Courtroom drama about an obscenity trial over a novel called The Seven Minutes.
Russ Meyer thought courtroom dramas were dull so he livened it up but editing it down to short takes and making it fast-moving. It was still long at an hour and fifty-five minutes. It became a bit of a mystery as the defense attorney tries to find the true author of the novel.
I saw it on TV when I was in high school. We had cable but didn't have any pay channels. It may have been on the Canadian channel. I didn't know anything about it or Russ Meyer. I somehow noticed the editing. I remember being impressed by it, but the arguments against censorship seemed pretty standard.
Tom Selleck and John Carradine were the only actors I recognized.
A prosecutor up for re-election sets out to prosecute a bookstore for selling a high brow sex novel. The defense is at a terrible disadvantage during the trial. I don't know how realistic this is. I read Howl of the Censor which was mostly a transcript of the obscenity trial of City Lights Books over the publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems. The judge had to tell courtroom observers not to laugh at prosecution witnesses and the prosecution struggled to make any points. The work had to be judged as a whole so he couldn't single out the dirty parts, he could raise doubts about the literary merit of the poem as a whole but couldn't raise doubts by pointing out the unintelligible parts, and that trial was in 1957.
The prosecutor and the defense attorney confront each other in the parking garage once the trial is over. The defense lawyer with his Volkswagen bug and the prosecutor in his big giant Chrysler Imperial. They each swear that they'll continue the fight for or against censorship. At least they were sincere.
The movie failed at the box office. Apparently, audiences expected something different from Russ Meyer. He went back to independent film after this.
Based on the novel by Irving Wallace.
It appears to be available only on Moveland.Tv.
No comments:
Post a Comment