitchell's play, by director Marek Kanievska, told about an unexplicit relationship between two schoolboys in a 1930s British boarding school:

• Guy Burgess (Rupert Everett in a star-making role), openly-gay
• James Harcourt (Cary Elwes)

In one scene, the two young males gently cuddled in the moonlight - one of the earliest representations of homosexual romantic love.

Bachelor Party (1984)

This above-average, irreverent, trashy-vulgar mid-80s teen sex screwball comedy was about typical 'bachelor party' shenanigans. Its main tagline was:

• Shocking, Shameless, Sinful, Wicked. And the party hasn't even started.

Twenty-four years later there followed a sequel - with more nudity:

Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation (2008)

The original comedy starred young actor Tom Hanks as school bus-driver Rick Gassko. He ultimately decided to marry his long-time debutante girlfriend Debbie Thompson (Tawny Kitaen), although his party-animal reputation was disturbing to the prospective wealthy in-laws.

During Rick's debauched bachelor party (he had vowed to remain faithful to Debbie), Tracey (buxom pinup Monique Gabrielle) appeared in a bedroom to test him. Tracey dropped out of her dress, walked over and sat down at the foot of a bed where the struggling Rick contemplated whether to have sex with her or not.

She seduced him with the words: "Rick. Take me, please!" He then imagined heads of different people superimposed on her body that offered advice. Debbie: "Rick. You promised me. You promised me you wouldn't make love to anybody else." Nun: "Don't go back on your word, Rick. Be true. Be strong." Brother: "What, are you nuts? Look at my tits! They're perfect!"

Tracey (Monique Gabrielle) With Super-Imposed Heads
With Debbie's Head	With Nun's Head
With Brother's Head	Tracey again

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Blame It On Rio (1984)

This unfunny and distasteful sex comedy was produced and directed by Stanley Donen (of Singin' In The Rain fame!). It was a remake of Claude Berri's French sex comedy Un Moment D'égarement (1977, Fr.) (aka One Wild Moment) with Jean-Pierre Marielle, and was a younger version of Blake Edwards' 10 (1979).

The film followed an awkward May-December romantic entanglement that occurred during a Rio beach vacation between:

• Jennifer Lyons (17 year-old Michelle Johnson in her debut film role), a nymphet, buxom and voluptuous
• Matthew Hollis (Michael Caine), a lecherous married businessman; he was the best friend of Victor Lyons (Joseph Bologna), Jennifer's father

Jennifer hung out at the topless Brazilian beach with her teenaged friend Nicole 'Nikki' Hollis (Demi Moore), Matthew's daughter.

Vacationing Jennifer (Michelle Johnson) and Teenaged Friend Nikki (Demi Moore)

A reluctant "Uncle Matthew" was repeatedly seduced and eventually succumbed to the oversexed, intrepid, frequently nude, and under-aged Jennifer (who in one scene rushed into her bedroom to take a posed, nude Polaroid picture of herself - and placed a small bouquet of flowers over her private parts just in time).

In another scene, after a topless nighttime beach romp, he was left staring up at her bare breasts. After kissing him, she also boldly propositioned him, requesting:

Jennifer (kneeling): "Make love to me."
Matthew (he bent down): "I'm 20 years older than you."
Jennifer: "Twenty-eight."
Matthew (stuttering): "Twenty-five" (he removed his glasses and positively responded)

Later in another beach scene, she was joyous with Matthew ("You love me"). She kissed him, called him her possession ("you're mine"), and explained her understanding of love - her desire to sing out her love for him caused Matthew great consternation:

Do you know what love really is? It's like you swallowed a great big secret. A warm wonderful secret that nobody else knows about...Other times, though, it's more like a song. A song that you want to sing at the top of your voice for everyone to hear.

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Body Double (1984)

Director Brian DePalma's R-rated erotic thriller paid homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Dial M for Murder (1954) and Vertigo (1958). It was criticized for being misogynistic and violent; clues were provided in the film's title and in the film's taglines - "You can't believe everything you see," and "A Seduction, A Mystery, A Murder."

In the opening title credits sequence - a schlocky, B-movie horror-tinged segment with wolves howling and red blood dripping off names of cast members - the camera panned down into a graveyard's open coffin - during the film's first "film within a film"; struggling B-movie working LA actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) was entombed and reclined inside the open box as an undead vampire; he froze with claustrophobia when he turned toward the camera with a frightful look; the director Rubin (Dennis Franz) became worried: "Action, Jake. Jake! Action. Cut. Look, Jake, what's your problem, huh?...Something's the matter with him. That's all right, Jake, just relax"; he was frequently experiencing trouble in acting roles in vampire films due to his claustrophobia, and was fired.

He was also emasculated after catching his live-in girlfriend Carol (Barbara Crampton) cheating and having sex with another man.

But then fortuitously, Jake was 'hired' to house-sit in a swanky, LA Hollywood Hills bachelor pad mansion, arranged by fellow thespian actor 'Sam Bouchard' (Gregg Henry). 'Sam' showed off "one very special feature" of the house-sitting job - the auto-erotic, exhibitionist, brunette dancer-neighbor who night-after-night stripped within easy view, and performed a self-pleasuring dance night-after-night.

Jake became an obsessed 'peeping tom' as he voyeuristically ogled the beautiful, rich Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton), an auto-erotic exhibitionist, in the apartment across the way through a high-powered telescope.

Jake Stalking Gloria in a Beverly Hills Mall and at the Beach

During a lengthy sequence, the infatuated Jake followed after the mysterious Gloria during a cat-and-mouse stalking through an upscale Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills) mall - while she was also being tailed by a black-hatted, sun-glasses-wearing, menacing creepy Indian who snatched her purse. It appeared to be a simple theft case (the purse-snatching Indian had taken her card key). Jake watched voyeuristically as Gloria tried on a pair of panties in an open-curtained dressing room within a store; the sequence ended with Jake and Gloria kissing on the beach (with obvious back-projection) - using a stunning, Vertigo-like 360 degree revolving camera, until she declared: "I can't do this" - and ran off.

Soon afterwards came the infamous set-up murder (a very grisly scene) by - spoiler - Gloria's abusive (and separated) husband Alexander Revelle (alias 'Sam Bouchard'), using an erect power drill, and disguised as a disfigured Native American. During the extended killing, Jake attempted to reach her and save and rescue her, although thwarted by her dog, and he was powerless to stop the killing.

During an investigation of his own, Jake rested on his revolving bed and drank Jack Daniels straight from the bottle, Jake watched late-night adult cable TV, listening to an interview with a porn star named Linda Shaw (Herself) of Linda Shaw Enterprises (known for such X-rated flicks as "The Mating Game," "One Night at a Time" and "Bold Obsession"). He also watched a short promotional clip of bleached-blonde adult film porn queen Holly Body (Melanie Griffith) in an X-rated porn shoot titled Holly Does Hollywood ("The Gone With the Wind of Adult Films" according to Eros Magazine; Erotic X Film Guide called it "A Hedonist's Heaven"). Her familiar-looking, self-pleasuring dance in the porno film caused Jake to wonder whether Holly might provide a link to Gloria's murder. He immediately rented the video from the "Adult Section" of a local 24 hour video rental store, and watched Holly's full-length performance.

Promotional clip of Porn Queen Holly Body in X-rated Holly Does Hollywood

Shortly thereafter, Jake entered the business of hardcore X-rated films, in order to meet Holly. He participated as a nerdy-looking supporting actor in a short music-video scene with her. It was an X-rated 'film within a film' - shot to the tune of "Relax" by British pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. During the filming of the actual raw sex scene with her, after Jake had spotted her in a room labeled "Sluts," he spoke his short amount of dialogue to her: "I like to watch." He became so involved in the scene (he also fantasy-imagined being in the arms of Gloria for a moment, as the camera spun around 360 degrees) when making love to her that the 'money shot' was not visible to the startled cameraman who asked:

"Where's the cum shot?..The cum shot. I thought we were doing 'Body Talk' here, not 'Last Tango.'"

Jake in Another "Film Within a Film" Porn Shoot with Holly Body

When Jake expressed a desire to hire Holly to be in his own porn film ("I want you in my picture"), she asserted upfront, to prevent misunderstandings later on: "I do not do animal acts. I do not do S & M or any variations of that particular bent. No water sports either. I will not shave my pussy, no fist f--king, and absolutely no coming in my face. I get $2,000 a day and I do not work without a contract."

When he asked about a routine of "a woman alone, getting herself off, it's got to be really hot," she claimed that self-pleasuring was her speciality: "I have a routine that is a sure-ten on the peter meter." Jake was tipped off that the "show" ("masturbation routine") that Gloria had put on in the house nearby had been performed by Holly ("That was you in the Revelle house").

The film's twist was that Holly Body, a porn queen 'body double', had been hired to impersonate Gloria by wearing a dark-haired wig and dancing in the apartment. He was able to have Holly confirm that "Sam's" voice during a phone conversation was the same as the man who had hired her to perform for two nights. She helped Jake to unravel the conspiracy underlying the murder - learning that it was more than "a little practical joke" but a case of murder instead. Jake's fellow actor 's alias or alter-ego name 'Sam Bouchard' was really Alexander Revelle - who knew that Jake would be watching the sexy neighbor - and ultimately witness Gloria's murder. Jake realized that he had been set-up by "Sam" to be a convenient witness/alibi to her murder.

In the conclusion, it was revealed at a reservoir site that Alexander had been disguised as the killer-Indian (with latex face-makeup). He admitted angrily to Jake: "You ruined my surprise ending" - but ended up getting pushed backward to his death in the churning reservoir water below.

The End Credits Sequence - Jake in Shower Scene with Lead Actress (Denise Loveday) and Then Replaced by a "Body Double" Named "Mindy"

The film's final credits rolled over a Psycho-like scene shot in a shower featuring how an actual body double (named Mindy) for a naked shot was substituted into the film for the lead actress (Denise Loveday). Mindy told Jake (opposite her as a vampire) to be careful: "My breasts are very tender. I've got my period." After fondling her, Jake bit into her neck, causing a cascade of blood down her naked chest.

Watching from the side offscreen, Holly advised the robed lead actress watching the nude double - "You know what? You're gonna get a lot of dates when this comes out."

[Note: This was De Palma's answer to his critics for using a 'body double' for Angie Dickinson in the opening of Dressed to Kill (1980).]

Bolero (1984)

After Fantasies (1981) and Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981), this was the third film featuring blonde-haired, blue-eyed Bo Derek that was directed by her Svengali husband John. Their fourth and final collaboration was for Ghosts Can't Do It (1989). It was an overwrought tale of sexual awakening that was released unrated, due to its rampant and lengthy sexual content and nudity.

From its nine Golden Raspberry (Razzie) nominations, it won six awards (including Worst Actress, Worst Picture, and Worst Director). The film was also nominated as one of the Worst Pictures of the Decade. Its taglines were:

• "An adventure in eXtasy"
• "The Hottest Erotic Film of the Century"

The film's title was derivative of two connections or double-entendres:

• a veiled reference to her own name BO - lero
• another reference to Maurice Ravel's 'Bolero' - played during a love-sequence in her previous hit film 10 (1979) directed by Blake Edwards

27 year-old Bo Derek (originally named Kathleen Collins) played the role of "overeducated" Scottish lass Lida MacGillivery (aka "Mac") in the 1920s, an avid Rudolph Valentino fan, who early on confessed to her Spanish girlfriend Catalina (aka "Cat") Terry (Ana Obregon), another recent graduate from a strict all-girls English boarding school: "But in the ways of love, we're kindergarten toddlers." Both agreed that they wished to "wallow" in "eXtasy" on the hot sands of Morocco - 'Mac' was on a quest to find an ideal lover, after having obtained her inheritance from her father as a "rich bitch."

