Our Rating:
Year Released: 1994
Studio: Savoy Pictures
Director: Garry Marshall
Writing Credits: Anne Rice (novel), Deborah Amelon (screenplay)
Awards (if any): 1995 Razzie Awards for Worst Supporting Actress to Rosie O'Donnell
Nominated for Razzie as Worst Supporting Actor: Dan Aykroyd
Principal Actors: Dana Delany, Rosie O'Donnell, Dan Aykroyd, Paul Mercurio

Comedy?, 1130 min, MPAA Rating: R, Color, Available on videocassette and DVD

Exit to Eden originally was published as a novel by Anne Rice under the pen name Anne Rampling. The novel explores the subject of BDSM in romance novel form, as seen through the narratives of the head Mistress and her male slave.

Lisa Kelly manages an isolated BDSM resort called The Club that offers its high-end clients an exclusive setting in which they can experience the life of a Master or Mistress. Other guests come to the island to act as willing sex slaves and performing other demeaning tasks at the hands of the Dominant Class.

While this infamous movie started out as a serious drama, after it was finished, legend has it the studio was so nervous about its glorification of "S&M" and Domination that it ordered the film re-written and re-shot as a "fish-out-of-water" buddy movie. Only about a half hour of the original film remains in the final product, so what could have been an interesting sexual fantasy turned into one of the worst movies of the decade.

As released, the plot follows Elliot Slater (Mercurio), a young and sexually repressed photographer who inadvertently snaps pictures of a pair of diamond smugglers at work. The smugglers follow him to the island, where they try to retrieve the film. Hot on everyone's tail, er, trail, are bumbling undercover cops Sheila Kingston (Rosie O'Donnell) and Fred Lavery (Dan Aykroyd) who need to blend in with the other guests to catch their man.

Dana Delany (fresh off her hit TV series, China Beach) plays Mistress Lisa, the leader of the island. Elliot blows his cover as he becomes smitten with Mistress Lisa and the chase begins.

Most of the island's guests are seen throughout the movie in various stages of dress and undress. Delany herself has a spectacular full-frontal moment getting out of the resort pool. All that is erased by the image of O'Donnell in full leather and whip chasing the bad guys through the halls with a thoroughly self-conscious Aykroyd attempting to remain modest bringing up the, er, rear.

Best laugh - O'Donnell: We're the only two people on this island without handcuffs.
Worst laugh - There are no other laughs.

Watch for the Continuity Goof: The morning after Lisa spends the night with Elliot, she is sitting on her balcony drinking tea. She puts down the tea cup, then a moment later it jumps back into her hand.

When the film was originally released on October 14, 1994 in North America, it was banned in, and only in, the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. When asked in an interview about it Dan Aykroyd quipped; "I guess they just don't have sex in Saskatchewan."

Rice publicly disassociated herself from the finishd production, and no doubt Director Garry Marshall no doubt would like to retrieve every print of this movie and burn them.

We recommend you rent the movie if just to see how bad some good actors (and the director) can be if they really try hard enough.