A-SSM-icon

The world of the exploita­tion film has a cer­tain kin­ship with the world of pornog­ra­phy.  Both spent the 1970’s as out­laws of the enter­tain­ment busi­ness, qui­etly mak­ing their prof­its in the mar­gins by sup­ply­ing view­ers with a thrill that tele­vi­sion and main­stream the­aters couldn’t deliver.  In fact, cer­tain actors moved back and forth between the two worlds in their attempts to max­i­mize their small-time profit poten­tial — and some of the sex­ier exploita­tion items had a hard­core vari­ant that would pick up some extra prof­its at the rain­coat theaters.

This crossover led to some fas­ci­nat­ing curios dur­ing the early 1970’s that blurred the lines between exploita­tion film and porn.  This was often done by film­mak­ers who would try to increase their the­atri­cal reach by dis­guis­ing their porn in the form of a pseudo-documentary.  This would give them a cer­tain “artis­tic merit” cre­dence that they could use if they got into trou­ble with anti-porn laws.  The end results were often deli­ciously bizarre in their attempts to simul­ta­ne­ously edu­cate and titillate.

A per­fect exam­ple is Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret Of Marijuana, a head-turning cock­tail of marijuana-minded “facts” and lite-hardcore schtup­ping.  It presents itself to the viewer as a chron­i­cle of little-known infor­ma­tion about the title drug, lay­er­ing nar­ra­tion in the vein of an class­room edu­ca­tion film over a com­bi­na­tion of footage from old movies, still pho­tos and the occa­sional ‘man on the street’ inter­view.  The lat­ter of those three ele­ments offers the most enter­tain­ment dur­ing these seg­ments, includ­ing a sur­prise appear­ance by little-person actor Billy Curtis, who offers a funny tale about the one time he got stoned.

However, the real sell­ing point of the film is a series of hilar­i­ous yet horny “recre­ations” of tes­ti­mony about the sex­u­ally stim­u­lat­ing prop­er­ties of mar­i­juana.  We get a tale of a fic­tion writer (Sandy Dempsey) expe­ri­enc­ing wild orgasms after smok­ing pot for the first time, a hus­band who un-freezes his frigid wife’s libido by slip­ping her some pot-laced cook­ies and a cam­pus rev­o­lu­tion­ary (Eve Orlon) who has her first inter­ra­cial sex after turn­ing on.  There’s also a busi­ness­man (a pre-porn star­dom John Holmes!) who learns the secret of ten­der love­mak­ing after his sec­re­tary passes him a joint.  Each of these scenes cul­mi­nates in bump­ing and grind­ing of the early 1970’s vari­ety: in other words, short-ish sex scenes with min­i­mal gyne­co­log­i­cal close-ups and max­i­mum pubic hair.

The recre­ations offer the most fun, each of them hing­ing upon broad act­ing of endear­ingly ludi­crous sto­ry­lines.  It’s very amus­ing to see Holmes before his perm-and-porn-mustache Johnny Wadd days, slick­ing down his hair and soberly con­fess­ing his sex­ual hangups in a suit and tie.  Sleaze fans will find it dif­fi­cult to keep from chuck­ling when Holmes’ con­fes­sion that he used a wham-bam sex style to “pun­ish” his female part­ners with his famously mas­sive mem­ber (some porn star­lets would say said mam­moth mem­ber was a pun­ish­ment at any speed).  However, it’s Sandy Dempsey who gets the best line when she says: “Mari­juana is the great­est sex­ual stim­u­lant since they invented the twelve-inch penis — and a hell of a lot eas­ier to find.” The fact that she’s wear­ing a ridicu­lous thrift-store wig when say­ing this only increases the moment’s sleazy charm.

Simply put, Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret Of Marijuana is a per­fect choice for view­ers who embrace both the sleaze and the weird­ness of 1970’s exploita­tion filmmaking.