To celebrate receiving the inheritance and graduating as an 18 year-old, "Mac" stripped down topless to her underwear and streaked about in the school's garden, amazing her father's chauffeur/guardian Cotton (George Kennedy) about how much she had "grown well" since childhood.

Chauffeur/pimp Cotton, Catalina ("Cat") and "Mac" first traveled to N. Africa (Morocco), where "Mac" forwardly introduced herself to a "real Sheik" (Greg Bensen) - London-educated (with nods to Rudolf Valentino's 'sheik' character). She boldly offered: "I have come all this way to give you something you may not even want. My virginity...Will you take the gift?" The next day, after arriving at the Arab sheik's ocean-side sand-dune encampment by aeroplane, "Mac" received a lesson in sensual belly-dancing before she was stripped of her clothing in his tent. Old-style title cards described: "And now...the gift is without a wrapper."

The Sheik asked in another title card: "Where is the milk and honey?" In the infamous scene, he dripped honey onto her naked breasts and body and began licking the sweet substance, causing her to be tickled. He asked: "What's the matter with you?" As she recalled just before impending intercourse with the Sheik, "When it should have happened...", her male partner/lover fell asleep (from hookah-smoking): "The sleep was from the magic smoke, not me." She was upset for being denied sex - and for being covered in thick honey, and complained: "I'm all dressed up with no place to go!"

"Mac" with Moroccan Sheik - and Thick Honey

The next stop for "Cat" and "Mac" was Spain, where "Mac" flirted with dark-eyed, sexy bullfighter Angel Sacristan (Andrea Occhipinti), but had to compete with two others:

• Paloma (under-aged 15 year-old Olivia d'Abo), matador Angel's young almost 14 year-old "gypsy child"
• Natty (Corinne Russell), Angel's naked and jealous red-headed girlfriend in an outdoor hot-tub

Paloma bragged about her ripe feminine shape as she was rinsed off by "Mac" after her sudsy bath: "I am woman ready. Juicy, too."

Gypsy Child Paloma (Olivia d'Abo) in Sudsy Bathtub
	'Mac' In a Steam Spa with Paloma
Natty (Corinne Russell) With the Matador Angel

Soon, "Mac" gave herself to acclaimed matador Angel at sunrise, as she predicted: ("Fruit's about to fall from the tree"), although she first had to give him a lengthy and wet tongue kiss in his ear! Before a roaring fire, she then asked before offering her maidenhood:

"Right now, will you show me everything? Do everything to me? Show me everything I can do to you? Am I too greedy?...Is there enough that I can give to you? So that you can give ecstasy to me?"

After being painfully penetrated during intercourse, she told him:

"I'm not a virgin anymore."

Shortly later, she received the gift of a honey-colored horse and the acquisition of his wine business. But their love and the possibility of marriage was tested when he was gored in the genitals by a bull, although she was certain he wouldn't be permanently impotent: "That thing is going to work. I guarantee you this."

Meanwhile, "Cat" lost her virginity to Scottish solicitor Robert Stewart (Ian Cochrane), assuring him: "This is unbelievable. I love it. And the hurt - I love the hurt."

To arouse the impaled Angel, "Mac" took a nude and bareback horseback ride, but was disappointed in his reaction ("You're a hard man to seduce"). Before attempting love-making, she urged: "You say that we never found ecstasy. That it was like quicksilver, always promising next time. Angel, I want ecstasy. Let's find it." He cried out: "Make me whole again" and she accepted his challenge to be seduced ("I guaranteed it"). She assured him after he said that he loved her:

"Well, my dreams take me beyond infinity. What love you must have for me. I guaranteed it."

Final Successful and Climactic Attempt at Love-Making and 'Extasy'

Soon after, she was straddled atop him, applauding his firmness ("Bravo!") and they fulfilled making love in a smoke-filled Heaven, in front of a neon sign reading: Extasy. She exclaimed: "Look! 'X.' I was right."

They were soon married in a church ceremony, as the film abruptly ended.

The Bounty (1984, US/UK)

Roger Donaldson's adventure yarn was a fairly faithful remake of the oft-told tale of the ill-fated HMS Bounty, which had been told twice earlier:

• MGM's Best Picture winner Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton
• Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard

In this modern PG-rated version, the Polynesian native inhabitants were frequently bare-breasted, unlike in the two previous versions, as they interacted with the British sailors.

The main ill-fated romance threatening to endanger the voyage commandeered by Captain Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) was between:

• Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson), the mutinous Master's Mate
• Mauatua (Tevaite Vernette), a lovely maiden, Fletcher's free-spirited tropical island native girlfriend/lover, the Tahitian King's daughter

Crimes of Passion (1984)

British director Ken Russell's erotic thriller was a neon-lit, dark, "guilty pleasure" cult tale. Its tagline was: "Her name is China Blue. She is watched. She is worshipped. And, she must remain a mystery."

In the film's opening sequence, 30 year-old home electronics shop owner Bobby Grady (John Laughlin), with his own store (Grady Home Electronics), attended a group sex-therapy session for the first time where he claimed, unlike the other attendees, that he had been happily married for 11 years and had two children with his wife Amy (Annie Potts) and had no hang-ups; he asked himself: "What the hell am I doing here?"; however after some prodding, he admitted he had a dull and failed marriage and that his wife was frigid; he blamed a loss of sexual interest: "I am not the one who complains how tired I am every night. Getting her to make love is like asking her to run the Boston Marathon, and then those times that we actually do go through with it, I don't know whether to embrace her or embalm her."

The main protagonist was a moonlighting, kinky, street-walking, pill-popping LA prostitute named China Blue (Kathleen Turner); China Blue's entrance in the film began with a closeup of her face, as the camera slowly pulled back, while she was servicing her first male client - a man named Carl (John G. Scanlon) who was kneeling between her spread-eagled legs. He insisted that she role-play for him a beauty pageant contestant named Miss Liberty 1984 - and then euphemistically, he told about how she play her "instrument" (a flute) and could also blow his "instrument" - she tantalized him with her sex-talk while unzipping his pants:

"First I unzip the case, and take out the instrument very carefully. I'm very gentle. And then I run my little hand all over it. Up and down, and up and down. And then I-I fondle it so softly, so softly. Hmm, I love the look of it. Oh, I love the feel of it, so smooth and firm. Oh, I love to wrap my fingers around it and tenderly caress it. Well, I like to lift it to my mouth and wrap my lips around it. And then I just wait for that sweet, sweet music to come pourin' out."

Schizophrenic Reverend Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins): Watching Peep Show Stripper, Then Preaching About Sin on the Sidewalk

The film's other central character was initially observed watching a red-light district peep-show striptease (with other men pleasuring themselves while peering through rectangular slits at the stripper (Janice Renney)) while also snorting amyl-nitrate - he was deranged, perversely psychotic, self-proclaimed preacher Reverend Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins); when he wasn't watching a strip show (and imagining a naked dancer dead), he was preaching sermons on his soap-box outside about how the wicked would be punished: "Dear God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance..."

China Blue plied her fleshy wares in a grungy downtown Los Angeles area filled with XXX adult stores, bars, live nude and peep shows; wearing a platinum wig and a light-blue silky dress; she came up to the Reverend who announced: "I've been sent by the Lord to save you and to rid the earth of that plague. I am his holy messenger... Save your soul, whore."

She frequented the Paradise Isle Hotel for tricks, where her second client had a sexual fetish of pretending to stalk and attack her before "raping" her in her room in the hotel; during sex, she imagined Japanese erotic art prints or other exaggerated drawings of enlarged male genitals.

One Client's 'Chase and Rape' Fetish

During Sex, China Blue Imagined Japanese Erotic Art

When Bobby returned home late from work, his wife Amy complained about their dire financial situation; to earn extra funds, Bobby was hired to moonlight as a part-time PI and nighttime-surveillance security expert (on top of his day job at the electronics store); he secured work for a ladies' sportswear company owner named Lou Bateman (Norman Burton); one of Bateman's employees was Joanna Crane - China Blue's alter-ego; Joanna was working during the day as a prim but workaholic sporting fashion designer for Bateman's company for the previous two years, but was also secretly moonlighting as a prostitute; it was suspected that she was in the business of selling patented design patterns and secrets to Bateman's competition, although she was a compulsive, ambitious and hard-working employee; the job was described to him: ("Follow her - where she goes at night, what she does...She must be hiding something").

During his first night of surveillance, Grady followed Joanna after work from her apartment home in a taxi to the downtown Paradise Isle Hotel, where she transformed into her second profession as a prostitute; he videotaped her and watched as she was again accosted by the deranged Reverend who invited himself up to her "Holy of Holies" room, where he ranted that he was her Savior: "I deal in truth. I'm bringing you something greater than a hard-on"; she proposed that he have sex with her and explained how her profession completely fulfilled all of her clients' fantasies:

"This is a fantasy business, Reverend. You can have any truth you want....Why don't you f--k me? That'll save me...What disease? I'm healthy as a horse. I'm fit as a fiddle and ready for cock...I'm Cinderella, Cleopatra, Goldie Hawn, Eva Braun, I'm Little Miss Muffin, I'm Pocahontas, I'm whoever you want me to be, Reverend"

He rejected her repeated requests to have sex ("My purpose here is strictly humanitarian....To make you see through the bulls--t"); Grady was on the outer fire-escape and listened in on their conversation.

China Blue grabbed for his black doctor's-styled bag and was shocked to discover that it contained sex toys ("the devil's playthings") - including a rubber breast-shaped pacifier, an artificial foam-rubber vagina, a battery-operated auto-suck mechanism, a red 'beat-me, eat-me' licorice whip, and a chrome-steel, razor-tipped, titanium vibrating dildo (dubbed "Superman") - she was flabbergasted: "What the hell? Is this a cruise missile or a Pershing? What are you going to do, f--k someone to death?" [Her question was a prophetic foreshadowing.] As he left, he promised: "All you need to know about me is that I intend to save you...Trust me. I'll free you."

When China Blue left the room, Grady entered and snooped around in drawers and the closet and found only sex-related items (zippered panties, handcuffs, and her book of erotic Japanese artwork, and an X-rated adult video, etc.), and no evidence that Joanna was selling design secrets; in fact, another employee named Phil Chambers (Thomas Murphy) confessed to selling the patterns.

Grady's First Trick with China Blue
Toe-Sucking		Silhouettes Behind a Gauzy Curtain

Grady visited her as a client and entered into an obsessive, erotic relationship with her during Grady's first intense sexual encounter (for $50) with China Blue, she fantasy role-played as a flight attendant: "Good evening. Welcome to China Blue Airlines Flight 69, non-stop service to Paradise. We'll be taking off shortly. I'll be unbuckling your belt and seeing that big bird rise and rise, finally settling into the comfort only this wide body can provide. We're here to serve you. Please remember that although we may run out of Pan Am coffee, we'll never run out of T-W-A-Tea." She sucked on his bare toe and then had sexual intercourse with him in multiple positions (viewed as silhouettes behind a gauzy curtain), while the Reverend peeped on them through a peep-hole from an adjoining room that he had rented.

After sex with Grady, China Blue was reluctant to admit her true affection for him, but didn't want an attached relationship and claimed she had only been play-acting with him: ("There are three things you have to know to make it as a 50-buck hooker. You have to act, you have to f--k and you have to know how to count to 50. You're lucky. You've seen all three"); she realized that Grady had a lot of emotional baggage as a family man and their contacts would put him at jeopardy with his wife.

