The Stud

Like Dickens, Joan and Jackie Collins (the former starring in this adaptation of the latter's novel) offer a panoramic exposition of contemporary urban life, tracing the decline of stud Tony Blake (Tobias), from promising young disco manager and darling of lonely, beautiful women who treat him as a sex object, back to his East End origins, where he suddenly displays a three-day growth of beard and a new moral awareness. Joking and comparisons apart, this is a dreadful film. The dreary, awkward narrative seems largely dependent on the locations they could get - disco, swimming pool, lift. The script (by Jackie herself), permeated with an appalling and deep-rooted snobbery, contrives to be completely inaccurate and therefore offensive to every facet of the social structure, in a London that swings like a corpse at the end of a rope.