Jeff Koons & others. Anthony d’Offay gallery – October 1992.
Modern art is, to a large extent, an area of minimal interest to me. Splodges of paint, concrete blocks and the pretentious ramblings of art critics are not my cup of tea, perhaps because I prefer an aesthetic beauty sadly lacking from much modern art, most of which is about as pleasing to the eye as a mis-inserted contact lens.
However, the prospect of seeing some of Jeff Koons’ work was sufficient to drag me, dressed in a suit and tie to make it clear I was a connoisseur rather than a perv, into a gallery just off New Bond Street. Embarrassment meant I had to endure the rest of the exhibition first, but this did let me play ‘pin-the-bollocks-on-the-artwork’, trying to match the hyperbole of the press release to the actual pieces. That showroom dummy with added genitalia, has it “plunged beneath the surface to explore the demons of sexual abuse and erotic nightmares that underlie the foundations of a contemporary woman’s self identity”? Or maybe it “reflects the strange combination of eroticism, self-degredation (sic) and everyday practicality that can infuse even the most ordinary episode of housework”.
About the only piece of any appeal at all was a 3D paper-and-ink figure of a woman hanging herself, suspended from the ceiling. It did at least have a nice “let’s throw ourselves in the abyss” sort of quality, and looked as if someone had spent more than five minutes creating it, though I confess having to resist a temptation to look up the figure’s skirt.
Then, literally in the final corner, I saw two very large – maybe eight foot by ten – photographic quality screenprints of Koons and Cicciolina. Had they appeared in a magazine rather than hanging on a gallery wall, both would have been pounced upon with glee by the Obscene Publications Squad, One was entitled ‘Jeff on Top, Pulling Out’, the other ‘Butt Red’. Neither really require much more elaboration, except perhaps that the latter had Cicciolina in a fetching set of lacy red lingerie.
But is anal sex art? Personally, I have doubts. Porn works on a personal level, not as an object of artistic veneration, and displayed, shorn of context in a gallery (rather than a bedroom?), it loses much of whatever power it might otherwise have had. Definitely Schwing Factor Zero.
To a certain degree, Jeff Koons can be accused of exploiting Cicciolina; few people had heard of him before his relationship with her began. And who is the real pop artist? Koons’ work starts at 65 grand, while Cicciolina’s “art” is available – at least, in more civilized countries than this one – for a few quid. But it does have one positive feature; after you’ve been confronted by eighty square foot of Italian MP getting screwed up the ass, it makes the fuss over Madonna’s book (Zzzzz…) seem pretty small beer!
It probably sums up much of the difference between Italy and Britain that, in the recent general elections, candidates here included a terminally wet Olympic champion and a TV presenter whose jumpers are more interesting than he is, while Italy not only had Mussolini’s grand-daughter (fascist, but cute!), but also a serious challenge from the twin queens of Italian pornography, Ilona Staller (a.k.a. La Cicciolina) and Moana Pozzi.
Cicciolina was born in Budapest, the daughter of an official in the Ministry of the Interior and a midwife. Even in her teenage days, she was already a model with Hungary’s top agency, but her course towards international stardom really took off when she moved to Italy. There, she became host of a talk show called ‘Radio Luna’, which caused a national scandal with it’s “frank” approach, though this was nothing compared to her TV appearance in 1978, when her breasts became the first (of many) to be seen bared on Italian TV.
It was the following year that she entered politics, and her fame spread outside Italy, thanks to the international coverage of her campaigns, and her habit of pulling a crowd by shrugging herself out of whatever strapless dress she happened to be barely wearing. In a turn-up that warmed the hearts of all those who view politics as hell, she was elected the election before last, and the next time I saw her was on Jonathan Ross’s show, complete with an interpreter and a soft toy, repeating the dress-shrugging trick on national TV.
Odd corners of the British media have reported on Ilona’s progress since, but the stories were never the same twice. She went to the event marking the departure of the first (or was it the last?) Russian tanks from Hungary (Czechoslovakia?), and released a symbolic bird (of some species or other). About the only fact the accounts gleefully agreed on, was that a tank rapidly reduced the creature to a feathered, bloody pancake. It all adds to the myth that is Cicciolina, a myth that has seen her barred from the States as “undesirable”, the subject of a top 30 record in Britain – I treasure the memory of several hundred PWEI fans sweeping onto a Northern Line train, chanting ‘Cicciolina, Cicciolina, C-C-C-Cicciolina’ – and the centre of an enormous industry in Italy: books, comics and magazines, from the explicit to, well, the even more explicit.
