Alright, everybody, if you’ll take your seat, your B-Movie Enema historical lesson can begin.

Today, I’m reviewing 1985’s Mata Hari from our good friends at Cannon Films. This was during a time in which Cannon was raking in money from the Chuck Norris action flicks, but also was luring a lot of directors with a great deal of artistic talent. A lot of people think it was those Norris action exploitation films, or the authoritarian, at least semi-right-wing coded crime thrillers that Charles Bronson was making, that brought Cannon low. No, what led to Cannon’s demise was a combination of overpaying Sylvester Stallone for two films that didn’t really do the gangbusters that the company expected, and the big time swings for the fences that were utterly destroyed by critics. These were your Brooke Shields vehicle, Sahara, The Wicked Lady with Faye Dunaway, Bolero from John and Bo Derek, Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce, and Mata Hari. There were others, but these were the large productions that had massive scale and looked beautiful, but ultimately were not much more than sex and exploitation films that were just never going to sell to mainstream audiences the way Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus expected. I’m probably not really describing all these films in the best, most detailed or nuanced light, but that’s what more or less happened.

With Mata Hari, they did have a very capable director, though, brought in to tell a war epic. Curtis Harrington was no hack job. Harrington was an experimental filmmaker in the 50s and 60s, but his career actually began as a film critic. In the mid 60s, Roger Corman brought Harrington to make Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Queen of Blood. He also made Whoever Slew Anutie Roo. He also worked on well-known TV movies like How Awful About Allan and Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell. Most importantly, though, Harrington, himself a gay man, was instrumental in two things related to James Whale (most famous for Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein). He was instrumental in rediscovering and recovering Whale’s thought-to-be-lost film The Old Dark House. He also served as an advisor on Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters about Whale in his later years.

But let’s talk about Mata Hari, the central and titular character in today’s movie. To do so, let’s set the stage for when Mata Hari became infamous. In my personal opinion, The Great War (aka World War I) is more geopolitically interesting than its sequel. In World War II, the main topic will always shift to the leaders who were pulling the levers of power and strategy – Hitler (duh), Patton, Churchill, Stalin, Eisenhower, a number of Nazi generals and officials, and so on. In World War I, there was a lot of tension that had been building for decades, and possibly even centuries, that created a massive powder keg that effectively exploded on one June day in 1914.

There had been an arms race building in Europe for decades. Germany’s Otto von Bismarck was consolidating the German Empire and Prussia into a singular, massive political force with a lot of military power. Allied with them was Austria-Hungary, a strange mish-mash of both German and Slavic regions that didn’t exactly get along on a cultural level. France was still a mainland European power, Russia was a large land mass with a lot of its own major military might, and the United Kingdom was the great imperial power with all its sea might. I know I’m being kind of scant on nuance and detail, but these are the basics.

Let’s focus on Austria-Hungary for a moment. I mentioned this was a mish-mash of very different cultures all being ruled by descendants of Germanic nobility. The empire had annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was largely populated by Slavs who didn’t much care for being ruled by non-Slavs. There had long been desires to consolidate Slavic states into something of a politically aligned confederation of regions, with Big Bro Russia being the primary protector. This would be similar to what led to Germany becoming consolidated into one major country. But this unrest over being ruled by non-Slavic rulers led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, by a Bosnian Serbian separatist group. The hope would be that it would lead to Bosnia being freed.

At first, it didn’t seem to move the needle in any way, but soon, the dominoes began to fall. The month of July led to a bunch of diplomatic discussions amongst the European powers. There were alliances within alliances all over Europe. Russia was committed to protecting Slavs, so when Austria-Hungary wanted to pressure Serbia with unreasonable demands when they didn’t have actual proof that Serbia was collectively involved in the assassination, Russia stepped in. So, in loose order of events, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, so Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, which led to Germany, politically and culturally aligned with Austria, declaring war on Russia. Germany then declared war on France, which led to Britain declaring war on Germany to prevent Germany from taking over France and becoming a massive power in Europe, and threatening them. Italy was in an interesting situation because initially, they were a part of a defensive alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but it never liked the Austrians, so they decided to join Britain, France, and Russia in 1915. It was a quagmire and a mess that was headed this way for a long time. The United States didn’t enter until the final year and a half of the war.

