10 (1979) (aka Ten)

10 (1979) (aka Ten)

In writer/director Blake Edwards' financially-successful romantic sex comedy classic, with music by Oscar-nominated Henry Mancini, it described itself as "a temptingly tasteful comedy for adults who can count." The film's title helped to popularize the objectification and rating of women on a perfection scale from 1-10. This was the late 70s-early 80s era of obsession with beauty, youth, and self-discovery. One prominent film poster was illustrated with male star Dudley Moore hanging on a chain around the neck of a large-breasted woman.

It introduced to the cultural wasteland a numerical rating system for the attractiveness of beautiful women, described on one of the film's posters:

"When rating women, if "8's" make you tingle and "9's" make you gasp... imagine what will happen when you meet a "10"!"

Director Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing (1985) was a similar sex comedy, starring John Cusack and Nicolette Sheridan (as the unattainable beauty).

In the lively and sometimes funny film's basic plot, a mid-life crisis-suffering, unhappy male pursued a "woman of his dreams" after following her to Mexico and becoming sexually-involved with her during her honeymoon. This was the first true leading man role for British comic actor/musician Dudley Moore, who had previously starred in the comedy-thriller Foul Play (1978), with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase, and the UK film Bedazzled (1967) with Raquel Welch and Peter Cook. The film also boosted the film career of 22 year-old Bo Derek (the wife of ex-actor and Svengali photographer/director John Derek) who went on to be Tarzan's mate "Jane Parker" in Tarzan, The Ape Man (1981) .

On a budget, it grossed revenues of 74ドル.9 million (domestic) and 107ドル million (worldwide). It received two Academy Awards nominations (with no wins): Best Original Song ("Song from 10 (It's Easy to Say)"), and Best Original Score, both for Henry Mancini.

• in the opening sequence, it was revealed that the talented, intelligent, and rich 42 year-old Hollywood playwright/composer George Webber (Dudley Moore) with four Academy Awards and a Rolls-Royce, was in the midst of a mid-life crisis; he suddenly realized his dilemma during a surprise birthday party held in his honor
• he became insufferably self-absorbed, self-pitying and childish - and also seemed to be bored with his long-suffering dating partner:
  • Samantha "Sam" Taylor (Julie Andrews), a 38 year-old theatrical actress/singer

• one day, as he was riding in his open yellow 1977 Rolls Royce Corniche convertible through Malibu and Beverly Hills, George voyeuristically saw the fantasy woman of his dreams - a young Jenny Miles (Bo Derek in her film debut and in the role that made her a sex symbol), riding in a white gown with her fiancee David Hanley (Sam Jones) in the back of a black 1968 Mercedes-Benz 600 limousine, on their way to their wedding
• he attempted to follow her to the ceremony, while experiencing many mishaps and disasters (a head-first car crash into a police car, an expired license without registration, charges of reckless driving, a sting on his nose from a bee that had emerged from a floral display in the wedding chapel, etc.)
• to wile away some of his time as he often did, that evening in his home, George used a telescope to spy on the wild orgies and the "broads" at the house of his hedonistic neighbor (Don Calfa), a porn producer, who always left his curtains open; he enviously watched as an attractively, partially-naked young female (Constance Money, aka Susan Jensen) bent over a pool table during game play; but then when Samantha realized that the neighbor was spying on them, she gave him the 'finger' and closed their bedroom's curtains

