Wild Orchid

Wild Orchids
$19.99
MGM had Greta Garbo quite busy making films during 1928 and 1929 as the studio saw the approach of sound film possibly destroying one of their top assets. Nobody knew what the outcome of Garbo's career would be at the time.

Thus Greta Garbo made silents until 1930's "Anna Christie". This silent film is not really silent at all. It has a very sophisticated score for its time, including sound effects, crowd noises, and even singing during musical numbers, with long shots of the singers so you can't see that there is no true synchronization with the singers themselves.

The story is that of 50ish John Sterling (Lewis Stone) and his young wife, Lillie (Greta Garbo). The two are embarking on a cruise to Java so that John can mix business with pleasure. His business is to look over some plantations that he may buy. The pleasure is his desire to hunt and shoot a tiger while in Java. On the boat the couple meet Prince De Gace, played by Nils Asther. John is by no means a neglectful husband, but at age 50 he has largely left his romantic days behind him. This makes Lillie a likely target for the charming prince and his silver tongue. He makes a play for her right off the bat, and continues his chase as the Sterlings remain guests in his home. Lillie is torn, but tries her best to avoid the prince and his advances. One night during their stay, after returning from a day of looking at plantations, John sees the silhouettes of the prince and Lillie on the drawn shade of the house just after the prince has grabbed her for a quick kiss. Whatever will John do about this situation? Mix feelings of betrayal and jealousy with tigers and loaded guns and anything is possible.

The acting in this film is quite well done. Asther comes across well as the slimy but attractive prince, and Lewis Stone was a wonderful silent actor. His surprise when he first sees the couple in an embrace, and his look of both great disdain and knowing when he later sees the prince flirting with a servant girl says it all. Yet, like Garbo, some of his best performances would come with talking pictures where he could both artfully play the cad in the MGM precodes as well as Judge Hardy of the Andy Hardy series fame.

This is a Warner Archive product and is thus a DVD-R with no extra features. There are no chapter stops. You may only go forwards and backwards in ten minute increments. There has been no restoration of this film specifically for this release, but I must say that the film looks very good - among the best quality I've seen of MGM's late silent era films. Highly recommended for the silent film enthusiast.

Wild Orchid
$7.95
Taylor Jane Simon, 18 is facing a sea of changes. She has just graduated from secondary school; her mother's boyfriend has opened a pizza shop some 200 miles away in a small town in Canada and Taylor is expected to spend the summer in that unfamiliar town. This will be especially hard for Taylor because she has Asperger's Syndrome, which is the spectrum partner to autism.

Set in 2002, this book is written in diary format, with the dates making it easy to figure out the year in which these literary events took place.

Taylor's behavior sounds more autistic than Asperger's. She cannot stand the color yellow and sneezes when in a yellow room or confronted with yellow food and objects; she does not make eye contact; she has routines she has to live by such as everything has to be done 7 times. She insists on sitting in the 7th row in the movies; she insists on taking 7 sips of water, etc.

Some of Taylor's sensory issues were understandable. She hates loud noises; does not like the feel of certain materials and objects and eye contact is an issue. Her social ineptitude is glaring - she discloses the fact that she has Asperger's to people she does not know or know well; she misreads the responses she gets from peers; she has trouble processing information that is presented quickly. Taylor is incredibly naive; she thinks that if she does not hear from someone within a certain timeframe, that person is no longer a friend.

One thing that was easy to see from both sides was early in the book when Taylor's mother, when giving the girl gum told her to offer her some. Taylor complies and her mother turns down the offer. Taylor's bewilderment is understandable -- if told to make an offer, then why turn it down? The mother's response was also understandable -- you make the offer to someone regardless. That was a good example showing the confusion on both sides of a social issue.

Still, Taylor copes. A kind botanist hires her for the summer; he is very tolerant of her and in turn, she learns that just because someone has a bad habit, they are not a bad person. Since Paul smokes, she figures he must be bad to do something she finds abhorrent.

During the summer, Taylor develops a work ethic; learns to stand up for herself and adjust to changes made without any control or warning.

A decent book that shows how confusing social behaviors are for someone on the autism/Asperger's spectrum. Since it is a spectrum, there will be overlapping behaviors and Taylor appeared to fit right in the middle. Her meltdowns; social naivety and routines point her closer to autism. Her high verbal skills, special interests (she has a special interest in flora) and attention to minute detail are all Asperger's behaviors.

Mary Essinger's WOUNDED BIRD OF PARADISE is a good companion book to this one.

Wild Orchids
$7.50
Absolutely loved this book. This was the first book that I tried of this author and her other contemps seem to always pale in comparison for me to this book. Have read this twice. Thinking of re-reading again!

Wild Orchid [VHS]
$19.95
This movie garnered a lot of negative reviews. Despite all the eye candy, nudity, and the occasional carnal relation, one reviewer said that Wild Orchid "...wilts, flaccid, on the stem." LOL.

Well, a great move it's not, but there is certainly no dearth of voyeuristic pleasures to be had, either. The plot is pretty thin gruel, and the characters aren't very credible, either, but it's obvious that's not the point of the movie. Set against the backdrop of carnival or mardi gras time in Rio de Janeiro, there's plenty of eye candy what with all the beautiful women running around in skimpy outfits, but there's not much else of any substance in this oddball, mildly steamy movie.

As for the acting, most of it is just too affected for me, as Mickey Rourke attempts to project a persona that is both sexually aloof and decadently sophisticated at the same time, while Carre Otis, who is certainly easy to look at, seems to spend most of the movie with a look of suppressed eroticism combined with naive bewilderment on her face.

Despite all the nudity and the occasional sex scene, the movie is as much about unrequited love and desire as anything else. The two main characters, played by Mickey Rourke and Carre Otis, have intimacy issues and so spend most of their time voyeuristically watching other couples rather than getting romantically involved themselves, although in the end they finally do. So you basically have a voyeuristic movie that is about a couple of voyeurs themselves. :-)

This is a little bit too much self-reflexive voyeurism for me, but there was nothing on HBO that I hadn't seen last night and so ended up watching watching this. I give it two and a half stars because the women certainly aren't hard to look at and the several scenes with hundreds of people dancing in brilliant mardi gras costumes are actually pretty spectacular. But if you're looking for something more substantial in the way of a decadent, steamy, romantic movie like "Last Tango in Paris," this isn't it.