Oh, in August of 1914, Japan decided to declare war on Germany for funsies.

But when it comes to our leading lady, Mata Hari, that was the stage name of an exotic Dutch dancer, Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod. She basically is the quintessential femme fatale. She used seduction to help get secrets and strategic information from members of the Triple Entente (particularly French and British) for the Triple Alliance (specifically for Germany). Mata Hari is an interesting character. I’ll explain a little bit more as we go through the movie because I think part of the reason why people don’t think too highly of this movie is that it portrays her slightly differently than history would suggest, though I also wonder if there was a little room for interpretation over some of that truth.

Before jumping into the movie, let’s talk about Sylvia Kristel, the actress tapped by Cannon to play the infamous femme fatale. She’s a good choice. Between the mid 70s and the 80s, Kristel was about as hot a leading lady as there could be. Largely, this was due to her run of sexy films that started with 1974’s Emmanuelle. A lot of guys would have early memories of maturity, catching glimpses of Kristel’s sexual appeal while flipping around cable late at night. What’s more, she is also Dutch, so yeah, that would be a great piece of casting for a historically famous Dutch woman. Kristel was a chain smoker since the age of 11, so it’s probably no surprise that she died of cancer in 2012 at the age of 60.

Alright, let’s hop in the time machine to World War I and get seduced by Mata Hari.

The movie opens in Java, 1909… insta-tits. Or would this be “instit boobage?” Whatever it is, I knew I would not be failed by Golan and Globus to get right to the chesticles.

I mean it when I say I’m impressed with how quickly the movie gets to a bare-chested Sylvia Kristel. If I count both the Kino Lorber and the MGM logos before the film actually starts, the boobs hit at pretty much exactly the 1-minute mark. If I don’t count those logos, it’s even more impressive. What’s the point of watching this dance in Java? Boobs.

At the 2:45 mark, we’re now in Paris, 1914, with a couple of friends, Frenchman Georges Ladoux and German Karl Von Bayerling hanging out and doing shit together. They fence. They go to museums. You know, normal French and German guy shit. They especially like the statue of two people entangled in a tantric embrace. You know, normal guy shit – lookin’ at porn with your bro.

They are interrupted while looking at the Indian porn statue by a fully clothed Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod. The two men circle her as if she’s prey, only to discover that she knows more about this Indian exhibit than they do. She explains she visits the museum often and that’s how she knows so much about Indian art. She eventually is escorted away by some crusty old fuck, leaving our strapping younger dudes drooling while they nurse their blue balls.

At a party in Paris, Von Bayerling tells Ladoux that he has been recalled to Berlin. It seems that the friends are more concerned with the possibility of war coming than the older aristocrats, who just think all of this will be a normal August in Paris. Von Beryling tells Ladoux that if it does come to war, they both have duties they must attend to that will create a possible split in their friendship. Ladoux is like, “Oh, whatever. That babe we saw at the museum is here, and she’s not wearing that many clothes, and she’s gonna dance for everyone!”

Mata Hari, the professional stage name of that babe they saw at the museum, is already a rather cunning lover. On a train, while her old fart benefactor talks about war and alliances, she slips away to get plowed by another guy in a passenger car. While he fucks her, he gets a poison dart to the back. In Berlin, she’s arrested for the assassination, but she says she had no idea who this guy was. So what if she wanted to fuck? She is in Berlin to perform, that’s all. She’s questioned about how a German agent ended up getting killed by a poison dart similar to something that would be used in the East Indies, something similar to Mata Hari’s stage name and background as a well-travelled performer and person interested in the area.

