Love On The Shattered Lens: The Bitch (dir by Gerry O’Hara)

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Joan Collins is THE BITCH” announced the opening credits of the 1979 film, The Bitch. Seriously, how can you not love a film that opens that way?

Joan Collins returns of Fonatine Khaled, the character that she previously played in The Stud. Once again based on a novel by Jackie Collins, The Bitch follow Fontaine as she adjusts to life as a freshly divorced woman. Though she received a good deal of money in the divorce and she has her own personal fortune as well, Fontaine is struggling to maintain her extravagant lifestyle. A new disco has opened and is taking away the crowds that used to populate her club. She’s running out of cash and soon, she might not even be able to fly first class!

It’s on an airplane that she meets Nico (Michael Colby, who is not particularly charismatic but still isn’t quite as dull as Oliver Tobias was in The Stud). In an amusing in-joke, the movie that they watch on the plane is The Stud. Nico says that he can’t decide if the movie is funnier with the sound or without. “It’s not meant to by funny,” Fontaine replies. Nico claims to be a wealthy Italian businessman, which immediately gets Fontaine’s attention. Of course, Nico’s lying. He’s actually a con artist and a jewel thief. Fontaine figures that out when Nico tries to use her to smuggle a diamond through customs. Fontaine is angered but she’s intrigued.

Nico is in debt to the Mafia. The head of the British mob is a man named … and I’m not making this up …. Thrush Feathers (Ian Hendry). Thrush Feathers demands that Nico cause a horse to lose an upcoming race. The horse belongs to Fontaine’s friends from the first film, Vanessa (Sue Lloyd) and Mark Grant (Mark Burns). Thrush Feathers also offers to help Fontaine keep her club open but his help comes with a price. Whatever the price is, could it possibly be worse than being named Thrush Feathers? Seriously, in what world is someone with that name going to take over a London crime syndicate? How do you go from the Kray Brothers to Thrush Feathers?

Anyway, the plot really isn’t that important. There’s a lot of double crosses and manipulation as Fontaine lives up to the title of the film. The plot is really just an excuse to tease the viewer with visions of the decadent rich. The clothes are expensive. The mansions are ornate. The conversations are always arch and full of double entendres. This film is less about how the rich live and more about how middle class like to imagine the rich live. It’s also about sex, though none of it quite reaches the lunatic abandon of The Stud’s swimming pool orgy scene. The important thing is that whole thing is scored to a disco beat.

As with The Stud, it’s Joan Collins who holds the film together, giving a fierce and uninhibited performance in which she gleefully embraces the melodrama and delivers her lines with just enough attitude to let the viewer know that she’s in on the joke. “Bitch” may have been meant as an insult but, as played by Joan Collins, Fontaine wears the title as a badge of honor. She understands what had to be done to survive in a male-dominated world and she makes no apologies for it. Even more importantly, she knows that once you fly first class, you can never go back.

The Bitch is not necessarily good but it is definitely fun in its sordid way.

Love On The Shattered Lens: The Stud (dir by Quentin Masters)

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oliver Tobias is …. THE STUD!

It is true that Oliver Tobias does play the title character of this 1978 British film, which was itself based on a novel by Jackie Collins. Tobias is cast as Tony Blake, a youngish Englishman who runs the hottest discotheque in the UK. He runs it on behalf of its actual owner, the decadent Fontaine Khaled (Joan Collins). Fontaine is married to the fabulously wealthy Benjamin Khaled (played by Walter Gotell, who also had a recurring role in the James Bond films as the head of the KGB) but she seeks her carnal pleasure elsewhere. Tony’s job and all the glamour that goes with it is dependent upon being Fontaine’s personal plaything. If Fontaine wants to do it in the elevator while the security cameras film, that is what’s going to happen. If Fontaine wants Tony to take part in a swimming pool orgy while she swings back and forth over the festivities, that’s what is going to happen. Tony Blake is the stud, after all.

Tony, however, tires of all the nonstop decadence. He’s not as empty-headed as Fontaine assumes him to be. Tony’s complicated. Tony has feelings. At least, that’s what the films wants us to believe. To be honest, Tony is kind of boring but we’ll get to that later. Tony allows himself to be used by Fontaine but he finds himself truly falling in love with Fontaine’s stepdaughter, Alexandra (Emma Jacobs). But does Alexandra feel the same way towards Tony or is she just using Tony to get revenge on her hated stepmother?

