Inserts (1976)

I knew absolutely nothing about this film before viewing it recently. Richard Dreyfuss, is, of course a very famous actor, although this movie was near the beginning of his career. It is sexy, but the furor over X ratings back in the day was much overblown. (No pun intended) The MPAA made a big mistake using X as a rating, because the porn industry immediately invented XXX. NC-17 is a better idea, but it should maybe be used for things other than sex, such as graphic violence. It is weird you can't show much frontal nudity, even without graphic sex, but you can show dismemberment and disemboweling to teenagers all day long. Anyway, this was a nice, and quite odd character study, mainly in Dreyfuss' and Jessica Harper's roles. And the young Veronica Cartwright was interesting, too. A decent, and different film.

Every one in a while you find a film of an actor that was made when they were starting out and wondered why it didn't get the attention it deserves. This is one. With a cast that includes almost newcomers Richard Drefus, Jessica Harper, Bob Hoskins and a grown up Veronica Cartwright, this film should have made more of a splash than it did. One of the first jobs outside school was as usher in a local multiplex back in the '70's and I remember this film because when it came out it went right to one of the smaller theatres that films were sent to after they had played the bigger theatres in the complex. No fanfare it just opened. I seem to recall it did OK business there but was gone in a couple of weeks. I think I saw it most nights I was there, or I would wander in on a break to catch a glimpse of a scene or two. When videos came out I got one and over the course of the years loaned and lost it. Then I searched EBay for one and finally got another copy. Within a couple of months I find a used DVD! It brings back a lot of memories of that theatre and working there. Seeing it now I realize again what I liked about it. It boarders on the fine line between comedy and drama and does it so delicately. After seeing it again, I also think it would make a great stage play. Now that it is out there in a more popular form, lets hope that more people see it.

I recall seeing the ads for this movie when it first came out. At 14 there was no way I was going to get to see it, but having seen "American Graffiti" and as a result, being a big Richard Dreyfus fan, and just the composition of the poster, I HAD to see this. The rating had nothing to do with it (X at the time) though I found it intriguing that Richard Dreyfus might be in an "X" rated movie. I mean, come on, this is Curt we're talking about! He's a real guy, not some sick-o, right? That was my way of thinking at fourteen.Many years later, I finally got to see it after renting it at a video store. It was uncut so editing cannot be blamed.I was very, VERY disappointed. It was long and tedious and it became an effort to watch. Why it got an "X" and later an "NC-17" I never really figured out, but not being on the ratings board, who I am to second-guess? In a nutshell, I may watch this once more in my lifetime, but only in the hopes I can find some redeeming quality to it, or have my loathing of the movie validated.Additional Material: April 1, 2015. It's now a few years after I wrote that above review. Several months ago (maybe more-who cares?) I saw this available and watched it again. Let me rephrase that, I started to watch this again and did actually watch some of it. The rest I fast forwarded through. Once it was over I could give in to the desperate need to sleep. It was no better than I recalled. I will NEVER watch it again.

After reading all of the reviews, I've come to the conclusion that people who enjoy movies, and apparently have a clue, enjoyed this movie for what it was. The people who talk smack about it, well, they all thought they were going to see some x-rated f*** flick, and were bummed that it didn't have any penetration or money shots in it. People ragged because it was X rated and say that was why it failed. I think it had more to do with the way it was distributed. Midnight Cowboy was originally X too, and it did quite well. Then there was Boogie Nights, which wasn't X rated, but dealt with the same subject on a broader scale--the porn industry. Did people go to see that, thinking that they were going to see a bunch of mainstream stars in a f*** flick? No.And look at who is in this movie--Dreyfus, Bob Hoskins, Veronica Cartwright and Jessica Harper! Geeze, how could anyone be thinking they were going to go see smut, then be disappointed because it turned out not to be... actually so disappointed, that 25 years later, all they can still remember about the movie is how disappointed they were when they went to see it when they were a kid that there was no money shot or semen-covered faces, that they blunder their way onto this site and give a lame review, because their libido was let down by art yet one more time. See this movie--but don't expect Deep Throat.