A Gay Man Watches Straight Porn #3: ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’

Even mainstream critics couldn’t
say enough kind things about
The Devil in Miss Jones.

Though I’d like to think I have a fairly well-rounded appreciation of cinema history, I realize there are serious gaps in my education. Some omissions I’m OK with: I don’t care that Battleship Potemkin is touted as one of the fundamental landmarks of cinema, I just can’t work up a desire to see it; and once I discovered D.W. Griffiths’ controversial KKK silent epic The Birth of a Nation was three-plus hours—which is two-plus hours more racist silent epic than I can tolerate—I decided I could live happily without ever having verified its appalling content with my own eyes.

There are other culturally significant films, though, that I’d regret not seeing before I die. So, to that end, I watched the 1973 porno chic classic THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES.

The Devil in Miss Jones is directed by Gerard Damiano, who in 1972 directed a little movie called Deep Throat. While both movies had a huge impact on the culture, to put it mildly, they couldn’t have been more different. Deep Throat is a dirty joke of a movie that owed its mainstream notoriety as much to highly publicized obscenity charges as it did to its graphic celebration of fellatio. The Devil in Miss Jones, on the other hand, is way more polished, its tone serious and somber. Like, really somber, as in the titular Miss Justine Jones (Georgina Spelvin) slits her wrists within the movie’s the first eight minutes.

If this makes you horny, please seek help.

Justine’s suicide lands her in purgatory, which looks like a Gothic-themed dining room (in actuality, Harry Reems’ house). Waiting for her is Abaca (John Clemons, affecting the demeanor of an effete bureaucrat). Abaca informs Justine that though she’s done nothing bad while alive—why, she’s still a virgin!—the rules dictate that suicides go to hell, a surprisingly Catholic worldview for a porno movie. Abaca is sympathetic to Justine’s plight (he delicately refers to her taking her own life as an accident), but rules are rules. “It’s not as though I’m on a commission basis,” he says. “It makes no difference to me which way they go.”

For someone condemned to spend eternity in hell, Justine is surprisingly accepting of her fate. What irks her is she didn’t do anything in her life to make hell worth it. Abaca thinks she wants to be returned to the living to steal and murder, but Justine has something far less criminal in mind. “If I had my life to live over, I would live a life filled…engulfed…consumed by lust!” Abaca, clearly tickled—possibly aroused—by the idea, decides to let the poor dear spend her time in purgatory exploring her hitherto ignored sexuality. 

Passing through a door, Justine is transformed from looking like a Depression-era school marm to a hot-to-trot divorcée plotting to seduce the UPS deliveryman. Waiting for her is Deep Throat stud Harry Reems, wearing nothing but a mustard-colored bathrobe and a lecherous grin. He introduces himself as the Teacher, and then releases her from her inhibitions in much the same manner faith healers “cure” cancer, albeit without all the shouting and begging for money.

Or similar to an chimpanzee trying to tear a person’s face off.

Then the Teacher begins his lesson, starting with inserting a finger-like dildo up Justine’s ass, also similar to a faith healer, except consensual. Afterwards he gives Justine a crash course in penis appreciation, specifically sucking and riding one (“Please, I want to know what it feels like in my cunt,” begs Justine). A rapturous Justine asks the Teacher to “take that thing out of my backside” and give it to her. She then rubs the lil’ dildo across her face and sticks it in her mouth. (I don’t care if ass-to-mouth is a popular porn category, I still think it’s gross, though given the constraints of shooting on film it’s a safe bet that dildo was washed between the shot of its removal and the shot of Georgia sucking on it. I need to believe this is true.)

After Justine’s first orgasm, she finds herself in a basement, reclining on a plastic-covered bed. Judith Hamilton (billed as Clair Lumiere) arrives, rubbing some gray-silvery oil all over Justine’s naked body before rubbing her face in Justine’s nethers. Fun fact: Judith Hamilton used to be Spelvin’s roommate and frequently co-starred with her, including a lesbian scene in the movie 3 a.m. edited by Orson Welles.

Judith Hamilton also kind of resembles Kristen Stewart,
though there are striking differences. For example, one of these
women has charisma, while another starred in the Twilight franchise.

Most guys probably wanted to give themselves a furious
tugging during this scene, but I just wanted to give that
tub a serious scrubbing.

Justine prepares to orally traumatize a snake.

Following an interlude with an enema hose, Justine returns to worship the Teacher’s cock (“I’m only content when I have you in my mouth”). Once her “lesson” reaches its gooey conclusion, Justine has some private time with a bowl of fruit, a masturbation scene my husband found icky and I found silly. But what do we know? Maybe all women are tempted to stuff grapes in their cooches. More troubling was Justine’s giving a literal snake literal head. How freaked out must that snake have been?

