Linda Lovelace for President (1975) User Reviews

Linda's Limp Campaign for R-rated Stardom

[ascheland · 4/10 · 18 July 2004]

At a political convention staged in an open field, during which we're treated to such zaniness as Polish jokes and pie fights, "Deep Throat" star Linda Lovelace is chosen, unbeknownst to her, as candidate for President of the United States. Following this too-long-at-15-minutes intro, we see Linda address a crowd of admirers. "Thanks for coming," she tells the crowd, then, following embarrassed giggles, "I guess I'm really blowing it." More laughter. And these are the good jokes.

Not that anyone would've expected any better from this sloppy farce that plays like a dirty-minded Three Stooges movie--only not that good. While everyone else in the movie overacts shamelessly (apparently cast members were directed to simply run around like idiots, shouting nonsense--in a "kooky" accent if possible--while the cameras rolled and everyone hoped for the best), Lovelace manages to walk through her movie with relative dignity. And walk through she does, wearing the type of pained smile one sees on wives enduring a visit from their mother-in-law, stopping occasionally to lose her dress, showing off her silicone-injected breasts and indulging in some simulated humping. Lovelace claimed, years later, that she was coerced into making "Deep Throat," yet she seemed so much more at ease and natural in that movie. It's "Linda Lovelace for President" that she seems to be making under duress. Along for a paycheck (and not a very big one) are Scatman Crothers and ex-Monkey Micky Dolenz in small roles. This rare pop culture oddity is worth a look if you can find a copy, though its entertainment value is solely derived from its unabashed awfulness and seeing the late Linda Lovelace make a pitiful attempt at launching a "legitimate" film career.

The Only Existing Video Footage Of Stanley Myron Handelman!

[richard-g289 · 4/10 · 5 February 2011]

It's true that this cheesy flick is manically silly and zips right along with one silly goofy bit after another, but it does have lots of great old 1960s comedians in it. Older folks may recognize Chuck McCann, Joey Forman, Scatman Cruthers, Vaughn Meader, Marty Ingels, Joe E. Ross, and best of all Stanley Myron Handelman, who was a regularly featured comedian on the Dean Martin Variety Show. This movie also has Micky Dolenz of The Monkees in it. It was strange to see one of the best all-time kid show emcees, Chuck McCann play a racist and very lecherous weirdo called "The Assassin". I watched and loved the Chuck McCann show when I was a kid in the early-to mid-1960s. He and Sandy Becker were the all-time best and funniest kid show hosts. Linda Lovelace looks great and very sexy, but unfortunately apparently had no acting skills whatsoever. All in all though, this movie is very watch-able and if you remember those great old comedians the way I do, and you like a little irreverence in your comedy movies, check this one out if you can find it. I wish there was some footage of Stanley Myron Handelman doing his hilarious routine on stage, but alas there isn't. Rest in peace O great one. You are missed.

Even as a time capsule this film is dull and unfunny

[dbborroughs · 3/10 · 15 June 2008]

The plot has adult film star Linda Lovelace running for President as the only person the leaders of a political party could agree on. She goes on the campaign trail in a film that is full of political and social commentary humor, not to mention jokes of the lowest denominator.

The film-making is poor. its the sort of scatter shot "lets make a movie" with grade C stars and comedians running about in jokes that are best described a vaudeville or burlesques last gasp. Its the sort of film that is similar to Groove Tube, Loose Shoes, American Raspberry or Kentucky Fried Movie, except as a political campaign. The problem is the material, that which isn't old to begin with, isn't very good. To be certain some of the material is funny in a one off sort of way but mostly is just stupid. The sad thing is that Lovelace actually comes off a pretty good screen actress. certainly she's more real than many of todays adult film stars who try to cross over into mainstream films. Its a shame she never had the chance to do something more than be infamous.

Supposedly this exists in 3 different cuts PG,R and X. The version I saw had the X rating attached to the end, though most of the offensive material was some language, soft core sex and nudity and I seriously doubt it would get an X or NC-17 today. Nothing is exciting in any sense of the word.

Its bland. its dull. Its (mostly) unfunny. Its a turkey

Less ordeal than ordure

[nunculus · 1 July 2000]

A country-looking, healthy-skinned, lithe and robust Linda Lovelace reads lines clunkily, but has a gentle, unpretentious charm in this Altman-derivative idjit jamboree, a sketch comedy about the state-of-the-art fellatrix's run for the Oval Office. (Yes, it IS oddly prescient!) In Lovelace's memoirs, the account of the making of this movie (directed, according to her, by old blaxploitation hand Arthur Marks) is hellacious; what's on the screen seems like a blend of HEE HAW and a Maoist-era Godard movie (in its cheapness and improvisatoriness, that is). I especially liked the young bohunk who married an orangutan and gave birth to a talking chimp who sounded somewhere between Minnie Pearl and Minnie Ripperton.

It blows!

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 11 February 2019]

Infamous porn star Linda Lovelace is best known for her amazing control of her gag reflex, not for performing gags, and so fans will be relieved to hear that any woeful attempts at comedy by the Deep Throat legend are more than offset by frequent full frontal nudity from the lovely lady and her enthusiastic participation in soft core sex. Still, Linda's crap comedic skills are no worse than anyone else's in this horribly dated madcap political satire: it's an all-round embarrassment of massive proportions.

Linda Lovelace plays herself, once again catapulted into the limelight when she is nominated as a presidential candidate by an eclectic group of oddball characters. What follows is a dreadfully unfunny, often perplexing series of zany scenes that were surely fuelled by copious amounts of mind-altering substances. Certainly, in order to enjoy this abysmal relic of the mid-70s, one would need to be seriously baked. The chaotic opening scene, in which a committee discusses various candidates before settling on Linda, must rate as one of the biggest tests of a viewer's patience in movie history, seemingly shot without the aid of a script or the need for a director.

