The Opening of Misty Beethoven

Try crossing My Fair Lady with Deep Throat and you'll end up with "The Opening of Misty Beethoven", a porn film with good production values, surprisingly decent acting, and a young, knockout female lead actress.

This film could never have been made today where all you see are numerous gynecological closeups with copious amounts of spewing bodily fluids. Instead you are treated to an imaginative film with a lot of laughs wrapped around enough sex to earn it's XXX rating.

Constance Money, worth seeing in this film by herself, plays the Eliza Doolittle role as the classless gum popping French street hooker (Misty Beethoven) who gives hand jobs in a dingy Paris movie theater. Jamie Gillis plays the Henry Higgins part as Dr Seymour Love, willing to take on Misty and turn her from this cheap trollop into a high class "Goldenrod Girl" with the help of Jacqueline Beaudant (a female Colonel Pickering?).

There are some very funny sequences on the adult airlines and in the training sequences which brought to mind the "Rocky" films. The sex is not of the grind house variety that you find in most XXX films but it is highly erotic, entertaining and with Ms. Money, surprisingly romantic. This is a jewel of an erotic film.

This film could only have been made in the 70's during a very brief period in porn and the general population of the US when it was possible to make an erotic film of more than fake moans and money shots because porn actually for a brief few years had a potentially wide outlet both in terms of who would go see them and where they could be shown.

I'm a woman and I first saw it at the University of Minnesota where they were going to show it in a 1000 seat theatre one time for one night. (Try getting any porn onto a campus now.) They added two more showing to that night and then kept it around for a month or so with 3 shows on Fri and Sat. All the major papers in Mpls and St. Paul accepted ads back then for porn and X rated movies in addition to all the weeklies and student paper. Believe it or not but the reception of Deep Throat (a lousy movie IMHO) being so wide and broad it was made this possible. (Most major papers won't even accept an advert for a NC-17 movie nowadays.)

It was wonderful, the audience was made of both sexes, young and old and probably 60% couples and the film was loved. Women walked out smiling and hot. What I liked about it was the women actually looked liked they were having fun, and the sex was shot with the men actually satisfying women. (Go see Showgirls for a movie which in the major sex scene the actress looked like she was having a epileptic fit.) Additionally, there was always a tenderness exhibited during all "major" scenes which was unheard of before and after this period. For instance bodies got played with, there was cuddling after a few hour stand?? Revolutionary, toss in the humour and ending and well -- what more could you ask for.

But what was really wonderful was that so many of us women finally had an erotic movie that we could thoroughly enjoy on all levels just like the men. For the last 30 years I been telling everyone this was the best, the ultimate porn flick for everyone. Such a shame it's not one of a large group.

I must admit that I gave this movie a 10 partly because I was relatively young and was seeing my first 'porno flick'. In the many years since then, I have seen many of both good and bad quality.

But this particular one has always held a special place in my soul. The dialogue was actually decent, the visual effects were absolutely stunning and there was a good humor that came through from everyone involved.

I'd love to see it again!

Opening of Misty Beethoven, The (1976)

*** (out of 4)

George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion is the inspiration for this porn film, which has been called the greatest ever by many critics and I'd have to agree. In the film a sexologist (Jamie Gills) picks up Misty Beethoven (Constance Money), a second rate slut who refuses to do anything but straight vaginal sex. With the help of a friend (Jacqueline Beaudant) Misty is taken back to a secret location where she's formed into someone who can perform at a lavish party. Yes, it's MY FAIR LADY porno style and it works. Having gone through many of the "classics" from this golden era of porn I had been led to believe that many of them were well acted, directed and featured good screenplays that would rival the normal movie playing in theaters at the time. This turned out to be wrong as most were better than your typical bump 'n grind flick but nothing else. This film, however, is actually good enough to where it could compete with a mainstream film. Not only do we get some good acting and directing but the screenplay is extremely smart as well. We get some very funny dialogue and the film is smart enough to even take a few pot shots at the people who would sit in a theater just to watch porn. There's a very funny sequence early on with Misty having to serve Napoleon in a theater and the people inside this place make for a few good laughs as well. We even get one guy who keeps losing his passion but Misty finally gets him to the bathroom where an elderly woman eventually walks in on them. There are countless scenes here that just work and most of it is due to the wonderful direction by Metzger who would not only helm this porn movie but countless mainstream flicks including the 1978 remake of THE CAT AND THE CANARY. Metzger has a masterful editing style that makes this film look so professional and it adds so much to the jokes. There's a terrific sequence where Misty is trying to learn to pleasure three people at the same time and he edits this against some other stuff going on and it just makes the joke so obvious and clear that you can't help but laugh. We even get some wonderful jokes aimed at stewardess and various types of things you can do or order on a plane. The acting in any porn film or softcore flick has never been better with Money giving a wonderful performance. You can believe her as this snotty, light hooker but we can also believe everything she's going through in terms of changing. Gills is also extremely fun as the know-it-all who must teach Misty what to do and when. The two have some wonderful chemistry together and how often do you say that in a porn flick? Even the supporting players handle their parts extremely well. Even though this film has a lot of plot it also features the most sex from any of these films from the period. I was surprised to see how much sex there was here but that wasn't a bad thing because it either worked as comedy or was very erotic in how it was shot. Typically I don't buy into reputations as I often find myself disagreeing to a certain extent but I think the reputation of this film is right on the mark. It's smart, sexy, witty and just downright fun to watch so it being called the best porn flick is probably true but it's certainly recommend.

Jack Horner, Burt Reynolds' character in Boogie Nights, was determined to make "a real movie." This is probably what it would have looked like, right down to the mid '70s production quality and costumes. No one should be ashamed to admit they've watched it. It is a witty, intelligent comedy that just happens to be a porn film. Watch the exchange between Jamie Gillis and the flight attendant for proof of this. It's just as funny as anything in an early Woody Allen film. And the "swindle singing" that was featured prominently in Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and Allen's Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Sex gets a real workout here. And dare I say that this is a really good "date flick," of course after you've been dating for a while. I remember this movie playing in Northern Virginia for 12 years, from 1976 or so to 1988. Had video stores not flourished in the late '80s, I would be willing to bet that it would still be playing. It definitely has staying power, and the dated quality of the film just adds to the appeal.