Sin gets a bad rap, but this Friday the Dartmouth Film Society will try to show just how sensational, sensual and blatantly sexual sin can be. As a part of its winter film series, "Sinema," DFS is revving up the raunch and doubling the pleasure with two feature films. The night starts off with Seth Rogen's latest foray into the lewd and taboo, "Zac and Miri Make a Porno," which is followed by "The Devil in Miss Jones," the little X-rated gem from the golden days of porn.
No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you: Dartmouth is showing a porno.
"The Devil in Miss Jones" stars Georgina Spelvin as Justine Jones, a sexually depraved spinster who commits suicide because she can no longer suffer through her sadly non-existent sex life.
Denied entrance through the pearly gates because of her decision to end her life, Miss Jones finds herself stuck in limbo with nowhere else to go but hell.
Inwardly devious and intrigued by the idea of lust, Miss Jones bargains with an angel to let her return to earth so she can properly "earn" her place in hell and make her great comeback as the ultimate embodiment of male desires. And you thought Mrs. Robinson was devilish.
From there, the camp and vamp only continues. Featuring a montage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and lascivious serpentine foreplay, Miss Jones learns the ways of lust from an unnamed, mysterious man, simply referred to as "The Teacher." Played by legendary porn star Harry Reems of "Deep Throat" acclaim, "The Teacher" helps to liberate Miss Jones from her previously unsatisfying love life with rollicking and ridiculously dramatic orgasms.
Though not exactly in keeping with the school of romantic poets, director Gerard Damiano does attempt to include a "moral tag" at the close of his film. He portrays Miss Jones' personal hell as imprisonment in a tightly confined cell with a man more interested in the buzzing of a fly than in ever casting Miss Jones a sly, "come hither" glance. The former Mrs. O is ironically left with an aching libido for the rest of her afterlife.
If you're still with me at this point, you're bound to be wondering, "Why exactly is Dartmouth showing a porno? Is this something that happens on a regular basis? And how can I go about being added to the Blitz list?"
Surprisingly, this isn't Dartmouth's first encounter with porn, according to DFS director A.J. Fox '09, who is also a member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
"Apparently five or six years ago, Spaulding aired a 3-D porn feature, titled 'Disco Girls in Hot Skin,'" he said. "So getting permission to air 'The Devil in Miss Jones' was never really an issue."
But Dartmouth isn't showing porn just for the sake of showing porn. Sorry, guys.
"We forget the role porn played in shaping American life during the 1970s," he explained. "There used to be this huge market for the mainstream theatrical exhibition of porn, before it got relegated to the back alleys of the web. Arguably, in the 1970s, more people saw 'Deep Throat' than any other movie in America. DFS chose to air 'The Devil in Miss Jones' to educate people about the film history of porn."
A movie responsible for more sequels than "The Exorcist," the legacy and influence of "The Devil in Miss Jones" cannot be disputed, though its legitimacy as a form of art will always be questioned.
"The Devil in Miss Jones" lives on today with the 2005 release of "The New Devil in Miss Jones," featuring a cameo appearance by Georgina Spelvin as a cleaning lady, as elderly porn has yet to become a highly profitable fetish.
"'The Devil in Miss Jones' is highly imaginative and remains significant for the sequels and parodies it spurred -- for influencing American values," Fox said.
Judge for yourself. Just don't tell Grandma.
"The Devil in Miss Jones" will be playing in Spaulding Auditorium at the Hopkins Center on Friday at 9 p.m. No one under 18 will be admitted.
