Group Marriage
| Group Marriage | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Stephanie Rothman |
| Written by | Stephanie Rothman Charles S. Swartz Paul Rapp Richard Walter[1] |
| Produced by | Charles S. Swartz |
| Starring | Victoria Vetri Aimee Eccles Claudia Jennings |
| Cinematography | Daniel Lacambre |
| Edited by | John A. O'Connor |
| Music by | Michael Andres |
| Distributed by | Dimension Pictures |
Release date |
|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
Group Marriage is a 1973 sex comedy film directed by Stephanie Rothman.[2] It was the first film she made for Dimension Pictures, a company in which she was a minor shareholder with her husband Charles Swartz along with Larry Woolner.
Plot
Chris (Aimée Eccles), a car rental clerk, is not getting along with boyfriend Sandor (Solomon Sturges), who writes bumper sticker slogans. They meet parole officer Dennis (Jeff Pomerantz) who referees an argument between the two. Dennis spends the night at her place, and Chris goes into his room and sleeps with him.
Sandor discovers Dennis in bed with Chris. Chris says she still loves Sandor but likes Dennis too. In the interest of fairness, Dennis invites Chris and Sandor to dinner with his ex-girlfriend Jan (Victoria Vetri), a stewardess. Jan and Sandor are clearly attracted to each other and wind up in bed, alongside Chris and Dennis, although Chris has troubles with her jealousy.
At a picnic on the beach, Jan meets lifeguard Phil (Zack Taylor), who later sleeps with Chris and moves in with the other five. Phil decides to bring in a third girl for the household and invites in Elaine (Claudia Jennings), lawyer of Phil's ex wife.
The "group marriage" of the six of them attracts media attention and much criticism. They decide to stay true to the arrangement. Chris announces she is pregnant.
Jan chafes at the arrangement and has sex with a man outside the group, a winds up leaving them. However she returns at the ending to a wedding between Chris (now heavily pregnant), Elaine, Sander, Phil, Denis and the new member, Judy (Chris' workmate). Their gay friends Rodney and Randy also marry each other.[1]
Cast
- Victoria Vetri as Jan
- Aimée Eccles as Chris - Rothman said "She had this impish quality and she had this sort of sparkling manner that I thought made her very right for a comedy. I also liked the idea that it was nontraditional casting at that time, having someone whose features were Asian play the leading lady."[3]
- Solomon Sturges as Sander - Sturges was the son of Preston Sturges and Rothman said "He was so good. He really had a firm grasp of the character, and he enhanced the role."[3]
- Claudia Jennings as Elaine
- Zack Taylor as Phil
- Jeff Pomerantz as Dennis - Rothman recalled "he kept on trying to suddenly, in a scene, inject business that would.. throw the cameraman" and "try to upstage people by grimacing at a certain time. He was just a problem, a nuisance, and one of the ways I solved that was to use him in fewer scenes."[3]
- Norman Bartold as Findley
- John McMurtry as Randy
- Pepe Serna as Ramon
- Bill Striglos as Rodney
- Jayne Kennedy Judy
- Jack Bernardi as Father
- Milt Kamen as Justice of the Peace
- Ron Gans as Interviewer
- Andrew Rubin as AC-DC
Production
According to Rothman, Larry Woolner, who ran Dimension, "wanted me to make a sexy film, and I tried to think of how I could do that and anchor it in something that said something about sexual mores." She was reading a book Future Shock which included discussion of group marriage and thought that "might be a wonderful framework in which to create a sex comedy that said something about the temperaments of the people involved, their goals, the social pitfalls of trying to do something like this in a society where it’s neither legal nor admired particularly.”[3]
Rothman was determined to handle the topic "in a way that was not sordid and sleazy" but rather "humorous and pithy and imaginative... my intention at least was to make something that was a surprise."[3]
"I was trying to make a bedroom farce," she said. Rothman admired that genre because "I like the fact that it’s very dynamic, things are always happening in it. The humor is fast and furious. The people are put in extreme situations and must devise ways to get out of them."[3]
She gave the characters different jobs because she "wanted a mix of people who... could draw on their work experience in some way that would affect the common life experience that they shared during the time of the story."[3]
The film was announced in January 1972.[4] Rothman said "I like comedy best of all and Group Marriage was the first chance I had to do an outright comedy. Unlike The Velvet Vampire, it didn’t go under the guise of being something else."[5]
Rothman later worked with Solomon Sturges on The Working Girls.
Reception
According to Rothman the film was received "very positively."[3]
Critical
The Boston Phoenix called it an "extraordinary comedy... this gem of a picture is well worth the search... that true rarity, a sexy comedy. Considering how quite difficult it is to make a sensuous picture to begin with, and noting how few deft comedy directors have emerged over the past twenty years, one would have to admire director Stephanie Rothman for her technical facility alone."[6]
A writer in The Gazette called it "a good example of what enlightened erotica can be like. It features female characters who are professionally and sexually assertive - but not intimidating. They are capable of making decisions for themselves, yet they're still able to love the men in their lives and be loved in return."[7]
Shock Magazine said "at its core the flick doesn’t know what it wants to be. At times it’s a Free Love forum pocked with messages on the “failure to communicate”. Other times it’s your standard, leering sex farce. Then odd, unnecessary subplots intrude, like one guy’s melodramatic job as a probation officer. And though the filmmakers obviously thought they were on the cutting edge, with all four leads in bed together, smoking grass, they never shed the old morality horseshit. Under its mod surface, it’s simple, romantic pabulum, swaddled in the latest trendiness, Ignoring all the comic possibilities in favor of generic, self-serious fodder."[8]
Dannis Peary later wrote:
If Group Marriage has a real weakness, it is that it tries to be daringly topical, even though the subject of “group marriage” seems more unusual than shocking. The violence that ensues when the angry public hears about their living arrangement is a little absurd. If the film has a real strength, it is that all the protagonists are as gentle as they are. It is certainly not typical of movie romances to have so many characters liking each other for an entire film when things are going on that would make everyday people despise one another.[9]
According to Henry Jenkins "This farcical film proposes a radical reconstruction of family relations and traces the process by which the various characters overcome their jealousies and find happiness in communal relations."[10]
See also
References
- ^ a b 'Group Marriage' review at DVD Drive-In
- ^ 'Exploiting Feminism: An Interview with Stephanie Rothman (Part One)' Confessions of an Aca Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins, Oct 16,2007
- ^ a b c d e f g h Collings, Jane. "Interview of Stephanie Rothman" (PDF). UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research.
- ^ "Movie Call Street". The Los Angeles Times. 14 January 1972. p. 61.
- ^ Peary p 188
- ^ "Group Marriage". Boston Phoenix. 2 October 1972. p. 5.
- ^ Wexman, Virginia Wright (10 April 1976). "Porn films: the real complaint is sexism not sex". The Gazette. p. 17.
- ^ "Group Marriage". Shock Cinema. No. 6. 1994. p. 37.
- ^ Peary p 188
- ^ Jenkins, Henry. "Exploring feminism in Stephanie Rothman's Terminal Island". Henry Jenkins.
Notes
- Peary, Dannis (1977). "Stephanie Rothman R-rated Feminist". In Kay, Karyn; Peary, Gerald (eds.). Women and the cinema : a critical anthology. p. 179-192.
External links
- Group Marriage at IMDb
- Group Marriage at AFI
 | This exploitation film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |