Marilyn Chambers’ Sextrospective
Directed by Eric Drake
Starring Marilyn Chambers, Barbara Joyce, and about 500 fledgling ‘actresses’
Eclectic DVD

Oh man, this is amazing, in the way only a Private Screenings feature can be. Somewhere between Confessions of a Window Cleaner and Confessions of an acid eater (or whatever) the world’s most redoubtable late-night cable softcore producers decided proto-porn queen Marilyn Chambers had avoided abject humiliation for long enough, and concocted this retrospective mish-mash of clips from her hard R films. Wrapped around them is a goofball plotline about her old producer “Ralph Butts”, who wants her to do one last ‘erotic’ flick, “Rapture”. He explains this to her over a phony Jetsons styled video phone, and I guess it must have been a one-way transmission, because if he could actually see what his starlet looked like these days, he’d probably be frantically switching to plan B and cold-calling Ginger Lynn.

Listen, the 70’s version of Marilyn Chambers was one of the hottest little nymphos to ever fuck on film, and “Behind the Green Door” is still an amazingly sexy movie. But you know, that was 30 years ago. Which is about a million in porn years.

Lounging around in old-lady lingerie and puffing on a long cigarette holder, the 50-something Chambers looks like some insane cross between Zsa Zsa Gabor and Cruella Devine. She’s at least 60 pounds and a decade away from any new nude scenes, and the heaving cleavage pouring out of her sausage-casing bustier brings to mind the sad sight of the desperate, big-boned goth chicks that hang outside of gay bars. “I don’t know”, Marilyn tells Ralph. “Another erotic film? I think I should do something more meaningful.” If meaningful means fully clothed, then yeah, Marilyn, do that instead.

Undaunted, Ralph tries to coax his former porn queen out retirement by showing her clips from her (non-hardcore) filmography, which is just cruel, really.

“Nobody can eat a strawberry like you do”, Ralph Butts tells her as a younger, skinnier Chambers does just that in a clip from ‘The Marilyn Diaries’. “Your work with food is legendary”.

Cut to the plump, middle-aged Chambers. “Well, I am rather good with that”, she replies, with no trace of irony whatsoever.

A good hour or so of softcore scenes ensue, from forgotten 80’s gems (?) like “Party Incorporated”, “Beauty School”, “Marilyn Chambers’ Bedtime Fantasies” “Broadcast Bombshells”, “Lusty Busty Beauties” and of course, “Bikini Bistro”. See tits pressed against glass! Watch girls arch their backs while some greasy guy licks their neck! Thrill to the back of Marilyn’s head as it bobs up in down in mock oral sex! You know the drill, because you’ve seen all of ‘em too.

Ultimately, Chambers decides she’d be better off directing the movie then starring in it (whew!), so she just recruits her maid to do the dirty work, and “Sextrospective” fades out with a happy Marilyn barking orders from her director’s chair.

Sure, I’m a jaded fuck now. Porn does that to you. I’ve seen chicks suck semen out of their own asses, for god sake. But in 1985, I was only 16, and you better believe I was splattering the family TV screen over these stupid movies then. For sleazy nostalgia alone, this one’s an absolute classic.
-Sleazegrinder