The Bitch (1979)

The Worst Film Ever

How sad is this?

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Unfortunately, "The Bitch" is neither campy enough nor trashy enough to live down to its sensational(istic) title. In fact, apart maybe from a pool-orgy sequence, it is rather quaint. Joan Collins' character is hardly even a bitch - she is just rich and liberated. She does get to flash her bare body, which should be enough to get a rise out of most viewers, but this film is more of a promo for disco music than anything else.

"The Bitch" is one of countless exploitation films dealing with the sex lives of the "jet set" crowd, (today they are known as the '1 percenters.) This film offers a tawdry look into a very decadent lifestyle, led by people with no real morals or concern for anything other than their own pleasure. Days are filled with shopping sprees at Cartier and fashion shows, and nights are spent at tacky London discos, or bed hopping. The wealthy circle is rather small, so it seems like everyone has already slept with everyone else, and everybody knows everyone's secrets. Joan Collins is admittedly very good as Fontaine Khaled, the forty-something socialite who made her financial stake by marrying an Arab billionaire, who foolishly gave her everything she could want, before he discovered her extra marital affairs, and quickly divorced her. In this film, an inferior sequel to "The Stud," Fontaine must use her own "skills" to survive. And survive she does, quite well actually. This is super-trash on the highest level. We have violent mob bosses, nude swimming pool orgies, sex with the chauffeur, fixed horse races, jewel smuggling and endless discotheque scenes. And there is an endless display of thick mustaches, thick ties, and thick Euro accents. In fact "The Bitch" might just be the most stereotype "70's movie" ever made. Is it good? Not really; it is very uneven. Some scenes are just awful, like the lengthy dance sequences that are obviously just time filler. But just when you are about to turn it off, it gets interesting again for a while. Because although it might not be good cinema, it is strangely entertaining, and at times, fascinating. Of course it is all fantasy, but somehow we know that there are people who actually live like this, and this film provides a window into that World. Collins is a lot of fun here too. The first film, "The Stud" was somewhat of a commentary on how the working class are used and exploited by the upper class, and it condemns their decadent lifestyle. This sequel however, forgets all of that, and just embraces that lifestyle, and wallows in the decadence. The moral? There is none..other than "every man (or woman) for themselves, and the one who ends up with the most toys wins..

'The Bitch' holds the distinction of being the first motion picture to retail on sell-through video. Copies were on sale in Woolworths for about £100 each ( probably more than the film's total budget ) at the time of its release. It was, of course, the sequel to the steamy bonk-buster 'The Stud' ( 1978 ) which starred Joan Collins as man-mad London disco owner 'Fontaine Khaled'. Oliver Tobias was to have returned, but angered Jackie Collins ( on whose book it was based ) by giving a frank interview in which he called the first film 'rubbish'. He was dead right, of course. Jackie responded by saying that she hadn't originally wanted him in the film, he only got the role because Paul Michael Glaser ( of 'Starsky & Hutch' ) was unavailable.In place of Oliver ( why did no-one think to hire Leonard Rossiter? ) came Omar Sharif-lookalike Michael Coby as 'Nico', whom Fontaine meets and has it off with ( over and over and over again! ) while Biddu disco music throbs on the soundtrack ( unlike one of the other reviewers here, I have fond memories of '70's discos. I was no Travolta though. My answer to 'Saturday Night Fever' would have been called 'Friday Night Slight Chill'! ). Nico is affiliated to the Mob, headed by 'Thrush Feather' ( sounds like a sexually transmitted disease ), played by Ian Hendry, a long, long way from the heights of 'Get Carter'. Fontaine's life is under threat, but it all works out happily at the end.The first film's most famous sex scene was the elevator one involving Colins and Tobias, so here they went one better by having a swimming pool orgy full of randy young things ( luckily they did not have to worry about A.I.D.S. in those days ). The best moment is when Fontaine seduces her chauffeur Paul ( Maurice Thorogood ) with the line "I think I'll give you a raise!". Ridiculous though this is ( the 'Emmanuelle' films are subtle by comparison ) one would not mind had it looked rich and glossy. It does not. The sets look like left-overs from 'Coronation Street' and the costumes must have come from a Scope charity shop. Another annoying aspect is that, despite the title, Fontaine does not get to be bitchy. A number of talented performers ( presumably there for the money ) such as Carolyn Seymour, Pamela Salem, Sue Lloyd and Doug Fisher ( 'Larry' from 'Man About The House' ) are wasted in this drivel. Still, it manages to be more fun than 'Dynasty'. Boosted by a high-profile publicity campaign that focused on Joan in kinky underwear, the film was another hit.Given the current Hollywood mania for remakes, it is reasonable to assume some whizz-kid producer will attempt a 'reimagining' of 'The Bitch' in the not-too distant future, possibly with 'Fontaine' being humped by C.G.I. aliens while in zero gravity aboard a disco space station. I'd definitely pay to see that!

Looking back nearly 30 years, there's so much wrong with The Bitch that it's almost impossible to comprehend how it was so successful at the UK Box Office. With its sister film The Stud (1978), it was one of the most successful UK films of the decade (of the two, The Bitch outstripped The Stud). Both films were panned by the critics. The acting is mostly dire and the script is laughable. The plot is so wafer-thin and ludicrous (a Mafia plot involving a dodgy Greek businessman, a ring and a fixed horse race, based around a Mayfair disco) that you begin to wonder how it made so much money.One thing redeems it all - Joan Collins. She is just amazing, a stunning performance considering the lameness of all around her. The famous, extraordinary "chaffeur cap" seduction & striptease scene is for me possibly the best seduction scene in the whole of cinema. It never ceases to entertain. And considering that Joan Collins was 45 when she made this, it deserves a high mark for that alone.