Deadly Passion

by Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like this film. First, imagine remaking Body Heat with no money. Then replace Bill Hurt with a good looking guy with a flippant juvenile delivery, like Potsie. Then replace Kathleen Turner with ... well, I guess with Ingrid Boulting, the actual star, since I don't know anybody else like her, with her plummy Sudafrikan accent, her wooden delivery, her moon-shaped face, her complete lack of acting talent, and her constant chain-smoking. Boulting smokes so much in this movie that she actually has a cigarette dangling from her lips, Bogart-style, when she talks and even when she shoots a gun with two hands.

So imagine a film which approaches a soft-core level of sex, starring a chain-smoking Boer, and co-starring Potsie as her lover. There you have a vision of Deadly Passion. TV Guide calls it the first adult film from South Africa. A wag at IMDb called it "Body Heat with the bodies, but without the heat".

The same, beautiful Ingrid Boulting is the reason I watched this ersatz softcore turkey in the first place. Earlier this week I watched the noble failure, The Last Tycoon. I discovered that Miss Boulting made her screen debut in Tycoon, then made only one subsequent film, many years later. This is it.

Ingrid was not the only one who closed her career with this film. Director Larry Larson called this his first and last film. Three of the first four people listed in the cast never worked again.

The Deadly Passion curse.

This film is not available on home media

Of course, Deadly Passion is the best Coburn movie. Unfortunately, it is Harrison Coburn (right), James's son.

By the way, he always holds his neck at an odd angle like that. He must have watched too many episodes of TV's Batman.

NUDITY REPORT

Ingrid Boulting showed her breasts in several scenes, and there is a long distance shot of her buns in a skinny-dipping scene.

The Critics Vote ...

no reviews online, other than TV Guide (linked above). They generously awarded 2 stars out of 5.

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 4.0/10. I'm amazed and impressed that anyone has seen it at all!

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a D. It has some engaging sincerity to it, but is not really a movie of professional quality. If Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and the gang had said, "Gee, Jim's dad has a barn we can use, let's put on an erotic show", this would have been it.