The police call in military intelligence to question her. That so happens to be Von Bayerling. He clears her and then tells her that maybe she should consider getting on the train that is leaving in an hour. He doesn’t want her to get tangled up in all this business in Europe. I love that he already wants her to run away from potentially getting tangled up in a war that’s spreading across Europe. It’s like he read the script and knows she’s gonna end up becoming very tangled up in this war beeswax. When he drops her off at the hotel, Mata Hari invites Von Bayerling to return tonight to take her out on the town.

I also love it when a movie says the line, “There’s a train leaving in an hour, you need to get on it to leave town.” Is it the only train in ALL OF BERLIN that will leave town in an hour? I kinda feel like most trains in Berlin, whether they leave in an hour, two hours, six hours, or twenty minutes, whenever, stand a pretty good chance of leaving town. It’s such a cliched line. Just say she needs to leave town as soon as she can and that he’ll give her a lift to the train station. Don’t be so specific to say there is ONE train that leaves in EXACTLY one hour. Also, this is World War I. It’s not like the trains are currently running on time, if you get what I’m getting at. A random military intelligence officer knows there is one exact train that is leaving in one exact hour? So silly.

Von Bayerling is getting what he wants: time alone with the alluring Mata Hari, whom he reveals that he has painted from his memory of seeing her perform at that aristocratic party in Paris. While he does try to resist her sultry charms, he is also quick to ask her to dinner again. This time, he wants to introduce Dr. Elsbeth Schragmüller, who became known as Fräulein Doktor. She is a scheming and manipulative psychologist who begins leading efforts of the German Intelligence outfit.

Fräulein Doktor basically reveals all to Mata Hari. She is performing in Berlin, not based on her original tour plans, but specifically because Captain Ladoux sent her there as a lure to make love to the German agent on the train. Then, that guy would be assassinated, leading to her arrest. This would then place her, I guess, in the orbit of Captain Von Bayerling? Anyway, Von Bayerling was to seduce Mata Hari. Fräulein Doktor says the game is now afoot and specifically wants to recruit Mata Hari to be a spy for the German government.

Also, Fräulein Doktor is kind of a cartoon character. Also also, she wants to fuck Mata Hari and does. Also also also, Mata Hari is reluctant to be a spy. She goes to see Von Bayerling, but he’s left, and war breaks out all over Europe.

By 1915, Mata Hari is still performing to packed houses. When she returns to Paris, she’s met by Captain Ladoux who insists on speaking with her. He reminds her that they met last year and he saw her dance before the war. She tells him he knows all about her performance in Berlin – you know, since he set that whole thing up.

He questions her about her activities in Berlin and Fräulein Doktor. He tells her the man she was accused of killing was seen alive on the streets after she left. He explains to her that he knows how Fräulein Doktor works. Basically, between her and Von Bayerling, they more or less manipulated Mata Hari into working for them. They blamed him for making her more likely to serve German needs.

After dinner, Ladoux and Mata Hari fuck. The next morning, she is effectively kidnapped by Von Bayerling when he poses as Ladoux’s driver. He drives her out to the woods for a picnic and tells her that she shouldn’t believe everything Ladoux tells her. Ladoux wants to seduce her to get close to him. I feel like a lot of Mata Hari’s early career here is played off like she’s this object to adore, lie to, fuck, adore, lie to again, and fuck… um… again. She doesn’t seem to have much agency in her career as an agent.

I mean…

I’m not entirely complaining about these scenes.

In the sex scenes between Mata Hari and her two suitors, Ladoux and Von Bayerling, they are kind of… strange. Ladoux is kind of vanilla. He does missionary and has to be told by Mata Hari to go harder and faster. Von Bayerling, though… That guy FUCKS. He goes down on her. She rides him until they both reach climax while a crazy lightning storm that would likely bring Frankenstein’s monster to life happens outside. You know that something really jarred her during that fuck sesh because she explains to Von Bayerling that she was born to a sacred dancer in Java who died during childbirth.

