I'm not sure what to make of this strange road movie, apparently filmed for The Playboy Channel. All things considered, there's very little erotic content in the film, which follows Gary Graham across the country on his camera-equipped hog. Along the way he hooks up with traveling waitress Sylvia Kristel, and they embark upon a series of rather tepid adventures. The whole thing would have been hailed as a counter culture classic twenty years earlier, but in the context of 1987 it simply seems strange. Did I mention the scene where Graham's pet is axed to death by his father? How about the Hispanic farm couple who look and sound like they belong to the tunnel and bridge crowd? The pathetic biker gang whom Graham singlehandedly conquers? Producer, writer, and director Phillipe Blot has a lot of explaining to do.
5 Reviews
Howlingly bad religious allegory
boocwirm-18 January 2017
Warning: Spoilers
It's hard to discover a bad movie these days. It used to be easy, just turn on a UHF channel late at night. Then came the books Fifty Worst Films of All Time and The Golden Turkey Awards, and suddenly everyone and his sister knew all about Teenage Caveman and Robot Monster. The field was expanded further with the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which exposed nearly 200 terrible features during its initial run from 1988 to 1999. Unfortunately half the fun of watching bad movies lay in the discovery process. It was a thrilling experience to watch, say, Francis of Assisi, and learn for yourself that it stinks. But now people who had always loved bad movies found themselves sort of in the same position of adult baseball card collectors: once a rarity but now ubiquitous. My chances of finding an awful film, previously unsuspected, is roughly the same as finding a set of 1968 Topps cards at a yard sale. If a movie is a stinker, someone has already told me about it. So you can imagine my delight when I just happened to stumble across The Arrogant in the free movie section of On Demand. I had an hour to kill, I put it on. What a treat! A confusing allegory that takes itself seriously, The Arrogant is the first "new" bad movie I've discovered all by myself in a very long time. According to the guides, The Arrogant is about Julie, a waitress (played by softcore star Sylvia Krystal), who hitches a ride from a serial killer. Right away there's a problem. While the movie implies Giovanni is a murderer, it never really establishes it. We do see him kill his father-in-law, but only after the old man came after him with an axe and beheaded his cat. It's a clear case of self-defense. Sometime afterwards, Giovanni stalks an innocent farm girl with malicious intent. We know he means her harm because the camera keeps showing -and I mean keeps showing- his eyes rimmed with red signifying, I suppose, bloodlust. Or maybe he just has conjunctivitis, I don't know. He eventually seduces the girl, promising to make her rich and famous, and you expect him to kill her, but if he does they kept it a secret. So far as I can see he sleeps with her and then sneaks off, reprehensible behavior, but hardly serial murder. Later on Giovanni seduces an ex-nun and beats up her boyfriend, and also (in the film's funniest scene) whales on a biker gang. But he doesn't murder anyone, at least not in the sense that Gacy or Dahmer were murderers. Let's go back to the biker scene. Giovanni's brothers-in-law have been trailing him through the desert, seeking revenge for the death of their father. They set up in a remote bar on the novel theory that Giovanni will probably stop in there someday for a beer. A gang of bikers come in and start hassling the older brother, signaling to the bartender, who is apparently used to such things, that they are going to rob him and cut his throat. Nobody gets worse press than biker gangs. I've known many bikers and, yes, some of them were criminals. Many were involved with drugs and/or drank too much. But many of them were also good people, living an unorthodox lifestyle but not looking to harm anyone else. Many had a profound sense of honor. But in movies they are always cowards, perverts, morons, and sadists. In the 1960s we had the Erich Von Zipper buffoons, tangling with Frankie and Annette; later the appearance of a gang always meant that the heroine was about to be molested. Can you think of a movie in which bikers shows up alongside a distressed motorist and it's a good thing? I can't. The Arrogant takes it farther. Not only are the film's bikers murderous scum, festooned with Nazi memorabilia and eager to kill a stranger for no apparent reason, they are not even good murderous scum. Giovanni beats the living daylights out of the gang without suffering a scratch. The sole survivor, a shirtless weakling wearing a German helmet, could have easily run away but Giovanni orders him to "come here" and he immediately obeys. Whereupon Giovanni knocks him out with one powerful blow of his mighty fist. Egad, you could go on and on about this picture. Giovanni is sitting on a stump and is bitten by a snake, which appears from nowhere just to attack him (not something rattlers typically do). Giovanni goes into shock. Julie rushes him to the nearest gas station where she is surrounded by several gibbering mechanics who proceed to wash her down with sponges (really, the mechanics and bikers ought to get together and form an anti-discrimination league). Meanwhile Giovanni is dying from rattler poison in the desert sun, but Julie seems to forget this. In fact, she often stumbles over her lines and laughs while he's croaking, leaving me to believe that by this point in the process Krystal had realized the movie was not worth taking seriously. A sheriff arrives just in time and rescues Julie, telling her "These boys are harmless, they just miss their little sister." Which makes no sense whatsoever, but hey. The sheriff dumps the unconscious Giovanni in the back of his cruiser and casually suggests they go find a hospital. The gibbering mechanics frolic among the stacks of auto tires and it seems like a pillow fight is dangerously close to breaking out. The worst/best part of the film is the constant religious posturing. If you are expecting intelligent discourse, you are going to be sadly disappointed. The theological arguments are of the type you've heard camping out the summer after high school, after a few hits of blotter acid and heavy pot smoking. Even the very last scene, which I won't reveal, is supposed to have deep significance. But like the rest of the movie it's just stupid.
