The Telephone Book (1971)

Simply Perfect

As Good As It Gets

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The story of a day in the life of a lonely, sensitive, exuberant, attractive, young woman. Her exploits, encounters, and frustrations as she attempts to find a "special" someone, a caller who has "class", as she puts it.From the pornographic wallpaper to the downright raunchy situations, this is a dirty film. Yet, somehow a tastefully dirty film... not at all sexual, despite the nudity and sexual situations. Bizarre! How has Something Weird or someone else not gotten a hold of this title?Frankly, I love the way this guy talks! And I love that this has a "young" William Hickey in it. I primarily know him later on from "Tales From the Crypt" and "Puppet Master", so it was great to see him more in his prime.

The Telephone Book has developed a cult following over the years due to its pedigree (Nelson Lyon, a future writer of Saturday Night Live) and cast (William Hickey, Jill Clayburgh). However, it is still an early 70's softcore sex comedy, the type of film Something Weird Video specializes in. The plot has a young woman being so turned on by an obscene phone call that she attempts to track down the caller. This leads to encounters with all types of crazies as the woman wanders around Manhattan. For what it is, The Telephone Book shows more imagination than most of its type. The film even includes an animated section where a giant woman has sexual intercourse with a skyscraper. This section and a housewife's dirty monologue about a banana are the only laugh out loud moments in the film. The rest of the jokes only slightly amuse (at best) . One is advised to view the film with expectations set by the genre and not by its cult reputation.

Alice (Goldie Hawn look-a-like Sarah Kennedy) answers the phone in her apartment on day only to find the world's best obscene phone caller Mr. Smith (Norman Rose) on the other end. She is immediately smitten with him (after all, he is the world's best obscene phone caller) and demands to meet him. "I'm in the book," he tells her and Alice begins her quest to find THE John Smith, meeting lots of weirdos along the way. This bizarre and often hilarious avant garde comedy really took me for a wild ride. This is unlike anything before or since its release. Somewhere amongst the weirdness is commentary about oddballs, the role of sex in society and the increasing inability of people to communicate. The film is also an explosion of imagery, filmed mostly in black & white until the color ending that comes complete with a graphic cartoon. Despite such a lurid subject matter, director Nelson Lyon keeps it all in good fun. The only familiar faces for me were Dolph Sweet as one of the people making sexual confessions interspersed through out the film and a young William Hickey (he was once young!) as Alice's favorite lover - a man whose erection would never go down. Definitely one of a kind.

That is the only word to describe this totally off the wall comedy/art/porno. The story runs like this, a young and very cute girl (Sarah Kennedy) is sitting at home one day (probably looking at her pornographic wallpaper!). The phone rings, she picks up. Lo and behold it is, John Smith, the worlds greatest obscene phone caller! She instantly falls in love with his "amazing obscenities" and goes on a sexual adventure searching for him. This movie is NOT like your average porno, to be honest I did not even see anything close to hard sex. What I did see was a visual, auditory and sexual explosion of sheer oddity. If there was an 11 out of 10 this is the only movie I know that would get it!!!