Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Time to Love (1971)

I always say that to see Deep Throat as a masterpiece of the adult cinema  and one of the first of its kind with a story is an insult. It suffices to think of films like Mona: The Virgin Nymph, .. Love You To Death, The Morning After, The Debauchers or the one reviewed today to see that Deep Throat has been first in nothing. I confess I hate this movie as you will see frequently in my writings. Time to Love is a film with a story, of course it is not the most complex ever written, but we do not feel like watching an excuse to show scenes of sex. The story begins with a meeting of former university students where Ned (Howard Blakey) and John (Harry Reems), two good friends, remembers their past. John is a steady man with a wife (Tina Russell) and two young children, while Ned taking advantage of the many trips he made for his journalist job collects the female conquests. These trips are illustrated with an abundance of stock footage giving an impression of movement. It is interesting to note that this movie uses almost no cum shot (there is one) and some scenes are very quick. It is also worth noting that this film like most of the production of that time did not credit the actors (only Reems and Blakey are), but it is not that difficult to recognize some of them like Jutta David (the first victim in Forced Entry) Jean Parker (the disapeared sister in The Morning After), Patrick Wright (the Alaina Capri's lover in Good Morning ... and Goodbye!) or Tallie Cochrane (the escapee leader in Fugitive Girls) ... but I must confess that I do not recognize any of the others actors. This film is a perfect example of the early golden age productions with an ambience more erotic than pornographic, just wait for the love scene between the couple played by Reems and Russell and you will understand. We even have a pro-ecology speech at the end (the good old socially redeeming value) and you can also recognize the theme song from Bad Girls Go to Hell.

This film is available on the website of Video-X-Pix.

2 comments:

  1. Good review, and great blog. I share your hatred for Deep Throat

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  2. This movie is a must-see for Reems fans, as it's at the very beginning of his career. Really good movie and a valuable record of NYC at the end of the 1960's. On a side note, I fully agree with your opinion of "Deep Throat;* it's a poorly made flick with ugly sex scenes, and I could never figure why that particular adult film gets all the attention when there are movies like *Through the Looking Glass,* *Story of Joanna,* *Every Inch A Lady* etc, that are so much better..

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