A PAIN IN THE NECK

In 1987, some idiot thought it would be a good idea to make a film of the first ‘Gor’ novel, not least because it would give them the opportunity go to Mauritius and film lots of attractive girls in very small bikinis fighting each other. 

The finished product bears very little relation to the source material, which we would have had no problem with if the film makers had something better in mind but, clearly, they didn’t. At least if it had been a straight adaptation it would have appealed to the sort of people who take their girlfriends into butcher shops on a dog leash, but, as it is, it appeals to no-one, except maybe people who are so ironic they don’t know up from down anymore. We need not linger on the film, as us watching it in the first place was more than it deserved. Let’s get to the interesting part… 

In a move that could have been described as a coup if he hadn’t already prostituted his art a thousand times by this stage, the producers signed up the magnificent Oliver Reed to star as an evil tyrant King. Reed, looking weary and still sporting the ginger hair and beard he wore in ‘Castaway’, gives a broad but still interesting performance. 

He plays the King as a spoiled brat in a brutish body, a nasty bully who, like a Caligula or Heliogabalus, giggles like a naughty little boy as people are put to death in horrible ways. The rest of his day is spent glowering and bristling at the sheer injustice of the world not being exactly as he wants it at all times and you can see in his eyes that he is going to have to be very spiteful to somebody in order to make up for it. 

We know that at acting school they teach deportment and diction and fencing, but we’re not sure if they cover ‘getting an arrow through your neck’. No matter, Ollie is on hand to provide a master class on the subject. 

Oliver Reed is the sole reason that this rubbish is remotely watchable, as he so often was. We miss him a lot. There was a sequel made, but Reed wasn’t in it (arrow in neck related), so FUCK IT.

THE ENDLESSNESS OF GOR

Since 1966, American academic Dr John Lange (writing under the name of John Norman) has published thirty fucking three novels set in a parallel universe on a 'counter-Earth' called Gor. 

Gor has been seeded with people, most of them abductees, by a technologically superior insectoid master race who allow their pets / prisoners advancements in some areas (medicine, farming, architecture) but keep strict controls over the elements that could lead to their overthrow as rulers (transport, weapons, communications). The resulting world is a strange hybrid of science fiction and ancient history, a place of sandals, slaves and space ships, a mythical dystopia permanently under the scrutiny of detached but jealous alien grasshopper Gods.

As you might expect from thousands upon thousands of accumulated pages, the fictional world of Gor is extremely involved, with every aspect of their geography, plant and animal life, society, law and infrastructure documented in often mind-numbing detail. The stories themselves tend to be a mixture of cosmic space opera, war, romance, philosophy, local politics, racism and phallocentric wish fulfilment, endlessly narrated by a number of different voices across many, many, many years.

Most controversially, the novels espouse a master/servant dynamic between the sexes, with women subservient to men in all regards, particularly sexually. The books themselves are often erotic in nature, assuming, of course. that you find slavery, misogynistic violence and rape erotic. 

A lot of people do, it seems, as a Gorean subculture has developed around Norman’s teachings, with several thousand followers in the so-called real world, including a small group operating out of a semi in Darlington. ‘The Master’ of this particular household is banned from the local Butchers for leading a young lady around on a dog leash. 

Norman further cashed in on his reputation as a bit of a shagger by publishing an ‘Imaginative Sex’ guide, naturally with an emphasis on the female slaves doing exactly want their male masters want. 53 detailed scenarios for sensual fantasies? On a once a month basis, that’s going to take ages! The scan isn’t ours, by the way: TOMTIT have dangerously low standards, but even we draw the line at second hand sex manuals. 

Since 2001, the changing attitudes of publishers and the public towards the glorification of sexual assault have meant that Norman’s Gor books have effectively been self-published, most recently as e-books. On paper or i-pad, however, they still manage to do the difficult job of being both offensive and boring, and for that, and his relentless devotion to this pointless cause, and his chauvinistic fuck book, we half-heartedly salute him. 

Oh, they also made a couple of 'Gor' films. Oliver Reed is in one of them. You can guess what's coming next, no doubt.