Mata Hari gets a place to live in a small village outside Paris. French officials report back to Ladoux that they’ve found her. The government keeps tabs on her. They are a little confused by her daily actions of moving from her apartment to the end of town, back to her apartment moments later. Ladoux eventually shows up and accuses her of giving the plans and location of a French army set to attack the German frontlines, only to be slaughtered. Ladoux shows her the bloodshed she caused, and she’s questioned by Ladoux and his superior. She, again, denies wrongdoing, but offers her services to assist the French government.

So, she’s off to Madrid, where supposedly, that’s where Von Bayerling’s next mission took him. We finally see her engage in real spy work. She has a very specific room she will stay at the hotel in, which is connected to a second room. She has to deliver a pocket watch with a note inside it. She has actual spy dialogue in this scene. She goes up to a door and listens to a conversation between two guys. She has secret notes that only reveal themselves when a liquid is spread over it. She later meets Von Krohn, a man who works for the German Embassy in Madrid.

You might think this will lead to something that will play out as part of her mission. Nope. He just wants to take her out to dinner and then look through the peephole at her masturbating before bed. If he had only waited for this movie’s home video release, he could have seen A LOT more.

I’m kidding. He is working to buy artillery that he says will change the course of the war. She unexcitedly sleeps with him so he will fall asleep, and she can sneak around his stuff to find out more information. A contact she has worked with in Spain ends up dead, and it’s revealed that Fräulein Doktor has arrived to find out what Captain Krohn knew. When Krohn reveals he was stood up by someone who was supposed to meet him to get the information on this weapon that will change the course of the war, Fräulein Doktor has the man killed.

Wouldn’t you know it, but Fräulein Doktor asks Mata Hari to work for the German government… again. Seriously, this movie has largely been a pretty woman who often has her tits out ping ponging back and forth between being a French spy and a German spy. And the kicker is that both sides seem to know that she is working for the other with a very shaky or easily manipulated allegiance. It was about this time that I was starting to slowly forget this was a Golan-Globus production. Then, some weapons guy the Germans are after takes her to a sex party where she ends up getting into a slap fight with a drunken woman. To settle this, they do a naked swordfight.

This swordfight is hilarious. First of all, it’s part Halloween party, part Eyes Wide Shut freaky deaky shit. But it all comes out of nowhere. The guy who escorted her to this party tells her he is going to take her back to Paris with him. This drunk bitch gets mad and slaps Mata Hari. Mata Hari punches her back. They settle this with naked swordplay while people in costumes watch. There’s fanfare played when we realize tits were going to be out for this duel. One person in particular is a guy dressed as a clown smoking cigarettes. It’s a difficult scene to really put into proper context for how bonkers it is. The fight choreography itself is awful. It’s so telegraphed and slow and awkward. It’s clear the two actresses are really swinging the swords around and being very careful to not hurt each other. I certainly cannot clip this scene and put it onto YouTube with all the boob just flopping about. You just have to trust me.

There is a smoking clown watching this play out.

So that’s over, and the orgy at this freaky deaky party can get started. I think the old guy gives Mata Hari some dope to smoke, and he decides that it’s time for him to unleash a couple of ladies on the relaxing Mata Hari. I don’t know what this has to do with how the Germans will get French plans for the war or vice versa, but I know she doesn’t care much for a whole lotta guys watching her fuck these two women. And, yes, one guy does the prototypical French guy laugh while they watch them.

Fräulein Doktor arrives to wake her up and tells her to go find and retrieve Von Bayerling from behind French lines. I think it would be pretty damn funny if, at the end of all this back and forth of Mata Hari seemingly working for the French, then the Germans, then the French, then the Germans again, she exclaims, “The whole time I was working for the Brazilians!” and then dances off screen and the movie ends like a Looney Tunes cartoon. I have a feeling this is not going to happen, but… then again… It is a Golan-Globus production.

Anyway, disguised as a nurse, Mata Hari gets behind French lines to find the injured Von Bayerling. While she searches the hospital where he is suspected to be, the hospital itself is attacked. I’m pretty sure, even then, that was not well appreciated in terms of the rules of engagement. Anyway, in the chaos, Von Bayerling and Mata Hari find each other. They sneak off to a barn for a literal roll in the hay.

