Pornography is designed to stimulate the viewer and appeal to prurient interests. It doesn't matter if the filmmaker is cynical about it (Wishman) or serious (Sarno), but in this odd feature journeyman filmmaker Sidney Knight, whose oeuvre straddles both soft and hardcore sex cinema, tried to make it more interesting by tackling a serious subject, with decidedly mixed results.
Making it work is the casting of husband/wife team Patrick & Tally Wright. They portray Peter & Rita, a Vietnam era couple coping with his post-traumatic stress disorder. Today one would expect Viagra as the probable cure for his problem: he can get it up but as a "white coater" doctor explains at length midway through the film, he cannot maintain an erection, for some psychological rather than physical reason.
The duo try numerous positions, recalling their coterminous appearance together in the fake-documentary SEXUAL PRACTICES IN Sweden, then invite over a pair of swingers for some swapping plus a lesbian display, all in vain. Peter has bought a porn magazine featuring split-beaver closeups in an effort to stimulate himself, and has an encounter with a fake-blonde hooker who boasts "I've never failed before" but does in his case.
Finally making a connection with his Vietnam experience, where he smoked pot and did not have the sexual problem with a couple of liaisons there, Rita suggests they smoke pot. A shipment of Acapulco Gold is delivered by Pepper, an obviously no-talent non-actress, cueing the film's fairly controversial "climax": Peter and Rita decide that raping the girl will solve his problems, and this being a porn film the stratagem actually works, with Rita holding her down as Peter succeeds. Then Rita casts Pepper aside and takes over with her husband for a happy "cured" ending.
Along the way there are frank, and frankly distasteful, discussions of the Vietnam War and its effects. The AFI Film Catalog: 1961-1970 lists this as a 1969 film, but gives no verified release date, so IMDb's use of 1971 is perhaps correct; from the level of explicitness: female frontal nudity, split beaver closeups and the "hidden by hands" fellatio techniques I would guess at 1970 being the best guess. In context it doesn't sit well when the cast at a swinging session comments about the soldiers who died -poor taste. But on the other hand, here at least is a nearly all-sex format porn opus that actually is about something.
Tally's effortless performance, handling her semi-improvised dialog with an apparently real Southern drawl, carries the film, as hubby Patrick is overly constrained by the "wimp" role, at great odds with his better macho man performances for Russ Meyer.
Making it work is the casting of husband/wife team Patrick & Tally Wright. They portray Peter & Rita, a Vietnam era couple coping with his post-traumatic stress disorder. Today one would expect Viagra as the probable cure for his problem: he can get it up but as a "white coater" doctor explains at length midway through the film, he cannot maintain an erection, for some psychological rather than physical reason.
The duo try numerous positions, recalling their coterminous appearance together in the fake-documentary SEXUAL PRACTICES IN Sweden, then invite over a pair of swingers for some swapping plus a lesbian display, all in vain. Peter has bought a porn magazine featuring split-beaver closeups in an effort to stimulate himself, and has an encounter with a fake-blonde hooker who boasts "I've never failed before" but does in his case.
Finally making a connection with his Vietnam experience, where he smoked pot and did not have the sexual problem with a couple of liaisons there, Rita suggests they smoke pot. A shipment of Acapulco Gold is delivered by Pepper, an obviously no-talent non-actress, cueing the film's fairly controversial "climax": Peter and Rita decide that raping the girl will solve his problems, and this being a porn film the stratagem actually works, with Rita holding her down as Peter succeeds. Then Rita casts Pepper aside and takes over with her husband for a happy "cured" ending.
Along the way there are frank, and frankly distasteful, discussions of the Vietnam War and its effects. The AFI Film Catalog: 1961-1970 lists this as a 1969 film, but gives no verified release date, so IMDb's use of 1971 is perhaps correct; from the level of explicitness: female frontal nudity, split beaver closeups and the "hidden by hands" fellatio techniques I would guess at 1970 being the best guess. In context it doesn't sit well when the cast at a swinging session comments about the soldiers who died -poor taste. But on the other hand, here at least is a nearly all-sex format porn opus that actually is about something.
Tally's effortless performance, handling her semi-improvised dialog with an apparently real Southern drawl, carries the film, as hubby Patrick is overly constrained by the "wimp" role, at great odds with his better macho man performances for Russ Meyer.
