THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES (USA 1973)
The indeed darkest film in porn history, THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES, starts and ends with frowningly music and the imploringly appeal by a masturbating woman: "Put your cock in me! I can't do it by myself. Touch me, please!" Camera navigates through the room that resembles a prison cell while a man (Gerard Damiano!) enters the scene. He answers mysteriously by the words: "He is here…" They are talking about the devil. He floats somewhere in the cell and he put a man by the side of Miss Jones who is not determined to satisfy her sexual desire. Miss Jones has to be with him evermore. That is of course hell! One without exit, and what sounds existentialist, shall exactly be this, because Gerard Damiano, master of subversively porn, finally got his inspiration from Jean-Paul Sartre's drama NO EXIT.
How Miss Jones blundered into this forlorn situation, we get to know in the second sequence: On a rainy day, Miss Jones strolls through her flat. She runs herself a bath and slashes her wrists while sitting in her bath. We see her die, and a little moment later, she is located somewhere between heaven and hell. Sitting behind a plain wooden table, a man announces that she has no choice in her case and that she is condemned to hell because of her suicide, an inexcusable deed. Miss Jones takes it calmly. Unfortunately, it comes only now to her mind that she neglected something important in life: lust. She died indeed virginal and shall stay as such in hell forever. This thought is intolerable to her, and the secretary of the devil thinks that this penalty is too hard for her, too.
Ignoring his chief, he appropriates a short adjournment to Miss Jones in order that she could catch up on the matter of lust. He points at a door that Miss Jones shall go through and behind that door, it gets going: We see Miss Jones experience all versions of lust in very drastic scenes. It was bound to happen: Lust pleases Miss Jones so much that life generally seems to her much more worthy to live. However, there is no return. The way to hell is all the harder for her now.
A sad story - a dazing infatuating film! Porn that shows a suicide in the detail, porn without any hope for a Happy End - this is unique. Unpromising, unappeasable appetite hurries Miss Jones on. The undertone of the film is accordingly downbeat. The interaction of shrill music, hard sex and harsh, often frantic words, which Miss Jones addresses to her lovers, fortify this depressive impression. Pictures are chary and brusque. The devil casts his shadow on each scene. Not a bit of glossy erotic. Sex is shown hard and dirty (exception: the very tender dykes' scene). Pornographic scenes are characterized by stunning beauty and extreme erotic brisance after all. Georgina Spelvin as Miss Jones acts brilliant!
Like his follower MEMORIES WITHIN MISS AGGIE, THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES is porn that you should watch best on a blurry day in November. This depressing film does not make you be in high spirits in no case, but with Miss Jones, Hardcore comes to you in the true sense of the word. The film was indeed declared as the "APOCALYPSE NOW!" of porn by people. Who has seen both films, knows that this comparison has its warranty.
Direction: Gerard Damiano
Actresses/actors: Georgina Spelvin, John Clemens, Harry Reems, Mark Stevens, Rick Livermore, Clair Lumiere, Sue Flaken, Albert Gork, a.o.
Run: 68 min.
