Sometime Sweet Susan

Thought-provoking and emotionally affecting, at times sweet, at times disturbing, this is one of my favorites of all time. The soundtrack is outstanding and pulls you in. The screenplay and acting are among the best for an explicit film. The emotional impact of this film is right up there with "Story of Joanna", "Devil in Miss Jones", and "Water Power". Harry Reems is surprisingly good here and the female lead, Shawn Harris is outstanding. Too bad she did not do more films. She had the looks and enough talent that she could have worked in mainstream B movies. Oh well I guess she found something else to do with here life. Jamie Gillis has a minor role as a bad guy. Too bad we couldn't have seen more of him as he is the best actor working in this genre at the time the film was made.

This seems like an odd movie. There were a lot of movies about mental illness in the 70's like "Sybill" and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden", but the topic didn't exactly seem ripe with erotic potential. But this movie isn't really the porn industry trying to do a cheap, exploitative porn knock-off of a mainstream movie so much as it is the porn industry trying to CROSS OVER into the mainstream by making a sex-filled but SERIOUS movie with some amount of genuine production values (i.e. something besides sex). It isn't entirely successful, of course, but it is interesting.

The top-billed star in this is Harry Reems from the notorious "Deep Throat". He is again playing a doctor, but a serious one this time (sans the stupid German accent). Reems was not a great actor, but he was an actor, not just a giant walking erection like most subsequent male porn stars. The real star here though is the never-to-be-heard-from-again Shawn Harris who plays "Susan". She gives a genuinely good performance (even by non-porno standards) as a girl who seems to suffer from both catatonic schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder as the result of past abuse. Most of the movie is flashbacks of this abuse or romantic fantasies involving her handsome new doctor. Harris is genuinely believable and disturbing in the vulnerable "Susan" role and she essentially plays a second role as "Susan's" tough alternate personality "Sandra". And she is also genuinely pretty, not just sexy like most porn starlets. I didn't see the uncut XXX version, so I don't know if she actually did hardcore, but regardless as an actress she is much closer to Meryl Streep than to Jenna Jameson. She was also involved in the music, which is definitely 70's-style sappy, but also strangely haunting.

Jennifer Jordan, who plays Reems long-suffering wife, is also quite attractive if much more of a traditional female porn star. Fans of straight sex movies will not be totally dissatisfied with this. Personally, I don't think it's a problem that this is only currently available in the "soft" version--hardcore sex would definitely NOT improve this anymore than showing the characters sitting on the toilet taking a crap would. If you do want to see a hardcore version of something like this though, check out "Defiance of Good". On the other hand, if you want to see an even more bizarre, surrealistic (if not as well-made) film in this vein, check out "Synthia, the Devil Doll."

Sometime Sweet Susan (1975)

** (out of 4)

Even if you're not a fan of hardcore films you might remember this title as it was on the marquee of the theater where Travis took his date to in TAXI DRIVER. This was originally an XXX title but the version released on the "Skin in the 70s" collection is an R-rated cut that runs (according to the IMDb) about nine-minutes shorter than the hardcore version. With that said, what remains here would still easily get a NC-17 rating. The film has Harry Reems (DEEP THROAT) playing a doctor trying to break through to a patient named Susan (Shawn Harris) who at first won't talk but deep down is having sexual fantasies about him, her nurse and another flashback that is haunting her. It's really hard to review this film because this was meant to be a porno, no matter what else they tried to edit it into. This R-rated cut really doesn't work for several reasons including the fact that there are a few cases where the "action" goes to a freeze frame while the songs just keep on playing. This is really distracting but it also doesn't help that the film, in this form, is full of bad edits. This R-rated version just doesn't work as any sort of entertainment but I do want to see it uncut as its reputation is pretty strong. I was a little surprised to see how much story was actually here and many of the performances were better than you'd expect. Reems isn't too bad in his role even though I still didn't believe him as a doctor. The real reason to see the film is for Harris and I was shocked to see that this was her only movie credit. The movie probably wouldn't have ran so long if it weren't for all the slow motion scenes throughout and these did start to get annoying after a while. We also have a few songs written just for this movie and I'm not sure how many adult films could say this. So, in the end, this film really isn't all that bad but it's still rather hard to judge a cut version.

Sometimes Sweet Susan XXX version

*** (out of 4)

I had watched the R-rated version of this earlier in the year and I could tell that I was watching a decent movie yet it was nearly impossible to judge since it was missing all the hardcore scenes. I went back and viewed this hardcore version and it certainly improved the film so there's no doubt as to which version someone should watch. The story is pretty simple as a doctor (Harry Reems) tries to reach patient Susan (Shawn Harris) who refuses to talk about anything, although she is secretly having a sexual crush for the doc. This hardcore version, as I said, is certainly the version to watch for a couple reasons. The film is more drama than porno so I think a lot of people will watch this and be shocked at how few hardcore scenes there are. We get around four different scenes but none of them are overly graphic and I'm sure the "bump and grind" crowd might be disappointed. The film really does focus in on the drama of Susan and her reasons for keeping quiet and to herself. This hardcore version features the "real" reason as to why she's so quiet as most of this sequence towards the end of the film was cut out of the R-rated version. This here is the main reason to check the film out uncut. Another reason is that the hardcore scenes are quite erotic and certainly a lot better than the stuff we saw in more mainstream films like DEEP THROAT and DEVIL IN MISS JONES. Another problem with the R-rated cut is that a lot of footage was slowed down or just paused on so that they could edit out the hardcore sequences. The freezing effect really hurt the flow of the picture but thankfully all of that is gone here. On this second viewing I was even more impressed with Shawn Harris who certainly had a true acting talent and could do more than just the sex scenes. It's a shame this here was apparently her only movie.

This is the best movie in R rated ever. The music just epic. The romantic scene. The tragedy with Susan. Just amazing. Story is perfect and never be forgotten. Shawn Harris as Susan..Her acting is marvelous.