The Bitch

The Bitch  Looking back nearly 30 years, there’s so much wrong with The Bitch that it’s almost impossible to comprehend how it was so successful at the UK Box Office. With its sister film The Stud (1978), it was one of the most successful UK films of the decade (of the two, The Bitch outstripped The Stud). Both films were panned by the critics. The acting is mostly dire and the script is laughable. The plot is so wafer-thin and ludicrous (a Mafia plot involving a dodgy Greek businessman, a ring and a fixed horse race, based around a Mayfair disco) that you begin to wonder how it made so much money.

One thing redeems it all – Joan Collins. She is just amazing, a stunning performance considering the lameness of all around her. The famous, extraordinary “chaffeur cap” seduction & striptease scene is for me possibly the best seduction scene in the whole of cinema. It never ceases to entertain. And considering that Joan Collins was 45 when she made this, it deserves a high mark for that alone.