User Reviews

Early porn features are often quaint by virtue of their fear-laden dependence on socially redeeming or educational content as justification for being obscene. This hokey fake-documentary is typical of the trend.

The black & white archive footage and historical material about marijuana is familiar and boring, but fortunately a bevy of early porn stars make the scene and provide explicit material for the fans to enjoy.

John Holmes and Andy Bellamy, evidently filmed around the time they co-starred memorably in his first JOHNNY WADD feature for Bob Chinn, play boss and secretary in a quality porn scene, notable for the Wadster's purple prose narration that pretends to be self-effacing. Its drawback is a minimizing of hardcore content, with Ms. Bellamy not even permitted to demonstrate her blow job skills.

Sandy Dempsey is similarly amusing as she explains the power of Mary Jane to help her achieve orgasm. My own favorite actress of the pre-DEEP THROAT era, Maria Arnold, gives a strong dramatic performance as a frigid wife likewise loosened up and fulfilled after eating brownies laced with weed, kindly provided by her frustrated hubby.

Suzanne Fields is completely wasted in a softcore segment poorly demonstrating the "sexual encounter group" fad of the era -see the classic TOUCH ME on the subject in which both she and Bellamy starred instead.

Eve Orlon provides invigorating mixed combo action as a free-loving co-ed making it in the grass (the other kind) with a Black dude, when not engaged in some protest march.

This film was a pet project of Tom Parker, an early pornographer remembered for his mediocre output under the Topar Films banner. Most successful later on with drive-in staples (IF YOU DON'T STOP IT...YOU'LL GO BLIND) he missed the boat with his early (1969-71) XXX features which failed to later upgrade into the classic and profitable porno chic material post-DEEP THROAT.

This would-be documentary mixes stock footage, lame street interviews, 1975 fashion and bad acting to defend (and teach) marijuana use in terms that seem pretty commonplace today.

Its major claim (the "secret" of the title) is that marijuana enhances sex, though it includes a few dissenting voices.

The sex scenes are all very tame by today's standards, and the tone is pure Playboy. DON'T see it for the sake of John Holmes' famous member, which appears only briefly, flaccid in the background at a nude "sensitivity training" session remarkable for its insensitivity ("First, all please disrobe.").

As a classic case of blow-dried hair, flares and words like "balling", it's mildly amusing, and the cast deliver a few unconscious one-liners.

The film lasts just over one hour. If you pay full price, you'll be ripped off, but it would go well with "Reefer Madness".

This quasi-documentary shows the viewer that, hey, pot ain't as bad as booze, man...oh, and here's some nudity. Did you know that marijuana is an aphrodisiac? Really? Well, thanks to "documentary dramatization," we get three situations where pot loosened up some frigid men and women, and turned them into love machines.

The first story involves a virgin and her husband on their wedding night. For two years, the husband and wife make love in the dark, and hate every moment of it. Finally, in a strip club, with the world's worst exotic dancer bouncing in the background, a psychiatrist advises the husband to use pot to thaw out his wife. It works and everyone is happy. The second story had an uncredited John Holmes playing a businessman who releases stress by smoking a joint and giving his secretary "dictation" right there on his desk. The third story has a female hippie protesting war who sleeps with a stranger who is protesting smog. As she narrates a stream of consciousness speech equating sex to candy, the couple make love just off some campus quad after sharing a joint. Interspersed among the sex scenes is actual documentary footage shot on Hollywood Boulevard as normal folk are stopped and asked about marijuana. We also get a history lesson about marijuana, and plenty of speechifying about how pot is not as bad as liquor, tobacco, or coffee, and the film makers somehow manage to work in footage of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald.

The film I saw ran only forty-two minutes, but there is a full version that runs seventy-seven minutes, complete with hardcore sex inserts. I doubt all the sex would have made the film much better. This is pretty funny. Its earnestness about the benefits of marijuana, and how no one has ever died or graduated to harder drugs or caught cancer from pot is naive now, considering what is known about it. I laughed out loud when John Holmes showed up. His drug abuse and possible involvement in the Wonderland murders is as legendary as his "onscreen talent," and he doesn't make a credible spokesperson singing the praises of pot. I don't care whether you light up a bowl or not (I don't), but I do know of people under the influence of pot killing the innocent, harder drugs being taken up when pot was not enough, and that marijuana smoke does contain carcinogens. This film pretends none of this could ever happen, boldly wearing its ignorance like a badge. I guarantee it's one documentary they didn't show you in high school health class.