Sam Dobbs - Detective

Styled as a gumshoe film, SAM DOBBS spends way too much time on the sex scenes, and pays virtually no attention to plot. That pegs it into the strictly-for-porn-hounds category, which is a shame since its sequel, ZODIAC RAPIST, struck a better balance.

Film is dated 1970 on the recent video reissue, but I would peg it as a 1971 release given that it is not mentioned at all in the thorough AFI Catalog 1961-1970 tome. The IMDb's estimate of 1972 is definitely incorrect.

Buddy Boone, a wholesome looking porn stalwart, personifies Sam Dobbs, the private dick whose name is derived from two of Humphrey Bogart's greatest roles: Sam Spade and Fred C. Dobbs. His non-case here begins when Julie (an unknown actress who looks like Sandy Dennis wearing a crummy black wig!) calls telling him there's a stiff lying next to her swimming pool.

Dobbs tears himself away from his secretary (one of porn's earliest stars, Judy Angel), who's giving him a blow job, and investigates, immediately getting it on outdoors with Julie. Inside her mansion the maid Sharon (who wears no panties) is soon humping Billy, the TV repairman. The maid bears tell-tale five-pointed-star tattoo near her thumb, but I failed to make a positive ID on the actress; Billy's claim to fame is his ejaculating a heavy load on her backside, lovingly shot in slo-mo.

Instead of getting on with a story (who needs a story?) Dobbs & Julie watch the menials have sex and then join them for a foursome, exchanging partners. Film's weakest point is an afterthought of dubbing in dirty talk on the soundtrack during these sex scenes -unnecessary and insultingly stupid.

Back in Dobbs' office, Angel (sporting a broad Southern accent) is joined by the fabulous Suzanne Fields, who's knitting a sweater (!) but drops the task immediately for a lesbian scene. Dobbs belatedly phones Lt. Ward at homicide to report the murder, while Julie is still riding him.

A clue (note) found on the stiff's body belatedly spurs Dobbs into action: he hops into his car as music reminiscent of the TV "Batman" theme plays. Film's intentions really become suspect when Lt. Ward shows up on the scene and is very, very poorly dubbed with a British accent. He wants to see Dobbs to warn him about a comet that threatens to collide devastatingly with the Earth (talk about foreshadowing)!

Dobbs is picked up by a hippie girl (voluptuous Nora Wieternik) who gives him a hand job in her van leading to among the most tedious and overly padded sequences of driving from point A to B I've ever seen. She and another hippie girl have sex with Dobbs in the (supposedly) moving van in an endless array of positions, well-shot with filmmaker John Lamb's trademark distorting lens, first-person camera pointed at Brandy and her amazing breasts.

Finally the trio arrives at the hippie commune, presided over by the Guru (400-pound Jack King, a fixture of early porn movies). Film devolves at this point into an endless orgy, with some very attractive women in the large cast, including the great Starlyn Simone, and a bunch of rejects in the male roles. Dobbs is paired off with a Sandy Dempsey lookalike who forces him to take LSD, and we get some more distorting lens camera-work as a result.

Dobbs ends up in bondage (gotta get all those fetishes into the movie somehow) on a makeshift altar where five women including Brandy line up and take turns blowing him and riding him. Unfortunately, this is done in strictly a mechanical & listless fashion and is definitely not the turn-on it must have seemed on paper. As the Guru instructs them to "suck all the energy out of him", the "Batman" like theme plays again, and the film's apocalyptic ending is thrown in.

This enjoyable (up to a point) trash runs 82 minutes, unbelievably long for a porn quickie. I guess it would have totaled 2 hours if they'd included story material, but with more care it could have been an interesting film. The picture quality is excellent, carefully preserved for the recent After Hours Cinema reissue in tandem with ZODIAC RAPIST.