The Stud (film)

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The Stud
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Quentin Masters
Written by	Dave Humphries Christopher Stagg
Based on	The Stud (novel) by Jackie Collins
Produced by	Ron Kass
Starring	Joan Collins Oliver Tobias Sue Lloyd Walter Gotell
Cinematography	Peter Hannan
Music by	Biddu (original score) Various (soundtrack)
Production companies	Artoc Films Stud Productions
Distributed by	Brent Walker Film Distributing
Release dates	30 April 1978 (UK) 28 September 1979 (U.S.)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$600,000
Box office	$20 million

The Stud is a 1978 British drama film directed by Quentin Masters and starring Joan Collins and Oliver Tobias. It is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Collins' younger sister Jackie Collins.

Plot[edit]

Fontaine Khaled (Joan Collins) is the London wife of a wealthy Arab businessman. She spends his money on her nightclub, Hobo, and her rather hedonistic partying lifestyle. She hires a handsome manager, Tony (Oliver Tobias), to run her club, but it is understood that his job security is dependent on his satisfying her nymphomaniac demands. Tony loses interest in Fontaine, as she treats him like a plaything, and turns his attention to her young stepdaughter Alexandra Khaled (Emma Jacobs), who uses him to get back at Fontaine after she discovers a video tape of Fontaine and Tony having sex in the Khaleds' private elevator, cheating on her father. Fontaine then dumps Tony and is divorced by her husband for adultery.

Cast[edit]

Additional footage involving disco dancing was added for the US release. This footage involved members of the UK dance troupe Legs & Co., appearing (uncredited) as discotheque patrons.

Production notes[edit]

• Joan had asked her sister Jackie for the film rights for free and Jackie agreed whilst contributing to the screenplay.

• Joan met producer Brent Walker at the Cannes Film festival in 1977. He became excited by the project as it was proposed as a British alternative to Saturday Night Fever.

• Both Joan Collins' husband, Ron Kass, and Jackie Collins' husband, Oscar Lerhman, also acted as producers on the project.

• Joan Collins said she was drunk during the orgy scene.^[1]

Soundtrack[edit]

A successful soundtrack album was released on Ronco Records to tie-in with the film. The album contained twenty tracks, including original material penned by Biddu specifically for the film, as well as a number of major British chart hits which were licensed for use in the film. The majority of the tracks were disco flavoured, although some non-disco tracks were also included. The album rose to number 2 on the UK albums chart, kept off the top spot by the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album.^[2]

Soundtrack album track list:

Side one

Side two

Release[edit]

Box office[edit]

Made for $600,000, the film grossed over $20,000,000 internationally.^[3] The film was one of the most popular movies of 1978 at the British box office.^[4] It did not perform well in the United States, which Brent Walker blamed on American International Pictures' handling of the film, including the "slapdash dubbing" of the British lead actors' voices.^[5]

Legacy[edit]

The film helped to revitalise Joan Collins' career and she credits The Stud and its sequel The Bitch (1979) with bringing her to the attention of Aaron Spelling and Esther Shapiro, the producers of Dynasty in 1981. However, Tobias later claimed that his part in the film led to typecasting and ruined his career.

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

• Simon Sheridan Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, Titan Books (fourth edition, 2011)

External links[edit]

• The Stud at IMDb