Carré Otis

(In French, On TV, March 2019) One of the fringe benefits of being French-Canadian is a slightly more relaxed attitude toward sex and nudity that translates into some options that would be unusual in the Anglosphere. I’ll spare you the tales of Bleu Nuit’s glory days back when I was a randy teenager, but its spirit lives on in Cinepop’s regular broadcast of the first few Emmanuelle soft-core movies, or Prise 2 having a weekly late-night spot for racier films. Hence being able to record Wild Orchid off non-premium Cable TV and finally having a look at what’s perhaps the Mickey Rourkiest of Mickey Rourke’s roles. Wild Orchid is infamous in cinephile circles for its hedonistic plot, and sex scenes so convincing that generations of viewers have wondered whether they did-it-for-real on camera. (Both actors say they didn’t, so let’s go with that.)  The plot isn’t much more than a fancy excuse for high-gloss erotic scenes, as an American lawyer (Carré Otis) travels to Rio and gets fascinated with a rich businessman (Rourke) and gets swept in the easy Brazilian exoticism. (At least it’s better than Blame it on Rio.)  Rourke’s performance is fit to remind us that he was a sex symbol at the beginning of his career, while Otis is very cute as an innocent Midwestern ingenue thrown in upscale debauchery. Everyone will have their favourite scene, but my money is on that Anya Sartor old-hotel scene—whew! The plot is thin, with 15 minutes of narrative diluted in lengthy slow-motion soft-core sex scenes in a 90-minute film, but it’s familiar because it features many tropes later often imitated: The innocent heroine; the super-rich-and-confident man; the glamorous surroundings—Fifty Shades of Gray never invented anything in the world of racy movies. Wild Orchid isn’t much of a narrative film, but it does have at least a bit of primal interest to it. The Brazilian scenery is gorgeous—and I’m not only talking about the beach, birds, and trees here. No wonder Anglophones across Canada regularly watched Québec channels late at night to, um, learn French.