Next, the annoying and misguided Reverend appeared in her hotel room with a $50 dollar bill for sex; she dressed up in a nun's outfit (singing "Onward Christian Soldiers") to taunt his hypocritical, sham game of being 'self-righteous' with a desire to save her; she shouted out that she was cured and "free at last" as condemnation for his hypocrisy; she accused the Reverend of being full of flowery words with no manly substance: ("A man of words! He makes up in diction what he lacks in dick!") and finally threw him out: ("Take your goddamn truth and get outta here!"); outside the hotel, Grady intervened when he saw the Reverend bullying China Blue, but was knocked down; she sincerely thanked Grady for the help, but advised: "Now, go on home to your wife."

China Blue was involved in a short threesome in a limousine with two upper-class snobs Claudia (Louise Sorel and Arthur (John Rose) before demanding to be dropped off on a curbside; meanwhile, the psychotic Reverend simulated the killing of a peep-show stripper by stabbing a full-sized blow-up doll with his giant dildo in his rented room.

Due to continuing issues between Grady and his wife over their intimate sex life, Grady soon moved out and they officially separated; he sought the advice of Joanna at her apartment - where she became extremely uncomfortable about being unmasked with all her secrets and shortcomings ("I'm never horny here"); she had obvious friendship issues in her real-life and preferred her alter-ego China Blue, although she slowly softened to the idea of being friends with him.

One night late at work, the Reverend appeared during a freight elevator ride next to Joanna, prefaced by his vibrating giant dildo; he fondled his sex-toy as he babbled about saving her: ("No more deceptions, Joanna. I know who you are. We're the same, don't you see? The same rage. The same fear. We hurt the same. We escape the same. But we don't have to anymore. We have a chance, both of us, together...I want to love and care and need just like you do. We could help each other. We don't have to grow old alone"); she fled from him as he promised to return.

To seek satisfaction elsewhere, China Blue engaged in dominatrix S & M scene with a policeman (Randall Brady) who was handcuffed to a bed and then aggressively sodomized with his own nightstick during intercourse, as he bled from his restrained wrists and from her spiked stiletto heels [Note: the unrated-uncensored video version contained non-theatrical (semi-pornographic) extras and deleted scenes - including a scene (deleted from some versions to avoid an X-rating)]; next door, the Reverend stroked his dildo and watched inside a candle-lit religious shrine he had erected to China Blue.

China Blue's S&M Sex Scene (Often Edited) with Policeman

During another encounter with Joanna in her apartment late at night, Grady spoke about how he wanted her to "grow up" and have a real relationship with him; she explained her deepest fears about real-life romance: ("It's so hard, Bobby. No man's ever given me that kind of faith before, that kind of respect. That hotel is the safest place in the world. I can do anything there. I can be anything I can dream of, because it's not me"); he proposed making love: ("What we did in that hotel room we can do here") while outside, the Reverend sat in the bushes and prayed for God's punishment upon the sinners: "O God to whom vengeance belongs, how long shall the wicked triumph?"; however, shortly later, Joanna felt conflicted about breaking up Grady's marriage, and how their relationship might not work out either: "Maybe in a month or so, you'll start feeling guilty about leaving the kids. Maybe I'll start feeling crowded and trapped."

In the startling conclusion with a twist, the Reverend violently assaulted Joanna inside her apartment for one "final" game to free her forever; his excuse was that he desired to save her: "The Reverend's gonna save you tonight once and for all...I'm a messenger of God and I only want to heal you...One more game, the final one, the one that will free you forever. Do I have your trust? Because we can only play if I have your trust"; while wielding his razor-tipped dildo to be used to exorcise her demons', he spoke about his calling: "My calling is the ultimate salvation, and its ends are sacrosanct. With my ecclesiastic gift, plus the grace of God, and a little help from Superman here, I shall bestow upon you the supreme humanitarian blessing and give you your freedom. You, uh, you do want that, don't you? I knew you would...My issue has always been your salvation"; he tied her down on her drafting table, and played demented songs on a piano.

It appeared that China Blue would be his victim - stabbed by his "Superman" dildo: "I looked at you and I saw myself. I saw the same escape, the same malignancy. But I know the cure and I know how desperately you need it. And only I can give it to you."

But then surprisingly, they reversed roles and she was released; she approached him with the dildo as he sunk to his knees in a prayful position and pleaded to be killed: "...Kill me Joanna, give my life value. Give me something to die for. Save me. You are me! One of us has to die so the other can live. Kill me, you worthless c--t. I'm all the men who ever hurt you, who made you feel like s--t, who stole your self-respect and turned you into China Blue. Kill me! Release the rage. Get it out. Get even!"

However, he grabbed her wrist and the roles switched again: "Too late!" He forced her to strip ("Strip, bitch!"), and ordered her to put on her blue dress; at that same moment, Grady arrived and heard a scuffle inside; he burst through the door to save Joanna; he watched as the character wearing China Blue's dress (presumably Joanna) was stabbed in the back by the razor-tipped dildo/vibrator (dubbed "Superman"); the stabbed individual rose up and threatened to attack Grady with a pair of sharp scissors.

A role reversal and costume twist were revealed -- the stabbed Reverend was wearing the China Blue dress and a wig, while she was wearing his Reverend's outfit; Joanna had saved Grady from being assaulted by stabbing the Reverend in the back with his own "Superman" dildo - his last parting words were: "Goodbye, China Blue."

The film ended with Grady again attending the marital therapy group where he admitted he had separated from his wife and was in a new relationship with Joanna:

"I'm here tonight because I wanted to finally start telling the truth. My wife and I, we have split up for good. That's right. Me, the Boy Scout. I just never had the guts to admit the truth, that Amy and I had just stopped loving each other. There's nobody to blame. That's just what happened. Then, I met this woman, Joanna. She saved my life. We're together now. I'm not sure if it's gonna work out. We don't have a, a whole hell of a lot in common, other than the fact that, that we both need help - and each other. The thing, you see, that scared me the most during my marriage was just admitting that I was scared and letting Amy down. Well, I can't pretend anymore. I was scared s--tless to come back here. I told Joanna. And she took me in her arms and she said, 'It's OK to be scared.' I felt stronger and freer and more like a man than I've ever felt before in my life. Then we f--ked our brains out."

La Femme Publique (1984, Fr.) (aka The Public Woman)

French sex starlet Valerie Kaprisky starred in this artsy and stylish French "film-within-a-film," inspired by Dostoevsky's novel The Devils, and directed by Andrzej Zulawski (the autobiographical film was the Polish director's 5th feature film).

The very dark and enigmatic film of exploitation with a non-linear plot included plentiful scenes of complete nudity and heated sex, as the main character struggled for self-discovery - to break free from her victimization and eventually score a victory over various dominating male mentors.

Zulawski's film defied genre classification - it could be considered a psychological erotic drama, a political conspiracy thriller, an arthouse film, or any combination of the above. The non-linear plot in this "film within a film" was about the experiences of:

• Ethel (Valerie Kaprisky), a runaway from her alcoholic father's home (her father had numerous gambling debts and her mother was suicidally depressed); she was living in Paris as a young struggling actress, taking jobs as a nude model working for Gertrude (Giselle Pascal)

In the film's opening, a cafe-bar brawl broke out that was actually a scene being imagined or rehearsed during film-making, with one of the roles played by novice actress/model Ethel - the titular "public woman." The mediocre ingenue actress was involved in 'reading' for the scene in which she didn't emote or articulate her character completely.

The aspiring, struggling and inexperienced actress was auditioning for the lead role of Liza Tushina in a costume period drama adapted from Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel Demons (or Possessed). The abusive, pretentious and flashy filmmaker-director Lucas Kessling (Francis Huster), a Czech émigré working in Paris, and others criticized her work.

In the meantime to make ends meet, Ethel allowed a voyeuristic photographer André (Roger Dumas) to shoot pictures of her as she performed frantic, spastic, convulsive, and lewd interpretive dances.

Ethel Dancing and Frantically On Display For a Photographer - First Dance Sequence

During a second session with the same photographer (later in the film) when she went into a sweaty frenzy and became semi-hysterical, the photographer André suffered a heart attack and fell dead at her feet. She went over to his discarded pile of nude photos taken of her earlier - leafed through them, and felt ashamed and disgusted because all of them were only from the neck down. She yelled at him for not respecting her body as art rather than pornography. [Note: In a confusing third instance - probably a dream sequence - with the same photographer, who was supposedly dead, he went crazy with desire, grabbed the naked Ethel by the throat, and began stuffing paper currency into her mouth and possibly other off-screen body openings?]

Ethel's Second Nude Dance Sequence

In the meantime, Ethel again met with director Kessling on her apartment's stairs when he offered her the script and hired her. It was a way to continually and sexually dominate and manipulate her as a predatory male during the film's preparation. He seduced her and had sex with her on her stairs during production after he followed after her, grabbed her crotch, and unzipped his pants. Ethel was soon fired, but then rehired her to play the role of a missing actress (Elena - see further below) - to form part of a very destructive love-triangle.

Ethel increasingly lost touch with reality while filming with the eccentric director, who acted antagonistically toward her and victimized her with violence, humiliation, and even blackmail - angrily deriding her acting ability and criticizing her for not revealing her emotions. The tyrannical director Kessling forced her to strip naked for a scene in front of a number of cast and crew - she wore sunglasses to shield herself.

Ethel Forced by Director Kessling to Strip Naked Before Cast and Crew

Kessling threatened that he could 'unmake' Ethel as an actress at any time, in order to achieve his ultimate goal for the sake of art - to push her toward perfection: ("I could easily take my scissors and cut your part out...An actress can keep nothing for herself. She can't have her secret garden...If you could do better, you'd be a star!"). His intensity with her led to forceful love-making on more than one occasion.

During Ethel's last filmed sequence before the camera (a slow tracking shot toward a close-up of her face), she spoke with increasing madness:

Did you know? It was at the price - it was at the price of their lives that I could stay here. All you want is to imprison me, and show me that there is a huge spider inside the wardrobe as big as a man. And we will spend the rest of our lives, staring at it, admiring it, knowing it. And this spider would be - God.

A confusing yet intriguing political sub-plot was unsatisfactorially and inadequately portrayed. It was about the planned political assassination of a popular visiting Eastern European (Lithuanian) prelate or archbishop. Coerced Czech immigrant and frail, self-abusing film crew-member Milan Mliska (Lambert Wilson), one of Ethel's sexual partners (in a love-triangle) and also director Kessling's Czech associate, was being manipulated to get rid of the Catholic cardinal who was posing a threat to the Soviet regime.

Ethel (Valerie Kaprisky)	Milan Mliska (Lambert Wilson) with Wife Elena (Diane Delor)	Lucas Kessling (Francis Huster)
Various Individuals in a Complex Love-Triangle

At the same time, Milan mistook Ethel for his missing (or dead and murdered?) wife and actress Elena Mliska (Diane Delor), as Ethel willingly accepted being rehired in the film as a replacement substitute for her role, and taking Mliska as her lover. (Elena had also been one of Kessling's previous starlets.) After Ethel saw a TV broadcast-report about the murder of a woman with gold high heels who had her fingerprints burned off with acid, she began to understand that: (1) Elena had been murdered, (2) Elena was Kessling's former lover, (3) that she was called upon to take Elena's identity, (4) Kessling was politically violent and had orchestrated the assassination of the archbishop through Milan, Elena's husband, and (5) both Elena and Ethel were mistresses of the same two men: Kessling and Milan.

Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter (1984)

This fourth film in the franchise, Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter (1984), was forced to live up to its reputation as a film series with randy, horny teens and copious amounts of sex and nudity (that required murderous retribution). The Friday the 13th films had always provided the premise that sex was punishable, and that one surviving Last Girl (virginal) would remain alive until the end, because she was most like the killer and had remained childlike.

Its basic tagline was:

• Three Times Before You Have Felt The Terror, Known The Madness, Lived The Horror. But This Is The One You've Been Screaming For.