Let’s start with something positive about this film. The Stud is one of the most 70s movies ever made. Everything from the fashion to the slang to the cinematography to the wah wah soundtrack simply screams 70s. There’s several scenes that take place in the discotheque. Very few of them actually move the story forward in any meaningful way but they do give you a chance to look at the clothes and the haircuts and to listen for the sound of people snorting cocaine in the background. If you’re a student pop culture or if you’re just fascinated by the tacky and the trashy, the film is very enjoyable on that level. There’s also a lot of sex, all of it filmed in vibrant color and featuring a camera that will not stop moving as The Stud tries to convince us that it’s actually high art.

Unfortunately, the stud of the title is a bit of dud. (And they say I’m not a poet!) Oliver Tobias is handsome and has a superficially charming screen presence. But, whenever he has to deliver dialogue or show any hint of emotion, the film falls flat. As played by Tobias, Tony just comes across as a bland gigolo, enjoyable to look at but impossible to really care about. The film is so dominated by Joan Collins’s cheerfully over-the-top performance as Fontaine that Tobias seems to spend a lot of the movie disappearing into the background. Indeed, Collins’s performance is the best thing about the film. She fully understand what type of movie she’s appearing in and she fully embraces the melodrama, delivering her arch dialogue with just the right amount of self-awareness to suggest that she’s in on the joke.

The Stud is a love story featuring people who are only capable of loving themselves. At its worst, it gets bogged down in Tobias’s dull lead performance. At its best, its trashy fun with a disco beat. I like trashy fun so I can excuse the boring leading man. A good beat that you can dance to can make up for a lot.

Film Review: Missing Link (dir by Chris Butler)

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year is 1886 and Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) is the world’s greatest adventurer.

Or, at least, that’s what he says. Actually, Sir Lionel may have made a name for himself and gained some popularity as a result of his many adventures but his fellow explorers and adventurers don’t take him seriously. They view Sir Lionel as being little more than a self-promoter and they’re largely unimpressed with the all the time that he’s devoted to searching for mythical beasts like The Loch Ness Monster and lost lands like El Dorado. Sir Lionel desperately wants to join the London-based Society of Great Men but the snobbish Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry) refuses to accept his application.

When Sir Lionel receives a letter from someone in America who claims to have tracked down the legendary Sasquatch, Sir Lionel and Lord Piggot-Duncey make a bet. If Sir Lionel can prove that the Sasquatch exists, he will be allowed to join the Society. Sir Lionel heads off to America while Lord Piggot-Dunceby promptly hires an evil bounty hunter named Willard Stenk (Timothy Olyphant) to prevent him from accomplishing his mission. As Lord Piggot-Dunceby explains to his assistant, Mr. Collick (Matt Lucas), the world is changing too quickly. If Sir Lionel isn’t stopped, people might start to believe in things like evolution or women’s rights.

When Sir Lionel arrives in America, he promptly starts searching for the Sasquatch and, amazingly enough, it doesn’t take him very long to find him. It turns out that the Sasquatch — who Sir Lionel names Mr. Link — not only speaks remarkably good English but he’s also the one who wrote to Sir Lionel in the first place. As played by Zach Galifianakis, Mr. Link is a rather laid back and good-natured Sasquatch. In some ways, Mr. Link is surprisingly worldly and, in other ways, he’s rather naive. He takes everything that he hears literally, which poses a problem since Sir Lionel has a tendency towards sarcasm. It also turns out that Mr. Link is lonely but he thinks that he might be related to the Himalayan Yetis. And Mr. Link thinks that Sir Lionel is just the man to help him get from America to Asia!

Sir Lionel reluctantly agrees. Accompanying them on their journey is Sir Lionel’s former girlfriend, Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana). And pursuing them, every step of the way, is Lord Piggot-Dunceby and Willard Stenk.

Missing Link is an enjoyable and undeniably cute stop-motion animated film. It was produced by Laika, the same animation outfit that previously gave us Kubo and The Two Strings. While Missing Link is never as memorable or emotionally resonant as Kubo, it’s still a good-hearted film and entertaining enough that an adult can watch it without wanting to tear their hair out. Blessed with impressively detailed animation and the comedic vocal talents of Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry, Timothy Olyphant, and Zach Galifianikis, Missing Link has enough funny moments and clever lines that most audiences should be able to overlook the fact that the story itself sometimes feels a bit haphazard in its construction. Much like the Sasquatch at the center of its story, Missing Link is a rather laid back film. If Kubo was a carefully-constructed work of art, Missing Link feels like it was almost thrown together at random. The film is at its best once it reaches the Himalayas, where the humor becomes very barbed and Emma Thompson steals the show in a sharp-witted cameo.

I enjoyed Missing Link. It’s just too sweet-nartured not to like.