Gwendoline (1985)

Best movie ever!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

From the director of Emmanuelle (who has the best name a softcore pornographer could possibly have) comes this bizarre, nonsensical fantasy/adventure/comedy starring a nubile Tawny Kitaen. She ships herself to China in a crate so she can find her father, who disappeared looking for a rare butterfly. Accompanied by partner Zabou and hunky adventurer Brent Huff, they journey through a bunch of cheap-looking locations until they arrive at the lost city of Cheops, which is populated by an Amazonian tribe of women known as the Yik Yak. This is the mentally disabled descendant of Barbarella. It barely makes sense from one minute to the next. Yet I could not look away. Well, I mean, Tawny Kitaen, meow. And, Hell, I might like the Olive Oyl-ish Zabou even better. The production design is majestic in its moronic cheapness. If it weren't so dull up front, I'd give it a higher recommendation, but I ultimately enjoyed it.

Gwendoline, from 'Emmanuelle' director Just Jaeckin, is an erotic comic-book action adventure (think Indiana Jones crossed with Barbarella, only with more nudity) wherein a gorgeous but innocent young woman (played by 80s rock-babe Tawny Kitaen) teams up with a roguish riverboat captain (Brent Huff) to locate her father, a scientist who went missing while looking for a rare butterfly in the hostile land of Yik-Yak.A one-time fashion photographer, Jaeckin is more than capable of capturing a striking image, whether it be a beautiful vista, the sensuous curves of a woman, or the surreal sight of a bald, naked Amazonian chick being sucked up an down an industrial pipe, but he fails dismally at telling a story, either as writer or director. His terrible script is hampered by dreadful dialogue (not helped by a wooden cast) and his handling of many scenes, most notably the action, leaves much be desired, being unimaginatively executed and ultimately rather lifeless.Despite all of this, however, the film still manages to be a reasonably entertaining experience—partly due to the silliness of the whole thing, partly because of the often excellent production design (much of which would not look out of place in a major Hollywood film) and some surprising violence, but mostly thanks to all of the S&M-laced nudity, especially from the lovely Kitaen, who can't act, but who has a great bod and isn't afraid to show it.

80's metal band Whitesnake's sultry siren Tawny Kitaen is extremely lucky in some ways (ie. she dated OJ Simpson and lived to tell the tale). but decidedly unlucky in deciding this as her first feature film. Kitaen plays the titular role of Gwendoline who, with some help, is trying to find her father and a rare butterfly. While the first half of this film is so bad, it's good in a campy culty way, humorously enough the second half, when they actually find the girl tribe of the Yik Yak is when it takes a nosedive and becomes tedious. You'd think it would only get better by injecting a truckload of topless women, but you'd be wrong. As it's definitely not. But as I said up to around that point the movie is pretty damn enjoyable. And as bad as the second part of this film got (and trust me it gets pretty awful). I'd STILL watch it a million times more than that "Avacado Women in the Jungle of Death" crap fest. Tawny's next film, Bachelor Party, however, was and still is a bonifide classic no matter how you slice it (not really because of her, mind you) My Grade: D+ DVD Extras: Commentary by Director Just Jaeckin; Interview with Jaeckin; Audio interview with comic creator John Willie; Tawny Kitean photo-spread for Lui Magazine; and both US & international theatrical trailers

This film has grown into a real cult classic and one of the reasons is the difficulty finding a copy to view. Story is about a young and beautiful damsel in distress named Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen) who along with her maid Beth (Zabou) ships herself in a crate to China in search of her Professor father who has disappeared. She gets into trouble with the local Chinese mafia but is saved by the sweaty sailor named Willard (Brent Huff) and she convinces him with $2,000 to help her find her father who was last scene going to the legendary land of "Yik-Yak" chasing after a rare black butterfly.*****SPOILER ALERT*****Gwendoline learns that her father was killed but she is determined to find the butterfly which she wants to name after him. The three of them travel by boat and after encountering pirates they head down river and end up hacking their way through a jungle on foot and finally they are forced to trek through the desert. They are almost killed by some natives but escape and reach "Yik-Yak" but find an underground civilization run by Amazonian women in leather. They get caught and the Queen (Bernadette Lafont) has plans for them which will result in their deaths so they must figure out how they can escape.This film was written and directed by Just Jaeckin who was also responsible for the first "Emmanuelle" film and "The Story of O" and here he creates one of the cheesiest adventure films ever and it's loaded with images of B&D. This is based on the illustrated stories by John Willie in the 1940's and that also had Gwendoline frequently being tied up. Those of you into the B&D scene will especially enjoy the chariot scene where they are being pulled by topless female slaves adorned with leather! Part of this film was made in the Philippines and maybe Morocco but the scenes that are suppose to be China are easily shot on a soundstage. This film presents the worst job of dubbing since those "Godzilla" movies came out in the 50's and 60's. Most of the time their mouths are saying one thing but the words being spoken don't match. There isn't much acting going on and Huff sweats continuously from his appearance until the very end. In fact, all the actors sweat through this film and I'm sure they could all tell stories about the horrid working conditions. As much as I love Kitaen (And I do) she isn't given much to do here except find herself in various states of being topless (Thank you God!) but from an exploitation level this is part of the charm of this low budget and sleazy film. At one point in the film it starts to rain and Huff yells "It's raining, take your clothes off". Is this terrible? Of course. Is it watchable? Yep, And for the reasons I just mentioned and one can't help but be fascinated by something like this. If your into cheesy exploitation films than you probably already know about this cult classic.