The Telephone Book

Rating: While France was experiencing a massive directorial overhauling of conventions and norms in the sixties, it seems the always intriguing city of New York City was experiencing something of a shift in their approach to American cinema as well. With Nelson Lyon's The Telephone Book captures such a peculiar time in seventies cinema, which is the underground cinema movement in NYC, where rebel filmmakers began realizing that they didn't have to follow in the footsteps of big time filmmakers and could make what they so desired in the comfort of their own neighborhood. One could loan their discoveries and beliefs to the development of what is known today as independent films, or films that lack the participation of large studios with blank-checks and huge distribution deals.

The Telephone Book is one of the most fascinating and truly unique cult films from the seventies you have never seen nor heard of. It concerns a young, eighteen-year-old girl named Alice (Shannon Kennedy), who possesses tendencies of a nymphomaniac. Alice lives in her NYC apartment, which is lined with explicit, black and white sexual photographs and lewd images that assist her in her own personal self-discoveries.

One day, Alice gets a call from a man claiming to be named "John Smith" (Norman Rose), a man with an incredibly deep voice and one who has the rare ability of being able to seduce women just by the sound of his voice. Alice is smitten by his charm and his smooth-talking ways, and after getting his name, makes it her goal to try and track him down and find him in person. Alice has become in love with what she finds the greatest obscene phone call in history.

Alice goes on an exhaustive search for the man, who claims to have one of the most notoriously common names in the country. However, even when she sticks to the telephone book focusing on just the people in New York City she is overwhelmed with results. The film follows her as she exhaustively searches for the man, running into some of New York's strangest and quirkiest souls. One of them is a stag film director who enjoys sex with multiple women at a time, while another subject provides for one of the film's most hilarious scenes. This scene involves your average everyman, who tries to find ways to get Alice to say dirty words and paying her in change so she can make more calls to find her real "John Smith." The man has a change dispenser clipped to the waistband of his pants, which represents his ejaculation and his level of arousal. You may already know where this is going, but the result is devilishly funny and provides for some of the strangest, most off-the-wall comedy the film has to offer.

The film is photographed in high-contrast black and white, providing an even edgier, more authentic experience of the 1970's time period along with the vibes of what feels like unadulterated underground cinema. The Telephone Book comes from the time period where risks in films were actually taken and the idea of subversion wasn't nudged at but boldly and bravely toyed with to the point where what emerged was something almost totally unrecognizable and sometimes frightening.

While sex is a huge topic in the film, and the intricate elements of sex are talked about quite frequently in the film, this film is not one for the erotic genre. Despite its subject matter, the picture is rarely erotic, but instead, more of a sensation, if anything. Even the fact that the film concludes with a surreal, seven minute animation sequence depicting graphic, mind-blowing sexual intercourse between two people on the phone in two separate phone booths solidifies that the film is more interested with being a sensory experience rather than an arousing one. The film was made during the time that "porno chic" was becoming popular, and even indulging in graphic sex scenes would've been a subversive move on the film's behalf. Instead, the film even ignores another groundbreaking element of the time to go off and do its own thing, which is even more unique. It's a film about sex that is rarely sexy.

The Telephone Book feels like the kind of thing John Waters would've made in the early seventies and added it to his collection of trash cinema set in the eccentric land of Baltimore, Maryland. It plays the similar instruments of shock, weird comedy, oddball events, fetish pornography, and individualistic style. Needless to say, I loved every minute of it.

Starring: Sarah Kennedy and Norman Rose. Directed by: Nelson Lyon.

This underground NYC film does seem intent on stimulating its characters and audience into a frenzied state, even though nobody ever gets around to actually *having* sex. This "story", if you can call it that, deals with various sorts of extremely kinky and twisted fetishes and how one particular person can only ever do his best work over the phone. Certainly the actors give it their all, and writer / director Nelson Lyon makes this a very odd duck of a film. It's often quite surreal, with some priceless dialogue and one monologue near the end that goes on for quite some time. The film is very well shot in black & white by Leon Perera, and is episodic in nature, as our main character meets a couple of quirky people and the basic story is frequently interrupted by "obscene callers" speaking into the camera and telling us what they do (or have done) to get off.

Adorable Sarah Kennedy stars as Alice, a sex-obsessed and air headed hippie chick who receives the obscene phone call of a lifetime. Impressed by the mans' talent, she embarks on a search for the guy throughout NYC. Among the characters we meet on this journey are an avant garde adult filmmaker (Barry Morse), an excitable analyst (Roger C. Carmel) who pays her in coins for details about her sex life, and a lesbian housewife. Finally, she meets the awe- inspiring "Mr. Smith" (Norman Rose), who prefers to keep some sense of mystery about himself and never takes off his pig face mask.

What's amusing is seeing a couple of very familiar faces turn up in this thing: Jill Clayburgh as "Eyemask", Ultra Violet as a woman with a whip, William Hickey as the guy in the bed, Lucy Lee Flippin and Dolph Sweet as two of our obscene phone callers, and "Captain" Arthur Haggerty as the district attorney. Kennedy is a reasonably good anchor in this tale, while Rose invests the nutty Mr. Smith with quite a lot of gravitas.

As you can see from what I've described here, this may not appeal to all devotees of adult entertainment, but the colour animated sequence late in the film sure is a marvel of cartoonish dirty imagery. However, people may still come away from this feeling dissatisfied. Judge for yourself.

Seven out of 10.

Very entertaining. Girl in Manhattan receives the obscene call of her life, attempts to find him (identified as "John Smith") in the telephone book. Funny scenes as she finds the wrong John Smiths. Surprise ending when she finds the right one. Some nudity and extremely explicit but funny cartoon sequences.

Who is John Smith? why....every man's deepest fantasy of course. As he utters at one point and which sums up this incredibly original and black-humored ode to left wing sexuality..."I have perfected the obscene call to the point where I could seduce the President, his wife and his family - but I have no political ambition!"

Poor old Alice, cute little Goldie Hawn wannabe and who is a couple of bra-sizes short of average intelligence, she decides to answer her telephone! Big mistake - it is the world's most experienced serially-obscene phone caller. Does she care? No, she falls in love with him. She must embark now on the ultimate sexual odyssey to discover the joys of true spoken obscenity.

This film is unlike anything else ever made - as original as ERASERHEAD, as meaningless as an Osmond Brothers album. You have to see it...if for no other reason to witness Barry Morse's cameo to end all cameos. They surely COULDN'T have paid him to do it...he MUST have paid them!

I have had this film for twenty years and STILL haven't let my kids see it! I think mine is the only copy in Australia, if not the southern hemisphere. A deep deep underground film that could NEVER have found theatrical release I imagine.

The story of a day in the life of a lonely, sensitive, exuberant, attractive, young woman. Her exploits, encounters, and frustrations as she attempts to find a "special" someone, a caller who has "class", as she puts it.

From the pornographic wallpaper to the downright raunchy situations, this is a dirty film. Yet, somehow a tastefully dirty film... not at all sexual, despite the nudity and sexual situations. Bizarre! How has Something Weird or someone else not gotten a hold of this title?

Frankly, I love the way this guy talks! And I love that this has a "young" William Hickey in it. I primarily know him later on from "Tales From the Crypt" and "Puppet Master", so it was great to see him more in his prime.