That snake, incidentally, was the pet of Marc “Mr. 10 ½” Stevens, whose 10 ½ is slobbered over by Justine—now wearing garish eye makeup to emphasize her “whorish” desires—and another woman, Sue Flaken. Flaken was originally cast as Miss Jones’ lead until an impacted wisdom tooth took her out of commission (she kind of looks likes Spelvin, actually). Perhaps her recent oral surgery accounts for all her drooling and slurping. Seriously, she gives the boys at Raging Stallion Studios a run for their money when it comes to sloppy BJs [link NSFW; also, gay].

Justine’s lust-filled time in purgatory cums to an end (sorry, the genre demands at least one of those puns; I think it’s a law or something) in a Levi Richards and Marc Stevens sandwich, though the two men could’ve been billed as Cock #1 and Cock #2 for all we see of their faces (the men in this movie aren’t much more than life-support systems for dicks). 

Then again, given some of the Groucho-esque close-ups of
Harry Reems, maybe it was best that the camera focused
on the male performers’ lower anatomy.

This scene also hypes up the homoeroticism. “Your cock in my cunt is so hard,” Justine breathlessly tells Stevens. “Can you feel him in my ass? Can you feel your cocks together?” She then implores the men to pull out so she can feel them cum outside her. “I want to feel the juice run down my leg,” she says. The two men cum on each other’s ball sacks instead. Oops!

“Can you feel your cocks together?”

After that misdirected money shot, it’s straight to hell for Justine. Her hell is a white-walled cell, where her only companion is a man babbling about dust and flies. A furiously masturbating Justine begs him too fuck her. “I’ll suck your cock,” she says. “I’ll suck your balls. I’ll suck your ass, your beautiful ass.” I had to question that last line, considering the ass in question belongs to the film’s director. I mean, did Gerard Damiano really have a beautiful ass? I somehow doubt it. I wouldn’t rim him, is all I’m saying.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t judge a man’s ass
based on his toupee-like hair.

It doesn’t matter. The man ignores her pleas for sexual release, condemning Justine to an eternity of sexual frustration. Or, as I knew it, college.

‘Miss Jones’ Owes Classic Status to Spelvin

Though its story is as slight as Deep Throat’s, The Devil in Miss Jones seemed a whole lot more substantial, like it was almost a real movie—well, a real movie with DPs and cumshots. Seeing Justine’s transformation from a sexually repressed wallflower to insatiable nymphomaniac is something to behold. The movie also has something to say about patriarchal attitudes toward female sexuality, i.e., a woman has to be punished for indulging her desires, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Justine Jones’ look goes from frumpy to slutty.

It’s always a risk when a porn movie attempts a more serious tone, largely because much of its success hinges on having a cast with some acting skill. Had non-actress Linda Lovelace been cast as Justine Jones, The Devil in Miss Jones would’ve become an unintentional comedy. Luckily, Damiano cast Georgina Spelvin, initially hired to run the set commissary. If Spelvin, described by Roger Ebert as “the Linda Lovelace of the literate,” was only half as good a cook as she is an actress, Damiano still came out ahead in the deal. Damiano definitely deserves props for his writing and directing, but it’s Spelvin’s committed performance that elevates The Devil in Miss Jones to its classic status.

Though she had the talent worthy of mainstream movies, Spelvin seldom ventured outside the adult genre, appearing in a handful of soft core (Career Bed, Wakefield Poole’s Bible!) and exploitation (Girls for Rent, Bad Blood) films, with Police Academy being her most prominent mainstream title. According to Sam Sherman, producer of Al Adamson’s Girls for Rent (a.k.a. I Spit on Your Corpse), after completing one scene Spelvin turned to him and said, “This is too hard. I’m going back to making fuck films.” In an interview with Mr. Skin, Spelvin simply said, “I’m not very motivated”— a statement belied by her tour-de-force performance in Miss Jones.

When Georgina Spelvin first heard there were plans to make
a sequel to The Devil in Miss Jones, her response was, “Why?”
Nevertheless, she reprised the role of Justine Jones in Henri Pachard’s
1982 sequel, The Devil in Miss Jones, Part II. Like so many hit movies,
DMJ spawned a franchise, with Paul Thomas’ 2005 reboot, featuring
a cameo by Spelvin, the most recent iteration of the title.

A Gay Man Watches Straight Porn #1: ‘Every Inch a Lady’

I had a dream about Seka the other night. I was helping her dye her hair — on her head, thank you. We were streaking her platinum locks green and blue. And yes, I am gay.

