“Alan, would you light my Bunsen burner?”

Drake’s rating: Sunk Cost Fallacy: The Motion Picture

Drake’s review: So there are times when you’re scrolling through movies and one catches your eye based on the talent involved. So it was with Joy of Sex. The name was familiar enough, having been the title of a best-selling book in the ‘70s, but the fact that it was directed by Martha Coolidge had me hitting the play button on my remote. Coolidge, after all, was the director who brought both Valley Girl and Real Genius to the big screen, and finding an unseen movie of hers smack-dab in the middle of those films had me instantly curious.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really a Martha Coolidge movie. This is the corpse of a Martha Coolidge movie, having been strangled to death by the studio and cut into pieces by the editors, its decaying cadaver then reassembled in haphazard fashion by the producers. And while that might sound a bit hyperbolic, it’s actually a pretty fair summation of the events involved in the making of this film.

As I said before, The Joy of Sex was an incredibly popular manual written by Alex Comfort, landing at the top of best-seller lists in the early 1970s. It was so popular that Paramount Pictures spent a boatload of money to acquire the rights to the book, convinced that the title was a surefire ticket seller. Then came the attempts at actually producing the film, which started with a screenplay by Charles Grodin, which was ultimately rejected, and a later script by John Hughes which was slated to have been Penny Marshall’s directorial debut. Needless to say, this project fell through as well.

Finally, with the rights close to expiring, Paramount rushed the film into production. Hiring Coolidge due to the success of Valley Girl, she was given a 20-day shooting schedule to bring in the film. Unhappy with the movie she shot, the studio removed Coolidge from the film and re-cut it. In the words of the director herself, “They had thought they were going to get a Porky’s,” and that simply wasn’t the type of film she was ever going to deliver.

So what ended up on the screen? A real mess, quite honestly. Leslie (Michelle Meyrink, Real Genius) is a high school hypochondriac who’s convinced she’s going to die and doesn’t want to leave the mortal coil a virgin. Alan (Cameron Dye, Valley Girl) is a fellow high schooler, a fellow virgin and…

Look, you all know where this is going. But before we get there we’re subjected to 90 minutes of unfunny schlock that even the background actors look embarrassed to be a part of, and wasted performances by Colleen Camp, Christopher Lloyd, and Ernie Hudson.

Once or twice you can see, in the film’s dingy periphery, the shadow of the movie Coolidge was trying to make, and you wonder if something worthwhile is about to happen. But then a smash cut to yet another attempt at juvenile humor slaps you in the face with a rotting fish and you’re brought back to the sad reality that is Joy of Sex. It’s not a romantic-comedy, it’s not a teen movie, it’s not even a T&A exploitation flick. It’s just a reminder that some movies are better left unmade.

Intermission!

• According to Coolidge, the film’s budget was “minuscule.” The reported budget was some $5 million but none of that shows up on the screen. I’m guessing that the overall reported budget included the book rights, all of the previous attempts to make the film, a mountain of cocaine and John Belushi.
• Oh, right. Yes, John Belushi was supposed to appear in Joy of Sex because the studio wanted him wearing a diaper on the poster. Look, I really have no idea what they were thinking, either. The mountain of cocaine probably impeded any rational decision making.
• So how bad is this film, really? Well, it was originally supposed to be called National Lampoon’s Joy of Sex, but National Lampoon paid Paramount a reported $250,000 to have its name removed from the film. That’s right, the publication responsible for National Lampoon’s Class Reunion and National Lampoon’s Movie Madness did not want their name associated with Joy of Sex.
• The movie did limp onto VHS at some point in the ‘80s, but has never received a DVD release. If you’re waiting for the deluxe Criterion Blu-ray treatment, you probably don’t want to hold your breath.