Review: Mata Hari (1985)

Sylvia Kristel stars as real-life globe-trotting WWI spy Mata Hari, who spends an awful lot more time fucking than spying, really. Christopher Cazenove plays her German secret service lover Capt. Karl Von Byerling, with Oliver Tobias playing French secret service guy Ladoux, whom Mata Hari also sleeps with. Von Byerling and Ladoux, despite their differing nations and competing affections for Mata Hari, are actually friends. Gaye Brown plays Fraulein Doktor, an untrustworthy sort scheming away with assassin Herr Wolff (Gottfried John). Vernon Dobtcheff appears briefly as a prosecutor, whilst Anthony Newlands plays sleazy Baron Joubert.

 

I have no real way of knowing, but watching this 1985 Sylvia Kristel vehicle from director Curtis Harrington (“Night Tide”, “What’s the Matter With Helen?”), I felt like I was watching a seriously censored version. There was sex, but all of the sex scenes seem choppy and short, especially those of the Sapphic variety (The threesome/orgy in particular seems hacked to pieces, but I can’t find any traces of it being longer elsewhere from my purely scientific research). So one wonders if this was considered risqué at the time, or if it has been chopped up. Even if it has been chopped up, is it necessarily the censored American version? Having seen it on Australian cable (with a ridiculous R rating), I can’t say one way or the other for certain, though it does sound as if the American cut is even tamer, so perhaps this is all there was to see. All I know is that the closest thing we get to sexy fun here is an idiotic topless fencing scene between two women. Yeah, that’s a thing that happens here. So obviously, I wasn’t in a good mood watching this film. However, the whole damn film came across as choppy and poorly edited to me, so it might not just be a sex thing. Hell, it might not even have been cut at all, just incompetently edited. At any rate, even if it were sexier, the film would still probably be among the 15 worst films of 1985.

 

Scripted by Joel Ziskin (who wrote an episode of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and…that’s about it), this lame-arse Cannon Group film is mostly tedious, poorly acted, and cheap. Did I mention tedious? Well it begs repeating, this thing is boring as fuck. It looks relatively expensive for a Golan/Globus film, so one wonders if it lost money, as surely a film this dull couldn’t possibly have been a financial success. That said, I’m guessing lighting wasn’t in the budget, because although sets and costuming are all fine, the whole thing is extremely poorly lit in the exteriors. Some of the locales are nice, but for the most part they seem shot in pitch darkness, so you can barely see a thing. The best scene in the entire film is the nicely shot, foggy firing squad finale. That was definitely lit well enough to appreciate.

 

Sylvia Kristel’s goofy, pretentious topless dance routine in the opener lets you know that this isn’t going to be high art, but sadly it’s not good sleaze, either unless all you require is lots of titty. Even the late Christopher Cazenove (who is admittedly a red flag for poor quality cinema in most cases) seems stiff and uncomfortable here, and for some reason plays his German character like he’s an Englishman. Yes, there’s a difference and it’s obvious to one and all through Cazenove. Co-star Oliver Tobias always looks like he’s about to exclaim ‘Good Moaning!’ in a phony accent (He’s Swiss-born, but English-raised, playing a Frenchman!). Gottfried John isn’t too bad in a villainous part, but he’s probably the only one. I’m guessing that, along with “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”, this was an attempt at making an English-language star out of Kristel, who (if she’s not dubbed here) seems to speak English fluently. However, as with most of the “Emmanuelle” films she appeared in, she’s a dull actress with a singularly unappealing and uninteresting presence on screen. But it’s not entirely the fault of the actors here (I would’ve liked Gottfried John and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff to be given a little more screen time, actually), as whether the director, editor, or screenwriter are responsible, the storytelling here is horribly rushed, and scene transitions are appalling. Cazenove seems to put himself in Mata Hari’s situation out of nowhere. He met her for like two seconds! Whether it’s been edited or not, whatever connection the two characters are supposed to have, I wasn’t seeing any of it on screen. Only after about 30 minutes do Kristel and Cazenove get it on, and by that point she’s already bonked Tobias and been felt up by a German woman played stiffly by English actress Gaye Brown (It’s like she’s doing a really bad Frau Blucher impersonation or something). Then again, I don’t think the film really properly sets up the title character’s beginnings as a spy, either.

 

Boring, choppy, and with a fairly miserable-looking cast this thing is no fun whatsoever. It’s certainly not well-made, though it doesn’t look as though it was terribly cheap to make. Lots of tits, little else of interest. Even Sylvia Kristel fans might find this one a bit of an endurance test, I actually think it’s a lot worse than most of her “Emmanuelle” films. If this was meant to be a serious film that just so happened to star Kristel, then perhaps Cannon shouldn’t have concerned themselves with serious filmmaking. I don’t know what their strong suit really is, but it’s not historical costume dramas.

 

Rating: D