The Stud (film)

Plot

Fontaine Khaled (Joan Collins) is the London wife of a wealthy Arab businessman. She spends his money on her nightclub, Hobo, and her hedonistic partying lifestyle. She hires a handsome manager, Tony (Oliver Tobias), to run the nightclub, but it is understood that his job security is dependent on his satisfying her nymphomaniac demands. Tony eventually loses interest in Fontaine, as she treats him like a plaything, and he turns his attention to her young stepdaughter Alexandra Khaled (Emma Jacobs). However, she 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

• Joan Collins as Fontaine Khaled
• Oliver Tobias as Tony Blake
• Sue Lloyd as Vanessa Grant
• Walter Gotell as Benjamin Khaled
• Mark Burns as Leonard Grant
• Doug Fisher as Sammy
• Emma Jacobs as Alex Khaled
• Tony Allyn as Hal
• Peter Lukas as Ian Thane
• Natalie Ogle as Maddy
• Jean Gilpin as Nika
• Constantin De Goguel as Lord Newton
• Guy Ward as Peter
• Sarah Lawson as Anne Khaled
• Jeremy Child as Lawyer
• Peter Dennis as Marc
• Chris Jagger as Rock star
• Peter Bourke as Gordon
• Tania Rogers as Janine
• Felicity Buirski as Deborah
• Minah Bird as Molly
• Sharon Fussey as Denise
• Hilda Fenemore as Mrs Blake
• Bernard Stone as Mr Blake
• John Conteh as himself
• Milo Sperber as Kamara (uncredited)
• Suzanne Danielle as Disco dancer (uncredited)
• Susie Silvey as Girl in shower (uncredited)

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

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.

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.

Filming started in November 1977. The nightclub scenes were shot at Tramp, a nightclub run by Jackie Collins' husband Oscar Lerman.

Joan Collins said she and Sue Lloyd were drunk during the orgy scene.

The marketing budget was the same as the budget to make the film.

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.

Soundtrack

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.

Soundtrack album track list:

Side one

1. The Biddu Orchestra – "The Stud"
2. Michael Zager Band – "Let's All Chant"
3. Samantha Sang – "Emotion"
4. The Real Thing – "Let's Go Disco"
5. Baccara – "Sorry, I'm a Lady"
6. Rod Stewart – "You Wear It Well"
7. Odyssey – "Native New Yorker"
8. K.C. and the Sunshine Band – "That's the Way (I Like It)"
9. Linda Lewis – "It's Good"
10. Space – "Deliverance"

Side two

1. Leo Sayer – "Moonlighting"
2. Tina Charles – "Fire Down Below"
3. Manfred Mann's Earth Band – "Davy's on the Road Again"
4. 10cc – "I'm Not in Love"
5. Rose Royce – "Car Wash"
6. David Soul – "Silver Lady"
7. Goldie – "Making Up Again"
8. Patti Smith Group – "Because The Night"
9. Bill Fredericks – "Almost"
10. Heatwave – The Groove Line"

Release

Box office

The film grossed over $20,000,000 internationally. The film was one of the most popular movies of 1978 at the British box office.

Released in March 1978 the film made back its cost by June. 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. By May 1978 it was reported The Stud had earned £1 million at the British box office. By May 1979 it was reported the film had earned $2.5 million in the UK and an equivalent amount around the world.

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.

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. However, Tobias later claimed that his part in the film led to typecasting and ruined his career.

References

Bibliography

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

References

1. (15 June 1978). "How Joan Collins and the Stud made two and two make five". Financial Times.
2. Joan, Collins. (1997). "Second act".
3. (15 May 1980). "Essex beyond the silver dream". Reading Evening Post.
4. (19 December 1977). "Dennis Barker on Monday". The Guardian.
5. (3 January 2021). "An audience with Joan Collins: A simply riotous chat with her friend Piers Morgan". www.you.co.uk.
6. staff writer. (11 February 1986). "£147,233 payout for Joan Collins". [[The Guardian]].
7. "Week ending 27-05-1978". [[Official Charts Company]].
8. Gritten, David. (26 November 1979). "Imperfect Past Behind Her, Joan Collins Says She Likes Turning Homebody". [[People (magazine).
9. Harper, Sue. (2011). "British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure: The Boundaries of Pleasure". Edinburgh University Press.
10. (19 May 1978). "Shadow boxing at Brent Walker". Manchester Evening News.
11. (25 May 1979). "Brent Walker clinches big film deals". Manchester Evening News.
12. (June 25, 1980). "Simons Blames Bad Dub Job Of AIP For U.S. Flub On 'Stud'".
13. Thorpe, Vanessa. (2021-06-13). "Jackie Collins: the reality of life in Joan's shadow". The Observer.