Then there was her relationship with pop artist Jeff Koons – double life- size sculptures of him and Cicciolina making love (Koons’ “blue period”?), flanked by enormous photographic studies of the pair, were exhibited at such illustrious shows as the Venice Bienalle. The couple married and claimed – life imitating art imitating life – to make love seven times a day, interspersed with breaks to watch ‘Bambi’. But Jeff wanted her to give up the more public expressions of her sexuality (such as the bits involving pythons), and Ilona was having none of it: “Cicciolina belongs to the nation”, she declared. So, amid a frenzied blast of media hype, it all ended. Or did it? They were breaking up. Then they’d got back together. Then they were splitting again. Then they were trying for a baby, and lo, she was pregnant. Then she wasn’t.
Moana Pozzi is the lesser known of the two, at least internationally, but she was given the lead position on the Partito dell’ Amore (‘Party of Love’) ticket after Cicciolina’s on-off marriage and pregnancy initially ruled her out. Moana was born in Genoa in 1960, the daughter of a nuclear physicist, from a well-off, Catholic family – at least reputedly, as biographical details for both her and Cicciolina are seen through a haze of disinformation. But they’re not really important!
Like Cicciolina, she possesses a charisma capable of charming support out of the most unlikely places, including Umberto Eco, author of ‘The Name of the Rose’, and also a a reporter from a respectable British Sunday paper, who found her “pleasant, amusing, articulate and highly intelligent”, none of which are traits normally associated with the porn industry, In addition, she is also undeniably cute, an improvement on Ms.Staller whom no-one could really describe as a classic beauty.
“People are looking at us, to start with I am sure, because our approach is different and stimulating, and then they get interested because they like what we have to say”, said Moana, and her campaign meetings certainly sound more interesting than Neil Kinnock or John Major sitting behind a desk, wittering on about interest rates. “I sing a little bit, then I do a strip and an erotic dance…then I address the audience, I talk politics. I take a question-and-answer session and promote the party …The audiences love it, we can never get enough of them in through the door”. Should someone at the Beeb decide, in a moment of madness, to screen this sort of thing, I imagine it would get far better ratings than any British party conference.
Unfortunately, neither candidate made it to parliament in the election earlier this year. Though this might have seemed wise given the current state of the Italian economy, one wonders what might have happened – perhaps the Lira wouldn’t have nose-dived, maybe the country’s credit rating wouldn’t have been slashed, had Moana ‘n’ Ilona been there. Sex-as-political-statement may have last been popular in the 60’s, but whether in parliament or out of it, Staller and Pozzi are doing their damnedest to keep the Summer of Love alive – and their way is far more fun than anything involving wimpy designer drugs and crap haircuts!
The Ed.
Moana Pozzi filmography
* = porn, + = with Cicciolina
1981 La Compagna di Viaggio I Miracoloni Delitto Carnale(soft-core version of a porn movie) Valentina Ragazza in Calore * Erotic Flash *a.k.a. Erotica Flasha Viva La Foca Moana La Pantera Blonda (soft-core, porn added later)
1982 Borotalco Vieni Avanti Cretino
1983 La Vita Continua Vacanze di Natale
1984 Dagobert A Tu Per Tu
1985 Ginger E Fred (Fellini!) Doppio Misto I Pompieri
1986 Fantastica Moana *
1987 Moana, La Bella Di Giorno * Moana La Scandalosa *
1988 Provocazione Diva Futura L’Avventura Nell’Amore + (and directed by C.) Una Calda Femina Da Letto *
1989 Ecstacy Super Vogliose Di Maschi * + Senza Respiro * + (porn footage collection) Inside Napoli * Vogliose Ed Insaziabili Per Stalloni Superdotati * + I Vizi Transessuali di Moana * Moana, I Trans E La Tettona *
1990 Cicciolina E Moana Ai Mondiali * + Le Calde Labra Bagnate Di Moana * Malibu Gorilla * La Casa Del Piacere * Moana L’Insaziabile *
1991 Le Donne Di Mandingo * + Tutte Le Provocazione Di Moana * La Professoressa Di Leziona Anali * Sole E Sesso A Malibu * Una Signora Per Bene * Sotto Il Vestito Nienti * (No relation with the Carlo Vanzina giallo) Buco Profondo *
This filmog should be pretty complete and correct. The only problem is that a bunch of movie have been released for selling in news-stands, and often titles are created just to fool people who get an old movie under a new title. Also available are soft version of her porn movies and compilations of sex scenes mixed with those of other Italian porn stars such as Cicciolina, Miss Pomodoro, Lilli Carati, Karine Schubert, etc.
