It’s a movie which is essentially about turning 40 and feeling old, so it’s poignant that the film itself is now 40!
And old.
Dudley Moore’s antics now seem even more tired and repetitious than they did in 1979. And they were already trite then. His entire act consisted of playing drunk and doing pratfalls, kinda like Dick Van Dyke after a bender, except with a better British accent.
“What is this? 10 … 9 … 8… 7… 6… “
“Bo Derek aging”
Bo likes to tell that joke on herself. She turned 63 last year, and I can’t tell you whether Bo is actually down to a 6 or lower these days, but I sat next to her on a flight from Miami to Lima in 1996 or 1997, some twenty years after this film was released, and she was still at least a nine. She was 40 then, but her waist was still extraordinarily tiny, and she still turned every head when she walked by. And not because she was familiar. I guarantee you that the first reaction she inspired was “That woman is gorgeous.” The second was “By God – no wonder she looks so good. That’s Bo Derek.”
I know this for sure because of something that happened the next morning in my hotel. I was chatting and sipping coffee with the guys from Mobil Peru while we waited for our ride. Bo, who happened to be at the same hotel, slipped past me, touched my hand and said, “Morning, Greg.” The guys from Mobil reacted exactly as I described above. At first they wondered how I knew such a beautiful woman in a city I had never visited before. Then, when they saw crowds gather around her, they realized it was Bo Freakin’ Derek.
I told those guys absolutely nothing about how I knew her. It was my only play. If I let on like I really knew her well, they would have thought I was totally full of it, which is not really a good way for a consultant to start a relationship with a new client. If I told them the truth, I would have looked like a schmuck. “So, you sat next to her for six hours on the plane, and made no effort at all to hook up later, or even to get to know her?” The truth is that I introduced myself, passed a few pleasantries, then left her to her privacy while I watched movies and did crossword puzzles. So, yeah, of course I AM a schmuck, but once again this is not something I want a client to know. So when they said, “That’s Bo Derek,” I said “Yeah,” shrugged my shoulders, and immediately asked them a business question which required a detailed explanation.
That approach worked. By the end of the visit they were calling me “Marques”, short for “El marques de los grifos.” “Grifos” is a uniquely Peruvian slang term. (I think it’s unique. I’ve never encountered it elsewhere.) In Peru it means “gas station” or “gas stations” (the singular and plural are the same, like “tocadiscos”). That referred to my profession. In proper Spanish, however, the word simply means “nozzles” or “faucets,” and obviously can carry a certain suggestive connotation. I was the guy casual about his relationship with Bo Derek, therefore the Big Nozzle! Bo really did me a solid with that greeting!
Anyway, about the movie:
Dudley Moore’s humor seems archaic now and the entire film seems dated, but I still kinda like “10,” and always have. Most guys over 40 do, because it’s a niche film about getting to middle age, and thus has a tightly defined target audience. Men like it more than women. Older men like it more than younger men. Americans like it more than others. It’s only rated 6.1 at IMDb, but if you are a 45+ year old American man, it is probably a good bet. Even if you fit the pattern, you should realize that this film is the cinematic equivalent of what the Dudley Moore character writes for a living – elevator music. 10 is pleasant, inoffensive, and unchallenging. It has some gentle laughs, mellow tunes, and sexy women. Above all, it made Bo Derek a star and gave her A-list recognition throughout the world, including Peru.
Tuna, my former Fun House colleague, had some interesting observations:
“The story of the party guests has proven to be perhaps more interesting than the film itself. Director Blake Edwards hired porn superstars for the orgy scenes figuring that they would be comfortable with the nudity. They were all put up in a hotel suite, and the party was so wild that their room service was cut off. At one point, Edwards directed one of the male stars to get up, meaning to get out of the chair he was in. The star misunderstood what was supposed to be up, and started spanking his monkey on set. When Dudley Moore related this story during a Playboy interview, his girlfriend, who was off camera, nearly stopped the interview she laughed so hard.
Thanks to Celebrity Sleuth and many Funhouse members, nearly all have been identified. Interesting to me was the fact that so many people recognized exactly one of the women, because that one was a personal favorite. And no two people had the same favorite! The list reads like a Who’s Who of porn:
Here are the stars:
- Constance Money (real name Susan Jensen), star of the classic ‘The Opening of Misty Beethoven.’
- Annette Haven, a former nurses aide, who had one of the prettiest faces in porn. She refused to do facials.
- Dorothy LeMay
- Serena Blacquelord, usually billed as Serena
- Candida Royale, who started Femme, a studio devoted to producing films women would enjoy, too. My favorite of the titles she released is called Three Daughters. I read an interview where she said she had several more films in the cans, but there was no way to make a profit releasing them. When porn made the transition from film and adult theater releases to video, the gross per film was much lower, and the economics of creating a video version of her 35 mm films just did not make sense. This same change from film and theaters ended the golden age of porn, when it looked like porn and mainstream films might get close enough together to join hands.”