Mata Hari ** (1985, Sylvia Kristel, Christopher Cazenove, Oliver Tobias) – Classic Movie Review 3561

A beautiful, often-naked Sylvia Kristel (Emmanuelle) stars as the real-life Dutch-born dancer and German spy Mata Hari, in director Curtis Harrington’s interesting sex-obsessed soft-porn 1985 film version of the World War One spy story, with more emphasis on Mata Hari as a seductress than as a spy. Harrington said of Mata Hari: ‘She seduced half the men of Europe in her heyday.’ And Kristel said of Mata Hari: ‘I wish I had half her energy in the boudoir.’

Some British actors do their best, as does a horror director with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. Joel Ziskin’s screenplay is very loosely based on the real-life story of the exotic dancer Mata Hari, who uses her seductive charms and European high society gather to collect military secrets, playing both sides against each other. She is manipulated by the German and French secret services into providing intelligence, then cynically sacrificed by the French.

Drawing the short straws, Christopher Cazenove co-stars as the German Karl von Bayerling and Oliver Tobias as the French Georges Ladoux in a fictitious love triangle between Mata Hari and the two officers, personal friends but on opposing sides in the war. Gaye Brown camps it up as Fraülein Doktor, aka Dr Elsbeth Schragmüller, the film’s scheming villain, a doctor of psychology and leading operative of German intelligence.

Also in the cast are William Fox, Gottfried John, Michael Anthony, Brian Badcoe, Marta Bako, Emese Balough, Laszlo Naranyi, Janos Bata, Ferenc Bencze, Terez Bod, Victor Langley, Derek de Lint, Tutte Lemkow, Vernon Dobtcheff, Anthony Newlands, Taylor Ryan, Nicholas Selby, Carlos Sutton and Malcolm Terris.

The nudity-filled biographical film was made cheaply in Budapest, Hungary, on a budget of less than $5 million, produced by Golan-Globus films and released by Cannon Film Distributors. The film was conceived by Menahem Golan as a vehicle for Sylvia Kristel.

It is Curtis Harrington’s final theatrical feature before he died in May 2007. He said the film is an ‘erotic melodrama. The film never was pornographic. The love scenes are explicit. There is nudity. We fictionized events to make the story line work, but essentially it’s a very true story. Mata Hari used her erotic power and allure as a woman. She seduced half the men of Europe in her heyday.’

Harrington said Kristel was ‘a very bright and pleasant lady to work with. She’s this great sex symbol yet that’s not really where her head is at. Being on the set with her is like going to a Sunday school picnic – she’s so circumspect. During the love scenes, there were black velvet curtains and only three people allowed on the set. Some women are so loose and free on the set, they walk around nude. Not Sylvia.’

Nevertheless, there were the inevitable censorship problems and Cannon had to cut the film to get an R rating. Harrington said he was disappointed that they did this without involving him. ‘I wish I could have been involved in preserving what I felt was the integrity of the film. There were moments I felt were unreasonably cut. I’m not entirely happy with the cut. But they don’t care what I think There was an orgy sequence in Spain with frontal nudity of a living statue grouping. That’s all cut out. I would have fought to leave that in because it’s perfectly harmless. Very few scenes were cut out in their entirety. In minutes I’d guess that seven were cut out.’

It follows two other famous movie versions: Mata Hari (1931) with Greta Garbo and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964) with Jeanne Moreau.

Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 1876 – 15 October 1917), better known under her stage name Mata Hari, was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War One. There is quite a strong historical support for the theory that she was innocent, falsely accused by the French, who were aware of her innocence but needed a scapegoat and believed that her execution would boost morale.

Sylvia Kristel (28 September 1952 – 17 October 2012) was also Dutch born, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She starred in five of the seven Emmanuelle films, and in an adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981).

Though Sylvia Kristel is shown dancing bare-breasted several times in the movie, Mata Hari apparently never danced bare-breasted being allegedly self-conscious about having small breasts.

Oliver Tobias Freitag (born 6 August 1947) is a Swiss-born UK-based factor.

The US DVD is heavily cut. The original love scenes are much longer and more graphic.

The cast are Sylvia Kristel as Mata Hari, Christopher Cazenove as Karl Von Bayerling, Oliver Tobias as Captain Georges Ladoux, Gaye Brown as Dr Elsbeth Schragmuller / Fraülein Doktor, Gottfried John as Wolff, Michael Anthony as Duke of Montmorency, Magda Darvas as Duchess of Montmorency, Anthony Newlands as Baron Joubet, Brian Badcoe as General Messigny, Tutte Lemkow as Ybarra, Taylor Ryan as Contessa, Toby Rolt as Jean Prevost, Victor Langley as Colonel Michaud, Nicholas Selby as Von Jagow, Malcolm Terris as Von Krohn, Carlos Sutton as Captain Schlesser, Odon Gyalog as General Carriere, Csaba Jakab as Ortega, Andras Marton as Noriega, Gabor Nagy as Lieutenant Bouchette, Ferenc Bencze as Colonel Heissig, Laszlo Baranyi as Pozsonyi, Lajos Mezey as Von Falkenberg, Gabor Reviczky as Giessen, Emese Balogh as Marquesa de la Cosa Funta, Istvan Hunyadkurthy as Max, Janos Bata as Ernst, and Geza Laczkovich as The President of France.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3561

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/