It’s kinda surprising it’s taken so long for anyone to attempt to release any of Cicciolina’s movies in this country. Although some of her films were available before she became famous i.e. Yellow Emmanuelle, there’s only one currently available – by coincidence, it was released as the above piece was being researched, so it seemed like a good idea to review it!
Accompanied by some of the worst music I’ve heard – ever, anywhere – it has Cicciolina as a talk show host with the radio equivalent of an 0898 service. One of her listeners, Ricky, meets her and, in the words of the blurb, “they embark on a series of sensual, erotic adventures in an attempt to work out what really turns them on”. Or, put another way, see Cicciolina rolling in mud. See Cicciolina walking mostly naked through Rome. See Cicciolina sing. Apologies if this review is beginning to sound like a Dick and Jane reader.
The film doesn’t actually look that cut, though it has an annoying tendency for scenes to end just as they get interesting (on the other hand, this did mean my low boredom threshold for porn was never breached). I assume it was originally created as soft-core, and appears to be spliced together footage from different movies (and different eras, as Cicciolina’s “look” jumps wildly about), with linking scenes to give the semblance of a plot. But the absence of much coherent narrative works in it’s favour, giving it a dreamlike quality, and it has some amusing moments, for example the population’s reaction to her Rome walk, and an inventive use of marmalade.
Pity the release is rather shoddy, managing to mis-spell her name, both on the box and in the credits. The sound quality is bad enough to make the dialogue frequently inaudible and the pan-and-scanning is annoying, though I suppose letterboxed Ilona Staller would be too much to hope for! Still, what with the additional novelty in the concept of an English language Cicciolina film, it kept me interested for 84 minutes and somewhat against my will, I found myself actually liking this Europorn version of ‘Pump Up the Volume’. C+.
Those who believe in the concept of ‘the gentle sex’ should bear in mind that there are far more successful serial killers in history than Henry Lee Lucas, Ted Bundy or any similarly boring wimps. According to the Guinness Book of Records, among the all-time champions is Countess Erszbet Bathory, who offed about 650 peasant girls in medieval Romania. Now, obviously she had an advantage living in an era when the ruling class could do whatever they wanted to the rabble – nowadays, they have to hold an election first (hah! Political satire!) – but it’s still impressive evidence that psychosis is not purely masculine.
And murderous or otherwise insane women have been a common feature of entertainment since very early days. Greek theatre had it’s Clytemnestra, wandering the streets, shrieking prophecies and maledictions. Shakespeare has Lady Macbeth and Ophelia, to name but two (I’m using “psycho” here as a generic catch-all, rather than a psychological specific!). But this year, they would seem to be “in”. Imminently, we’ll get Drew Barrymore psycho-teening as ‘Poison Ivy’ and we’ve already had ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ (see below) and ‘Single White Female’, which stars Jennifer Jason Leigh, who’s made a career out of playing variously unstable characters. Most fall into one of four broad groups:
a) Revengeful
b) Femme Fatale
c) Euro-psycho
d) Supernatural.
though naturally there is an element of overlap. Let’s take each of these in turn, and examine a specific example.
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (Curtis Hanson)
Rebecca de Mornay, Annabella Sciorra.
To some extent, the success of this film could have been predicted. The biggest trend in horror films of recent years has been “body horror”: the threat is internal, the threat is YOU. Combine this with the breakdown of moral values (for which Hollywood, according to Dan Quayle, is to blame) and it’s a logical step to have the threat coming from within the family, trying to destroy it. That the protagonists are woman should be no surprise either: “female” = “family” as far as Hollywood is concerned. On one level, ‘The Hand…’ is a predictable affirmation of these traditional values, and fits in entirely with expected patterns. But it escapes from the limitations placed on it, thanks to polished execution all-round.
