Wild Orchid

(1990 feature film)

Perhaps the most controversial of all Bruce Greenwood's credits, this sexually explicit film was produced and released with a great deal of tabloid publicity - much of it centered around the two volatile leads, Mickey Rourke and model Carré Otis, some of it aimed at director/writer Zalman King, who was riding a crest of popularity after the success of his equally steamy Nine 1/2 Weeks, but most of it because of the hard core nature of the film's premise.

Nudity and sex abound in this story of a repressed country girl (Otis, in her movie debut) who takes on the job of lawyer to a hardened businesswoman (a wonderfully well-cast Jacqueline Bisset), reluctantly accompanying her on a free wheeling trip to Brazil. Both women become fascinated with an American millionaire (Rourke) who likes to watch rather than participate, so her eventual defrocking comes from a married American attorney (Bruce Greenwood) having an expensive fling in Rio while the millionaire boyfriend hangs out nearby. Greenwood and Otis are completely nude in the sex scene that follows, but the best scene of the entire movie is the one that takes place a few days later when his smarmy character tries to blackmail the girl over a bargaining table when he realizes who she is, only to be given a resounding set-down by her savvy boss.

Although the reviews of this film were consistently poor, several pointed out Greenwood's small acting gem in the middle of the movie. But his part is a mere cameo and lasts no more than 10 minutes. Endless scenes of nudity and sexual encounters (most unrelated to the storyline) come before and after, and the movie culminaties in an indulgent 15-minute orgy between the two leads.

Two hard-to-find video versions have been released -- one x-rated; Greenwood's role remains intact in either edition.

Triumph Releasing Corporation.