While they wait out the war outside, Von Bayerling says some heavy shit about how this war is terrible and all that stuff. He explains how he used information she gave him to report back some of the stuff the French were doing. They discuss how they can have a life together after the war.

They plan to go meet the old French Baron who took Mata Hari to that freaky deaky party to get the information about this massive explosive that will win Germany the war. But Ladoux is watching the Portuguese Embassy. Fräulein Doktor shows up, again, with her goon. She holds onto Mata Hari for collateral while sending her goon and Von Bayerling to the guy they are supposed to be meeting to get the sample of the explosive. However, the goon, we’ll call him Stephen Mueller for funsies, makes the guy kill himself when he says they will reveal that he’s been conspiring with the enemy.

It’s so weird because this is World War I. This isn’t quite as cut and dry as who the bad guys were, and the exact bad shit they were into, like World War II. We knew Hitler was A-1 super villain. Yet, Stephen Mueller and Fräulein Doktor straight up act like evil mad Nazis. Anyway, on the way to planting a bomb in a cathedral to blow up all the dignitaries and leaders attending a ceremonial mass for the honored dead of the war. Fräulein Doktor is downright giddy over this plan. I am not kidding that she’s a cartoon bad guy.

Mata Hari is horrified to hear about this bomb. Von Bayerling tells her she has to help stop the bomb from going off. So she goes to the cathedral to find the bomb with Fräulein Doktor hot on her trail. Ladoux sees Mata Hari wandering around the cathedral. He arrives just in time to find Mata Hari with the bomb and no Fräulein Doktor.

She’s arrested and put on trial for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. Ladoux tries to convince her to save herself and give up any secrets she has that could save her life. Von Bayerling will not be able to save her, as he would be executed as an enemy of France. Ladoux warns her that the tribunal is out for blood and they will attempt to find her guilty and execute her. Her attorney passionately tries to defend her. However, the prosecution enters into the record an intercepted transmission about Agent H-21, whose identity was very thinly veiled to be Mata Hari.

She tries to defend herself by saying she was in the service of France, which compelled her to work for Germany(?) and that she was only guilty of being in love. It should also be noted in the record that this is a very shit defense and that the court instantly finds her guilty of all that stuff they intended to find her guilty of in the first place. Because she will not give up the location of Von Bayerling, it was an easy decision to make.

Ladoux arranged to have Mata Hari transferred to a convent during her trial, expecting Von Bayerling to arrive and rescue her, but he was badly wounded when Ladoux gunned down Stephen Mueller after Von Bayerling planted the bomb. He is unable to save her in time before Mata Hari is executed by firing squad, which Ladoux’s superior officer says will be good for the morale of the French soldiers.

At some point after the war, Ladoux and Von Bayerling meet to reconcile their friendship at the same museum where they met Mata Hari years before.

This is a curious movie. In one regard, it’s an exceptionally competent film in the technical side of things. It’s got a fairly big production value to it. It looks good, again, thanks to the Kino Lorber restoration of the Blu-ray. Sylvia Kristel is a very appealing and attractive leading lady. She commands attention when she’s on screen. And that’s not because she might go topless at the drop of a hat. You can see she took the material seriously. Director Curtis Harrington said that about her. He said that she was this massive and obvious sex symbol, but she never just rested on that. He seemed to appreciate the effort she put into playing her role.

Speaking of Harrington, he was disappointed in the final product. To avoid getting an X rating, this had to go through some heavy edits. Harrington was shut out of the editing and felt that the movie fell short of his intention of having a highly sexual epic drama. But, to be honest with you… The sex of this movie is too heavy. I don’t mean that the scenes are too much or too serious. I mean, there are too many of these types of scenes. The movie would almost come to a screeching halt to have Kristel get naked or have sex with someone. It doesn’t help that the story just isn’t that good here. It’s a little boring and has too much of the ping ponging I complained about with Mata Hari’s actual job as a spy for whatever side she was supposed to be spying for.

