DVD
Gwendoline

Starring: Tawny Kitaen, Brent Huff and Zabou
Nucleus Films
RRP: £19.99
NUC0003
Certificate: 18
Available 12 June 2006


In search of her father who has mysteriously disappeared while on a mission to find a mythical species of butterfly, Gwendoline and her sidekick Beth travel as stowaways on a ship bound for the Far East. On arrival, the two are abducted and imprisoned by a gang of lecherous seamen. Luckily, the two are rescued by mercenary adventurer, Willard, a man for whom money means more than anything. Realising that Willard could be of some assistance, Gwendoline blackmails him into joining her and Beth on their quest and soon the trio are embarking on a daring and deadly journey into the Land of the Yik Yak, a country ruled by a diabolical dominant Amazon queen and her army of scantily-clad, fetishistic female warriors. There, Gwendoline must defeat the evil queen and prevent Willard from being forced to spawn a new race of female warriors before facing certain death...

Gwendoline (1984) certainly has a lot going for it. The sets are impressive for a low budget production, the acting on the whole is not that bad, and the story is in the same vein as other action adventure movies of that era (including the Indiana Jones films, Romance in the Stone and King Solomon's Mines). While Gwendoline never comes anywhere close to reaching the quality of these films (well, maybe King Solomon's Mines) there is still something that makes it watchable. Sure there is the odd moment of overacting (something that Just Jaeckin, the director, claims was intentional in order to capture the comic feel of the original illustrated strips) and the sets, as beautiful as they are, wobble, but you can see what Jaeckin was trying to do.

In all honesty I don't know if it was such a good idea to hire a director of erotic movies to direct Gwendoline. In truth though the breast scenes are few and far between and the whole movie will disappoint those who are expecting titillation, while still managing to frighten off those who will think this is pornographic just because Jaeckin's name is attached to it. It isn't, of course, but it's also not family entertainment.

Brent Huff is the real star of this movie and it is criminal that he never went on to become a huge player in Hollywood. He has the rugged good looks of Harrison Ford and is equally as good an actor. Let's face it, Ford was never that good - just lucky. You can easily imagine Huff playing Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'm not sure though that Ford would have managed to turn in as believable a performance as Huff if he had starred in Gwendoline.

The rest of the cast bumble along, hamming it up for all they are worth - did anyone ever think that Tawny Kitaen could act? By the way, if the French actor that plays D'Arcy (Jean Rougerie) looks familiar, that's because a year later he played Aubergine in A View to a Kill.

Another problem is that this movie was an American/French production which means that half of the actors delivered their lines in English, whilst the other half delivered their dialogue in French, which was then dubbed for the American market. The trouble is that, no matter how good the voice actors are, over dubbing of foreign films always sticks out a mile. It would have been so much better if the French actors delivery had been left in and subtitles provided.

Extras are pretty impressive. We get an audio commentary with the director (listen out for his revelations about Steven Spielberg); The Perils of Just (18 min featurette on the making of the movie); US title sequence; UK promo; Lui photo shoot (several photos from the French glamour magazine - some which have never been published); Gwendoline and the BBFC (a look at the cuts needed for the movie to get a UK cinema release - which was then mysteriously dropped - and video release); and trailers for several erotic movies.

I particularly enjoyed the Gwendoline and the BBFC extra. This has a list of the cuts that had to be made in order for the movie to get an 18 certificate on it's original release. I found it funny that the censors had absolutely no problem with someone's ears being ripped off, but showing two semi-nude women fighting had to be cut to a bare (pun intended) minimum.

While this movie is far from great, it does have it's moments. And for an '80s action adventure, this is not half bad.

Nick Smithson

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£10.49 (Amazon.co.uk)
   
£14.99 (Blahdvd.com)
   
£13.69 (Thehut.com)
   
£14.99 (Moviemail-online.co.uk)

All prices correct at time of going to press.