There were two skinny-dipping scenes set at the lake next to Crystal Point, the first in broad daylight, and the second one at night. In the first instance, a large group of teens decided to go swimming, but without a suit, Samantha (Judie Aronson) stripped down and joyfully dove in. Two fraternal twins that the group had just met, Tina and Terri (Camilla and Carey More), jumped in with identical bikinis, but then removed their bathing attire underwater, and alternatingly bobbed up and down in the water to display themselves to the other males on shore, to entice them to also "come on in."

Pretty soon, everyone was naked (there were some glimpses of bare-assed males too), except for embarrassed Sara (Barbara Howard) who lounged on the dock and refused to "strip and dip." When Samantha asked the resistant Sara to join them, she tricked her by pretending to be drowning, and then pulled her friend into the water, revealing her topless self once again in a blur of motion.

[Note: Because Samantha seemed to be the most sexually-liberated female in the group (she earlier described that she had developed a reputation for herself in the 6th grade), she was the first of the teens at the rented house to be murdered.]

In a second skinny-dipping scene at night, a miffed Samantha stripped naked after cursing her two-timing, unfaithful boyfriend Paul ("Screw you, Paulie"), swam out to a yellow/blue rubber raft floating in the lake, and as she was lying on her stomach in the bottom of the raft (after calling out: "Come on, Paul, I know you're out there"), the hand of an unseen killer held her left shoulder down as she was stabbed (from underneath the raft) through her abdomen, with the bowie knife piercing out the center of her back through her spine. Paul received sexual justice shortly after -- he was shot in the crotch with a spear-gun.

Other deaths were directly paired to sexual activity:

• in the medical center, crass morgue attendant Axel (Bruce Mahler) made out with naughty Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman) accompanied by an erotic aerobics video - he lost his life with a bone hacksaw to his neck, while she was cut down the length of her chest with a scalpel.
• a fat hippie hitchhiker (Bonnie Hellman) who was eating (fellating) a banana was stabbed through the back of her neck
• Sara had asked sex partner Doug (Peter Barton) to sleep with her in the bottom bunk. In the bedroom, she prepared for love-making by stripping to her bra and panties, and donning a silky white robe as she primped in front of a mirror, before surrendering her virginity to him in the shower - his face and skull were crushed, while she was killed by an axe to the chest

The only other significant instances of nudity in the film occurred in a "film within-a film" - when a group of the teens were watching a vintage black/white stag movie on a reel-projector in the living room, and the images of nude females in the old film were juxtaposed with various scenes of sex and violence in the real-world around them.

The Vintage B/W Stag Movie Sequence

When one sole male named Ted (Lawrence Monoson) was left watching the flick, he enticingly asked one of the nude screen images: "So you wanna give the ol' Teddy Bear a kiss?" (a masturbatory comment). Immediately, he was phallically impaled through the screen itself. The party that the teens held in the rented house was literally a "dead f--k" party - a phrase used repeatedly in the film.

This was a brainless, soft-core beach-bunny exploitation sex comedy that was originally a Playboy TV movie, but was released as a feature film, directed by Mark Griffiths. It was followed by an equally-inane sequel Hardbodies 2 (1986).

Its tagline was:

• "If You Don't Know What They Are, You Don't Know What You're Missing"

The film told about three divorced, middle-aged horny guys ("hard-ups with hard-ons") who rented a Venice Beach condo. They took lessons from local blonde beach bum/stud Scotty Palmer (Grant Cramer) (with girlfriend Kristi (Teal Roberts)) on how to score with young "hardbodies" and beach bunnies by "dialoguing" and offering them a BBD ("bigger and better deal").

Commentator Joe Bob Briggs counted 44 breasts in the film, many of which appeared in the photo-scene when about a half-dozen females partially stripped and competed with each other to show off their breasts.

The Impromptu Nude Photo-Session with Hardbodies
(Tina Riccio)	(Karen Lybrand) (right front) (Julie Always) (left rear)
(Jackie Easton) (left front)	Hardbody (Leslee Bremmer)

Another memorable scene was the one of Kimberly (Cindy Silver) and Kristi topless in front of a mirror discussing the appeal of their breasts:

Kimberly: "Why do guys like boobs?"
Kristi: "Why do guys like boobs? I don't know why guys like boobs? But they sure go crazy trying to get at 'em though, don't they?"
Kimberly: "Yeah, but they don't do anything, they just lie there."
Kristi: "I know why they like 'em. 'Cause they don't have 'em."

[See other entries: "Raunchy Teen-Sex Comedies of the 1980s."]

Irreconcilable Differences (1984)

This PG-rated dramatic comedy was from the screenwriting (husband-and-wife) team of Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers (it was Meyers' second feature after Private Benjamin (1980)). The film contained Sharon Stone's first topless scene in her earliest major film role (after Wes Craven's low-budget horror film Deadly Blessing (1981) three years earlier).

Its 'high concept' tagline explained the plot in a nutshell:

• They've Got Everything... including a 10 year old daughter who's suing them for divorce.

In the opening scene with her lawyer Phil Hanner (Allen Garfield), the Brodsky's precocious, 9 year-old daughter Casey (Drew Barrymore) sued her self-centered, estranged parents for divorce: ("I want to divorce my parents"). She stated that she wanted to move out and be with her new legal guardian - Mexican nanny Maria Hernandez (Hortensia Colorado).

[Note: As art often reflects reality, young star Drew Barrymore also legally emancipated herself from her parents at age 15.]

In the sit-com-like story viewed via flashbacks in the courtoom from each character, it told about lives that were torn apart in a self-absorbed family (with two narcissistic and career-driven parents) working in the Hollywood film industry:

• Albert Brodsky (Ryan O'Neal), a pretentious script-writer and egotistical writer/director, living in a Beverly Hills mansion
• Lucy Van Patten Brodsky (Shelley Long), a children's book author

Initially together, Albert and Lucy wrote and directed a script for their first movie, An American Romance, about a May-December romance. Lustful and prideful film director Albert then wanted starlet and aspiring actress Blake Chandler (26 year-old Sharon Stone), who he had 'discovered' at a hotdog stand, to be cast in his second film, Gabrielle. Albert became engaged in an extramarital affair with the young starlet of the film, causing Lucy to divorce Albert (and to take Casey with her). Blake had proven to be a conniving homewrecker after moving into the Brodsky's Hollywood Hills mansion - and marrying him!

Then later, Albert also wished for Blake to star in and do a nude scene for his next self-financed vanity project for Blake - a Civil War musical version of Gone with the Wind, titled Atlanta. The movie mogul/producer David Kessler (Sam Wanamaker) objected, remarking that the topless scene would give their PG-rated film an R rating. [Note: The breast exposure was the basic reason for the PG-rating of the film itself!] Suddenly, in one of the most ironic breast-baring scenes, Blake briefly lowered her top to reveal her breasts for Albert - and he assented: "Works for me." The film quickly went over-budget due to Albert's obsessiveness over unimportant details, delays in filming, and Blake's coke-snorting, diva-like behavior. She also had no talent, exemplified by the awful song (and lyrics) she composed for the film:

"This Civil War ain't gonna get me down. I'm taking my act to a brand new town. This belle rings in old Atlanta. I'm gonna find myself a brand new Santa!"

In court during proceedings between Lucy and Albert about child custody, in a tear-jerking sequence toward the film's conclusion, Casey bluntly and harshly scolded her parents for how they overlooked and mistreated her through neglect:

I'm just a kid, and I don't know what I'm doing sometimes. But I think you should know better when you're all grown up. I think you should know how to act, and how to treat people. And I think if you once loved someone enough to marry them, you should at least be nice to them, even if you don't love 'em any more.

And I think if you have a child, you should treat that child like a human being and not like a pet. Not like you treat your dog or somethin'. You know, when you have a dog, sometimes you forget he's there, and then when you get lonely, suddenly you remember him, and you remember how cute he is and stuff, and you kiss him a lot, but then the next day when you're busy again, you don't notice him. That's how I've been treated for the past four years, and you don't treat your kid like your dog. It's not right.

In a reversal of success stories, Albert lost everything when Atlanta bombed at the box office and he was forced to file for bankruptcy, while Lucy's 'tell-all' novel, titled He Said It Was Going To Be Forever, a detailed account of her marriage and divorce, became a NYT # 1 best-seller. When she became rich, she bought Albert's mansion while Albert moved into a motel. In the meantime, Blake also dumped Albert and left him for the limousine driver.

[Note: The film was basically a fictionalized tale regarding the marriage and divorce of film-maker Peter Bogdanovich (the Ryan O'Neal character) to his ex-wife/collaborator Polly Platt (the Shelley Long character). The Blake Chandler character was loosely based on muse Cybill Shepherd. Albert's musical flop Atlanta (Gone With the Wind turned into a musical, with Blake as Scarlett O'Hara) was a thinly-veiled spoof of Bogdanovich's musical flop At Long Last Love (1975), the film he made for and with Shepherd. Albert's mentoring film director David Kessler (Sam Wanamaker), was a composite of Howard Hawks and John Huston.]

Love Letters (1984) (aka Passion Play)

Writer/director Amy Holden Jones' R-rated romance drama, a Roger Corman production, was a tale about romantic obsession and adultery. It was not to be confused with director William Dieterle's film noir Love Letters (1945) based upon an Ayn Rand novel and starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten. The tagline was:

• "Sometimes It's Right To Do the Wrong Thing"

Told in flashback, a couple became very involved in a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair:

• Anna Winter (Jamie Lee Curtis in a serious dramatic film role), an unmarried, 22 year-old Los Angeles DJ and radio personality, working for KLAS - a small listener-sponsored radio station that broadcast classical music; she lived in Venice, CA and often spoke with close friend, confidante and advisor Wendy (Amy Madigan)
• Oliver Andrews (James Keach), a successful, 40 year-old, married (with two young children); a bearded, wealthy commercial photographer, actually a boring pseudo-intellectual

Anna started to pursue the older Oliver (old enough to be a "father figure") - a top donor to the station and a "very big fan" of hers. At the same time, she was beginning to learn about the 'double life' of her own dying mother Maggie's (Bonnie Bartlett) extra-marital affair. After her mother's death in 1983 (at the age of 44), she found some poetic and emotional 'love letters' (dated 1967 and signed "Joseph" - referring to Joseph Chesley (Rance Howard) from Eureka, CA). The writings recounted a love affair that lasted for 15 years during most of Anna's childhood. The letters were written to her now-dead mother decades before by her mother's extra-marital 'ideal lover' - someone that Anna's estranged and abusive father Chuck Winter (Matt Clark), a self-pitying alcoholic, could never equal.

Obsessed and haunted, Anna began to recreate her mother's indiscretions in her own love affair with Oliver. He honestly admitted from the start that he was married with two kids and was committed: ("I can't offer you much"), but still he found her "extraordinary." Her "no strings" relationship with Oliver was very primal and mostly sexual, without the intense intimacy that Anna craved, due to Oliver's committment to his wife of 15 years Edith (Shelby Leverington) and to his family. Anna posed for naked pictures in his studio, and was curious to see pictures of his wife and kids, but felt second-rate that they had to meet in secret. She had an opportunity to move to a better job at San Francisco's KBFK (her "dream station"), but turned it down due to her affair with the married man.

Oliver presented Anna with a surprise gift of a piano in her little bungalow dwelling. Anna remained curious about Oliver's other life and spied upon his wife Edith with her child at a park playground - and it appeared Edith knew she was being stalked.

Anna Stalking Oliver's Wife Edith

When Oliver arrived one evening and Anna was eager to make love, he was forced to admit that he had just made love to his wife during a period of reconciliation. She retreated to the bathroom to slam the door and cry for a few moments. When he explained that his wife was wonderful and kind, and that he had spent 15 years of his life with her, Anna insisted that she wanted more of him:

"Why couldn't you just lie to me?...It's just not easy anymore....I'm second-best. It's not the way I want it. It's the way you want it. You wrote the rules....It has nothing to do with children! It has to do with her. You want all of her and just a little bit of me...I want you to want to leave them. I want you to want to leave her because you hate her guts. I want you to love me - at any cost. I'll take guilt, I'll take anything. I just want you to want me."