Einstein's brain would implode trying to figure out this pile.
shamusjamal28 August 2003
I was just stumbling around Direct TV and this movie was starting on Showtime Extreme. I kept it on for whatever reason and soon realized this is one of the greatest good-bad movies I have ever seen.
What starts off as a confusing dinner scene in a luxurious house quickly turns into a laughable collection of mind boggling scenes that will make you spit out your soda and scratch your head at the same time. Most bad movies have no plot, but this one just, well, bvvvvvvvvvvvvp. The movie changes gears faster than Lance Armstrong and keeps the audience guessing, preventing viewers from ever figuring out what is going on! Brilliant.
I guess the movie is supposed to be about some fancy boy womanizer (Giovanni) who kills his father in law and then has to immediately flee on a motorcycle? He bumps into a busty woman along the way and she tags for the awkward ride as they aimlessly drift and later falsely contemplate religion. Let's see, now what to highlight...
WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE MAGIC LIMO?! This ominous black stretch limo starts first following Gio through the desert (easily the most obvious tail in history, a HUGE black limo following a lone bike in the middle of of a desert) and finally at one point attempts to run him down in a forest. Sure enough, Gio and his girlfriend climb into a tree and the limo gets confused and drives away! I guess they got the idea from watching monkeys evade predators on National Geographic. The limo continues to follows Gio throughout the entire movie, yet it's purpose is never explained... at all.
Every scene is horribly staged and idiotic. At one point Gio and his girlfriend are riding down a road and the camera pans up to show a small family get out of a van and go into a field. Random. Like clockwork the young boy kicks his ball deliberately into the road, you hear tires chirp, the parents run over scared to find the young boy smiling and fine. Gio of course has the ball, he bounces it once, gives it back to the boy, then GIVES HIM HIS MOTORCYLE HELMET, smiles and drives away. Ummmmm??????????
Later on Gio gets bitten by a snake and is seemingly dead, so his girlfriend drives them to a gas station and tries to rally help. A local toothless gimp simply stares at her and doesn't respond, so she goes for a closer look into the garage. The resident mechanics swarm and corner her by a truck, then start to squeeze out sponges of water onto her chest. I thought they were setting up some sort of molestation, but then a random cop shows up and informs the girlfriend not to worry, that the mechanics thought she was their sister. As everyone leaves, one grease monkey jumps into a tractor tire and another playfully follows suit and they mock wrestle before the shot cuts. After seeing this I slapped myself to ensure I was not dreaming, or in hell.
I could go on for days.
Please try and see this movie, I'm about to go bid for it on ebay.
What starts off as a confusing dinner scene in a luxurious house quickly turns into a laughable collection of mind boggling scenes that will make you spit out your soda and scratch your head at the same time. Most bad movies have no plot, but this one just, well, bvvvvvvvvvvvvp. The movie changes gears faster than Lance Armstrong and keeps the audience guessing, preventing viewers from ever figuring out what is going on! Brilliant.