• an annoyed Samantha was justifiably fed up with George's chauvinistic attitudes, and reprimanded him for being a peeping tom with his telescope on the neighbor, and for using the derogatory term "broad":
  • "I don't need to peep into somebody else's windows to get my jollies. You're a dirty old man, George, and so is your friend....First, I'm getting a little fed up at sexually-emancipated ladies being referred to as broads. Second, I think a telescope aimed at anything other than the stars is an invasion of privacy and qualifies the voyeur as a Peeping Tom, and there's a very good law against that. Third, the first two really wouldn't bother me a bit if you'd stop watching so God-damn much television and pay a little more attention to your bedroom guests. This guest in particular. Now, you want to argue or you want to make love?"
• Miffed at George after their argument, she decided to get dressed and walk out on him and return to her own home. In response to George's question: "I thought we were gonna make love," she snapped back: "That will cost you 50 bucks and an apology" - just as sidekick Ed McMahon on the Tonight Show announced: "Heeeeeeeeere's Johnny!"
• George's work associate was gay musical songwriting partner Hugh Fallon (Robert Webber) at his beach-front home, who was often teased by George about his live-in young boyfriend Larry (Walter George Alton) who made him "happy," and spent much of every day swimming and jogging on the beach
• during a visit to his black psychiatrist Dr. Croce (John Hancock), George told him about his newfound obsession, and his scale from 1 to 10, although the bride he had seen was an 11:
  • Therapist: What were you thoughts at the moment of this fixation?
    George: She was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.
    Therapist: Uh, on a scale from 1 to 10?
    George: Eleven.
    Therapist: You said there was no such thing as a 10.
    George: There's nothing unusual.
• Dr. Croce warned: "You're becoming obsessed with the ugliness of old age. The fear of death and the inevitability of it"; George considered her the most beautiful, virginal and visionary creature ever imaginable
• George returned to the church to learn from the musically-challenged Reverend (Max Showalter) that the bride was the daughter of a prominent and wealthy Beverly Hills dentist Dr. Miles (James Noble); he was becoming hopelessly obsessed with the betrothed woman and wanted to see her again
• upon his return home, he was still unable to reach Samantha by phone to communciate with her and make up; he accidentally knocked himself in the head with his telescope, and went tumbling down a steep embankment outside his home; he wasn't able to scramble up the hillside in time to answer a phone call from Sam
• in order to learn the bride's destination for her honeymoon - the Las Hadas hotel resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, he had to endure unnecessary dental treatments for six cavities and pain-killers by Jenny's dentist-father
• meanwhile, Samantha was still unable to talk to George (due to his swollen and tranquilized state with Novocaine and booze used as pain killers that caused him to mumble and slur his words); when she returned to his home to speak to him, she noticed through the telescope that George (who had drunkenly driven his car to the neighbor's house) appeared to be participating in an outdoor pool orgy; she drove off in a fury and he wasn't able to speak to her
• George set out to follow the newly-weds to Mexico by booking an AeroMexico flight; at the start of his misadventures there, he arrived at the resort in a disheveled, tired and sweaty state where he collapsed; back at home, Hugh opined to Samantha that George's childish, imbecilic and irrational behavior was evidence of his "male menopause"; George woke up to the sounds of a loud mariachi band, and attempted to navigate a wobbly rope walkway-bridge over a pool

• while at the bar, he became chummy with the attentive and talkative hotel bartender Donald (Brian Dennehy); George phoned Samantha to tell her that he was in Mexico for some 'alone' time; he became completely flustered when the newly-weds sat down next to him while speaking to her; when he couldn't tell her when he was returning to LA, after a pause, she told him: "Piss off, George!" and then hung up
• later in the evening, George met a female vacationer (older than Jenny) named Mary Lewis (Dee Wallace-Stone), who told how she had met George at a Truman Capote party in New York a few years earlier; Mary and the inebriated and sleepy-headed George had a diversionary and unsuccessful fling in his hotel room, but he was unable to perform; she blamed herself for failing to arouse him: ("It is me, isn't it?...some of us don't bring out the man in men"); as she left his bed, she also spoke about her sad life story - she had previously wanted a family, but her ex Willis Ackermans didn't want children (but then he married and had three kids within four years)
• in a memorable sequence at the beach, George burned his feet on the hot sand, and then spied on sexy, corn-row haired, gorgeously-tanned Jenny as she laid on a towel closeby sunning herself; there were two classic instances of his fantastic fantasies about her and stealthy attempts to get close to his dream girl; he imagined that she was kissing and embracing him as they laid in the surf and rolled around in the sand, and then he dreamed about the nubile Jenny in a skimpy one-piece bathing suit running in slow-motion toward him on the beach