Ultimately, the letters had urged and reminded Anna of what ideally could be between them, and she demanded that Oliver forgo his wife and children and marry her. When he approached her to meet her demands, she insisted that he be honest with her and tell her that she was "the smartest and most beautiful and sexiest girl you ever saw." He repeated the line to her - and although she didn't at first believe him, she finally gushed "I love you" as he began to make love to her.

Anna's Love-Making with Oliver

Tormented, she wrote letters to Oliver - excerpting sentences from Joseph's own 'love letters' - and stating how she wished he would leave his wife: ("Sometimes it is right to do the wrong thing"). At times however, she also sensed that her insistence that Oliver leave his wife would ruin many lives. She became wrapped up in Oliver's words in his beautiful letters, and told her friend Wendy: "I wish I knew him."

In the film's inevitable conclusion, Edith learned of her husband's indiscretions when he caught Anna spying outside their home, and she heard them loudly argue and confront each other. Anna injured her head during their scuffle and ended up being treated inside their house. She overheard Oliver impossibly trying to apologize to his hurt and untrusting wife. In the end after Edith learned of his indiscretions, Oliver was determined to remain with his wife, rationalizing that his decision would hurt the fewest people. He added, assuringly, that things would turn out alright:

"I can't just walk out on 'em. I have to hurt the fewest people...Anna, you're very young. You're very special. You can do a hell of a lot better than me, a hell of a lot."

That evening, Anna had a startling flashbacked nightmare of interrupting an argument between her parents when she was very young, and shooting her father dead. The next morning, she decided to burn Joseph's 'love letters' in her kitchen.

By chance, Anna spoke for the first time with her mother's lover Joseph who had left gardenias at her mother's gravesite. She marveled at the way Joseph described Maggie as "the love of his life," and listened as he spoke about their true love together in the past: ("It was a mistake. She was my chance. I lost her....She was the love of my life, you see. You understand. Maybe you've been in love the way we were?"). Anna could relate to his frustrated feelings over his unrealized love for her mother, but then answered that her recent love affair had been very different: "No, not like that. Not like you" - the film's final words of dialogue.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984, UK)

Director Michael Radford's dystopic sci-fi horror film (with photography by Roger Deakins) was a grim adaptation of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel about Thought Police, and how Big Brother had invaded everyday life; it documented a post-apocalyptic London (in a province known as Airstrip One, formerly the UK) ruled by the repressive totalitarian state of Oceania. There were three powerful police states competing with each other: Big Brother's Oceania, the barbaric Communist area of Eurasia, and Socialist East Asia.

An earlier filmed version of Orwell's book (with a controversial changed ending) was director Michael Anderson's 1984 (1956, UK) starring Edmond O'Brien, Michael Redgrave and Jan Sterling. Two other films had similar themes of the dangers of mind-control and fascist dictatorships: Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985), and the comic-book adaptation V for Vendetta (2006).

The opening credits sequence presented a prologue title card: "WHO CONTROLS THE PAST CONTROLS THE FUTURE. WHO CONTROLS THE PRESENT CONTROLS THE PAST." During the opening public rally in the year 1984 at Victory Square for the employees of the Ministries, governmental propaganda films were shown (featuring Oceania's beloved Stalin-esque leader Big Brother - "played" by Bob Flag), and viewers were encouraged to vent their anger during Two Minutes of Hate. [Note: Big Brother never appeared live and in-person, but only on publicity billboards, posters, and on film or TV.]

Oppressed, low-ranking, 39 year-old middle-class drone-civil servant Winston Smith (John Hurt) worked at the Ministry of Truth (ironically-titled); his job was to alter and rewrite the past and turn 'vaporized' people into non-existent "unpersons" by erasing the person's name in old newspapers and official records. Other than his work in the totalitarian society, Winston lived a life of squalor and deprivation.

Ministry of Truth Employee Winston Smith (John Hurt) at Public Rally Scene in 1984 at Victory Square
Screaming During Two Minutes of Hate	Oceania's Beloved Stalin-esque leader Big Brother

After purchasing an old-fashioned diary with blank pages, Smith began to secretly write down his thoughts, knowing he was committing a thought-crime; he narrated: "April the 4th, 1984. To the past, or to the future. To an age when thought is free. From the Age of Big Brother, from the Age of the Thought Police, from a dead man... greetings." Winston experienced a nightmarish memory or recollection (in his secret journal) of a past visitation with a Whore (Shirley Stelfox) in the off-limits proletarian areas - her seemingly youthful beauty masked a middle-aged, homely, bruised and repulsive woman:

"If there is hope, it lies in the proles. If they could become conscious of their own strength, there would be no need to conspire. History does not matter to them. It was three years ago on a dark evening. Easy to slip the patrols, and I'd gone into the proletarian areas. There was no one else on the street, and no tele-screens. She said: 'Two dollars,' so I went with her. She had a young face, painted very thick. It was really the paint that appealed to me: the whiteness of it like a mask, and the bright red lips. (She hiked up her skirt) There were no preliminaries. Standing there with the scent of dead insects and cheap perfume, I went ahead and did it just the same."

Winston's Nightmarish Memory of Visiting a Prostitute (Shirley Stelfox)

At a political rally designed to stir up hate against Eurasia, Winston had often noticed a co-worker named Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), who was a print machine mechanic in the Ministry of Truth's Fiction Department; he had suspected that she was a member of the Thought Police, but to Winston's surprise, she passed him a note with three words: "I LOVE YOU."

Winston had an oft-repeated dream of a green pasture with isolated trees on the horizon that was turned into a reality when he experienced a rendezvous in the countryside with the rebellious, free-spirited and sensual Julia; as they stood together and looked out on the pasture, he told her: "It's a dream. I want you"; she encouraged them to retreat farther into the forest for safety's sake: ("Not here, come back to the woods, it's safer").

Julia and Winston Falling in Love in the Countryside

When he asked if she had been with a man before ("Have you done this before?"), she admitted that, of course, she had previously had sex with "hundreds" of party members, but NOT with Inner Party members: "Not those bastards, although there's plenty who would"; he told her: "Look, I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don't want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone corrupt" - she agreed: "Well, I ought to suit you, then. I'm corrupt to the core"; when he asked: "Do you like doing this? (pause) I don't mean just me" - she was emphatic: "I adore it"; she stripped off her blue jumpsuit for an illicit sexual tryst at the beginning of their idyllic - and rebellious - love affair.

The two attended orthodox meetings where the objective of the state was to eradicate the orgasm that contributed to the growth of family life - "As we all know, the biological and social stimulation of the family leads to private reflection, outside Party needs, and to the establishment of unorthodox loyalties which can only lead to thoughtcrime. The introduction of artsem, combined with the neutralization of the orgasm, will effectively render obsolete the family until it becomes impossible to conceptualize."

To keep up their facade of loving the state in the midst of their forbidden relationship, Julia emphatically and fervently screamed during the Two Minutes Hate in a rally, yelling out "Traitor! Criminal!" at the large image on the screen of the Party's enemies.

Middle-class drone Winston and Julia continued their illicit sexual-romantic liaison in a rented room (for $4 dollars a week) above a pawn shop in the proletarian area (a less restrictive living area), rented from pawn shop owner Mr. Charrington (Cyril Cusack), where they lived together and acquired contraband food from the Inner Party: ("proper white bread and jam, a real tin of milk...real coffee") and clothing sold on the black market.

With his back turned, she surprised him by putting on a pretty, frilly dress and wearing lipstick - and she asked "Do you like me?" - and they embraced ("More than ever"); over time, Winston became paranoid that they would be caught and proposed that they break up: "You know, the only thing to do is to walk out of here before it’s too late and never see one another again....Our luck can’t last"; they agreed to not meet for several weeks because it wasn't safe.

After a short time, their fears came true - the couple was apprehended one evening in the rented flat as they stood at their window contemplating their futures - both were naked after making love when they were found out (or betrayed) by Mr. Charrington - a covert member of the Thought Police; in the closely-monitored society, their activities had been recorded by a hidden telescreen behind a picture; they were told the building was surrounded and ordered to obey: "Clasp your hands behind your heads. Stand out in the middle of the room. Stand back-to-back. Do not touch one another" as officers broke into the room to arrest them.

The two were separated at the Ministry, and forced to be rehabilitated and to repudiate their sexual relationship; both were detained, questioned, and tortured. During Winston's detainment, he experienced severe brain-washing administered systematically by suave, high-ranking Inner Party member O'Brien (Richard Burton in his last film role); he was told:

"There is no loyalty except loyalty to the Party. There is no love except love of Big Brother. All competing pleasures, we will destroy. If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever...If you're a man, you're the last man. Your kind is extinct. We are the inheritors. Do you understand that you're alone? You're outside history. You unexist...Look at you, you're rotting away. That is the last man. If you're human, that is humanity. It won't last forever. You can escape from it whenever you choose. Everything depends on you...don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. And in the end we shall shoot you."

Winston was warned about Room 101 - with excruciating personalized torture as the last stage of punishment by the totalitarian government: "The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world. It goes beyond fear of pain or death. It is unendurable and it varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive or castration. Or many other things. In your case, it is rats."

Winston was subjected to a cage filled with wild rats that would tear into his face, in order to break down and "cure" his insanity, have him disavow and repudicate his love for Julia, and to force him to express loyalty and affection towards the Party and its leader Big Brother. After being subjugated, stripped and purged of all personal impulses, independent thoughts, and attachments, Winston was a broken shell of a person, but rehabilitated.

In the bleak ending after Winston had been released, he was playing chess with himself in the Chestnut Tree Cafe; he was briefly approached by an equally-changed Julia - both acted unromantically and passively to each other after admitting to betrayal, but they coldly promised to meet again sometime:

- Julia: "I told them all about you. I'm only thankful they got me before it was too late."
- Winston: "Yes, I told them about you, too. ThoughtCrime. SexCrime, all your treachery."
- Julia: "I have a meeting to go to. We must meet again."
- Winston: "Yes. We must meet again."

After she departed, a large telescreen behind him played a broadcast of himself admitting his numerous crimes:

"I accuse myself of the following crimes. I have seduced Party members of both sexes. I've been to the proletarian areas. I deliberately contracted syphilis in order to spread the disease to my wife and other Party members. Together with other agents, I have counterfeited banknotes, wrecked industrial machinery, polluted the water supply, and guided Eurasian rocket bombs to targets on Airstrip One by means of coded radio signals. I stand here, a victim of the influence of Emmanuel Goldstein, guilty on all counts. I'm glad I was caught. I was mentally deranged. Now I am cured. I ask only for you to accept my love of our leader. I ask only to be shot while my mind is still clean."

Winston heard news of the "utter rout of the Eurasian army" on the African front. He turned to the image of Big Brother on the screen and whispered faintly (did he actually mouth the words or were they off-screen?) - the film's final words: "I love you."

The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak (1984, Fr.) (aka Gwendoline)

Director Just Jaeckin's R-rated campy, avante-garde French-made flick was loosely based on British artist John Willie's popular 1940s bondage-themed, kinky, adults-only comic strip Sweet Gwendoline. The 106 minute (the original uncut length) erotic fantasy adventure romp, now a cult classic, secured box-office revenue of $1.3 million. The cheesy film was a bizarre cross between Indiana Jones, an H. Rider Haggard-style adventure story, Barbarella, and European art-house films. The comic strip appeared in Bizarre magazine between 1948 and 1959. It was advertised with the tagline:

• Adventure without shame! A lost, lost civilization where no man has ever been...and for good reason!

