Turkish Delight (1973)
"Turks fruit" (original title)

Sort of a cross between "Love Story" and an earthy Rembrandt painting, this movie stars Rutger Hauer as a gifted Dutch sculptor who has a stormy, erotic, and star-crossed romance with a ... See full summary »

Director:

Paul Verhoeven

Writers:

Gerard Soeteman, Jan Wolkers (novel)

Stars:

Monique van de Ven, Rutger Hauer, Tonny Huurdeman

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Monique van de Ven	...	Olga Stapels
Rutger Hauer	...	Eric Vonk, the sculptor
Tonny Huurdeman	...	Olga's mother
Wim van den Brink	...	Olga's father
Hans Boskamp	...	Winkelchef
Dolf de Vries	...	Paul
Manfred de Graaf	...	Henny
Dick Scheffer	...	Accountant
Marjol Flore	...	Tineke
Bert Dijkstra	...	Civil servant
Bert André
Jon Bluming
Paul Brandenburg
Suze Broks	...	(as Suzie Broks)
David Conyers

Storyline

Sort of a cross between "Love Story" and an earthy Rembrandt painting, this movie stars Rutger Hauer as a gifted Dutch sculptor who has a stormy, erotic, and star-crossed romance with a beautiful young girl. The story follows the arc of their relationship and his interaction with her family. Told in flashback form, initially Hauer is seen as a libertine lothario collector, taking trophies from his sexual conquests and pasting them in a book. He sees a sculpture he made of his lost lover and goes into a flashback of his relationship with his wife. He meets the girl, falls in love with/marries her, and we meet her parents: a charming, well meaning, bumbling father, and his shrew of a wife, who's convinced Hauer's too much of a bohemian to make a good mate for her daughter. Eventually, the petty jealousies, the sexual hijinks, and the climactic vomit scene prove too much for the marriage, and sculptor and his lady fair separate. Flash forward several months, and Hauer finds the girl back...

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Plot Keywords:

love | sculptor | mirror | vomit | jealousy | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Netherlands

Language:

Dutch English

Release Date:

September 1974 (USA)

Also Known As:

Eric and Olga

Filming Locations:

Alkmaar, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Box Office

Budget:

NLG 800,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Verenigde Nederlandsche Filmcompagnie (VNF)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Monique van de Ven had her head completely shaved for this film.

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Goofs

The level of "poisoned" gin on the beach changes from high to low and back to high as scene changes.

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Quotes

Eric Vonk: I screw better than God.

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Connections

Featured in De wereld draait door: Episode #7.138 (2012)

User Reviews

A strong, vital Dutch lovestory

A relative of the earlier Lovestory (1970) - complete with sine qua non bittersweet denouement - Turkish Delight's dramatic device is a wrong-side-of-the-tracks match. Rutger Hauer's virile, semi-feral sculptor Erik falls for a similarly carefree Hippie in Monique van de Ven's Olga. Their unstoppable union has to negotiate the barely tacit disapproval of her bourgeois parents.

What's interesting here though is that Verhoeven takes great care to neither judge characters nor cast them as straightforward pro- or an-tagonists. The couple's raw youth is magnetic (there are a number of stunts patently performed without doubles) but their irreverence can occasionally be as awkward as it is entertaining. Similarly, the outwardly stuffy parents and their coterie have a (characteristically Dutch) tolerance for the brash, carefree couple. The heartrending close to the film comes not by cause of intractable opposition between the groups but as an example of their ultimate similarity despite it.

Verhoeven uses Speed director Jan de Bont as his DoP. Their collaboration is a feast of (meticulously framed) perpetual motion and zest, the very equal of Hauer's reeling id-boy. But it's not just a document of raucous youth getting it on. Verhoeven catches all the beauty and pathos of Dutch lovers caught in the post-60s cul-de-sac. 7/10