The Telephone Book

The story of a day in the life of a lonely, sensitive, exuberant, attractive, young woman. Her exploits, encounters, and frustrations as she attempts to find a "special" someone, a caller who has "class", as she puts it.

From the pornographic wallpaper to the downright raunchy situations, this is a dirty film. Yet, somehow a tastefully dirty film... not at all sexual, despite the nudity and sexual situations. Bizarre! How has Something Weird or someone else not gotten a hold of this title?

Frankly, I love the way this guy talks! And I love that this has a "young" William Hickey in it. I primarily know him later on from "Tales From the Crypt" and "Puppet Master", so it was great to see him more in his prime.

This underground NYC film does seem intent on stimulating its characters and audience into a frenzied state, even though nobody ever gets around to actually *having* sex. This "story", if you can call it that, deals with various sorts of extremely kinky and twisted fetishes and how one particular person can only ever do his best work over the phone. Certainly the actors give it their all, and writer / director Nelson Lyon makes this a very odd duck of a film. It's often quite surreal, with some priceless dialogue and one monologue near the end that goes on for quite some time. The film is very well shot in black & white by Leon Perera, and is episodic in nature, as our main character meets a couple of quirky people and the basic story is frequently interrupted by "obscene callers" speaking into the camera and telling us what they do (or have done) to get off.

Adorable Sarah Kennedy stars as Alice, a sex-obsessed and air headed hippie chick who receives the obscene phone call of a lifetime. Impressed by the mans' talent, she embarks on a search for the guy throughout NYC. Among the characters we meet on this journey are an avant garde adult filmmaker (Barry Morse), an excitable analyst (Roger C. Carmel) who pays her in coins for details about her sex life, and a lesbian housewife. Finally, she meets the awe- inspiring "Mr. Smith" (Norman Rose), who prefers to keep some sense of mystery about himself and never takes off his pig face mask.

What's amusing is seeing a couple of very familiar faces turn up in this thing: Jill Clayburgh as "Eyemask", Ultra Violet as a woman with a whip, William Hickey as the guy in the bed, Lucy Lee Flippin and Dolph Sweet as two of our obscene phone callers, and "Captain" Arthur Haggerty as the district attorney. Kennedy is a reasonably good anchor in this tale, while Rose invests the nutty Mr. Smith with quite a lot of gravitas.

As you can see from what I've described here, this may not appeal to all devotees of adult entertainment, but the colour animated sequence late in the film sure is a marvel of cartoonish dirty imagery. However, people may still come away from this feeling dissatisfied. Judge for yourself.

Seven out of 10.

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.

Funny, near brilliant, underground movie about the sexual perversions of everyday people. Centers around Kennedy (who is a shoe in for a young Goldie Hawn) and her various experiences trying to find John Smith the greatest obscene phone caller she's ever heard. Problem is it's New York City, which leads her to a lot of wrong Smiths. The 'real' John Smith is played by actor Norman Rose who's deep resonate, 'newsman' voice (he's worked as a narrator on many other features) only adds to the hilarity as he explains in great detail how he came to be the 'greatest obscene phone caller of all time'. This is interspread by 'true life' confessions of former obscene phone callers that are so twisted you'll just have to laugh. Also has a wild,'far out' animated sequence that could easily fit into a Marilyn Manson video. Much more provacative than today's hardcore adult films, which tend to be very mechanical. A truly unique film viewing experience that is similar to the much herald PUTNEY SWOPE, but is more consistently funnier and imaginative. A terrific example of 'grass roots' filmmaking were the creativity and ingenuity of the director makes todays $200 million, special effects laden blockbusters look as stale as yesterday's lunch. Most amazing scene features actor Barry Morse (Lt Griggs of the old FUGITIVE TV series) having over ten naked women lay on top of him at the same time!!

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.