• in fact, George became a hero when he saved the life of her husband David; he had fallen asleep on a rented surfboard, and was swept away by the current; George had rented a Hobie Cat (sailboat) and rescued David who was being threatened by a shark; back in LA, a newscast detailing George's unusual heroic exploits were broadcast on TV and watched by Hugh and his partner Larry, who then phoned Samantha to alert her about George's feat; however, George refused to accept Samantha's hurried phone call at the bar, and instead preferred to entertain the guests (including Mary and Donald) on a hotel piano with a song (the one he had played at Truman Capote's party), while still transfixed by the image of the swim-suited Jenny running in slow-motion on the beach
• while the groom was hospitalized for a severe sunburn, George proceeded to meet privately with Jenny; she greeted him at her hotel suite's door in only a towel, slick and wet from a recent shower; she invited him to have either a drink or some grass; she turned the tables on him, telling him that she thought he was an "attractive older man", after claiming she had seen him on "The Dinah Shore Show" two weeks earlier and that he was famous for "elevator music"
• she suggested dinner and while being romantically serenaded at their table, she told him: "Tonight I spend with you"; they also went on a moonlight beach walk and then returned to the hotel to dance - being observed by Mary who wryly commiserated with bartender Donald:
  • "What's fair about a man getting older and looking more distinguished and worldly and a woman getting older and looking old?"
• back in Jenny's suite, she lit up a marijuana joint and offered it to George, but he declined; they were listening to Prokofiev as George commented:
  • George: I wasn't expecting Prokofiev....
    Jenny: I like different music for different things. I like to listen to rock. I like to dance to jazz.
    George: What do you like to do to Prokofiev?
    Jenny: F--k. And not only Prokofiev, Ravel. Did you ever do it to Ravel's Bolero?
    George (nervously): No.
    Jenny: My uncle turned me on to it - (George coughed after taking a drag) my step-mother's younger brother. I used to spend weekends at his house in Surrey when I was going to school in England. Uncle Fred said that Bolero was the most descriptive sex music ever written. And he proved it. (She put on a phonograph recording of Bolero, entered her bedroom and stripped, then returned to tell George) George, I forgot the joint.

• she was very sexually forward; she attempted to seduce him in a darkly-lit scene - memorably played to the sounds of Maurice Ravel's "Bolero"; she wanted to have him undress quickly, and then asked for him to restart the record from the beginning: ("the music, you'll have to start it again... start it from the beginning"); the accident-prone George had to race into the adjoining room to readjust the phonograph record; once back in bed with her, she pulled his hair and then told him: "It's better if I'm on top"
• their sex escapade wasn't as dreamed however - her hair braids entangled him and entered his mouth, and the phonograph record began to annoyingly skip: ("It's stuck --- the record"); and then in the midst of everything, they were interrupted by a phone call from David; after the call, she readjusted the phonograph player in the living room herself
• when she returned to bed, he asked point-blank and questioned her: "Why me?...Tonight, me, this"; she answered non-chalantly: "Why not?"; she was not bothered by David's phone call, and showed no regret or care about her adulterous behavior on her honeymoon; he considered that she might have regarded him as more than just "a casual lay," but he was wrong about his feelings about her: "I thought you were something different, something special"; she defensively responded that she could be in a casual open-relationship with everyone:
  • "I am. As far as I'm concerned, I'm very special. If I feel like sleeping with someone, I do it because I want to. I enjoy it. It pleases me"
• he lost interest in the thrill of forbidden desires and told her:
  • "Look, there's nothing wrong with people being happy; but, there's more to life than turning on and screwing to Ravel's 'Bolero'"
• she thought that she wasn't the "problem" and that he shouldn't try to solve any perceived problems that he thought she possessed; as he hurriedly dressed to leave, she told him to turn off the record player
• George returned to Beverly Hills and attempted to visit Samantha in her home, but she was preparing for a dinner date with a colleague, Bernie Kaufman (Lorry Goldman); George phoned his partner Hugh, who sadly nformed him that he was breaking up with his boyfriend Larry; in George's case, however, Hugh recommended that he 'fight' to get Samantha back ("Don't lose that lady")
• later in the evening at his own home, as George was playing the song: "It's Easy to Say" on the piano, Samantha drove up, entered and joined him for a duet; he even asked her to marry him: ("Do you want to get married?") - she declined, although stipulated that she might if they argued less and made love more; she added that she would think about it; with their curtain open, the Neighbor was viewing them from his own telescope with a scantily-clad female ('Rapunzel') next to him - he shouted out a complaint about how boring they were in the bedroom before he walked off:
  • "I've had it. That's it George! For one year now, I've been providing X-rated entertainment and you reciprocate with PG! It's an iniquitous arrangement!...I show him mine, he don't show me his. Come on, Rapunzel. From now on, we do it in the dark."
• viewed through the Neighbor's unattended telescope, George (off-screen) put Ravel's 'Bolero' on his phonograph player, and then began to slowly unbutton Samantha's blouse and suggest (non-verbally) that they retreat to the bedroom - or instead hastily make love on the floor; the credits began to scroll upwards