Paradise (Stuart Gillard, 1981)

The directorial debut from the master word scribbler behind such classics like, The Captain and Tenille in Hawaii and the Three's Company episode "Chrissy's Night Out," Stuart Gillard's Paradise is an intoxicating dip into the murky abyss that is underage love. The story follows the half-naked trials and tribulations of David and Sarah, two dainty wallflowers who find themselves lost in the desert somewhere between Baghdad and Damascus circa 1825. Now, I know that sounds like one bumpy pickle of a problem, but being lost in the desert is the least of their worries. You see, a dastardly Arab stereotype named The Jackal, and his unmerry band of throat cutting enthusiasts are after their them in a big way. More specifically, this Jackal fella wants to add the unsullied Sarah to his harem – they'll probably just kill Dave's ass and use the curls of his large disco-fro as goat chow. The two teens and their inexperienced crotches eventually manage to allude their flowy-robe-wearin' pursuers and come across an Eden-like paradise where their can blithesomely frolic 'til their heart's are sufficiently content. Okay, anybody who tries to convince you that they watched Paradise for any reason other than to awash their perverted eyeballs in the biracial splendour of a semi-nubile Phoebe Cates showering naked, swimming naked, crocheting naked and pontificating naked is obviously lying. That being said, I have to say, in all honesty, I watched it not because I wanted to see Phoebe bathing in a waterfall, or even to witness two chimpanzees stroking the smooth outer casing of Miss Cates' toothsome thighs, for that matter. In fact, they were the last things on my mind. Nope, I watched because I like movies that feature human beings traveling on sand. The way granular material shifts when pressure is applied has always fascinated me. It all goes back to my years as a little girl in the jungles of Belize, where...

Damn! I was hoping I could carry on the sand charade for at least fifty-seven more paragraphs, but I can't seem get through one sentence without thinking picturing Phoebe cleaning the schmootz off her ankles in slow motion.

The alluring Phoebe Cates is so gorgeous, that she can take a weather-beaten loincloth and turn it into haute couture. I mean, I could literally sense the audience's horniness increase every time she moistened her lips, and I didn't even see it with an audience. She's that hot.

Her male co-star, Willie Aames, on the other hand, is terrible as David. Woefully miscast and totally unworthy of Phoebe's flirtatious companionship, the wooden actor pretty much ruined the film for me. Hell, even the chimps had more charisma.

video uploaded by AussieRoadshow

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