Having left England for the Far East in search of her missing lepidopterist father, virginal convent girl Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen) is rescued from Chinese gangsters by gruff smuggler Willard (Brent Huff), who is then part-bribed part-blackmailed into escorting Gwendoline and her ‘maid’ Beth (Zabou) upriver to the legendary land of Yik Yak. Made at a time when Jaeckin was desperate to slough off his reputation as a pornographer, Gwendoline tries to offset its ultralight erotica with comedy, adventure, romance and even kung fu, and the results – a softcore mix of The African Queen, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Flash Gordon and The Mountain of the Cannibal God – can only be described as half-cocked. So it is hardly surprising that Just Jaeckin, director of erotic classics like Emmanuelle (1974), The Story of O (1975) and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981), should also have been attracted to turning these ribald cartoons into a live-action film but what is perhaps more surprising is just what a confused mess Gwendoline – Jaeckin’s final film – would turn out to be. Featuring an innocent heroine who was repeatedly tied up and menaced by (mostly female) tormentors while in various states of undress, it is an early example of Western fetish art, and continues to exercise a tight grip today over the iconography of the whole bondage-and-domination scene.
Review: ‘The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline’ was one of four adult comic series written by John Willie (real name Coutts) for the 26 irregular (in every sense) issues of his SM magazine Bizarre, published between 19, and also appearing in a few other publications (like Wink). Summary: Just ( Emmanuelle) Jaeckin’s final film, a comedy adventure romp based on a bondage cartoon strip from the 1940s, is surprisingly coy about its sex, if entirely unreserved about its B-grade status.
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