Behind the Green Door

Behind the Green Door remains one of the most famous of the "Golden Age" porn films thanks to the presence of one-time Ivory Snow girl Marilyn Chambers demonstrating that she was rather less than 99 and 44/100% pure.

Inspired by a Korean-war era soldier's tale, the narrative is simplicity itself. A couple of truckers go into a diner and are asked by the chef about the story of the green door, which one then proceeds to relate:

A young woman, Gloria (Chambers) is abducted by masked men and delivered to a clinically white room. She is massaged and assured that everything is okay and that she will enjoy the experiences to come.

Gloria is then taken onto a stage before a masked audience. Her six black-clad assistants remove her white dress and caress her all over before eventually laying her down.

A black man (ex-boxer Johnny Keyes), adorned like a tribal warrior, comes through the green door and ravishes Gloria.

A multi-part trapeze is lowered and, as Gloria fellates the tribesman and masturbates two others, she is serviced below by a fourth.

Meanwhile an orgiastic free-for-all finally breaks out, blurring the boundary between the on-screen audience and performers…

The night and the story at their end, we return to the truckers. As one drives off images of Gloria are superimposed over the night, then replace it as they make love…

Although Jim Mitchell once quipped that "The only Art in [the adult film] business is my brother," Behind the Green Door has definite qualities that way, whether it be the tableaux vivant qualities of the scene with Gloria and her assistants – one could well imagine Jean Rollin doing something similar in one of his sexy vampire films – the way the first Chambers-Keyes sex scene focuses more on their faces and upper bodies than their genitals, or – most famously – the spectacular near ten minute montage of optically printed and solarised cumshots that climax the orgy.

But if today’s porn directors could almost certainly do the arty thing thanks to the availability of cheap digital effects, they would probably be unable to approach their material in the way the Mitchell Brothers have here.

For one thing the whole idea of a woman being abducted and coerced before becoming a willing participant is simply beyond the pale, even when explictly presented as a (male) fantasy – one notes here the pre-film statement that " Sexual activities depicted in this Video/DVD may be medically harmful. In addition they are NOT necessarily healthy, safe or suggested."

For another the relatively general purpose nature of the orgy – we don’t see any male homosexual activity – with several performers of the sort the average viewer likely wouldn’t want to see naked let alone fucking, would appear to run counter to present market fragmentation into various ‘specialities’ – gonzo, fat girls etc.

Another case of "they just don't make them like this anymore", more's the pity…

And, alas, another case of a perfunctory DVD release, with muffled sound and the image a little too far to the right, such that there is a black band throughout on the left-hand side and some of the closing credits slightly cut off.

The only extra is a cumshot gallery, a notion that seems to confirm precisely what the film celebrates, at best, in an ironic manner.

Might make for a good double bill with Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen’s Mitchell Brothers biopicRated X or Blood Brothers – Jim & Artie Mitchell: The E! True Hollywood Story, cheap and tacky though they may be…