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Released by: After Hours Cinema
Released on: September 4, 2007.
Director: Joe Sarno
Cast: Harry Reems, Tina Russell, Mark Stevens
Year: 1974
Purchase From TLA VIDEO
The Movie:
Joe Sarno's 1974 hardcore sex comedy, A Touch Of Genie, follows the exploits of a nerdy Jewish guy named Melvin Finklefarb (Doug Stone) who is supposed to be running his second hand store in Manhattan but is far more interested in checking out the action at the nearby porno theaters than keeping his business going. While this upsets his mother (Ultramax) greatly, his life turns around when he winds up, completely by chance, discovering a bottle with a magic genie inside… which her jerks off into. The genie, named Amara (beautiful Sarno regular Chris Jordan using the alias Karen Craig), comes out and as genie's are apt to do, she offers Melvin five wishes.
So what does Melvin wish for? Surprise, surprise - he wants to be able to become his favorite porn stars so that he can live out all the action he's been watching with such dedication in the theaters all this time. What Melvin doesn't realize, while he's 'becoming' porn stars and screwing porn starlets, is that the woman he's longed for all this time may be closer than he realizes. Will Melvin find true love or is he destined to hang out in dirty porno theaters wearing a fake moustache and a raincoat for the rest of his life?
Featuring cameos from an interesting array of New York City's finest adult performers including Harry Reems, Tina Russell, Mark Stevens, Levi Richards, Eric Edwards, Sandy Foxx and Lynn Stevens among others, Sarno's film is a fairly subversive XXX'er that works far better than it probably has any right to. The film basically combines the type of Jewish humor that comedians like Jackie Mason made popular in their day with the traditional genie/wishes story and works it into the whole 'film within a film' concept. Doug Stone as Melvin never engages in any of the hardcore action, he simply turns into one of the male stars and gets his rocks off that way. With that said, Stone is pretty funny in the part, hamming it up to the point where it feels like he walked out of a high school play or something and really letting his geeky side take over. We like Melvin enough, though, that we not only want him to get laid but we want him to find love as well - how can you not feel at least a little bit for the poor guy?
His overbearing mother, however, is the real star of the show. Played incredibly well by Ultramax, best known for appearing in mid-seventies classics like Dominatrix Without Mercy, Through The Looking Glass and immortalized as Marc Stevens' mother in Shaun Costello's Joe Rock Superstar, she really gets into her role here. Playing to Jewish clichés without ever getting nasty about it, she's not only sexy in an odd sort of way but she's absolutely hilarious in the part. Between her performance here and Harry Reems basically just playing Harry Reems, there are some pretty effective gags, some playful sexual humor and some surprisingly hot sex scenes all of which work together well enough to make A Touch Of Genie one worth watching and a film that proves (more so than Deep Throat 2!) that Sarno actually had a knack for comedy.
Video/Audio/Extras:
A Touch Of Genie is presented in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen in a transfer taken from an aged print (the only known one in existence!) that shows some wear but which is perfectly watchable. Expect some minor print damage throughout and some color fading but none of it really takes away from the film at all.
The Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack, in English of course, is on par with the video in that there's some hiss here and there and the occasional pop but dialogue is properly balanced and easy enough to understand. This mix isn't fancy, but it gets the job done.
Extras are impressive, starting with an interview with Joe Sarno and Doug Stone who discuss how this odd project came to be, why various actors were cast in the roles they wound up in, and what it was like working on the picture. Complimenting this nicely is a quick look at a 2007 theatrical screening of the movie that took place in New York City. Rounding out the extras on the first disc is a collection of trailers for other Joe Sarno films available through After Hours Cinema, menus and chapter stops.
The second disc in the set contains a pair of 'genie porn' bonus movies, the first of which is The Swinging Genie, a film that tells the tale of a guy named Marsh (Keith Erickson), a pothead who has the luck of receiving a surprise visit from a big fat genie who appears out of his pot smoke. This genie then proceeds to grant Marsh every sexual experience he could ask for. The second bonus feature film is Genie's Magic Box which is an utterly bizarre film in which a scientist uses a genie to bring historically important women into the modern day so that the ladies can bang various guys. Helen of Troy, Lady Godiva and a few others show up here to do the dirty deed. The liner notes state that music had to be changed to avoid copyright problems, but you can still see some amusing stuff in the backgrounds of this one including a sweet vintage Mick Jagger poster on the walls of one room.
Wait, liner notes? Yep. Michael Bowen and 'The After Hours Collector' team up to provide some welcome background information the A Touch Of Genie and it's cast and crew as well as whatever information they can on the two other genie porno movies included in this set. A nice touch!
The Final Word:
Those familiar only with Sarno's more serious side might be baffled by this one but there's a lot to like about A Touch Of Genie, from Tina Russell's scintillating performance to Reems' hilarious supporting role. After Hours has done a nice job unearthing this one and giving it a surprisingly lavish DVD debut.
