The Devil In Miss Jones - Classic Porn Movie Starring Georgina Spelvin
Georgina Spelvin plays Justine Jones, a frustrated spinster who decides that suicide is the only way out. Because she has lived a pure life, she finds herself in limbo where Mr. Abaca (John Clemens) informs her that she can't qualify for Heaven and she isn't wicked enough for Hell. Her only option is to spend a short time consumed by lust to gain admittance into Hell. Harry Reems plays the teacher assigned to provide her the necessary sexual instruction. Damiano made this movie after his 1972 success with Deep Throat. The film was shot in a house on Park Drive South in the town of Harrison, New York. The original film, along with its sequel (Devil in Miss Jones 2), are considered adult film classics, featuring many adult film stars well known in the "Golden Age of Porn" (mostly the 1970s and early 1980s). The film achieved wide acclaim from the mainstream public and was referenced in many films, books and television programs.
Succeeding "Miss Jones" films extend the title's name to at least six films; most viewers, however, believe they fail to achieve the quality of the original. Gerard Damiano's follow up to Deep Throat – the film which inaugurated the "porno chic" era circa 1973-75 – emerges as an interesting test case. An unusually cerebral and well-acted entry, it presents what could be interpreted as an anti-porn message. Not, of course, in the sense of seeking to connect pornography with violence against women or somesuch, more in terms of asking existential questions about the utter meaninglessness and pointlessness of it all, suggesting that satisfaction is at best transitory, at worst unattainable.
We open with a man and a woman in an otherwise empty, anonymous, room:
Woman: Put your cock in me… I can't do it by myself…
Man, uninterested: Close your eyes. You'll see. I'm not crazy. He's here. He'll come
Woman, trying to arouse herself: I can't come, damn you
We then backtrack as our titular character, portrayed by Georgina Spelvin – a feminisation of the traditional male actor's pseudonym and one of the in-jokes that suggests the film's artistic/serious pretensions – is formally introduced. A lonely middle-aged virgin, Miss Jones slits her wrists in the bath, to emerge into the afterlife. The entity handling her case, Abaca, indicates that she poses the celestial bureaucracy something of a problem: Having otherwise lived a virtuous life but for her "accident", she isn't really a candidate for Hell, yet her self-annihilation dictates that she should go there rather than Heaven. After some debate, it is decided that Miss Jones may return to the world for a short time to experience the sensual gratification – or lust, as she puts it – she denied herself in life. Then, when Abaca calls her back, he will have justification for sending her on her way to Hell.
A series of minimalistically directed, near tableaux vivant style sexual encounters follow, managing to be simultaneously arousing in terms of their action and distancing in terms of their raw, unadorned ugliness.
First, Miss Jones meets The Teacher, incarnated by Deep Throat's male lead, Harry Re(e|a)ms, whose job it is to cure her of her inhibitions and provide for Miss Jones initiation. This entails inserting a plug up her anus and having her fellate him before – with increasing enthusiasm – she requests that he put his penis in her and takes control… From here we segue into a gentle 'lesbian' scene, involving oil and a plastic-sheeted mattress, followed by Miss Jones pleasuring herself in the bath. (Spaghetti western fans may be amused to know that – at least on the print I saw, the DVD sourced from an old VCX video copyrighted 1980 – the music for the latter sequence is lifted from the final corrida in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West; the music throughout the film is generally quite beautiful and effective)
After another interlude with The Teacher, and another solo scene during which Miss Jones inserts grapes into her vagina – soon after followed by the inevitable banana – and plays suggestively with a snake, Miss Jones meets Abaca once more. She pleads to be allowed to live out her life, but he says he can do nothing. Next up is a scene with a man and another woman, with a soupçla;on of snowballing, followed by a – then daring – double penetration. By now she Miss Jones a completely lascivious sexual animal who knows what she wants: "Harder, faster. Fuck me harder… I want to feel your cum on me. I want to feel the juice run down my legs…"
Recalled by Abaca after this climax, Miss Jones again begs with Abaca, but he refuses and tells her that it is time. Thus, Miss Jones is plunged into hell and, it turns out, our opening scene of two individuals wrapped up in their own worlds, unable to connect to one another. It's a denouement that could have come more or less straight from Jean-Paul Sartre's huis clos.
One of the smartest adult movies ever, The Devil in Miss Jones remains in a class by itself and serves as a reminder of a time when adult filmmakers tried to bring a little art to the scene. Plus it's hot! If you think 70's porn is tame, this movie will really change your mind . Justine Jones, a spinster in her 30's, kills herself, because NOTHING has happened in her life. Confronted by the Devil and faced with an eternity in Hell ,she imposes the hypothetical premise-If I had my life to live over I would live a life consumed,engulfed, impassioned by lust!! This brings about sexual behavior that transcends the norm and blooms into erotic art.