And I think that’s the biggest complaint people have over this movie. Kristel, though good as a character and a screen presence, is given this material that plays Mata Hari as this doe-eyed, nearly agent-less woman who just fell in love and wanted to help the man she was in love with. It seems to rob this historical figure of what was more likely to be true about her. I think she knew what she was doing and was more than aware that a war was going on, and she could profit from it. I think my biggest complaint here is that Mata Hari is not exactly set up that well to be seen as this agent in this messy war. She ping pongs back and forth between Ladoux and Von Bayerling. She seems largely in love with Von Bayerling because the most interesting sex scenes are between those two characters. But what does she actually do in this war? I guess she stops the explosion that would kill a bunch of dignitaries, but beyond that? She doesn’t seem to really reveal any important secrets.

And that is kind of the crux of the story of Mata Hari.

There’s a permanent exhibit about Mata Hari in Belgium. The people who run the Mata Hari Foundation have long defended her as being largely a scapegoat. That is only minorly touched upon here when Ladoux’s commander says her execution is good for the troops’ morale, and the guy who orders the firing squad and the nun accompanying her both weep for the sentence being carried out. It’s accurate that they think this is a largely innocent woman going to her death, but it’s not conveyed well.

The Mata Hari Foundation will state that the entertainer was largely known for only passing Parisian gossip. What she sold to the Germans was likely not really anything that helped their war effort. German Intelligence was unhappy that what they got from her led to no tactical advantage to them, and it’s likely they betrayed her to France to rid themselves of her. The whole intercepted thing about H-21 that is in the movie is what ultimately got her arrested. Supposedly, she even tried to sell German secrets back to France, indicating that she knew there was profit in war.

The movie didn’t portray her as a woman who knew she could make some money and have some fun with some important and powerful people by using her body – if ANY of that is actually true. They made her a largely naive woman who was only doing things for love, which is something that does not seem to be true in a historical sense. Also not depicted in the movie, which exacerbates the whole “I am guilty of love” angle the movie took, is that British Intelligence, MI5 to be exact, recovered documents that largely corroborate Mata Hari’s real life vehement fight for her innocence saying she never was a spy for Germany and she had nothing but love for her adopted homeland of France and her sympathies for the Allies as a whole. She’s a complicated historical figure that seems more interesting than she might have been, and this movie may have even made her less of an interesting personality.

Fräulein Doktor was a real person, but this movie kind of portrays her differently too. Dr. Elsbeth Schragmüller was not a psychologist, though she was not uncommon to portray her as such in fiction. She was a political scientist. She was heavily involved with the German Intelligence, but she largely led a private life after the war, becoming the very first female assistant chair of Freiburg University. When the Nazis took power, her father and brother fell victim to the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler’s political enemies in the Sturmabteilung (Germany’s paramilitary organization, which was believed to be on the precipice of a military coup to get rid of Hitler) were killed extrajudicially. After that, she abruptly left her position at the University and ultimately died of tuberculosis in 1940. No one knew the real identity of Fräulein Doktor until the Allies went through German files after the country fell in 1945.

So yeah. Is this the worst of the worst of the mid 80s Cannon films? Not really. It’s a mess, to be sure, but it’s hardly a terrible film. I would say at least check it out for Sylvia Kristel (especially if you are a fan of her, ahem, assets), and it does have a strong production value. It just doesn’t really deliver on all it could. Its focus on sex detracts from the historical drama, and the convoluted drama detracts from the sex.

But let’s move into the month of May, shall we? I’ve got a big plan for this upcoming summer, but before we get there, we have five more movies to focus on, and wouldn’t you know it, they are more from a recent buying spree I went on during a Kino Lorber sale. If we thought the sex in Mata Hari was kinda hot, well, hold onto your butts because you ain’t seen nothin’ until you see the steamy sexual chemistry of John Travolta and Lily Tomlin in 1978’s Moment by Moment!

See all you jokers next week.

Not that Joker!