Pornography: Copenhagen 1970

The dawn of the theatrical white coater can be divided into two nearly simultaneous phases: the sex-hygiene (instructional) film, and the anthropological (social) report film. Between the two, it was the former that arrived first, with Matt Cimber's MAN & WIFE bringing explicit sex to the screen in mid-1969. But the latter was right on its heels, vying hard for supremacy via a slew of films with stodgy faux-academic titles like PORNOGRAPHY IN DENMARK: A NEW APPROACH, SEXUAL CUSTOMS IN SCANDANAVIA and SEXUAL FREEDOM IN DENMARK. As may be noted, Denmark (and Scandinavia more broadly) were perennial points of interest, the country having just legalized pornography and thus providing ample opportunity for "penetrating" inquiries on the subject (as well as plenty of justification to show it onscreen!). One of the more obscure entries in this sweepstakes, PORNOGRAPHY COPENHAGEN: 1970 starts out as a fairly legitimate documentary before taking an inevitable slide into gratuitousness.

Set-up is scattershot but interesting, with an attractive young Danish couple interviewing various characters in Denmark's burgeoning sex industry. There are of course the requisite man-on-the-street segments, but also an interview with a topless sex shop worker, a smut film producer, a visit to a porno shoot and a bar screening sex films and hosting live shows (with audience participation!). All this keeps up the pretense (at least for its first half) of the film being a legitimate social inquiry, and it's interesting now to view the vintage shops and theaters, as well as the attitudes of the interviewees (particularly hilarious are a young couple and child: the wife is from Britain and still quite curious about porn, while her husband, a Dane, is very much over it already).

Unfortunately, the film begins to tip its hand past the mid-point, where a sequence at the bar hosting the sex show just becomes far too long. There's endless footage of the projection of a stag film (nothing like watching a movie of another movie), and the chronicle of the stage show drags on forever. It really sucks the air out of things, with the final death blow coming in a brutal anticlimax of an interview with a sexologist. Allowed to free associate at length (20 minutes!) about whatever goes through her head (her ostensible purpose is to comment on the film we've just seen - can't we make up our own minds?), this face-plant of a finale just goes to prove the film would've been much better at a fleet 65 minutes, rather than padded out with this tedium to add an extra reel. It's too bad, because the opening 45 minutes are legitimately interesting. Unfortunately, as with our favorite hardened Dane, prolonged exposure just proves too much of a good thing.