I guess the movie is supposed to be about some fancy boy womanizer (Giovanni) who kills his father in law and then has to immediately flee on a motorcycle? He bumps into a busty woman along the way and she tags for the awkward ride as they aimlessly drift and later falsely contemplate religion. Let's see, now what to highlight...
WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE MAGIC LIMO?! This ominous black stretch limo starts first following Gio through the desert (easily the most obvious tail in history, a HUGE black limo following a lone bike in the middle of of a desert) and finally at one point attempts to run him down in a forest. Sure enough, Gio and his girlfriend climb into a tree and the limo gets confused and drives away! I guess they got the idea from watching monkeys evade predators on National Geographic. The limo continues to follows Gio throughout the entire movie, yet it's purpose is never explained... at all.
Every scene is horribly staged and idiotic. At one point Gio and his girlfriend are riding down a road and the camera pans up to show a small family get out of a van and go into a field. Random. Like clockwork the young boy kicks his ball deliberately into the road, you hear tires chirp, the parents run over scared to find the young boy smiling and fine. Gio of course has the ball, he bounces it once, gives it back to the boy, then GIVES HIM HIS MOTORCYLE HELMET, smiles and drives away. Ummmmm??????????
Later on Gio gets bitten by a snake and is seemingly dead, so his girlfriend drives them to a gas station and tries to rally help. A local toothless gimp simply stares at her and doesn't respond, so she goes for a closer look into the garage. The resident mechanics swarm and corner her by a truck, then start to squeeze out sponges of water onto her chest. I thought they were setting up some sort of molestation, but then a random cop shows up and informs the girlfriend not to worry, that the mechanics thought she was their sister. As everyone leaves, one grease monkey jumps into a tractor tire and another playfully follows suit and they mock wrestle before the shot cuts. After seeing this I slapped myself to ensure I was not dreaming, or in hell.
I could go on for days.
Please try and see this movie, I'm about to go bid for it on ebay.
WTF>
BandSAboutMovies29 March 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Philippe Blot made four movies and three of them, this one, In the Shadow of the Sandcastle and Hot Blood have Sylvia Kristel in them, so of course I'm going to watch at least three-fourths of his films. I'll also be jealous the entire time, as he was Kristel's second husband.
In this movie, she plays Julie, a waitress who has decided to hitch a ride with Giovanni (Gary Graham from the Alien Nation TV show), who we know - and she doesn't - has just slept with his wife Elvira's (Leigh Wood, who is also in the strange R-rated Stocks and Blondes edit of Wanda Whips Wall Street) sister and then survived an axe attack by her senator father (Joe Condon, who has the amazing screen credit of doing security for the wrestling dog movie Russell Madness), but he gets the upper hand and murders the man before deciding that he's God.
As a driverless black Cadillac and Giovanni's brothers-in-law pursue them, our protagonists have all manner of adventures, like Giovanni being bitten by a snake and going through drug-like dreams as the venom works its way out of his system, three mentally challenged brothers give Julie a sponge bath in a garage, Giovanni keeps cucking men and trying to prove that, yes, he's (or He's) God.
He also keeps trying to seduce Julie and you know, it's Sylvia Kristel. We get it.
Somehow for a movie weird enough to have animator Chuck Jones play a cop, it also ends - spoilers - with Giovanni dying as he crashes his motorcycle into a semi. But you know, he's finally scored and if you get to enjoy Ms. Kristel, one imagines you can die at any time and not feel like you wasted a moment of your life.
But then the driver of the Cadillac? It's been him all along.
This is an art film that makes you want to think it's a sexy movie until you're watching it and then it's all about philosophy, the kind that college freshman discovers before the holiday break and come home to tell their parents that there is no God up in the sky. But then, you know, Sylvia Kristel, so I've dealt with worse discussion for far less attractive people.
What I'm really saying is that I'm shocked that Vinegar Syndrome hasn't put this out for $40 with a limited slipcase so people could use the word fever dream in their breathless social posts. Who am I kidding? I have money I'm just fiending to spend on just such a release.
In this movie, she plays Julie, a waitress who has decided to hitch a ride with Giovanni (Gary Graham from the Alien Nation TV show), who we know - and she doesn't - has just slept with his wife Elvira's (Leigh Wood, who is also in the strange R-rated Stocks and Blondes edit of Wanda Whips Wall Street) sister and then survived an axe attack by her senator father (Joe Condon, who has the amazing screen credit of doing security for the wrestling dog movie Russell Madness), but he gets the upper hand and murders the man before deciding that he's God.
