A Destiny Of Her Own

It tells of a 16 th century high class prostitute or courtesan in Venice called Veronica who's charms were so strong that Venice was saved by her successfully bedding the visiting French King!

The Venicians needed the French navy to help fight off the Turks and he was so pleased by her efforts that he immediately wrote the cheque.

She then escapes death at the hands of the Inquisition by convincing the wives of her clients in a rowdy, very nasty trial that she had struck a blow for all women by screwing their husbands! An unlikely scenario today,let alone indeed in 17th Century Europe!

Hollywood can add all sorts of bells and whistles, in this case rapturous applause from her former enemies (in concert with swelling orchestral music) as the argument turned, but surely not many of you will be able to buy this particular pivotal scene.

In plague ridden Venice this woman would have surely burnt, as horrible as that would have been.

But A Destiny Of Her Own does have its attractions. For those of you who enjoy romance, soft lenses, warm lights and loving looks then this film might sate you a little, if you like your films pretty and predictable.

Not much blood is spilt, at least not on screen. (If you're happy to ignore the many thousand of plague victims the last reel of the film uses for dramatic tension.)

The screwed up religiosity of the Inquisition gets a bit of a serve. "No biblical hell could be worse than a state of perpetual inconsequence,'' is just one of a number of pretty tasty lines delivered in a film that takes some delight in verbal sparring.

But on the other hand, an otherwise good looking movie is spoilt by a number of obviously fake panoramas which are meant to be old time Venice.

The whore Katherine is played with some verve by Catherine McCormack; Braveheart's wife (before her throat was slashed) in Mel Gibson's film. Her loved one in A Destiny Of Her Own is played by Cold Comfort Farm's big eyed, curly haired Rufus Sewell.

The still lovely Jacqueline Billet plays Katherine's mother, who when she was young enough was also a courtesan. Much is made of the fact that for these women being a courtesan was a very attractive career choice.

These women, being the playthings of the rich, were often highly educated, could become powerful in politics and certainly materially much better off than women who weren't highly born.