The Last Porno Flick (1974)

          If the making of an adult movie strikes you as unlikely subject matter for a PG-rated comedy, then you’ve realized one of the many reasons why The Last Porno Flick isn’t just unwatchably dull, but also inherently pointless. A cheaply made “comedy” about two cab drivers who decide that producing a skin flick will make them rich, this dreary movie is too tame to attempt the raunchy humor its premise suggests, and too sleazy to provide the family-friendly entertainment its rating promises. Really, what audience could there possibly be for a movie about porn without any salacious content? Obviously, the filmmakers didn’t set out to make an unfunny comedy, but if they had any illusions of reaching a broader audience by making vanilla jokes about the porn industry, then they were as deluded as their lead characters, because the jokes are so lame that they barely merit a reaction on first mention, then go on endlessly as the filmmakers beat one dead horse after another.

          For instance, cab driver Tony (Frank Calcanini) tricks his ultra-religious mother-in-law, Mama Theresa (Carmen Zapata), into investing by telling her he’s making a religious movie instead of smut. Soon afterward, Mama Theresa and a gaggle of her equally devout friends go to church, where they chat reverently about Tony’s movie project while the pastor delivers a fire-and-brimstone sermon against pornography. Yawn. Every character in this movie is a demeaning cliché, from the bimbo actress who stars in the porn movie because she’s told it has “redeeming social values” to the queeny camera assistant who flits around the set.

          The acting is across-the-board terrible, with Tom Signorelli’s one-note stoner routine as the porno flick’s hippie-dippie director the only quasi-amusing performance. Although familiar actors like Marianna Hill (Medium Cool) and Michael Pataki (Rocky IV) appear in the cast, they deliver work as uninspired as the material. So in short, The Last Porno Flick lacks laughs, sex, and smarts, making it an even greater waste of film than the never-seen movie-within-the-movie, The Temptations of Synthia—because at least The Temptations of Synthia presumably delivers the goods.

The Last Porno Flick: SQUARE