After ten minutes, the viewer could be forgiven for checking his ticket to make sure they’re in the right cinema as it starts off as some sort of medical rape film, as Annabella Sciorra is assaulted by her doctor during a gynaecological examination. Following this disconcerting start, all becomes clear after she goes public with the case: the doctor commits suicide and his wife (Rebecca de Mornay) has a miscarriage. Several months later, said wife turns up on Sciorra and hubby’s doorstep, surely the perfect nanny for the new-born child…
De Mornay wants the child very badly, to replace the one she lost, and sets about systematically wrecking the family, turning husband and daughter against mother, and getting rid of anyone she perceives as a threat, in a spectacular display of perverse cunning that had me grinning at every turn of the screw. It’s neatly constructed, and suitably twisty, though you can spot the plot devices as they appear – a set of wind-chimes here, an asthma inhaler there – for ticking off as they’re used later, and at the end it does degenerate into something a little too familiar to ‘Friday the 13th’ fans. Still, it’s substantially better than any of that series – can’t help thinking how Rebecca de Mornay and Anthony Hopkins would make a fine couple! B.
The Fourth Man (Paul Verhoeven)
Jeroen Krabbe, Renee Soutendijk.
In the wake of all the fuss surrounding ‘Basic Instinct’, now seems a good time to mention Paul Verhoeven’s earlier shocker, about a writer (Krabbe) who has an affair with a thrice-widowed lady (Soutendijk), only to discover she might have killed all of her previous husbands. Those protesting about the portrayal of homosexuals in ‘Basic Instinct’ should maybe have seen this film before whining, as it does show Verhoeven is no homophobe.
The film has a lot of parallels with his latest work: both films have blond, literary females, who may or may not be psychopaths – in neither film is it ever made 100% clear whether it’s just masculine paranoia. A non-heterosexual love triangle is a significant element of both and neither movie has a truly heroic figure, with both Douglas and Krabbe, scheming creatures not all that far away from psychosis either. Both films also have significantly pleasant helpings of sex and violence.
Where ‘The Fourth Man’ scores over ‘Basic Instinct’ is it’s cross-genre delivery. It’s not only a thriller, but a love story, a religious parable, a dissertation on the nature of reality, and has the one of the all-time best dream sequences I’ve ever seen in the cinema. Aided by a pair of performances that are virtually perfect (tho’ less so in the dubbed video version than at the cinema), while this may or may not be more enjoyable than Verhoeven’s work since coming to Hollywood, it’s undoubtedly more interesting.
Renee Soutendijk was most recently seen in ‘Eve of Destruction’, as a psychopathic robot (if a robot can be thus described, having no psyche to go pathic about). Some things never change. A+.
Dial: Help (Ruggero Deodato)
Charlotte Lewis, Marcello Modugno
A general rule of thumb in continental movies is that the prettier the actress, the looser her grip on sanity – if this has any basis in reality, it’s worth remembering the next time you contemplate a holiday romance. In any case, Euro-psychos form a distinct sub-class: the classic example is Beatrice Dalle in ‘Betty Blue’, a nose ahead of Isabelle Adjani, whose career almost seems to be based on psychopathy, and there’s barely an actress in France who hasn’t been warped at some point.
While the French generally concentrate on femme fatales, with a healthy dose of revenge, the Italians, probably thanks to the influence of Dario Argento and his crew, seem to prefer the supernatural aspects as this sub-genre allows the director to almost completely dispense with the plot, in favour of scriptual hand-waving about “the occult”. Only the Italians could possibly make a film about killer phones, such as “Dial: Help”. Jenny (Charlotte Lewis) is a model, who dials a wrong number and somehow – handwave, handwave – taps into a source of energy, which (understandably) decides to fancy her. It starts offing anyone it perceives as a threat or who is nasty to Jenny (I’m not sure which category her goldfish, who also get it, fall into) in a variety of interesting ways, most notably the mugger shot by high-velocity coins fired from the reject slot of a coin box.
Very little of this film makes any sense at all, yet the whole thing is really quite enjoyable. The improvement over the annoying plotlessness of Argento is that once you accept the premise – admittedly silly – of an intelligent, insane telephone number, the rest of the film is plausible, at least by comparison. Argento piles idiocy upon idiocy until even my disbelief can no longer be suspended.