Softcore master Jaeckin had become notorious after directing other nudity-filled films including:

• Emmanuelle (1974, Fr.)
• The Story of O (1975, Fr.)
• Madame Claude (1977, Fr.) (aka The French Woman)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981, UK)

The main title character was a sexy adventuress/heroine who was continually in peril and needed masculine rescue:

• Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen, 80s video sex vixen in her screen debut who had starred in rock group Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" music video, and then appeared opposite Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party (1984) (see above))

In the film's plot, young naive French girl Gwendoline had run away from a convent, and was discovered as a stowaway on a boat to Far East China with her servant-maid Beth (French model Zabou Breitman).

(l to r) Gwendoline, Willard, Beth

Beth and Gwendoline

The two were kidnapped by thieves and sold to a gangster who owned a casino/brothel, but then the two were saved by "Indy"-styled, hunky adventurer-sailor Willard (Brent Huff), a mercenary and river-boat captain. He agreed to take Gwendoline and her servant-maid in China to the fanciful land of the Yik-Yak, a desert land inland from a jungle. Her perilous goal was to discover a rare black butterfly that her missing entomologist father had pursued in a remote jungle.

Although they were jailed by the local police chief, the three escaped and Willard reluctantly agreed to take them upriver on his boat that was smuggling illegal contraband. At a trading post, Gwendoline was given proof that her father had died, and then decided to resume the search for the butterfly and name it after her father. She again persuasively coerced Willard to help on her new mission.

The plot thickened when the trio were captured and imprisoned by a primitive cannibalistic tribe known as the Cheops. Fearing that she would die a virgin, Gwendoline was assisted by Willard: ("I can't let you die without making love") - he literally coaxed into having an orgasm simply by describing in words how he would make love to her.

Soon after, the group entered into an underground lair (the vestiges of the lost civilization and ancient city of Pikaho buried by a volcano in the 12th century) where an all-female, half-naked 'Amazonian' tribe of worker slaves and warrior-guards (wearing S&M black leather costumes and thongs) was led by its ruling Queen priestess (Bernadette Lafont). All the men had died of a strange illness, and men were now only good for procreation (and then promptly killed). In the city, massive machines (powered by a volcano) and worked by the slaves were mining and collecting diamonds.

After Gwendoline was captured with Beth, Gwendoline escaped and later was able to save her.

Gwendoline and Beth Imprisoned in the Land of the Yik-Yak

Both Willard and Gwendoline disguised themselves as Pikaho warrior-guards, but Willard was de-thonged, revealed and captured. Gwendoline was allowed to participate in a gladiatorial contest (involving combat and a chariot race) involving four combatants, with the prize for the winner - to engage in a sexual mating ceremony with the captured virile male Willard. Gwendoline (with the help of Beth) won the competition and was given the privilege to mate with - and save Willard.

In the throne room before the victor Gwendoline was brought in, Willard was chained on a bed and spread-eagled on his back. Then, he was sexually assaulted by four topless females who disrobed, forced him to take a potion, and then was given foreplay, while the Queen decreed: "Any man who is allowed to make love in my kingdom only does it once. When he's finished, he must die. That's the law of Pikaho."

In the sexual mating ceremony set in the throne room, Gwendoline (still masked and wearing a long robe) approached for mating, causing Willard extreme anxiety and fearing that he would die - until he realized he would be making love to Gwendoline.

Gwendoline's Sexual Mating Ceremony with Willard

At the climactic moment of orgasm in the film's conclusion, a destructive volcano triggered by vengeful male scientist D'Arcy (Jean Rougerie) and his machines allowed the trio to escape - along with the butterfly in a cage.

Purple Rain (1984)

Director Albert Magnoli's loosely-autobiographical and wildly-popular concert film and musical drama was made at the height of singer Prince's popularity. It starred the sexy pop icon Prince, partially playing himself.

The film's plot concerned the jealous rivalry that developed between:

• The Kid (Prince), the leader of Minneapolis pop rock band The Revolution
• Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero), the Kid's sexy, aspiring singer/girlfriend, who joined an all-girl group named Apollonia 6, backed by house band leader Morris Day (as Himself)

The film was noted for the scene of Apollonia riding on a motorcycle into the countryside with the Kid, and then being persuaded to dip and "purify" herself in the freezing cold waters of Lake Minnetonka. She stripped off her black biker jacket, and jumped in. The Kid shockingly rode off, only to return, and finally let her get on the bike and give him a kiss on the cheek. With double entendre, he commented that she must be 'wet' from the lake:

"Don't get the seat wet."

In a sexually-explicit scene in his parents' basement, the Kid caressed and stroked Apollonia from behind, while she was wearing only tiny red-thong underwear. They also made love, in a brief scene, in a hayloft.

During the nasty and salacious song "Darling Nikki", the bare-chested Kid - bathed in reddish light - sexually taunted Apollonia in the audience and basically implied that she was a nymphomaniac (a "sex-fiend" who liked to "grind"). As he performed, the high-heeled Kid gyrated and flopped around atop the amplifier-speaker.

At the film's conclusion, he sang "I Would Die 4 U" while using the neck of his guitar to make masturbatory gestures.

Savage Streets (1984)

This classic 80s crime-action exploitation film, directed by Danny Steinmann, was about the theme of vigilante justice. Although originally rated X, on appeal the rating was reduced to R. Its taglines were:

• Their only law is "An eye for an eye".
• They raped her sister... killed her best friend. Now she must seek revenge!

25 year-old Linda Blair made a trashy appearance in one of the main roles, after starring in the TV movie Born Innocent (1974), Hell Night (1981) and the woman-in-prison film Chained Heat (1983). It was made, in apparent homage, to Charles Bronson's Death Wish (1974) and I Spit On Your Grave (1978), and also ran afoul of the MPAA censors. Blair won the Worst Actress Razzie award for her role.

The story was told with filthy lines of sexual banter, such as:

• "You stupid, stuck up c--t!...Lemme see if I can make this simpler, so that even you can understand. I wouldn't f--k him if he had the last dick on Earth."
• "The game we got in mind is called 'Hide the Salami.' You like 'Hide the Salami', dontcha Brenda? All you f--kin' c--ts like 'Hide the Salami'!...Gonna play 'Hide the Salami.' I'm gonna hide that f--kin' salami so far up you, god-damned Christopher Columbus couldn't find it."

During the opening title credits, two street-smart gangs (one male, one female) from the 'savage streets' were introduced - they were fierce and ruthless high-school gang rivals:

• The all-female Satins, headed by Brenda (Linda Blair), were a gang of senior-year HS girls, who strutted down the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard; gang members included Brenda's girl friends Rachel (Debra Blee), African-American Stella (Ina Romeo), Francine (Lisa Freeman), Stevie (Marcia Karr), and Maria (Luisa Leschin)
• The all-male Scars were a gang of four headed by drug-pushing, long-haired greaser Jake (John Dryer) with razor-blade earrings; they were in Jake's ‘57 Belair open convertible drinking beer and cruising through town; gang members included often-bullied, good-guy-at-heart new recruit Vince (Johnny Venocur), red-haired Red (Scott Mayer), and Italian-American Fargo (Sal Landi)

The Satins

The Scars

Unofficial Satins gang member and deaf-mute Heather (pre-scream queen Linnea Quigley), Brenda's sister, was threatened with being run over by the Scars at an intersection, due to her hearing loss. The Scars parked their car in an alley and went on to intimidate Fadden (Sean O'Grady) and his busty blonde girlfriend (Suzee Slater) for holding out on drug money. While the Scars were busy elsewhere, the girl-gang sought revenge by stealing the male gang's parked convertible and then trashing it with garbage.

At school shortly later, high school Principal Underwood (John Vernon, (Blair's Chained Heat co-star, now in a small cameo role) told the Scars punks:

"Go f--k an iceberg."

Meanwhile, in the school gym, Brenda and her gang were attending an aerobics class, when blonde pom-pom cheerleader Cindy Clark (Rebecca Perle) accused her boyfriend Wes (Brian Mann/Frishman) of being enticed by Brenda.

Brenda was detained from meeting up with Heather to walk her home, while she and the Satins were in the locker room, and many others were in the shower (displaying gratuitous full-frontal female nudity in an obligatory shower scene). She engaged in a hair-pulling shower-room catfight against Cindy over accusations of flirting with her boyfriend, as others looked on.

Obligatory Shower Room Sequence

Meanwhile, as revenge for the destruction of their convertible, the Scars realized that Brenda's deaf (and mute) sister Heather was alone in the gymnasium without Brenda's protection. The gang terrorized her in a circle at mid-court, and then dragged her into the boy's school bathroom for a very nasty rape sequence.

The males attacked her, ripped off her clothes, drew circles around her nipples, and then Vince was reluctantly forced to rape her first, followed by the others. The penetration during her rape was emphasized by Heather's wide-mouthed silent scream - and a cut to a loud telephone ringing in the school principal's office where Brenda and Cindy were being punished for the shower fight. The gang left Heather totally naked and unconscious on the tile floor after they fled. (Later after she was found beaten, bruised, and unconscious, she required hospitalization.)

Vicious Rape of Heather (Linnea Quigley)

Later at the MX nightclub, the Scars groped and harrassed Brenda's best friend Francine, who was pregnant and preparing to marry her boyfriend Richie (Richard DeHaven). When Richie intervened to protect Francine, he was beaten up, while Francine was able to slightly wound Jake by stabbing him with a switchblade in the back.

A second catfight took place in a sex-ed classroom (with an embarrassing, graffiti-modified anatomical chart) between touch-chick Brenda and Cindy, when Cindy cruelly insulted Brenda by calling her sister a "retard." Brenda completely tore off Cindy's top and thoroughly embarrassed her, resulting in Brenda's suspension from school by the principal for her second fight with Cindy: ("You're a tough little bitch, aren't you? I like that. But I don't give second warnings. So consider yourself suspended").

Soon after, the Scars also intercepted, pursued and murdered Francine (who had just picked up her wedding dress and was walking on the street) when Jake caught up to her and vengefully threw her from a bridge viaduct onto the street far below. Vince seemed to have finally had enough with the reckless and destructive gang, and went to the hospital to apologize to the still-unconscious Heather. When Brenda arrived, she misunderstood what he was doing and chased him off.

At her home, Brenda took a long hot bath (revealing her large chest) as she languidly smoked a cigarette and contemplated how to seek revenge (for both Heather and Francine), as the camera slowly panned toward her until it reached a closeup of her face, to the tune of John Farnham's "Justice for One."

In the concluding vengeance sequence, Brenda intimidated Vince at his home with a switchblade knife pressed to his neck, forcing him to explain Jake's role in raping Heather and in the death of Francine: ("Jake...he threw her off the bridge"). After Vince revealed the Scars' location, Brenda decided to hunt down the criminal gang members with supplies from the army surplus store - The Supply Sergeant: a bear trap, and a cross-bow with a quiver of arrows.

Brenda Threatening Vince For Gang Information

Vigilante Brenda

Death of Fargo

The members of the Scars gang were eliminated one by one by black-garbed vigilante Brenda in their hideout inside a warehouse that she had booby-trapped. She first dealt with the crude and thuggish Fargo in a cat-and-mouse game (he called it a "game of Hide the Salami"), when he threatened Brenda as they finally came face-to-face: "The game's over, bitch. This time you're dead for sure. First, I'm gonna f--k you. And then, I'm gonna slice you into little pieces." She replied: "Sounds nice and kinky to me. Too bad you're not double jointed...because if you were, you'd be able to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye."

Fargo was impaled in the neck with an arrow from her cross-bow. Red's turn was next, when he was backed up into a large bear-claw trap on the floor, and he fell into it - neck-first.

