Marital Happiness (1972) Online

A companion film to the equally turgid "Sexual Understanding" feature, this instructional opus is a pure case of bait & switch: promising fans at the beginning of the '70s some actual sex scenes like the Danish imports were providing, but delivering deadly dull softcore sex simulation while a classical piano score plays over & over. This is drek on all levels, so naturally the SWV DVD-R is from a pristine print or negative.

A phony baloney actor portrays Dr. Morris Rosengarten, replete with ascot and pipe, as he reads from his notes a very boring text that sounds just like the one foisted in "Sexual Understanding". The cast of sex demonstrators also overlaps with that pic -they must have saved a buck by shooting these together (I can see the snake-oil advertising now: "The Matrix and Lord of the Rings of porn").

The actual documentary footage of the first reel is the most interesting: photos of African dudes with unbelievably long (and pointed skyward) schlongs; plus a montage of the usual explicit pottery, statuary and drawings from Roman, Greek and Victorian times, as well as their counterparts in India and Japan. Rosengarten's patter is extremely condescending, especially to Third World cultures, and the nonsensical appeal to our evolving "man-made moral code" vs. restrictive taboos is just the usual pornographer's Prime Directive. I am tired of hearing in all these white-coaters the old saw that our culture's morals and puritanical background are simply an outgrowth of an ancient prohibition against incest - this canard has grown tiresome.

Interviews with the soon-to-be performing subjects are totally asinine, and belong in some hippie-dippy time capsule. It isn't until 23 minutes have passed that the babes & their consorts start to get down for the camera, and what a boring spectacle they provide! We are treated to over 40 minutes of humping in dozens of positions, all coyly photographed from a discreet angle so that any hint of penetration or even the sight of a male organ on camera is verboten. Fans must have walked out on this one in droves -it's the sort of garbage that the "No Refunds" sign was invented for. Usually I can go out to the kitchen and make a ham sandwich while a longueur in a video like this unfolds, but in this case you have enough time to bake a cake.

Sure there are attractive women on display, including IMDb-identified Susan Landau. But watching them go through the motions endlessly is exactly as boring (but without the explicitness) as the millions of wall-to-wall made-in-the-21st-Century sex programs currently filling the video stores and clogging up the internet. Rent a Joe Sarno or Doris Wishman movie instead of suffering through this yawner.