The reason a porn queen from the 1970s and ’80s was appearing in my dreams at all, even in a non-sexual context, can be attributable to my new favorite podcast, The Rialto Report, in which hosts Ashley West and April Hall interview performers and directors of adult films in the 1970s and ’80s in a friendly, non-judgmental way that shows that their subjects are more than the sum of their private parts. If you ever wished This American Life devoted an episode to the life story of Pat Barrington or wondered what a Fresh Air interview with Georgina Spelvin might sound like, the Rialto Report’s podcast is for you.

But in listening to all these Rialto Report podcasts, I had a renewed interest in watching some classic straight porn. (The Rialto Report has interviewed a few veterans of gay adult film, including Boys in the Sand director Wakefield Poole and gay-for-pay icon Jeff Stryker, but the site largely focuses on straight smut. I imagine part of the reason for this is so few Golden Age gay porn stars are still alive.) Though I’ve seen a few straight classics like Deep Throat and Talk Dirty to Me, the bulk of my hardcore porn consumption has been of the all-male variety. I’ve come to find current porn videos either boring or gross, however, so why not take a break from trying to rub one out to some present day man-on-man action and instead watch some fuck films that actually played in theaters, enjoying them solely on an aesthetic level?

Though I’d been dreaming of Seka, I by-passed one of her titles in favor of the 1975 movie EVERY INCH A LADY. It starred Harry Reems (the mustache might be off-putting to some, but there's no denying he had a hot body), featured another Rialto Report podcast subject, Andrea True, but, most importantly, it was streaming for free.

It was a fortuitous choice, for although Every Inch a Lady is a straight porn movie, it has a decidedly gay sensibility.

The lady in question is Crystal Laverne (Darby Lloyd Rains, giving a performance worthy of John Waters stock player Mary Vivian Pearce), the co-owner and proprietress of Deviations, Inc., a successful escort service catering to almost all sexual tastes, save scat. Crystal has the mannerisms befitting her name, which is to say she’s a female drag queen. When we meet her, standing in the living room of her penthouse apartment, she’s decked out in a red gown and matching feather boa, supervising the alteration of one of her call boy’s jackets (for which the young hustler has stripped down to his skivvies, as one does), signing real estate contracts and imploring her lesbian assistant Edna (a bewigged Andrea True) to answer the constantly-ringing phone. She’s just so goddamned busy—but not too busy to audition Margie, a blonde bubblehead played by Kim Pope. I thought for sure this would be the obligatory girl-girl scene, but no, Crystal summons the call boy getting his jacket altered, Tony (David Savage), to do the honors. Crystal spies on them through a peephole cut into wall of the neighboring room, occasionally offering Edna a peak (“A very handsome female. I wouldn’t mind being in Tony’s place myself.”) and picking up a microphone to broadcast her pointers to the professional fuckers (“OK, Margie, a little more hip action”).

Crystal even takes time out from supervising her potential new hire’s sexual prowess to draft up some new rules. “Just last night one of our best girls came over here and told me her client had shit on her head—and only gave her $50 extra,” recounts a horrified Crystal. “So, defecation is out!”

“No shit,” says Edna, making a note of the new rule.

Business casual.

Once Margie’s audition is out of the way, Crystal slips into something more comfortable: a black lace peignoir and nothing else. Given Crystal’s line of work and the fact that this is a porn movie, one wonders why she bothered with that red gown and boa, though I appreciated the filmmakers’ willingness to keep things covered up for a while, as the tease virtually non-existent in today’s smut. Anyway, with her pussy free to breath, Crystal takes a moment to relax with Edna. Once again, I was anticipating some girl-on-girl action as the set up was so obvious, and once again Lady subverted my expectations as no muff diving ensues. (Spoiler alert: there’s no girl-on-girl action in this movie.) Rather, Crystal chooses this moment to tell Edna of her humble beginnings, sending us into a flashback that makes up good two-thirds of the movie’s runtime.

Come-fuck-me platforms.

Before becoming a successful madam, Crystal was but a lowly streetwalker, struggling to make ends meet but still able to rock an amazing pair of glittery red platform shoes. After another, um, dry day of trawling for tricks, she comes home to her apartment, only to find Chino (Harry Reems) sacked out at her door. She invites him inside, as one does when finding a stranger at her doorstep, and they immediately start getting nasty. But just before Chino finishes Crystal off, he demands $20. “What?” Crystal exclaims. “I was going to get $15 from you!” (That money wasn’t discussed up front gives us insight into why Crystal wasn’t finding success as a streetwalker.) The two laugh off the misunderstanding, choosing money shots over actual money.

We learn via voice over that Chino had been a hustler for five years, making his living “from middle-aged women and homosexuals.” The pair decide to open an escort agency, under the guise of offering massages. I find it quaint that this movie treats the concept of massage services being a cover for prostitution as simply unheard of until these two dimwitted prostitutes brainstormed it during their post-coital chat.

