The Rise and Fall of a Bogus Sex Clinic: A Review of the 1978 Comedy

Four students open a bogus sex clinic for cheap thrills and then are amazed to see it blossom into a profitable business. Regarding the narrative development, four randy college clods looking to raise money for life after school decide to pose as sex researchers and open a phoney clinic. They get federal funding and use it to pay college girls for sex under the pretense of producing a study on their sexuality (which supposedly makes it respectable). When they can no longer keep up with the volume of sex they must engage in they become pimps charging other men money to have sex with the girls. It balloons into a million dollar business with bankers, local politicians and corrupt police also profiting. The four clods run afoul of these various powerful elements when they finally decide that the scheme is immoral.

Production Background and Casting

This 1978 Dennis Quaid movie is pretty lewd. It also has one of Priscilla Barnes' first screen appearances making it another entry in that infamous series known as "Before-they-were stars" but other than that this movie mostly falls flat. It was a lot of fun seeing the young actors (Dennis Quaid, Priscilla Barnes, Lou Richards, etc.) working with the older actors (Edward Andrews, Robert Emhardt, Alan Reed, etc.) plus all the young womanhood that paraded before the camera. Stanley Shapiro who wrote the script for the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie PILLOW TALK also penned this one. However, Director Amateau, who created the series MY MOTHER THE CAR, will never be considered a talent.

Key Movie Data Summary

  • Release Year: 1978
  • Main Stars: Dennis Quaid and Priscilla Barnes
  • Notable Cast: Lou Richards, Edward Andrews, Robert Emhardt, and Alan Reed (voice of Fred Flintstone)
  • Screenwriter: Stanley Shapiro
  • Production Insight: Enough of the plot still remained to keep the film entertaining but be warned there's a PG version out there with an R rating on the package!

Critical Reception and Legacy

Believe it or not they actually made one heckuva boring movie about horny college kids. It's not funny, it's not interesting, it's not cute, it's not heartwarming, nor is it sexy - it's nothing but a big bore. I'm sure this one fell flat in 1978, even worse today. It is easy to see why this film ended up in the public domain and is pretty much an unwatched film anymore. From a producers point of view a movie like this is a glowing success in that it performed well as an investment. From an auteur's perspective it is not a complete failure either in that what we see on screen is not completely unwatchable but I can't recommend it and very few critics have.

It is remnant of a time when some sexploitation and soft-core porn movies were disguised as scientific university case study or instructional films. Other such films like DAUGHTER OF THE SUN, MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM, THE NAKED APE and THE HARRAD EXPERIMENT proved lucrative through niche marketing in their time even though they purportedly played like high school social studies movies. This one seems to spoof the mentality of those and of what federal money can sometimes end up subsidizing.