Christina

 (1985)

Christina was intended as the first in a series of films based on a series of potboiler novels published in the 80s under such titles as Christina’s Pleasure, Christina’s Cravings, etc. The title character is supposed to be a sort of combination of James Bond and Paris Hilton, fabulously wealthy, stunningly beautiful, constantly engaged in daredevil adventures, and a sexual overachiever. A number of different writers churned out the manuscripts on contract for a paycheck, all under the pen name of Blakely St. James. One of them, Hart Williams, gives an amusing memoir of the experience at http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/christinas-outing/. Oddly, the books, long out of print, now go for premium prices.

The movie is simply atrocious. The dialogue sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old. The acting wouldn’t pass muster with a porn director. The plot has more holes than a Pittsburgh street in the spring. The “action” and “fight” scenes would embarrass a high school auteur.

The good news is, the nudity is nonstop, and the women are gorgeous. Jewel Shepard, an icon of 80s B-movies, plays the lead, her chief qualifications for the role being the perkiest pair of tits in the southwest. (I don’t want to be unkind here; Jewel actually seems like a cool, clever person from what I know about her.) The opening credits claim to be “Introducing Jewel Shepard,” but IMDB lists seven earlier credits for her, this however being her first lead role. Among the other women is one of my favorites from the era, Josephine Jacqueline Jones (always identified as a “former Miss Bahamas”), and a truly unique appearance by a topless Flamenco dancer.

The extensive nudity took 19 clips to cover. Some of them are pretty hard to see, because of the low-res VHS recording technology coupled with the director’s inordinate fondness for backlighting scenes, but I included them anyway for the sake of completeness; didn’t want anyone else to feel the need to watch the film. I’ve extracted a few sample caps showing the women, who were the only redeeming features.

Fortunately for all of us, no investors who saw the series opener wanted to finance any further installments, so Christina was also the last of its kind. Although I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the topless Flamenco dancer.

Jewel Shepard (samples below)

Jewel and Josephine Jacqueline Jones (samples below)

Josephine Jacqueline Jones (see below)

Pepita Full James (see below)

Topless flamenco dancer (see below)

BONUS. Since we’re talking about Jewel Shepard, I thought I would also pass on a hardcore scene she did with Mike Horner (NOT in Christina). I believe this may be something of a rarity. Her first IMDB credit was in Electric Blue 8, as “Bobby Beal,” and Mike Horner was also in that compilation, but Electric Blue was supposed to be a softcore series. An Australian website dealing with film classification and censorship in Australia suggests that there may have been a hardcore version of EB8 that was never submitted for classification. In any case, here it is. The quality is crap, but it’s clear enough to see who they are and what they’re doing.