''Behind the Green Door'' is a 1972 American feature-length
pornographic film, widely considered one of the genre's "classic" pictures and one of the films that ushered in
The Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984).
[Williams, p. 299] Featuring
Marilyn Chambers, who became a mainstream celebrity, it was one of the first hardcore films widely released in the United States and the first feature-length film directed by the
Mitchell brothers
Brothers James Lloyd "Jim" Mitchell (November 30, 1943 in Stockton, California – July 12, 2007 in Petaluma, California) and Artie Jay Mitchell (December 17, 1945 in Lodi, California – February 27, 1991 in Marin County, California) were Amer ...
.
It was adapted from an anonymous short story of the same title, which was circulated by means of numerous
carbon copies. The story's title makes reference to the 1956 hit song "
Green Door
"The Green Door" (or "Green Door") is a 1956 popular song, with music composed by Bob "Hutch" Davie and lyrics by Marvin J. Moore. It was first recorded by Jim Lowe which reached number one on the US chart in 1956. The song has been covere ...
", whose lyrics describe being denied entry to a raucous nightclub with a green door.
Though she plays the film's central character, Chambers does not have a single word of dialogue in the entire film. The film is possibly the first U.S. feature-length heterosexual
hardcore
Hardcore, hard core or hard-core may refer to:
Arts and media Film
* ''Hardcore'' (1977 film), a British comedy film
* ''Hardcore'' (1979 film), an American crime drama film starring George C Scott
* ''Hardcore'' (2001 film), a British documen ...
film to include an
interracial sex scene.
Plot
A wealthy San Francisco socialite, Gloria Saunders (Chambers), is taken against her will to an elite North Beach sex club and loved "as she's never been loved before". There she engages in sex with a group of six women, all dressed in black, after being brought out wearing a white dress on stage through the green door.
The silent, largely masked audience become increasingly aroused
as her white dress is removed and she is stroked, kissed and given
cunnilingus
Cunnilingus is an oral sex act performed by a person on the vulva or vagina of another person. The clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of the human female genitalia, and its stimulation may result in a woman becoming sexually aroused ...
by the women. Her first heterosexual sex is with the
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
boxer
Johnnie Keyes, accompanied by a
funk soundtrack.
[Williams, p. 300] Over 45 minutes, he gives her more cunnilingus and then they have
sexual intercourse, while Gloria continues to be stroked by the other women. When she has an
orgasm
Orgasm (from Greek , ; "excitement, swelling") or sexual climax is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual excitement during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic, involuntary muscular contractions in the pelvic region chara ...
, the sex stops and he is not shown to ejaculate.
Gloria then mounts a trapeze contraption suspended from the ceiling and then engages in vaginal intercourse with one man as she performs oral sex on another and masturbates two others. The audience become further aroused and begin having sex with each other in what becomes an
orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party consisting of at least five members where guests freely engage in open and unrestrained sexual activity or group sex.
Swingers' parties do not always conform to this designation, because at many swin ...
. In a
psychedelic key sequence, an ejaculation is shown with
semen
Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is an organic bodily fluid created to contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize the female ovum. Sem ...
flying through the air for almost seven minutes. The film features several multicolored,
optically printed, slow-motion close-ups of
money shots.
[ This is the only ejaculation sequence in the film. The narrator then runs from the audience onto the stage and carries Gloria off through the green door.] The film ends with him and Gloria making love alone.
Impact
Several years after Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
seminal '' Blue Movie'' in 1969, and along with '' Deep Throat'', also released in 1972, ''Behind the Green Door'' helped launch the "Golden Age of Porn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2018/01#Another_Worthy_Journal_Article_on_Wordpress --->
The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American porno ...
" (1969–1984),[Williams, p. 320] and somewhat later, the "porno chic
Porno may refer to:
* Pornography, explicit depiction of sexual subject matter with principal intention of sexually exciting a viewer
**Pornographic magazine
**Pornographic film
* ''Porno'' (film), a 2019 American film
* ''Porno'' (novel), a 2 ...
" boom. Along with ''Deep Throat'', it was one of the first hardcore porn film to reach a mass mixed-sex audience. Prior to ''Behind the Green Door'', most of the Mitchell Brothers' 200 or so films had only been shown in their O'Farrell Theater. Made with a budget of $60,000, it achieved a nationwide theatrical release which earned over $1 million. The movie ultimately grossed over $50 million[Porn King Jim Mitchell Walks Out of Prison Today](_blank)
''San Francisco Chronicle,'' 3 October 1997 including its video release, which was controlled exclusively by the Mitchells out of their headquarters in the O'Farrell Theatre, San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
. It was the one of the biggest box office pornographic successes of the 1970s, alongside ''Deep Throat'' and ''The Devil in Miss Jones
''The Devil in Miss Jones'' is a 1973 pornographic film, written, directed and produced by Gerard Damiano and starring Georgina Spelvin and Harry Reems. It is widely regarded as a classic adult film, released during the Golden Age of Porn (19 ...
''. It was even screened at the Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
. After its release, organized crime figures used extortion in an attempt to obtain the rights to the film.
