LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT (1975)
When factions from just about every political movement in the country become completely disgruntled with the two currently political candidates, they hold a convention of their own to nominate a suitable third party candidate. But with groups ranging from the Lets Get Back to Viet Nam Committee, the American Nazi Party, and the Group Marriage Group, it seems that no one will ever be chosen. However, on a lark (and as you’ve probably already guessed from the title) they finally go with porn star Linda Lovelace of DEEP THROAT fame.
With the blessing and guidance of her Uncle Sam, Linda and her merry crew of cross-sectioned supporters and organizers including a priest, a feminist, a flaming homosexual and a pedophile head from coast to coast in a pair of buses with a path that is quite fitting of Linda’s infamy. When Linda actually starts ranking in the polls, due in part to her very healthy one-on-one grassroots promoting, representatives from both the Democrats and Republicans team up to stop her. Their plan - hire the world’s best assassin Alfredo Fettuccini to kill her before the elections!
With Linda Lovelace standing completely nude in a very Patton-esque pose in front of an American flag, the opening text proudly proclaims “This picture is intended to offend everybody… regardless of race, creed or color.” And it does. From the psychotic and disturbed mind of “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” writer Jack Margolis comes this sketch-comedy styled political farce that plays in the same vein as THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and swings for the fences to ensure that no one is left out. But in between the immature double entendres and homophobic, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, incestuous and pedophilia-laced jokes is a jab at politics and how elections are won that seems eerily foretelling of today’s politics.
Director Claudio Guzman just barely keeps everything in some form of logical and coherent forward momentum, but leaves plenty of room for complete onscreen anarchy and commotion. Linda and company move from one five-to-ten minute bit to the next, with Linda of course losing all over clothes in each one for some full-frontal nudity and simulated softcore sex (the film was originally rated “X”), while many of her cohorts get into their own rambunctious antics including ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz as a nearsighted and neurotic bus driver. While the cast includes many comedic talents from the late sixties and early seventies, most of the acting comes off as second rate.
With over thirty years passed since its original release in 1975, the bawdy movie offers a peek back into a raunchy and unapologetic time before political correctness threatened to make offensive humor a relic of the past or at least neuter it to the being pointless at its best or hipster-ironic at its worst. While it may have ruffled a few feathers back in the day for the most part everyone who saw it seemed to get the joke - in a world where everything is offensive, is anything actually offensive?
LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT would mark the last screen appearance for Linda Lovelace, whose real name is Linda Boreman, save for archive footage that was recycled through the eighties. Lovelace, who died in 2002, would later go on to write two books alleging she was forced to participate in pornography. While Linda’s life may not have had the happiest ending, there is no doubt that she still retains a legion of fans, who will be thrilled to know that this hard-to-find title has finally been released on DVD.
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