Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
Fox Video

Cat.no: 6162W

Cert: 18

Running time: 111 mins

Year: 1986

Pressing: 1996

Sound: Dolby Surround

Widescreen: 1.85:1

Price: £12.99

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Director:

Director : Adrian Lyne (Indecent Proposal, Jacob's Ladder, Fatal Attraction)

Producers:

Anthony Rufus Isaacs and Zalman King

Screenplay:

Patricia Knop and Zalman King

Music:

Jack Nitzsche

Songs in the film include :

• Eurythmics - This City Never Sleeps
• Bryan Ferry - Slave To Love
• Joe Cocker - You Can Leave Your Hat On
• Luba - Let It Go (end credits)

Cast:

John : Mickey Rourke (Angelheart, Wild Orchid)
Elizabeth : Kim Basinger (The Getaway, Too Hot To Handle, My Stepmother Is An Alien)
Molly : Margaret Whitton
Harvey : David Margulies
Farnsworth : Dwight West
Sinclair : Roderick Cook
Bruce : Olek Krupa

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He eyes her from the local market, and woos her at first by buying an expensive shawl for her that she had her eye on there but couldn't afford.

Within a short space of time, Elizabeth is embroiled in a passionate affair in which John wants her to submit to his every whim however perverted it seems from the famous food scene, later parodied in "Hot Shots!" to dressing up as a man in a restaurant, and beyond what she could possibly imagine as some of John's desires go further than she had anticipated...

If you haven't seen the film before, it's worth checking out to see what all the fuss was about ten years ago, and director Adrian Lyne makes more of the less animated scenes with expert direction.

For this tenth anniversary edition, it would have been nice for the theatrical trailer to have been included but it wasn't.

The digitally remastered print is quite a clean one, but on the whole looks a little soft, although that could have been the way it was filmed to benefit the look of the sex scenes. One or two of the other scenes look a little grainy though.

The sound quality is superb with top tunes from yesteryear blasting out during some of the scenes which no doubt would have been edited on terrestrial television.

The sleeve claims a 1.85:1 ratio, but although it looks a little less than that, the film was probably shot flat and masked for cinema presentation. Therefore with the widescreen version while some picture will be lost at the top and bottom of the screen, some more side information will also be gained. The reverse will apply to the fullscreen version, but of course the widescreen version will be the way the director intended the picture to be.

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1996.