Richard Robinson's MARRIAGE AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS is good beyond hope. In a genre where quality generally goes unrewarded (as evidenced by the extreme obscurity 3 decades later for this title) this is as close to real filmmaking as porn ever gets.
The format, a variation on Robinson's favorite theme, is simple: charting the ups & downs of newly married couple, well-played by Rainbow Robbins and Tom Cantrell. Film opens with a very artsy stills montage, carrying the action forward in the same fashion as Chris Marker's classic short LA JETEE, which I suspect Robinson studied. Live action ensues for their marriage and very sexy post-Honeymoon lifestyle.
You know you're in the presence of a master when Robinson unfolds a brilliant b.j. sequence, in which he inter-cuts three different stagings of our couple's fellatio: in bed, in the shower and underwater in a swimming pool (!). The matched in slo-mo ejaculation shots are a perfect climax. Consistently throughout the film, but especially in this classic sequence, his editing (credited to cinematographer Sven Conrad = David Worth) is masterful, and the antithesis of the real-time boredom of the vast majority of cheap-jack porn made in the early '70s.
After a "one year later" title, things are dullsville for the young marrieds, and the rest of the film opens out the previously hermetic format by introducing a bevy of new characters. Balding Keith Erickson of all people pops up as the world's oldest pool boy (!) who submits sheepishly to sex with Rainbow after she catches her hubby in flagrante delicto.
Rainbow is upstaged by the appearance of genre superstar (sort of) Brigitte Maier, who along with hubby Pete Krump introduce the couple to the wonders of swinging and wife swapping. Film culminates with an inevitable orgy, which is staged with élan: Linda York guest starring as a beauty whose nude body is used as the table for the dinner buffet (presaging the current cheap thrill of (just as unsanitary) eating sushi off the midriff of a naked Japanese girl in some seedy restaurant). The cast plays some fun games, such as a version of musical chairs involving cock-sucking, and a nude from the waist down butler and maid (latter portrayed by Sandy Dempsey) do sex demos. Happy ending is a bit sappy, but fits Robinson's romantic approach.
One jarring scene in an otherwise beautifully made picture is an extraneous flashback featuring Maier and Krump terrorized by a trio of bikers (2 male and 1 female). I suppose it was injected into the narrative in order to add some "roughness" that was all the rage in the mid-'70s; without it one could conceivably criticize the film as lacking backbone. Overall the picture does emerge as a perfect example of the "couples" film that pornographers were chasing after in an attempt to expand their audience, with I guess Radley Metzger the most successful at that game.
I saw this film in a French-dubbed version, retitled LA GRANDE PARTOUZE, which had an added je ne sais quoi quality.