As a driverless black Cadillac and Giovanni's brothers-in-law pursue them, our protagonists have all manner of adventures, like Giovanni being bitten by a snake and going through drug-like dreams as the venom works its way out of his system, three mentally challenged brothers give Julie a sponge bath in a garage, Giovanni keeps cucking men and trying to prove that, yes, he's (or He's) God.
He also keeps trying to seduce Julie and you know, it's Sylvia Kristel. We get it.
Somehow for a movie weird enough to have animator Chuck Jones play a cop, it also ends - spoilers - with Giovanni dying as he crashes his motorcycle into a semi. But you know, he's finally scored and if you get to enjoy Ms. Kristel, one imagines you can die at any time and not feel like you wasted a moment of your life.
But then the driver of the Cadillac? It's been him all along.
This is an art film that makes you want to think it's a sexy movie until you're watching it and then it's all about philosophy, the kind that college freshman discovers before the holiday break and come home to tell their parents that there is no God up in the sky. But then, you know, Sylvia Kristel, so I've dealt with worse discussion for far less attractive people.
What I'm really saying is that I'm shocked that Vinegar Syndrome hasn't put this out for $40 with a limited slipcase so people could use the word fever dream in their breathless social posts. Who am I kidding? I have money I'm just fiending to spend on just such a release.
20 years late for the drive-in fans
lor_13 April 2023
My review was written in July 1989 after watching the movie on The Playboy Channel.
An obscure disaster from Cannon, "The Arrogant"is a pretentious road movie shot in Nevada in 1986 that received only a test booking in Miami in March 1987 but recently surfaced on the Playboy Channel.
Alternately titled (pointlessly) "Sylvia Kristel's Desires", pic pairs the erstwhile "Emmanuelle" thesp with director Philippe Blot, who also directed her in the conventional European pic "Hot Blood" (a/k/a "Flamenco Blue"), a Cannon pickup.
Here Blot mounts an abstract non-story about title figure Giovanni (Gary Graham), on his motorcycle headed for nowhere after killing his father-in-law at film's outset. On his tail are his two brothers-in-law, doubly angry because they caught Giovanni dallying with their other sister.
Giovanni picks up sexy hitchhiker Julie (Kristel), supposedly a waitress en route to her job. She never arrives, but they stop off for encounters with bikers, pick up a couple for some impromptu swapping, etc. Giovanni, who thinks of himself as God in numerous stilted speeches, seems to be wiped out in a highway accident but pops up in priest's garb at the finale.
Blot's script is a shambles, throwing in pointless fantasy sequences and tons of unutterable dialog at will. Kristel and Graham do their best to avoid embarrassment, but it's an uphill battle.
Supporting cast makes little headway, though Teresa Gilmore has a sexy scene.
An obscure disaster from Cannon, "The Arrogant"is a pretentious road movie shot in Nevada in 1986 that received only a test booking in Miami in March 1987 but recently surfaced on the Playboy Channel.
Alternately titled (pointlessly) "Sylvia Kristel's Desires", pic pairs the erstwhile "Emmanuelle" thesp with director Philippe Blot, who also directed her in the conventional European pic "Hot Blood" (a/k/a "Flamenco Blue"), a Cannon pickup.
Here Blot mounts an abstract non-story about title figure Giovanni (Gary Graham), on his motorcycle headed for nowhere after killing his father-in-law at film's outset. On his tail are his two brothers-in-law, doubly angry because they caught Giovanni dallying with their other sister.
Giovanni picks up sexy hitchhiker Julie (Kristel), supposedly a waitress en route to her job. She never arrives, but they stop off for encounters with bikers, pick up a couple for some impromptu swapping, etc. Giovanni, who thinks of himself as God in numerous stilted speeches, seems to be wiped out in a highway accident but pops up in priest's garb at the finale.
Blot's script is a shambles, throwing in pointless fantasy sequences and tons of unutterable dialog at will. Kristel and Graham do their best to avoid embarrassment, but it's an uphill battle.
Supporting cast makes little headway, though Teresa Gilmore has a sexy scene.
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