Jake (who had just killed Vince by running him over in an alley) arrived, and his first sight was the bloody corpses of his two dead buddies, Fargo and Red. He was tortured with cross-bow arrows shot into both of his thighs, and menaced by Brenda wielding a hunting knife while he was hanging on a rope upside down by his two feet from a chain-link fence-gate. Brenda threatened:

"You know what you look like? You look like a pig in a slaughterhouse, ready to butcher. You ever wonder what a pig must feel like, before they slit his throat? Or cut his balls off? It couldn't have been any worse than my sister must of felt. Or Francine? She was pregnant. F--kin' bastard. It's not gonna be quick, Jake."

When Jake temporarily escaped, he crawled over to Brenda and told her: "I'm gonna tear your heart out and eat it." She reached for a knife and stabbed him in the lower abdomen. He was able to pursue her into a hardware store where she doused him with the contents of a can of paint. When he attempted to strangle her, she set him on fire with a cigarette lighter. The police arrived as he burned to death on the street sidewalk.

The film concluded at the cemetery where Brenda, a recuperated Heather, and her remaining gang friends laid flowers on Francine's grave. Brenda felt vindicated about seeking retribution: "At least she knows we made things right." The end credits scrolled to the tune of "In the Night" by BMW.

Second Time Lucky (1984)

The New Zealand/Australia production by director Michael Anderson was actually an unfunny comedy - the story of how "two teenagers go back in time." Cute, curly-haired and petite star Diane Franklin displayed ample nudity - she was equally nude in the teen drama The Last American Virgin (1982) and later appeared as the French student love interest of John Cusack in Better Off Dead (1985).

Its taglines were:

• "A Devilishly Funny and Sexy Comedy"
• In the beginning the Devil made a bet with God. The Devil backed Eve, God backed Adam.
• What would have happened to love and sex if Adam hadn't taken the bite?

The sexy comedy began with a "double-or-nothing" or "winner-take-all" bet between white-garbed God (Robert Morley) and a fiery, drag-queen-like Devil (Robert Helpmann). They decided to go to the "beginning" and replay the Adam and Eve story in the Garden of Eden - to see whether Eve (and Adam) would take a bite from the apple (re-enacting man's fall from grace through seduction a second time). The Devil backed Eve and wagered that her initial temptation would occur again and still plague mankind, while God backed Adam.

The first two people also had modern-day, 20th century human counterparts:

• Adam Smith (Roger Wilson), geeky
• Evelyn (Diane Franklin), bespectacled and also nerdy

The two accidentally met at a wild party celebrating graduation and the end of school held at Adam's house (with a few topless female students dancing and playing cards!). It was destined that they would meet, when Adam tripped down the stairs and toppled Eve as she first arrived. Shortly later, he spilled his beer on her, and walked in on her after she had removed her soiled dress.

		Eve in the Garden with Adam Eating Watermelon
Modern-Day Evelyn

Soon after, the party was busted up by the police. Specifically, a motorcycle cop (the disguised angel Gabriel (Jon Gadsby) sent by his superior God to Earth) told Adam ("the chosen one") that he would be "taken back to where it all started." He was driven to a garden-like paradise, where Gabriel pointed out the beautiful Eve ("the original") bathing fully naked in a waterfall ("That Satan sure knows how to pick 'em"). Adam was also magically removed from his clothes. They had both been selected as the new Adam and Eve, and returned to the innocence of the garden, with their memories wiped. Before leaving, Gabriel warned Adam about the temptation of sexual feelings (and their manifestation by an erection) - as he looked down at his genitals.

After meeting Eve, Adam goofily talked about her breasts as they ate watermelon together:

"We're kinda different...Well, like here, I've got nothin' but two little lumps. You got two big lumps and then you got two little ones on the ends. Why do you think that is?"

She naively responded: "Perhaps they're meant to make me float when I swim." They went swimming and ate bananas - when she looked down and noted his penis: "You got a banana too" - and he added: "Two berries besides," while she complained: "Not fair, I have nothing." He added: "You have your lumps." As she walked away, she heard the hissing of a snake (the Devil disguised in the form of a Muppet-like snake) at the Tree of Knowledge that bore large but forbidden "delicious" apples. At the same time, Gabriel warned Adam: "Stay away from those apples" - or else he would be banished. He described a "warning signal" - as he pointed to Adam's penis:

"If the Jolly Roger rises to the mast head, then look out. There's trouble on the horizon.

Later as Adam and Eve laid down together for the night, he held onto her right breast, calling it convenient to hold onto, as she observed: "All your banana and berries seem to do is get in the way."

The next morning at the Tree of Knowledge, the Devil succeeded in tempting Eve. She took a bite from one of the apples to reveal "all the secrets of life" to her - and she sought to convince Adam to follow her lead. He saw that she was "different" as she seductively held the apple out for him. He thought: "It must be because of the apple" -- but she claimed "nothing happened." He looked at her breasts: "Your lumps seem bigger. Your eyes are different. What's happened?" She assured him: "Don't worry, look. I'll show you," as she took a bite. Then, she seductively let her hand slip down his chest to his aroused genitals, and offered the apple to eat.

After the long segment in the Garden of Eden, the disobedient couple were thrown out, as their love story proceeded through history as various reincarnated personages representing Eve and Adam, in scenes set:

• in Ancient Rome
• in Europe during the Great War on the French battlefields
• in 1920s US - an era with flappers, gumshoe police lieutenants and gangsters
• and in the 1980s with rock 'n' roll (with Adam portrayed as a rock star in a band named Damn Mad and Eve as a Louise Brooks-like supporter)

They continued to be tempted with having sex and exhibiting their true love for each other. After abundant nudity in the garden scenes, Eve exhibited one breast to Roman military officer 'Adam' as a seductive Roman lady, and as a nurse defiantly bared both breasts before a WWI firing squad to provide the gunners with her bare heart as a target. Eventually Adam "won" by combating Eve's attempts to sexually tempt him.

When the two returned to the current present in the aftermath of the party and kissed, Adam's bedroom door magically opened. Even though Adam thought he had known her for centuries, Evelyn was mystified:

Evelyn: "How could you have? I've only known you for five minutes."
Adam: "Funny, seems more like ages."

Adam placed a red apple (with two bite marks on it) outside his door when the two entered to finally consummate their love, as the credits rolled.

Sheena (1984)

Ex-Charlie's Angels TV star (in its final season in the mid-70s) Tanya Roberts starred in The Beastmaster (1982) (with another nude bathing sequence) and then in this poorly-acted action adventure film by director John Guillermin. The 'turkey' of a film, shot on location in Kenya, was designed to capitalize on Roberts' recent fame and sexuality, and claimed in its tagline:

• She Alone Has the Power to Save Paradise

She portrayed the title character, loin-clothed Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (like a female Tarzan), based on the famous late 30s comic strip, who showered in a waterfall and bathed in a lake.

Tanya Roberts as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

Most of her subsequent films, except for an appearance in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985) (marking Roger Moore's last appearance), were direct-to-video and cable releases.

The Terminator (1984)

The Terminator (1984) was an early, low-budget James Cameron-directed action film. It told about a bleak future run by cyborgs and endo-skeletal robots.

In the midst of its terrific action sequences, there was a touching love scene in the Tiki Motel (with background piano music) in the year 1984 between:

• Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a strong female
• Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), her time traveling protector

Kyle had journeyed back from the future year of 2029 to save and love Sarah. He had volunteered with future resistance leader John Connor (who was fighting against the robots in the year 2029) to go back in time to protect her. She felt that she was a trembling, scared disappointment for him, and then asked: "The women in your time, what are they like?" He answered: "Good fighters." She steered the question differently: "That's not what I meant. Was there someone special?...A girl, you know." He succinctly replied: "Never."

He said he only possessed her torn and faded picture given to him by John:

"John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old, torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you. I always have."

Although he realized he had been forward and possibly foolish ("I shouldn't have said that"), she kissed him, and they made passionate love together -- their conceived child would become humanity's future savior, John Connor. During their love-making, the camera cut to a metaphoric visual closeup of their two hands locked together, gripping and squeezing each other and then releasing.

Until September (1984)

Director Richard Marquand, known just a year earlier for Star Wars: Episode 6 - Return of the Jedi (1983), also directed this soapy, passionate romantic drama. The almost two-month shooting schedule involved filming that was entirely on location in and around Paris.

Its taglines were:

• He promised to love her - UNTIL SEPTEMBER
• They were having so much fun in Paris. If only they could keep from falling in love.

The main character was:

• Mo Alexander (Karen Allen, the 'good girl next door' from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)) - a horticulturist from St. Louis, MO

The lonely American tour guide, who was on her way to Eastern Europe and Russia to help her friend Marcia (Joanna Pavlis) chaperone a group of students for the summer, became stranded in Paris during a layover. She missed her connecting flight to Warsaw, Poland, and in the meantime was forced to wait for a rebooked flight and a delayed visa update. She hoped to stay in the empty, elegant apartment of an old college friend named Chantal.

Mo met Chantal's next-door neighbor, who helped her to get situated in Chantal's apartment:

• Xavier de la Perouse (Thierry-Lhermitte in his first English language film, and first US film) - a married, playboyish, wealthy, charming and suave French international banker; he openly admitted that his stylish wife Isabelle (Marie-Catherine Conti) and two young children, Laurence and David were away on summer vacation; he was also involved with a mistress named Nathalie (Maryam d'Abo) over a period of a few years

She was quick to accept Xavier's invitation to dinner in a fancy restaurant, that ended up at his apartment where he prepared a home-cooked spaghetti meal. At first, she was wary of the Frenchman's advances and his implied interest in having sex with her.

Soon however, she shed her inhibitions with Xavier and engaged in a sexual fling-affair with him. After some passionate kisses, they had a bout of love-making on the floor, with their clothes strewn about. She was perched above him naked and expressed the thought that she had small breasts: ("They're too small"), but he complimented her: "They are small, but they have beautiful proportions." She told him: "My husband liked big breasts."

After making love with her for the first time, Xavier asked her to stay with him "until September." She decided to remain in Paris rather than join the student group in Eastern Europe. The couple spent time in the countryside, drank wine, had long conversations, and explored Paris.

In another love-making scene, during a nighttime rainstorm (when ominous thunderclaps were heard), she emerged nude from bed and sat naked in his lap in a easy-chair, covered by a blanket.

As her time to leave Paris approached at the end of the summer, Mo moved out of the apartment into a nearby hotel. During their last night together before her departure, while she was bathing, he stood by the edge of the tub and confessed his steadfast love for her, and she jumped up into his arms. They passionately kissed as he hugged her soapy back, and they fell to the floor while embracing.

Xavier's Confession of Love For Mo As She Bathed

However, the future of their relationship was disrupted by the unexpected return of his wife Isabelle from vacation. Xavier suddenly abandoned his wife and caught up to Mo who had already departed in a taxi for the Paris airport - and in the final obligatory climactic reunion scene, he frantically raced into the airport, bought a ticket to allow entry through security, and called out to Mo at the top of her boarding gate's automatic ramp - she ran back down the moving walkway to him and they embraced and kissed each other. The film ended with the cliffhanger ambiguous finale.

Xavier's Wife Isabelle
	Airport Reunion - Concluding Scene

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)

This trendy, low-budget sword and sorcery, adventure-fantasy film - executive-produced by Roger Corman and from New Horizons, was filmed in Argentina, and had an international cast. Co-writer/director John Broderick's second-rate, unoriginal R-rated feature was released in the wake of Conan the Barbarian (1982) - and was immediately overshadowed by the sequel in the same year Conan the Destroyer (1984).

One of this knock-off film's main attractions was that most of the females in the film were undraped. The stunning poster advertising the latest entry to cash in on the sword-and-sorcery craze portrayed a four-breasted female - one of the highlights of this exploitative film.

