The Telephone Book

The Telephone Book has developed a cult following over the years due to its pedigree (Nelson Lyon, a future writer of Saturday Night Live) and cast (William Hickey, Jill Clayburgh). However, it is still an early 70's softcore sex comedy, the type of film Something Weird Video specializes in. The plot has a young woman being so turned on by an obscene phone call that she attempts to track down the caller. This leads to encounters with all types of crazies as the woman wanders around Manhattan.

For what it is, The Telephone Book shows more imagination than most of its type. The film even includes an animated section where a giant woman has sexual intercourse with a skyscraper. This section and a housewife's dirty monologue about a banana are the only laugh out loud moments in the film. The rest of the jokes only slightly amuse (at best) . One is advised to view the film with expectations set by the genre and not by its cult reputation.

That is the only word to describe this totally off the wall comedy/art/porno. The story runs like this, a young and very cute girl (Sarah Kennedy) is sitting at home one day (probably looking at her pornographic wallpaper!). The phone rings, she picks up. Lo and behold it is, John Smith, the worlds greatest obscene phone caller! She instantly falls in love with his "amazing obscenities" and goes on a sexual adventure searching for him. This movie is NOT like your average porno, to be honest I did not even see anything close to hard sex. What I did see was a visual, auditory and sexual explosion of sheer oddity. If there was an 11 out of 10 this is the only movie I know that would get it!!!

A film that I think aims to get the audience into a state of sexual ecstasy. There's no point to the plot nor is there a message. It's all about sexual fantasies. Nobody in the picture actually has sex, they just talk dirty and that's how they get off. Even when the young Goldie Hawn look-a-like main character meets her obscene caller he never takes off his pig mask and all he does is TALK sex. At many points when the sexual tension is at its height the movie cuts away to people talking into the camera about their habit of doing obscene phone calls or putting bananas into their vagina and so on, so I think it wants to play with the audience. The last 10 minutes it is piling it up, though. It gets louder and faster by the minute, and more animated. The movie certainly had an orgasm.

It's a very smudgy comedy, but barely funny. Kinda like a Russ Meyer picture but more experimental. There was an interesting moment at the theater. A guy on screen talks about his previous obsession of making dirty phone calls and it becomes more and more absurd but not particularly funny. Then the guy right next to me starts laughing out loud, and I mean really loud. He can't stop himself and goes "HA!" every few seconds. Gradually more and more people throughout the whole theater start laughing more or less because of what was on screen but they most certainly wouldn't have laughed if this guy hadn't started. When the next scene began it was all quiet again. There was close to no laughter throughout the rest of the picture.

Very entertaining. Girl in Manhattan receives the obscene call of her life, attempts to find him (identified as "John Smith") in the telephone book. Funny scenes as she finds the wrong John Smiths. Surprise ending when she finds the right one. Some nudity and extremely explicit but funny cartoon sequences.

Who is John Smith? why....every man's deepest fantasy of course. As he utters at one point and which sums up this incredibly original and black-humored ode to left wing sexuality..."I have perfected the obscene call to the point where I could seduce the President, his wife and his family - but I have no political ambition!"

Poor old Alice, cute little Goldie Hawn wannabe and who is a couple of bra-sizes short of average intelligence, she decides to answer her telephone! Big mistake - it is the world's most experienced serially-obscene phone caller. Does she care? No, she falls in love with him. She must embark now on the ultimate sexual odyssey to discover the joys of true spoken obscenity.

This film is unlike anything else ever made - as original as ERASERHEAD, as meaningless as an Osmond Brothers album. You have to see it...if for no other reason to witness Barry Morse's cameo to end all cameos. They surely COULDN'T have paid him to do it...he MUST have paid them!

I have had this film for twenty years and STILL haven't let my kids see it! I think mine is the only copy in Australia, if not the southern hemisphere. A deep deep underground film that could NEVER have found theatrical release I imagine.