Plot
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.
Production notes
Joan Collins had asked her sister Jackie for the film rights for free and Jackie agreed whilst contributing to the screenplay. Joan met George Alfred Walker, who established Brent Walker, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1977 while promoting Empire of the Ants. He became excited by the project as it was proposed as a British alternative to Saturday Night Fever . [5]
Both Joan Collins' husband, Ron Kass, and Jackie Collins' husband, Oscar Lerman, also acted as producers on the project.
David Essex turned down the role played by Oliver Tobias. [6]
Filming started in November 1977. [1] The nightclub scenes were shot at Tramp, a nightclub run by Jackie Collins' husband Oscar Lerman. [4]
Joan Collins said she and Sue Lloyd were drunk during the orgy scene. [7]
The marketing budget was the same as the budget to make the film. [2]
In the 1980s, Joan Collins brought a multi-million pound legal action against Brent-Walker Productions Ltd. (who arranged finance and distribution for the film) at London's High Court, due to discrepancies with royalties. Collins alleged fraud, conspiracy, and breach of contract, after royalty payments stopped being sent regularly from 1980 onwards and without details. In February 1986, Collins accepted £147,233 as an interim settlement in the matter before the court case concluded, on the condition that independent accountants were hired to determine the true extent of the film's financial success and how much she and her partners were owed (her partners were named as former husband Ron Kass, and sister Jackie Collins). Brent-Walker agreed to this on the condition that Collins drop the allegations of fraud and conspiracy from her case, and that the accountants' fee would not exceed £40,000. [8]
Release
Box office
The film grossed over $20,000,000 internationally. [10] The film was one of the most popular movies of 1978 at the British box office. [11]
Released in March 1978 the film made back its cost by June. [1] Brent Walker claimed that within ten days the film earned £550,000 at the British box office. It also claimed the soundtrack had sold £640,000 worth of albums and Stud cosmetic merchandising brought in £100,000. [3] By May 1978 it was reported The Stud had earned £1 million at the British box office. [12] By May 1979 it was reported the film had earned $2.5 million in the UK and an equivlaent amount around the world. [13]
The movie 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. [1]
Legacy
The film helped to revitalise Joan Collins's career. The Stud and its sequel The Bitch helped her to be cast as Alexis Colby in Dynasty . [14] However, Tobias later claimed that his part in the film led to typecasting and ruined his career.
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