LINDA LOVELACE, SECRET AGENT (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

Before I knew the alternate title of this dopey spy comedy, my main comment was going to be that it was about the *softest* softcore film I'd ever seen, given that it displays only scattered scenes of upper-body nudity, while the simulated sex scenes are as off limits as they would be in a Doris Day film.

And then I found out that LOVELACE was originally marketed as DEEP THROAT II, making it a cash-in on the famous hardcore sex film, which also starred the titular Miss Lovelace. It's even weirder that unlike the original THROAT, this extremely tame flick was directed by another big name in both hard-and-soft sex flicks, Joe Sarno. 

There's no doubt in my mind as to how this movie came about. DEEP THROAT began to make big money, and so distributors wanted a follow-up, tout suite. So some producer gave Sarno a few thousand dollars and a week to churn something out. I won't pretend that a lot of the sexploitation movies of the sixties and seventies were produced under much better conditions. Yet in my review of a 1966 spy-sex comedy, THE GIRL FROM SIN, I remarked that it at least had a rough plot, which LOVELACE does not.

Nurse Lovelace (guess who) works in the office of sex therapist Doctor Jayson (Harry Reems, the only other graduate of the previous THROAT job). When Lovelace and Jayson aren't getting it on with each other and with the receptionist (Tina Russell, another big name in seventies hardcore), the nurse administers tender loving care to all male patients while the doctor takes all the females. The sex clinic becomes the focus of various American and Russian agents because Dilbert, one of the male patients, is employed by the American government. The Americans ask the nurse to be their "inside girl," while the Russians prowl around, not doing much of anything. Chris Jordan plays a sort-of Natasha Fatale type who threatens Nurse Lovelace with a knife and whacks Jayson in the balls.

Most sexploitation flicks have a vaudeville-like structure, with just one aimless gag after another, and LOVELACE is the same, but with a lot fewer nude scenes. In one nonsense-scene, an American spy follows the Russians to a scrap-yard, hides in an old car in order to listen to them, and then a crane tosses the car and its occupant into a crusher. The crushed car emerges with the spy's head poking out, just like in a Jerry Lewis film, but a dozen times less funny. There's also a silly pie fight at the end, and it doesn't even use any double entendres.

Sarno does work in one slightly nasty touch. Dilbert lives with his aunt (Russell in a granny-getup). Nurse Lovelace thinks Dilbert's got an Oedipal problem that inhibits his sexual activity, so her solution is to dress up like his aunt and encourage Dilbert to rape her. I guess that's why they call her "therapist."

Aside from the dubious fantasy-sequence of the agent surviving the crusher, the only metaphenomenal content is that Dilbert works on a supercomputer with the capacity to assimilate new levels of information, which makes said computer a "diabolical device," albeit a really dull one. Two other names in the cast are Jamie Gillis, another hardcore veteran, and (in a tiny role) Judy Tenuta, who went on to become a mainstream comedienne.