The Office Party

THE OFFICE PARTY is one of many Southern-fried porn films cranked out in the '60s by producer Whit Boyd. They might be of vague interest to students of regional cinema, but are too amateurish for us city-bred folks to stomach.

I've experimented lately with an odd but effective concept: alternating my porn consumption between watching a new title and viewing a golden oldie, hopefully finding elements in common. In this case I watched Sweet Sinner's OFFICE SEDUCTIONS, not all that different in outline from its 40 years earlier counterpart, but they still seem like features made on different (perhaps neighboring) planets.

Both films show employees having sex in the office, and each picture has an office party as a functional device. Due to poor casting and very loose direction by Ron Scott, the 1968 film has trouble making the relationships between characters interesting (or even easy to follow), and is merely silly in its double entendres and sexist attitudes.

Budget may be to blame; not only does Scott double as a featured player (and his acting and improvisational dialog are terrible), but the two stars of the film Byron Lord and Judy Farr double as makeup man and hair stylist, respectively. Having crew members fill on-camera slots is nothing new in porn, but this is extreme.

The office politics presented here is uninteresting and even an egalitarian note, whereby the office handyman Chuck seems to be getting as much pussy as the big executives, pays zero thematic dividends. Film unfolds as a sort of musical chairs involving who's doing whom in which office, a structural device better suited to a sex farce set in a hotel (or brothel). The picture completely falls apart at the title event, an improvised orgy which is completely boring and ruined by director Scott as actor, seemingly drunk (or drunk with power) and making inane wise cracks better suited to a home movie.

By 1968 standards it is way too tame, featuring topless girls, sex scenes always with underwear on - basically no nudity in a time frame when the fans expected (and were getting) the Full Monty. Picture ends with a promo title advertising the team's next movie PARTY GIRLS, which fortunately for me is more or less lost -somehow remaining in a dumpster when the Something Weird or Sinister Video street squad was making their rounds back in the VHS heyday.

I saw this at The Atheneum Theatre in Melbourne, probably in 1970 or there abouts. I took my wife to be and it was an exciting experience as this was the beginning of the re-birth of the Australian film industry. The director was present and he answered questions. As the years went by I kept expecting to see him take his place with the greats from Australian cinema, but it did not happen. He was an excellent cinematographer and I guess that is where he made his living. The National Film and sound archive has a copy but they want a small fortune to produce a print. Which is a shame, because I'd love to see it again.