31 Days of Cheese - Day 12: Bolero

And for Valentine’s day, I give you Bolero.

Lord what an awful film. Really just an awful awful awful film. Did I say I was bad? Well it’s that bad and worse.

This is a painfully boring film that makes naked women dull and make sex boring. I mean how the hell do you manage to do that? Naked people. Sex. And it’s dull? Lord.

This 1984 film stars (for the want of a better term) Bo Derek. It’s the 1920’s and she has just graduated from college and she’s a virgin. A situation she wants to change. She wants to experience ecstasy which she insists is spelled with an X.

Now while the Red Queen could believe six impossible things before breakfast all that’s a bit much. Especially the bit about Bo graduating from college.

So anyway Bo who plays the part with her eyes wide open. This combined with her utterly vapid line reading give you the overall impression of “The lights are on, but nobody’s home”.

Any- way. Bo soon finds an Arab Sheik (the movie is set in the era of Rudolph Valentino so it almost makes sense) but he turns out that – after covering a naked Bo with honey is too stoned to do the deal. So off Bo goes.

And after tedious toing and frowing she finds the Bolero. A Bolero, aside from being a jacket and the name of the Ravel piece that was featured in Ten the movie that made Bo a star (mostly by not letting her talk until the last part of the film) is a the man who rides on horseback during a bullfight and stabs the bull in the neck with short spears. The idea is to cut the bull’s neck muscles so it can’t lift its head so the matador can kill it with his sword at the end of the fight. (no it’s not pretty). In this case however this Bolero simply stabs a target strapped to the bulls shoulders. More on this later.

So he and Bo meet and then bump uglies. You know of all the euphemisms for sex ‘bump uglies’ has got to be one of the odder ones. But onward. One of the things I remember is that before they get to the main course of action the Bolero says something to the effect that ‘bed is the most selfish place on earth, you give pleasure only to receive it” and I, when I first saw this film many years ago, remember thinking “Oh great not only is this film dull and boring but the writer’s an Ayn Rand fan.” How knew that is not important now. It’s just a another example of this films amazing awfulness.

After a boring sex scene (and again how did they manage to do that?) Bo is no longer a virgin and very happy but, alas, soon after this the Bolero is stabbed by a bull in the worst possible place and well yes it doesn’t work anymore. The rest of the film is devoted to Bo’s attempts to restore full use as it where to Mr. Happy. At this point when I saw it the first time my brain was like an animal in a trap trying to chew off a limb and escape.

Did I mention that George Kennedy is in this film? He doesn’t do a lot except look embarrassed as well he should.

One of the attempts Bo calling the Bolero into the bull ring. She’s riding a horse wearing a poncho. After a while she doffs the poncho and rides about Lady Godiva style on the horse. The Bolero sadly looks at Bo, looks and the horse, hands Bo her Poncho back and walks away.

“You’re a hard man to seduce.” She says.

This line caused my brother (I had rented it to show him because he did not believe me about how bad this film was. He knows better now.) to fall off the couch in helpless laughter. We watched it three more times and each time he laughed like hell.

Any-way. After more toing and frowing Bo manages to get the Bolero back into bed and yes successes! It works again. Bo applauds at this moment ( was losing my will to live by then) and the go back at it in another dull sex scene.

Then comes the really idiotic part. The room begins to fill up with steam or white smoke and suddenly they are on a cloud and behind them is a neon sign with the word ecstasy spelled “exstasy” flashing on and off (if you remember, that’s how Bo insisted it was spelled).

24 years later I can still remember what I thought as this played out on the big screen. I was thinking: “This is it. This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen.”

And thus the movie ends.

And despite the years of bad film that came afterwards – nothing not Manos, not Troll 2, Not The Creeping Terror, not even Plan Nine From Outer Space has exceed that moment of absolute pure cosmic dumb.

Enjoy with chocolate and honey.