As for the female psycho, Charlotte Lewis starts off okay, but by the end is seriously cracking up. The final proof of this is her decision to dress up in stockings, suspenders and a black basque, purely to roll around in the bath for five minutes. While this casts doubts on her character’s sanity, it proves that director Deodato knows how many beans make five. The entire scene is completely gratuitous, adds nothing to the story, and is quite, quite wonderful. B+.
Dracula’s Widow (Christopher Coppola)
Sylvia Kristel, Lennie van Dohlen
Equal opportunities in the occult are a variable kinda thing. In certain fields, such as werewolves, men have the field almost to themselves – the most notable exception being Sybil Danning in ‘The Howling 2′ – maybe because hairy palms are not considered aesthetically appealing. On the other hand, the “possessed teen” genre has been mostly a girls’ domain; Regan, Carrie, Mary Lou and their kin. Somewhere in the middle stands the vampire, currently undergoing something of a renaissance thanks to Gary Oldman’s appearance as Dracula. But it was not the first Coppola version of the story, although “Dracula’s Widow” is certainly not Francis Ford in action.
Not all female vampires can be classed as obviously insane – Delphine Seyrig, in ‘Daughters of Darkness’ is as cool and collected an individual as you could see – but drinking human blood is not normal behaviour by most standards (except in certain parts of the West of Scotland…). And when combined with scenery-chewing, such as we see Sylvia Kristel doing here, we’re definitely deep into the zone of the ‘differently sane’.
She arrives in America enclosed in a crate sent to the Hollywood House of Wax, A run-down establishment operated by Lennie van Dohlen and his girlfriend. Kristel chomps her way through various members of the community and turns Van Dohlen into her accomplice as she seeks a somewhat belated revenge on Van Helsing. He’d offed her husband back in Transylvania a century ago, so isn’t about but any descendant of his will do. He, meanwhile, starts to view his girl-friend, less as a sex object, and more as lunch.
The film seems uncertain whether it’s tongue-in-cheek or not; some elements are definitely parody-ish, while others seem intended to be taken seriously, and the whole thing looks seriously patchwork as a result. This uncertainty extends to the era – could be anytime from the 40’s on. Try turning the colour off and viewing it in b&w, as this enhances the faux-noir feel, though you do lose the icky bits.
Still, van Dohlen’s performance is engagingly loopy, reminiscent of a young Anthony Perkins and Sylvia Kristel – remarkably, keeping her clothes on with unusual decorum – manages to be convincingly European, though I imagine actually being European is something of an advantage. Overall, as TVM’s go, it’s an amiable way to pass ninety minutes and it’s several steps above Stuart Gordon’s very disappointing ‘Daughter of Darkness’. C-.
It was her first remark since I had joined her in the train’s Ladies Only compartment, boarding, as I had, at a rural halt with a single island platform. I had thought such stations and compartments to have long since vanished from British Rail. There was a sense of travelling in time, as well as in space. Glancing down at my hem, I was almost surprised to see the short skirt in which I’d set out that morning, rather than the floor-sweeping fashion of Edwardian times.
“Men!”, she repeated loudly, seeming to demand a response. “Men?”, I asked diffidently. “Yes – great ugly brutes. Their skin grows a horrible hairy rind. Every day they peel it off with sharp blades, only to have it regrow by night.” I smiled. Her reply, seemed to suppose that I, of all people, didn’t know what men were. “Not all of them”, I ventured placidly. “Not all of what, what?” “Not all men peel off their hairy rind. Some have beards.” “Tush, child! Do not speak of them! They’re the worst… All are rapists… And some are…” “Are what?” “It is best that one of your tender years does not know. Indeed, I’ve already said too much. I should not have mentioned men at all… Not in your hearing, anyway”
“Why not in MY hearing in particular?” I suddenly must have looked more my age with a hint of a frown, since she evidently now intended to take me into her full confidence. She leant forward, as if there were someone else ear-wigging. The mouth hypnotised me with the way it spoke. “Men, my dear, are foul-mouthed creatures who do not rightfully belong on Mother Earth.” She sat back with a flourish.