Crystal and Chino quickly become business partners as well as lovers (it’s an open relationship, natch). Their first trick is none other than Jamie Gillis, who sits on the sidelines masturbating while Crystal and Chino go at it. Gillis does join the couple on the bed, and for a moment it looks like he’s about to mount Chino. But no, there’s no Gillis-on-Reems action. However, Crystal does insert a string of brown anal beads (Brown? Really?) in Chino’s ass, which Gillis yanks out as Chino comes. Though the beads clearly facilitated a powerful orgasm, Chino —a trade top, evidently — decides to exact revenge by shoving a carrot up Gillis’ butt. By the way, the male butt play appears to be simulated as neither the beads nor the carrot is shown disappearing into the male performers’ assholes.

I Didn’t Know Joan Rivers was in a Porno Movie!

Crystal and Chino’s business quickly grows, necessitating the need for extra staff. Crystal enlists the help of a former cell mate, Lois, to handle an opera buff, played by Mark “10 ½” Stevens, whose dick size is so impressive that its measurement merits a screen credit. This is by far my favorite scene, if only because it exposes the Joan Rivers’ porn past.

Joan Rivers in The Swimmer; not Joan
in Every Inch a Lady.

OK, Lois is NOT played by Joan Rivers (don’t sue me, Melissa); she’s played by Erica Eaton. But considering Eaton is so similar in appearance, possesses a New Yawk rasp that’s almost identical to Rivers’, combined with the knowledge that Rivers considered all offers, you could almost believe that it’s the late comic fellating the somnolent Stevens. (And really, Rivers would’ve done less damage to her career in the mid-’70s appearing in a porno than she did writing and directing Rabbit Test.)

The scene with Eaton and Stevens’ is strictly for laughs, as only a scene featuring a Joan Rivers doppelgänger could be. When Stevens’ fails to respond to Lois’ ministrations, his famed 10 ½ inches never quite reaching seven, he asks her to talk dirty to him. So, Lois reads aloud from a porno novel (“It’s a fucking beee-yoooo-tiful cock!”) while they fuck to Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyrie.”

Less shameful than writing and
directing Rabbit Test.

My second favorite scene in this movie features a performer billed as Dr. Infinity, in the part of Joe Blow. Consider that “character” name foreshadowing. Crystal, now operating out of an office, is about to interview Mr. Blow as a new addition to her stable, but she’s interrupted by a phone call. While Crystal chats on the phone with a disgruntled client (“Well, who could’ve foreseen that? You couldn’t have expected the poor mule to know the old Ferncliff bitch had had a hysterectomy.”), Joe Blow gets impatient. He strips down, hops atop a nearby desk, and demonstrates his special skill: sucking his own dick. He fucks himself with a cucumber as well, but that’s not a special skill, just resourcefulness. Needless to say, he’s hired. Incidentally, Dr. Infinity has a pretty interesting history, including the attempted theft of the Gutenberg Bible from the Harvard Library in 1969.

This brings us back to the penthouse with Crystal and Edna. Crystal’s trip down memory lane is interrupted by a phone call— Crystal is always getting interrupted by phone calls — reminding her of a meeting with a real estate agent to finalize a house purchase for Chino. No sooner has the harried madam rushed out the door than Edna is removing her Velma wig and her clothes. Chino arrives a minute later. Edna’s not a dyke at all (gasp!) but Chino’s lover, the pair plotting to murder Crystal and take over Deviations, Inc. Unbeknownst to them, Crystal, having forgot some paperwork and returned to the penthouse, overhears them in the bedroom. She sees them as well (Oops! Edna forgot about the peephole), and after hearing the couple’s murder plans (Edna also forgot the room is bugged), decides to use that plan to murder them. A surprisingly dark turn of events for what has otherwise been a lighthearted porno romp.

Humor in porn movies is usually crass, juvenile and/or stupid, but Every Inch a Lady is the first straight porn film I’ve seen that can be described a campy. This shouldn’t be a surprise, really; it was directed by gay brothers John and Lem Amero, who directed sexploitation movies in the 1960s before moving on to hardcore movies for gay and straight audiences in the 1970s and 1980s. Even if the sex was for the pleasure of straight men, the movie, with its hammy acting, outrageous dialog, and thrift store drag fashions, not to mention the autofellatio and male anal stimulation, seems to be giving a wink and a nod to gay men. I’d never masturbate to it, but I dug Every Inch a Lady and I plan to hunt down other works by the Amero Bros. (their movie Bacchanale looks trippy). But they’ll have to wait in line. I still owe it to myself to check out one of Seka’s movies. She’s my dream girl, after all.