Smart Alec

A run of the mill stag film which managed to become one of the most famous/infamous and widely distributed early adult films. Filmed in Texas, circa 1951, the plot involves little more than a man inviting a young woman (Candy Barr) back to his hotel room for amorous activities. After their rendezvous goes awry, the woman invites a friend over to help finish things off. Normally, such content wouldn't warrant so much as a second thought and the film would have vanished in short order. However, over the ensuing years, "Smart Alec" became somewhat of a sensation. Be it by chance or a particularly well-connected underground distributor, the film quickly spread throughout the country, becoming the subject of assorted rumors and gossip. Such attention eventually drew the attention of authorities and the resulting legal drama only fueled the film's cult status. In turn, Candy Barr's tumultuous personal life and emergence as a minor celebrity continued to draw interest in "Smart Alec" for decades.

From a modern perspective, "Smart Alec" stands as little more than a historic novelty. There is nothing groundbreaking or unique about the film, aside from its' notoriety. The production values, content, and actors are all stock for the era/genre. Aside from Ms. Barr's age at the time and colorful post film life, much of the lore surrounding "Smart Alec" is questionable at best. Even Barr's own story about her involvement varied greatly over the years; ranging from being forced/tricked, to being under the influence, to merely needing some quick money. In many ways, "Smart Alec" was a precursor to what "Deep Throat" would experience some two decades later. A film which took on legendary status due to sensationalism, timing, and myth, rather than quality of content.

I wrote a comment about the 1981 "Through the Lookingglass." Ostensibly a porn movie, it struck me as an effective — oh so effective — horror film. All art can transform like this from what the creator intended and it can happen immediately when its released to the catalyzing air.

So an astute reader sent me this as another example. It is a stag film like perhaps thousands of others of the era, clumsy in every way. It became the most popular of them because of propitious mobster connections, and arguably led to the porn moviehouses of the late sixties, and so the porn video business of today. Candy Barr subsequent to this billed herself as the first porn star.

She was fifteen when this was made, and was drugged and coerced into it at gunpoint. The plot is that she meets a traveling salesman and services him sexually, but he wants oral sex too. Some real tussle is shown, pretty hard wrestling. She wins, and a call is made to a prostitute who comes to finish the job.

It isn't clear whether the makers intended her to be the smart alec or what. Viewing this gives you a pretty deep journey into American politics if you let it. Ten years later she was living with and lover of a stripper, the top performer at Jack Ruby's club. The older, Jada, testified that they both encountered Lee Harvey Oswald in Jack Ruby's club, possibly the strongest fact fueling a bevy of persistent conspiracy theories.

Candy said nothing. The older stripper, Jada, died in 1980 in what has been called a "mysterious" car accident, supposedly sharing the fate of several others "with knowledge."

Really great films have resonances with other, larger stories. This is not a good film, and if it were it wouldn't deserve to live. But watching it today opens all sorts of emotions about the basement of the national character, institutional extortion and the abuse of political power. Rough stuff, all that

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.