Exit to Eden

Garry (Pretty Woman) Marshall's sexploiter makes Zalman King's 'women's fantasy' movies seem sophisticated and daring. His film begs the question - how humiliatingly it begs! - 'What do women really want?' On this issue, dominatrix Delany, unbending mistress of the SM sex ranch island 'Eden', takes a while to accept the missionary position: lots of foreplay and a straight 'kindness and cute butt' pay-off in the form of Paul (Strictly Ballroom) Mercurio's photographer, here mostly naked and canine-collared. Given the film is such a foolish exercise (you have to accept O'Donnell in bondage attire and Aykroyd's dumb-klutz maintenance man as a pair of LA cops investigating a jewel heist in deep cover), you'd expect excess or a camp romp à la Russ Meyer at least. But no such luck. There's certainly plenty of tits'n'ass, male and female, scantily adorned in Fellini-Satyricon-style gold lamé Roman chic, but it's not an erotic show. There are a few in-jokes and droll moments, but otherwise you wouldn't know it was a Garry Marshall movie. Neither bad enough for cult status, nor good enough for vicarious thrills.