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Released by: Impulse Pictures
Released on: 3/8/2011
Director: Dennis Van Zak
Cast: John Holmes, Fiorello LaGuardia, Harry J. Anslinger, Suzanne Fields
Year: 1971
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The Movie:
Made in 1971 by a mysterious writer/director known as Dennis Van Zak, Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret Of Marijuana purports to be a factual documentary presented with the intent of showcasing the sexual benefits of smoking pot. It's about as unbiased as a Cheech & Chong movie and it does play a little fast and loose with some of the facts and stats it presents, but if nothing else it's a wildly entertaining picture that'll absolutely delight fans of oddball drug films and sexploitation.
After an introduction gives us a brief history of the importance of hemp and marijuana smoking (noting that hash was harvested in India by having naked men run through 'wet' crops to then have the oil scraped off of their bodies!) we lay witness to a few different sexual scenarios in which pot comes into play. In the first, a woman meets a man at a party - they head to his car where she tries to give him a blowjob, but he just can't get it up because he's had too much booze. This contrasts with a different party where more sophisticated types are hanging out. A different woman meets a different man and, after partaking, they proceed to have very productive sex on the couch of a fancy room.
From there we meet a married couple who, through the miracle of the filmed flashback, demonstrate who pot saved their marriage. You see, she refused to have sex with him before getting married, which made their wedding night a pretty tense ordeal. We know this because we see her cower beneath the covers as he approaches her with the intention of mounting her. At any rate, their sex life was horrible until they decided to celebrate their one year anniversary at the same hotel they spent their wedding night at. At this point, the loving husband gives his blushing bride a cookie laced with pot on the advice of his shrink. She eats it, completely unaware that it's laced, and then proceeds to tease him with a sexy dance before they then proceed to engage in 'every position imaginable' (which is really just mostly missionary style humping and pumping).
After this, we catch up with the late, great, John C. Holmes, a frustrated businessman who never knew the hours of boning for hours at a time (his words, not mine) until his secretary introduced him to weed. Cut to Holmes toiling away and looking grumpy in a wood paneled office while a moderately attractive secretary decides it's time to chill him out by rolling a spliff. They spark it up and after a few puffs Holmes has got his freaky wang out and has her bent over the desk. They go at it and apparently have a great time, all thanks to pot. The fourth vignette introduces us to a pretty college girl who met a black dude at a protest - she was protesting war and he was protesting smog and since no one seemed all that interested in joining their efforts to better the world, they decided to head to the woods behind the campus and smoke some dope. A few puffs later and she's got his dong in her mouth and they then proceed to go at it like rabbits in the spring. Her narration describes him as 'chocolate' and 'candy' and at one point she proclaims her excitement over having her 'first black.'
Spliced into these four scenes are all manner of bizarre interludes. We watch a bunch of hippies have an 'experience' together as they get naked under the tutelage of a leader who instructs them to touch one another and are then told by the narrator that this would have been far more effective had they all been stoned. There's a bunch of 'man on the street' style interviews done, some involving senior citizens, others involving younger people and the best one involving a cranky midget who has his cheek pinched by some random passerby. There's also some great historical footage of the likes of Fiorello LaGuardia, Harry J. Anslinger, cavemen and George Washington (reenactments, the last two) worked into the mix to try and play up the educational slant of this picture. It all wraps up with the footage of Lee Harvey Oswald being assassinated, something we're lead to believe could have been avoided had Jack Ruby been high?
Just barely hardcore (though this is definitely uncut when compared to the short version that was included on Something Weird's Alice In Acidland DVD), the sex in the film isn't particularly hot, though to Holmes' credit he does at least get his female co-star into things during their scene and the interracial final fuckfest at least seems natural enough rather than forced like the earlier ones. This truly screwy film flips back and forth between wanting to be a somewhat serious take on the use of weed to spice up one's sex life and a condemnation of the evils of caffeine, nicotine and alcohol in comparison and a raunchy sex film but doesn't really do a good job at either. It is a fascinating picture, however, full of head scratchingly odd narration, bad dialogue, strangely skewed socio-political leanings and hairy sex.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The film is presented in a 1.33.1 fullframe transfer which appears to be the proper aspect ratio for the picture. The elements used for the transfer obviously weren't in very good shape nor have they been particularly well restored so expect to see all manner of scratches and jumps as the movie plays out. Colors are sometimes a bit faded and there's quite a bit of wear and tear here. That said, there aren't any problems with compression artifacts or edge enhancement - just imagine you're watching this in your weird friend's basement run through a projector, it kind of gives off that vibe.
The audio is on par with the video - the dialogue is easy enough to understand but those jumps and scratches occasionally do wreak some havoc and result in chopped words here and there. Hiss and pops are present throughout but for the most part the dialogue is easy enough to understand and the score sounds fine. No alternate language dubs or subtitles of any kind are supplied.
The disc has a static menu that offers up chapter selection but not actual extras of any kind.
The Final Word:
A completely wacky and frequently unintentionally hilarious look at early seventies drug culture and a bad sex film all wrapped up into one fantastic package, Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret Of Marijuana may not look or sound great here but it's definitely uncut and ripe for rediscovery.
This movie sounds train wreckingly awesome. I need to see the cavemen re-enactment.