I nodded, despite thinking her proposition ludicrous. Being alone together with someone in a corridorless train does carry with it the responsibility of tact and diplomacy.
“Well,” she resumed, leaning forward again, “even as recent as Edwardian days, there had only been ladies in the world. Till these aliens came from outer space with their coiled arrangements below their bellies. They brainwashed most of us to believe that they had always been here and that we actually needed them. They called themselves ‘men’ for short”.
The train was drawing into Norwood Junction alongside two platforms which enabled egress from either side of the carriages. A close shave, I thought, as I stumbled from the Ladies Only compartment…into a lady in high fashion gloves who was simultaneously embarking. She was no doubt en route for Victoria Station (my own original destination). I gave her a warning look, my eyes swivelling to that lady in the corner with the strange ideas. The warning went unnoticed, perhaps consciously unheeded, even relished.
As I scoured the timetable for the next train to Victoria (changing my mind half way by looking for the arrival of the next train bound for Brighton), I tugged down my skirt which was trying to ride even higher up my thighs. I was afraid of what it would otherwise reveal.
Katja Bienert, Ursula Fellner, Raquel Evans, Antonio Mayans.
While most films on Sky Movies have been out on video for ages and are Hollywood dross in varying flavours, the odd one does get through – and ‘The Story of Linda’ can certainly be described as ‘odd’. Though shown in “slashed by the BBFC” format, it’s not the sort of film you’ll find 50 copies of in Blockbuster Video and it is at least European dross (which we’d better get used to, as come next year, we can expect lots of it!) and, what’s more, dross of a surreally tacky nature.
The film starts with a girl being chased along a beach by two men in a land-rover. They catch her and drag her off into the Rio Amore, a high-class sex club (decor heavily influenced by ‘Emmanuelle’, all wicker chairs and hammocks). There, for the amusement of the patrons, she is whipped – or at least, I assume so, there’s barely an edit in the first 10 minutes where the hand of the ever-vigilant Jim Furman can’t be detected. We are introduced to the madame, Sheila, and her lover, whom she found playing piano in a gay bar and who rejoices in the decidely un-Hispanic name of Ron Medford, despite looking the epitome of a Mediterranean type, right down to the Zapata moustache.
He’s currently having a fling with Betsy, the receptionist at the nearby hotel, who is awaiting the arrival of Linda, her convent educated sister. But when Sheila finds out about the Betsy and Ray, she arranges for hotel manager Zorro(!) and his 6 ft plus, bald, psychopathic side-kick to charge Betsy with stealing $10,000 from the hotel safe. We also learn that Sheila keeps pet scorpions (hint, hint).
Ron gives Betsy money for a plane ticket, but her escape attempt is foiled when she gets into a taxi driven by the same 6 ft plus, bald, psychopathic side-kick who was intimidating her in the previous scene. In mitigation, it has to be said he is now cunningly disguised – or at least, is wearing a hat. Betsy is taken to the brothel to work off her ‘debt’, and Sheila greets her with “We have a special treatment for calming rebellious girls. It’s one that all my customers appreciate as well!”
The next thing we see is a nun, and I briefly wondered whether Shiela’s “special treatment” would be a medley of songs from ‘The Sound of Music’. However, I’d forgotten convent educated Linda, and in a flash of religiously inspired insight, it becomes crystal clear how the rest of the film is going to turn out. Linda will find her sister missing, try to locate her, end up in the Rio Amore as well, be forced into depravity and corruption, and eventually the pair will escape and live happily ever after.
And initially the film runs straight down the expected line. Like all convent schoolgirls in movies, Linda: a) is cute (though she could shave her armpits better), b) posseses an interesting selection of lingerie, c) demonstrates a fondness for lesbian love scenes, and d) has the ability to go from nought-to-moaning-orgasm in about thirty seconds, though this may be due to Mr. Furman again, more than any inherent skills.
Back in the Rio Amore, we discover that the special treatment is Betsy writhing about inside a plexiglass cube filled to a depth of about three inches with dry ice fumes. Meanwhile, Ron and Sheila make love and there’s a close-up of the scorpions (hint, hint). Arriving at Funchal airport, Linda is waiting for her sister when her bag is stolen. Fortunately, the thief is tripped up by Juan, a passing student, who cheerfully returns the bag, but makes no effort to detain the thief, despite said criminal hanging around for a fair while before mumbling “bastard” and wandering off.