It was claimed that the cheap film was a direct copy of Akira Kurosawa's classic samurai film Yojimbo (1961, Jp.) (that was later remade as the Sergio Leone 'spaghetti western' A Fistful of Dollars (1964) with Clint Eastwood). Other copycat plots were also found in Walter Hill's Prohibition-Era Last Man Standing (1996) and in Albert Pyun's Omega Doom (1996) that was set in a post-Holocaust period.

It featured the tagline:

• "An age undreamed of. An age of mystery and magic. Of swords and sorcery."

The main character was:

• Kain (David Carradine, the lead in the TV series Kung Fu (1972-1975), also with a wandering warrior named Kain) - a mysterious, aloof, nomadic 'warrior', a mercenary sword-for-hire with a hooded black cape ("the Dark One"), who emphatically stated: "I won't fight for anyone that plots against my life," and "I fight for those who pay me the most"; in the village, Kain first sought the aid of the white-haired elderly Bludge, the Prelate (Harry Townes) of the Old Gods - the last living member of the priesthood that Kain once served

With a weapon strapped on his back, he crossed a barren desert and entered the primitive armed village of Yamatar on the planet Ura (with two suns). It was controlled by two warring rival factions led by two adversarial warlords, one who lived in a metal compound and the other in a rocky castle. There were frequent battles between the repressive combatants over the sole water source in town at a well in the public square, as Kain played both sides against each other. Kain's first act in town was to defeat the soldiers guarding the well, allowing swarms of villagers from both camps to quench their thirsts.

The two slave-trading groups had two different tyrannical leaders who opposed each other:

• Bal Caz (Guillermo Marin, credited as William Marin) - an evil, decadent, pudgy and bloated Jabba-the-Hut-like character who was advised by a talking, giant pet monitor lizard (clearly a rubber puppet), and was attended by a young topless servant; he lived in a rocky castle
• Zeg the Tyrant (Luke Askew), a calculating, cruel, and degenerate leader, living in a fortified metal compound; Zeg was defended by his muscular, sword-wielding military Captain Kief (Anthony DeLongis); after Kain liberated the well, Zeg ordered his Captain and armed guards to retake the well

Zeg the Tyrant With the Sacred Sword

Zeg with His Captain Kief (Anthony DeLongis)

Kain was led to the throne room presence of Bal Caz by two Fools: Blather (Daniel March) and Gabble (John Overby). He was hired out with a bag of coins to defeat his opponent Zeg and take back control of the well. Kain was then pampered and bathed by members of Bal Caz' harem.

The film's other titular character was introduced in the headquarters of Zeg the Tyrant:

• Naja (Maria Socas, topless throughout the entire film), a captive sorceress, the Prelate's daughter; she was called into her captor Zeg's presence, where she was pressured to re-forge a magical unbreakable, and powerful sword (the lost Sacred Sword of Yura), but she continued to resist him; if she didn't obey by creating an unbreakable sword, he threatened to sell her to the slavers, and behead her father the Prelate, while keeping her chained up

Sorceress (Maria Socas) - Captive of Zeg

Naja kept deliberately botching the incantations that would cause an ordinary sword blade to have indestructible and godly power.

A third 'outside' faction of alien-looking slavers led by:

• Burgo the Slaver (Armando Capo, credited as Arthur Clark), a mutated humanoid, described as "the meanest of the lot"

Burgo arrived and caused a temporary truce when he traded armaments to both parties for slaves. However, Zeg refused to trade the female Naja with him, by explaining:"She pleases me - for the moment." Shortly later, Kain manipulatively used the two warring sides to his advantage as he played them off of each other ("I was never one to let opportunity pass me by") - he provided crucial information to Zeg (for another bag of gold coins) about how Bal Caz had poisoned many of Burgo's slavers with water gourds (marked with Zeg's coat of arms), in order to frame him. And then he freed Naja from her dungeon cell, and instructed her to hide in the temple with Bludge the Prelate (Harry Townes).

Kain also had brought Bal Caz' captured lizard to Zeg, in exchange for 1,000 taracs. Zeg then threatened Bal Caz and threatened to kill the lizard unless Bal Caz departed from the village. Bal Caz revealed that he had leverage when he brought forth Naja, whom he had captured. The two successfully made an exchange of the lizard for the female.

Sorceress Naja - Always Captive or a Hostage in Chains

Meanwhile, the evil tyrant Zeg drowned a naked slave (Liliana Cameroni, credited as Lillian Cameron) in a glass-enclosed tank of water for entertainment's sake during dinner in his great hall. He mused to Kain: "How ironic. This village dies for lack of water. This lovely creature dies of an overabundance. Stimulating, you agree?" Kain answered: "There are no lessons in death, my lord. Only victory and defeat." Afterwards, Kain again freed the Sorceress from the dungeon for a second time. Zeg learned of Kain's betrayal and set up his assassination during the next scene.

During "special entertainment" - a strip-tease mating dance sequence by a four-breasted nude mutant or alien 'Exotic Dancer' (Cecilia Narova, credited as Cecilia North), the performer initially stripped off her red veil. She was a secret assassin working for Zeg, who enticed Kain by coming close to him and impaling him with her poisonous tentacle stinger projected from her lower abdomen (or vagina?). He retaliated by strangling her to death but then collapsed.

Four Breasted Alien Striptease Dancer (Cecilia Narova) With a Tentacled Venomous Stinger

[Note: The idea of a multi-breasted nude mutant was later copied by Necropolis (1986) (with a 6-breasted blonde demonic witch named Eva portrayed by LeeAnne Baker), and Total Recall (1990) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (with a 3-breasted female).

Kain was beaten up by the Captain and his guards and detained - to force him to divulge the whereabouts of the female. Without telling them anything, Kain was able to escape by hiding in a massive cart that was taken beyond the perimeter of the compound. Soon after, he found refuge and comfort from the Sorceress, who was repaying him for her rescue. Meanwhile, Kain had created a water bypass from the well's underground water-source - to divert the water to run under the temple. This would create the illusion that the well went dry. Kain and the Sorceress forged a new invincible sword together.

In the film's conclusion, the two forces again fought over control of the well water, but then decided to form an "alliance" to defend the well together from the villagers. But then Zeg double-crossed Bal Caz and lethally stabbed him in the belly. He then declared: "I am master here now." Zeg fought off the villagers as they attacked his well, and he bloodily massacred them. However, with a surge of Burgo's followers toward the well, Zeg's forces were also overwhelmed and defeated, and Zeg was murdered by Burgo. Burgo now could enslave the villagers.

With some of the disgruntled villagers on Kain's side, and with the Sorceress' new forged Sword of Ura and a bunch of daggers, Kain brought on conflict with Burgo and vanquished the slaver leader and his followers. He was also forced to sword-fight the freed Captain (who momentarily possessed the magical Sword) and also eliminated him.

About to leave the liberated village, he told Naja: "I travel alone." She blessed him as the heroic warrior departed from the well and they joined hands:

Sorceress: "All of Yamatar is with you."
Kain: "And I'm with all of you."
Sorceress: "To holy victory. Homerac." (They joined hands)
Kain: "To holy victory."
Sorceress: "Come back to us."

Zombie Island Massacre (1984)

Director John N. Carter's low-budget, awful cult-horror entry in the zombie sub-genre from Troma, had the most misleading zombie film title of all time. It was a Friday the 13th styled slasher film with a minimal amount of zombies (only one during a fake voodoo ritual).

The tongue-in-cheek taglines described various killings:

• "HAVE A FUN-FILLED VACATION! Toe-Tapping Machete Head Dances! Glamourous Zombie-Style Cosmetic Surgery! Fabulous Air-Conditioned Tiger Pits!"
• "A Caribbean Vacation to Die For"

The film was famous for starring Rita Jenrette in her debut feature film role. She was the estranged wife of famed Democratic US Congressman John Jenrette (serving from 1975-1980 from South Carolina who was convicted of accepting a $50,000 bribe in the Abscam case, an FBI sting operation that occurred in the late 70s and early 80s). A few years before the film, Jenrette had made headlines as a semi-nude Playboy model (April 1981) (and again in a spread in May 1984) - labeled as: "the sex pot of Washington's Capitol Hill set." She had also written a tell-all book titled My Capitol Secrets, published in early 1981, about her experiences as a Congressional spouse. In 1981, Jenrette also separated and divorced her husband, who served 13 months of a two-year prison sentence.

The film opened with a gratuitous nude scene set in a luxury Caribbean resort hotel - blonde, voluptuous wife Sandy (Rita Jenrette) was in the shower soaping up her very large breasts, when a masked intruder showed up. It was a false alarm - it was only her middle-aged, balding husband Joe (Ian McMillan). The two newly-engaged retreated to the bedroom where she again exhibited her nakedness.

Sandy with Joe (Ian McMillan)

In the film's story, a group of American tourists were on vacation at a Caribbean resort, and among the tourists in the traveling group (on a five day, ten-island tour) were:

• Sandy and Joe
• Paul Morrison (David Broadnax, the film's producer), a famous or ace African-American photographer
• Donna (Deborah Jason) and Ed (Tom Fitzsimmons), newlyweds
• Steve (Tom Cantrell), an adventure seeker with his girlfriend-painter Connie (Diane Clayre Holub)
• George (Emmett Murphy) and Ethel (Harriet Rawlings), an elderly couple
• Matt (Christopher Ferris) and Barbie (Kristina Wetzel), often stoned
• Jerry (Ralph Monaco) and Helen (Debbie Ewing), a bickering couple

As part of their holiday package, they took an excursion to the island of San (St.) Marie, first by Sunholiday tour bus, and then by boat, to watch a live-voodoo ceremony in the jungle. Immediately upon boarding the boat, Joe brought Sandy to a lower cabin, locked the door, and again proceeded to make love until they were interrupted.

Upon arrival, they watched the voodoo mass, in which a priest (Trevor Reid) and a priestess (Mignon Lowe) - during bizarre chants and dancing - resurrected a chalky-faced zombified corpse (the only 'zombie' in the film) with the use of the spilled blood of a sacrificed young goat.

During the shocking ritual, one newlywed couple Donna and Ed retreated to the jungle to escape the gruesome ceremony and to make love - and became the first victims, supposedly committed by voodoo practitioners or zombies. A menacing figure with a spiked club slaughtered the two lovers. After the performance, when the tour group walked to their tour bus parked nearby, they discovered that it was marked with a bloody X, was mechanically disabled, and that the driver Roy had disappeared. When the black tour guide Reginald (Dennis Stephenson) went to get help, he stumbled across Roy's body, and then found the mutilated corpses of Donna and Ed. He vanished and never returned to the bus.

The group became stranded and took refuge by walking to an abandoned mansion. Eerily, the mansion's library was filled with how-to books on cannibalism. The film's twist was that the slashers/killers (often costumed in grassy weeds or other foliage) that attacked members of the group were drug traffickers in a deadly cartel searching for cash and wrapped cocaine bags in a wooden case. Ludicrous death scenes (leading to a total body count of 18) included head-beating, drowning, strangulation, a bamboo booby trap, decapitation, impalement by a spear, and head-slashing with a hurled machete.

The film concluded with the revelation that the Voodo Priest (in cahoots with the tour guide) was the main drug trafficker, who was the final recipient of the wooden case filled with drug money.

In the final scene, the tour guide was personally greeting another group of tourists at a hotel as they boarded a tour bus - with ironic words:

"Our tour today will take us to one of the most fascinating islands of the beautiful Caribbean. I think I can safely promise you a tour you'll never forget. There'll be sights you've never experienced before, thrills you've never experienced before. Of all the visitors who come to these parts, you are to be congratulated. You are men and women of great taste and discrimination.... You have demanded the real thing, and you shall have it, on the beautiful island of San Marie."