Chambers was relatively unknown at the time; however, the film made her a star. Immediately prior to the movie's release she had been the "Ivory soap girl", modeling for the Ivory Snow soap and detergent packaging holding a baby. The Mitchell brothers appropriated the brand's slogan "99 and 44/100% pure" to describe Chambers in press releases. After the release of the movie, the advertising industry was scandalized, and Procter & Gamble
The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...
recalled all products and advertising materials featuring Chambers, unintentionally adding to the movie's hype. Procter & Gamble subsequently required of all of their advertising agencies that they thoroughly screen the background of any female model employed for print advertisements or commercials. That Chambers's image was so well known from Ivory Snow boosted the film's ticket sales, and led to several jokes on television talk shows.
Critical reception
Upon its release, the film received some positive reviews in mainstream media. Roger Ebert of ''The Chicago Sun-Times'' gave the film a negative review, writing that despite Chambers's beauty the film's lack of character development and the focus on "proving how dirty it was" were major detractions.
According to writer Peter Michelson, there is "a relatively small corpus of pornographic films – e.g., '' Deep Throat'', ''The Devil in Miss Jones
''The Devil in Miss Jones'' is a 1973 pornographic film, written, directed and produced by Gerard Damiano and starring Georgina Spelvin and Harry Reems. It is widely regarded as a classic adult film, released during the Golden Age of Porn (19 ...
'', and ''Behind the Green Door'' – that have a minimal but still sufficient artistic interest to distinguish themselves from the rest of the genre", and the film is "more artful than most smut films". It was the second film to be inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame
The XRCO Hall of Fame lists well-known adult entertainment works and workers. The list is managed by X-Rated Critics Organization and inducted annually during the XRCO Award
The XRCO Awards are given by the American X-Rated Critics Organizat ...
, following '' Deep Throat''.
Legal troubles
The Supreme Court's 1973 ''Miller v. California
''Miller v. California'', 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, polit ...
'' decision adversely affected the mainstream release of porn films, including ''Behind the Green Door''. The Miller decision redefined obscenity from that of “utterly without socially redeeming value” to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" and substituted contemporary community standards for national standards, as some prior tests required. Miller continued to hold that obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
, which gave leeway to local judges to seize and destroy prints of films adjudged to violate local community standards. When ''Behind the Green Door'' opened in Suffolk County, New York in 1973, it – along with the porn film '' The New Comers'' – was successfully prosecuted. In addition to New York, ''Behind the Green Door'' was banned in California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, and Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
.
Later films
In 1986, the Mitchells made a sequel, '' Behind the Green Door: the Sequel'', directed by cabaret singer Sharon McNight. The movie featured no famous performers, and starred Elisa Florez, billed as ''Missy Manners''. (Florez was Artie Mitchell's girlfriend at the time, and she reportedly demanded the role from him.) It was one of the first "safe sex"-themed porn films, following the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, with the performers using condoms and other protection. It was a critical and commercial disaster, and the Mitchells lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The O'Farrell Theatre contains a "Green Door Room" which is named for the two movies and was the principal set of the sequel.
In 2012, adult film company Vivid Entertainment
Vivid Entertainment Group is an American pornographic film production company, produced a loose remake titled '' New Behind the Green Door''. This film stars Brooklyn Lee as the main character Hope, a wealthy young woman drawn into a seedy underworld while on an erotic journey to find her birth mother. The movie includes footage of the original ''Behind the Green Door'', as Hope describes a sexual fantasy that recalls the plot of the 1972 film. Other cast members include Dana DeArmond, Penny Pax, Bailey Blue, Steven St. Croix, and James Deen, with appearances by original cast member Johnnie Keyes and Marilyn Chambers' daughter McKenna Taylor.
In popular culture
* The production of the movie is dramatized in the 2000 film ''Rated X'', starring brothers Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as ''Platoon'' (1986), ''Wall Street'' (1987), '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' The Rookie'' (1990), ''The Thr ...
and Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez (; born May 12, 1962) is an American actor and filmmaker.
He is the son of actor Martin Sheen and the older brother of Charlie Sheen. Emilio Estevez started his career as an actor and is known for being a member of the acting Br ...
as Artie and Jim Mitchell.
* Behind The Green Door
''Behind the Green Door'' is a 1972 American feature-length pornographic film, widely considered one of the genre's "classic" pictures and one of the films that ushered in The Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984).Williams, p. 299 Featuring Marilyn ...
cinematographer and editor Jon Fontana was portrayed by actor Derek Aasland in the 2000 film Rated X, directed by Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez (; born May 12, 1962) is an American actor and filmmaker.
He is the son of actor Martin Sheen and the older brother of Charlie Sheen. Emilio Estevez started his career as an actor and is known for being a member of the acting Br ...
.
* Actor Idris Elba
Idrissa Akuna Elba (; born 6 September 1972) is an English actor. 's choice to name his production company Green Door Productions (because "I like doors and green is my favorite color") was questioned because of the association of the phrase with this film. He was intrigued to learn that it was one of the first porn films to feature interracial sex, and that it featured a seven-minute ejaculation sequence, which only made him want the name more, so that he could say that he'd chosen the name "Because it took a long time to come."
See also
* List of American films of 1972
This is a list of American films released in 1972.
''Cabaret'' won 8 Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Actress. ''The Godfather'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
__TOC__ A–C
D–G
H–M
N–S
T–Z
See also
* ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
External links
''Behind the Green Door'' info, trivia and photos
*
*
the Green Door'' DVD details
{{DEFAULTSORT:Behind The Green Door
1972 films
1970s pornographic films
American pornographic films
Censored films
1970s English-language films
Films shot in San Francisco
Films set in San Francisco
Interracial pornographic films
Obscenity controversies in film
1970s American films