Quicker than you can say “gratuitous travelogue”, Juan is giving Linda a tour of Tenerife (“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful! It looks like paradise!”), which suggests the local tourist board put up half the budget. Juan lives with his sister, or maybe it’s sisterS, the script (or at least the dubbing) tends to confusion on this point. And indeed several others – Linda’s holiday varies between one and three weeks long as the mood takes her.
Sheila and Ron have sex again – “It’s like making love to a scorpion”, he says (HINT, HINT!), and in the light of this remark takes things appropriately gingerly, attempting to mount the outside of Sheila’s thigh. In the club, one of the punters is talked by Betsy into delivering a note to Ron, but they’re overheard by Annie, another of the girls. When the client leaves, Annie follows him and, we can only assume, mugs him, because she eventually delivers the note to Ron. They are spotted by the hat-wearing psychopathic thug and a fight ensues. Annie runs off, Ray steals the thug’s car – call it a no-score draw.
Linda and Juan find a nudist beach, where to no-one’s surprise (except possibly Linda’s), they engage in the sort of writhing in the breakers last seen in David Bowie’s “China Girl” video (or more accurately, last seen in ‘Return to the Blue Lagoon’ – er, not, of course, that I actually saw that!), even though the beach looks painfully rocky. Betsy is chained up by two other hookers who say “We’re going to teach you not to scream, once and for all” before reaching for a plank of wood and…well, we never discover what they do – while it may or may not have been a fate worse than death, it certainly was worse than the BBFC would allow.
Ron storms in to Sheila’s room, slaps her round a bit, but ends up, yes, making love to her. After blow-jobbing him into unconsciousness, she takes her pet scorpions and drops them onto the floor, before returning to the sex, as the creatures scuttle menacingly across the carpet.
Yes, in some territories, the film’s title translates as “Naked Superwitches of the Rio Amore”
However, Annie bursts in, shoots Sheila, and squashes the scorpions before vanishing from the film without saying a word. The viewer can, I think, be pardoned for going “Eh?” at this point, but no explanation at all is offered. It does let Ron free Betsy, and the film ends with them accidentally bumping into Linda, on her way home. Betsy doesn’t mention that she’s been kidnapped, tortured, forced into prostitution and rescued (she does Hint Darkly, in the 90 seconds they’re together before parting again), and Linda doesn’t ask the obvious question, “Hey sis, why are you wandering round Tenerife in bloodstained lingerie?”. This scene is crucial as it foils the otherwise convincing theory that Linda and Betsy were originally characters in two totally different films, joined in the editing suite to form an incoherent whole.
I’ve seen better soft-porn. I’ve seen funnier soft-porn. I’ve seen sexier soft-porn. But for weirdness, incoherency and jaw-dropping relentlessness – the longest period without some form of sex or nudity is roughly 3 minutes 50 seconds – ‘The Story of Linda’ is definitely hard to beat.
I’ve carefully withheld one piece of information, of which I was ignorant when most of the above was written, and which means the whole film suddenly makes sense – or at least helps explain it’s nature:
‘The Story of Linda’ was directed by Jess Franco.
Ta-raaa. Now, the person who recommended ‘Linda’ to me was unaware, not only of the ‘real’ director, but also of Franco’s reputation as a maker of deeply bizarre crap. But my friend knew ‘The Story of Linda’ was classic badfilm and having watched it, I heartily concur.
When you know that Jack Griffin is a Franco pseudonym, a lot of things about the film click into place: the nudity, the plot consisting of a series of tenuously linked holes, and the dialogue – I didn’t think people said things like “I want to feel you deep inside me”, even in badly dubbed foreign schlock movies. All that’s missing is a few of his trademark fades-to-black-by-zooming-in-on-the-leading-lady’s-pussy.
By anyone else’s standards it’d be awful, but for a Franco movie it’s ok; at least it doesn’t sink beyond “so bad it’s good” to “so bad it’s unwatchable”. While the main emotions provoked in the viewer may be bafflement and annoyance, this is two more than most Jess Franco films generate. I look forward to Sky’s Franco season, with showings of ‘Ilsa, the Wicked Warden’ and ‘Faceless’. But I’m NOT holding my breath…
