Sex and the Office Girl

Stylistically resembling a German REPORT film by way of an American storefront feature (the slightly elevated production values are redolent of the former; the piss-poor production design and acting the latter), SEX & THE OFFICE GIRL purports to show what happens behind closed doors during a late-night office crunch session. Forced to spend the evening at work catching up on filings for a big new account (or some such nonsense), the office pool quickly finishes its duties but, unlike a typical workplace where everyone would be dashing for the door, decides to stick around and - in true 60s fashion - have a nightcap and an orgy.

The only problem is Barbara, the boss' uptight secretary, who doesn't want to put out. That's not about to stop her employer, however, and he's soon groping her the second he gets a chance, only stopped by the surprise arrival of a caterer. Once the guy leaves and Barbara and a friend have retreated to the executive suite, the rest of her coworkers decide to draw cards for a quick round of who-rapes-her-first. It's a supremely distasteful scene, abject nightmare fuel rendered in the most blithe and sexist terms imaginable, and of course the film follows through with it. Wrenching Barbara's companion away from her, the "winner" slaps this second girl into submission, leaving her sprawled on the ground and begging to watch while he rapes her friend.

The other guys each have their turn before the night is through, while everyone else amuses themselves playing cheeky parlor games out front. Things finally become a bit more interesting (and less soul-searing) as Barbara's repeated violation causes her to default to the law of the jungle. Switching into full femdom mode, she barges back into the office and starts ordering everyone around, eventually selecting the poor caterer, returned to collect his things, as her first object of conquest. "I take what I want, but I don't always want what I take," she prophetically intones, echoing her boss from earlier and closing things on an abjectly Sadean note that portends far more interesting events than anything depicted here.

A distanced attitude toward forcible sex (within the bounds of narrative) is often necessary to enjoy vintage sexploitation, but the complete crassness with which SEX & THE OFFICE GIRL treats the subject is fairly unique. It's only in the final few minutes that it becomes clear where the film is going, and by then it's generated such ill-will it's impossible to recover. Beyond that, there's nothing else to legitimate this as worthy of any interest. The production values are poor, the acting (by a cast of unknowns) woeful, and the non-story bloated to an interminable 80 minutes. Some subliminal flashes of split beaver are an interesting historical artifact, marking this as the byproduct of a very brief and fascinating transitional period in American sex film production (and probably dating it closer to 1969 than IMDb's stated 1972), but there are far better examples of that genre too, which demonstrate more genuine artistry or at least don't treat their protagonists with such sociopathic disregard. Learning to love these films without judging them by contemporary standards is critical to appreciating sexploitation, but one has to draw a line somewhere. SEX & THE OFFICE GIRL falls squarely on the wrong side of it, and survives (just barely) as a sobering artifact of a less-enlightened time.