Today I was listening to a podcast episode about Bo Derek (You Must Remember This - I highly recommend it to any fans of Hollywood history) and the film Bolero was briefly talked about. As a lover of bad films and nudity, Bolero has always been on my radar. So why not revisit it? Today let's talk about the wild story behind Bo Derek in Bolero!
Bo Derek became a big star after her stunning role in 1979's 10 directed by Blake Edwards. Not only did she famously jog on the beach, but she asked Dudley Moore: "Did you ever do it to Ravel's "Bolero"? That famous seduction scene showed Bo as a true sex symbol and a perfect ten as she put on a classical piece of music, the "Bolero" that is referenced, and starts cooing at him about how sexy the song is. It was also what everyone remembered her by for years, for better or for worse.
I only say "worse" because Bo was thrust into the spotlight as a sex symbol and that tended to be all anyone thought of her as - specifically as Jenny in 10. She had a hard time cementing herself as anything else. Bo was married to John Derek, a notorious photographer for Playboy who truly had a talent for capturing models nude.
He also had a knack for marrying the most gorgeous women in Hollywood. He had previously been married to Ursula Andress and then he was married to Linda Evans, whom he left for the way too young Bo Derek. That's an iffy story for sure and I only mention it to establish who John is because John would also direct Bolero.
Okay, enough snide remarks about John Derek. John was an actor in old Hollywood who switched to directing and photographing in the 1960s. His first film was 1965's Nightmare in the Sun starring Ursula Andress, and he dabbled throughout the 60s before putting directing aside for ten years.
John directed Bolero after directing Bo in Fantasies and Tarzan, the Ape Man to negative reviews. John was frustrated that his wife's career was not going the way that they thought it would. He remarked to Bo: "Every project that you're offered is just another version of the scene from 10. They just want to see a fuck to Bolero - let's go make a movie about Bolero!" That's exactly what he did.
The film Bolero, written and directed by John, takes place in the 1920s in the Meditteranean. There a young woman is determined to lose her virginity and she is left trying to accomplish her mission by meeting a bunch of fantastic men like a Moroccan sheik and a Spanish matador. This sexual awakening film awakens a lot in audiences due to its multiple nude scenes with soft-core feels.
The virgin? Bo Derek, of course. That might seem silly to think of Bo Derek in the mid-80s playing a virgin. By that point in her career, we knew her as a sex symbol for five long years. Yet here she was, playing the innocent blonde virgin on a quest to lose her virginity.
Bolero was released without a rating. They wanted to avoid an X-rating since X had started to sour, but NC-17 did not exist yet. John Derek managed to release the film as "unrated" due to a series of obstacles and coincidences at the time. That's crazy because there is A LOT of sex in this movie. One scene shows honey being poured and licked off of Bo's breasts and another dreamy sex scene lasts nearly three and a half minutes.
This film was the death of The Cannon Group, Inc. which ended the deal between MGM to distribute Cannon Films in the US. Cannon Films was successful in the 60s, but it was sold to Israeli cousins Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, the director of The Apple. The two of them were known for making B movies in the 1980s, many of which were direct to video. They famously made many Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris films. They also made Breakin' and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo so you can thank them for any "electric boogaloo" jokes.
The Cannon Group is fascinating and made a lot of sexy films, so we can devote another blog post just to them (they gave us The Last American Virgin, for crying out loud!). All of this was threatened due to Bolero's expensive failure. It barely made a profit, but it was largely panned by critics with Ebert giving it 0.5 out of 4 stars. David Richards of The Washington Post even gave it a bad review that I can relate to: "Bad as Bolero is, it is unfortunately not bad enough." Damn, that's cold!
Like other Cannon films, this film was widely celebrated...at the Razzie's. The movie was nominated for a whopping nine Golden Raspberry Awards and in 1990 it was nominated for the Razzie for Worst Picture of the Decade. It won Worst Picture, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst New Star, and Worst Musical Score. Wow...that's a lot of wins!
Is Bolero good? No, but you don't watch this movie for the plot. You watch this movie because Bo Derek is stunningly, shockingly, beautiful. It is wild how gorgeous she is in the movie. It has been rumored that the sex scenes were real, but that has never been confirmed. Bo Derek laughed off the rumor in an interview, suggesting that her co-star made that rumor up because he wishes it were real.
So did John Derek get it wrong? Did people not want to see his wife bang to Bolero? I don't think that's what went wrong here. Bo is beautiful and watching her have sex feels iconic. However, Bo Derek is so much more than that. The film 10 was so much more than that. We all loved how gorgeous Bo looked in 10, but we also loved how confident and funny her character was. Her self-assured sex kitten character was a perfect foil to the fumbling Dudley Moore. That's what we loved!
In a way, I think John got it wrong when he could have gotten it right. His movies that starred his wife all missed the humor and confidence that made people fall in love with Bo Derek. Yes, he got the sex right - he got it really right! He knows how to put his wife on camera, but he sadly couldn't write for her. That is what I think went really wrong with Bolero, on top of all of this other nonsense. That being said, the movie is legendary because it is so explicitly sexy and bad. In that way, Bolero lives on! Bo, I can certainly revel in your turning on to Ravel's "Bolero"!
