The Seven Minutes (1971)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Russ Meyer

Writers:

Richard Warren Lewis (writer)
Irving Wallace (novel)

Release Date:

23 July 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Why is The Seven Minutes the most exciting experience in a woman's life?

Plot:

The Seven Minutes is a steamy book written in 1969. To help with an upcoming election, a bookstore clerk...

Plot Keywords:

Number 7 In Title | Based On Novel | Number In Title

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

Cast

Wayne Maunder	...	Mike Barrett
Marianne McAndrew	...	Maggie Russell
Philip Carey	...	Elmo Duncan
Jay C. Flippen	...	Luther Yerkes
Edy Williams	...	Faye Osborn
Lyle Bettger	...	Frank Griffith
Jackie Gayle	...	Norman Quandt
Ron Randell	...	Merle Reid
Charles Drake	...	Sgt. Kellogg
John Carradine	...	Sean O'Flanagan
Harold J. Stone	...	Judge Upshaw
Tom Selleck	...	Phil Sanford
James Inglehart	...	Clay Rutherford (as James Iglehart)
John Sarno	...	Jerry Griffith
Stanley Adams	...	Irwin Blair

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:PG (edited for re-rating: 1973) | USA:R (original rating)

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

This film was the second of a three picture deal between 20th Century-Fox and producer Russ Meyer (the first film was Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)). After the film flopped at the box office, Meyer walked away from his studio deal and returned to independent filmmaking.

Soundtrack:

Love Train

Watchably Unwatchable

The odds of Russ Meyer helming an intellectual courtroom drama think-piece on freedom of speech and civil rights are almost as long as his helming the number one grossing box-office movie the year before (BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS), but both occurred in a two-year period in the early 70s. Obviously one begat the other, but the cycle never repeated. Still, a case can be made for FOX assigning this movie to Meyer given his experience with censorship from his earlier forays into soft porn, which always ran the gamut between "guilty pleasure" and "good-humored raunch of dubious taste." Whatever your opinion of his sensibilities, Meyer always knew what his public wanted and he supplied it in copious quantity. With the exception of THE SEVEN MINUTES, that is.

What is THE SEVEN MINUTES? Well, it's Russ Meyer's lone attempt to Get Serious and tackle Topical Issues. While Meyer is intellectually up to the task, and halfway accomplishes the tough goal of laying out the controversies convincingly, he's not up to resolving things in a credible manner. The first half is amateurish and thin but it is the second half where the bottom really falls out. In particular, Meyer tries to cram so many twists into the wacky denouement that any commentary he has previously made is lost in the nonsense. Perhaps all of this is satire of the politicization he is documenting, but if so, it's too uneven. Worse, it's not entertaining.

In one movie Meyer singlehandedly alienated serious moviegoers, who stayed away merely based on his name. At the same time, he also alienated his core audience, who could not have possibly been prepared for the utterly non-Russ Meyer product he delivered in THE SEVEN MINUTES. The trademark titillation, violence and bawdiness of his entire prior filmography is absent, replaced by sensationalized but still strangely static courtroom dialogue. Meyer was never quite the same after this failure and subsequently only made three or four more movies in the next 33 years after having made 18 in the preceding 11.

Still, if you like to see the Seventies at its most excessive and overly indulgent, this is a precious cautionary time capsule showing how someone successful in one area could not harness his skills in another. It's so breathtakingly, in-your-face bad that you might find it amusing. 1.5 / 10