With the introduction of an assassin, hired to get rid of Linda when she leads the polls, the film descends into sub-roadrunner cartoon slapstick, each gag more painful than the last. The title of worst performance must go to ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz, whose career almost audibly hits rock bottom (Metal Mickey is a work of genius by comparison), although the competition is hot. Best performance is from a talking chimp (oh, how I wish I was joking).

Only two reasons to watch this movie.

[GreggoWhitehead · 4/10 · 5 August 2021]

What a dumb movie! There are lots of character actors you'll recognize in it. Watch for the dirty old man and see if you recognize him. One even changed his name so he wouldn't be associated with it. Lots of worn out puns over and over and over. It might be funny in states where pot is legal. But like I said, there are only two good reasons to watch this movie.

I think she'd have Bill Clinton's support.

[Son_of_Mansfield · 4/10 · 5 March 2008]

With the better part of the decade conflict in Vietnam and the debacle that was Richard Nixon, trust in the government was low. It isn't a surprise that a farce like this came out. A committee of diverse stereotypes, angry black man, angry woman, cheery gay man, pious preacher, and a Nazi, come together and after rejecting many individuals, choose Linda Lovelace for president. Why? They say it's because she's a nice girl. Actually there never really is a reason other than it's funny, which seems to be the mantra of the movie. Just laugh, it's funny. Sometimes, it succeeds, like when two politicians haggle over what they'll conceal about each other's candidates. Linda Lovelace is a good gauge of this movie. She isn't allowed to perform her greatest talent, has her freckles covered by makeup, and is given a bunch of lame jokes to hint at the thing that she can't show us. The movie doesn't even have much respect for her and I don't think anybody could make some of these jokes work. It's not bad for a few laughs, but if you really want to see why Linda is revered, watch Deep Throat.

The phrase Deep Throat unites porn and politics, but this is lame

[jaibo · 3/10 · 4 November 2008]

Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace's one attempt to get out of the porno ghetto and make a mainstream motion picture proves only that the British didn't have a monopoly on bad sex comedies during the 1970s. The premise is fair enough - a convention of all the non-mainstream political factions in the US (American Nazis, gay rights, vegetarians, black power etc.) decide that the only person who they can all agree on as their presidential candidate is, you guessed it, Linda Lovelace. She accepts the challenge (after proving herself to be mentally challenged enough to think that a preacher speaking over a loud-hailer is a call from destiny or God) and the party sets off on a cross-country campaign tour on two cheap buses with Linda Lovelace for President painted on the side.

Most of the humour of the film concentrates on exploiting racial and sexual stereotypes: Chinese laundrymen, black hustlers, screaming queens and candy-handing-out perverts. There's an intriguing stream of cameos which suggest that America was still haunted by the images and characters Hollywood sold it in the 1930s (Tarzan, Dracula, W C Fields) but the idea isn't developed. Long episodes at a Southern racist rally (with Linda screwing below the stage), a farm full of Oakie inbreeds and a money grubbing church have promise, although only the last of these really fulfils anything, with its singing preacher prancing on a stage with dancing girls, coke adverts, money raising and rock gospel music (the amplified version of Let My People Go is pretty funky). There's a long and lame section in which an assassin, not very wittily named The Assassinator, stalks about a hotel corridor in search of his target, Linda (America still haunted by the Kennedy assassination), who failing here crops up a couple more times with some Wile E Coyote-type attempts to do away with her. It's staggeringly mismanaged comedy, with only the skills of the actor playing the Assassinator to save it from being complete dross.

Linda Lovelace for President does at least capture some of the outré craziness of American diversity, and is a time-capsule (and perhaps the last nail in the coffin) of a time when people actually believed that sex could free and unite everyone. But it's all filmed and scripted with such heavy-handed incompetence that it never becomes the Hellzapoppin' of the Deep Throat (Watergate and porn) age it aspires to be. Linda, bless her, was no actress, although she looks a lot more attractive here than she does in her pornos.

Worth seeing once. I watched it on election day 2008 and the joke whereby the Poles are desperate to get a Pole in the Whitehouse was pretty topical and a prediction of the identity politics to come and which perhaps reached its climax in the presidential candidacy of Obama.

Vote upright!

[dfranzen70 · 6/10 · 14 August 2019]

There's a disclaimer at the outset of this movie warning that the content is guaranteed to offend just about everyone. Here in the 21st century, one should heed that warning. There are all kinds of offensive racial and sexual stereotypes that would have naturally raised hackles in 1975, let alone in the present. The movie is about the campaign (fictional) of Linda Lovelace, known mostly for starring in the seminal '70s porn movie Deep Throat, for president of the United States. Lovelace is nominated by a group of six walking caricatures (representing millions of people each), including a really butch lesbian, a really effeminate man, an actual neo-Nazi, a token black, a Chinese man (not played by an Asian, of course), and a Catholic priest. After being convinced by her (literal) Uncle Sam to run for president, Lovelace embarks upon a nationwide tour, giving speeches and hopping into bed with as many helpful young men as possible. Now, in case you're still uncertain about this movie's virtues, there is definitely no reason anyone under 18 should be allowed within 100 yards of the film. There's nudity and sex, although there isn't much violence. But, seriously - she's a porn star playing herself, so there's naturally some softcore scenes thrown in to get the attention of male viewers. If the rampant sex doesn't put you off, then maybe the over-the-top characterizations will. Among the cast are Mickey Dolenz as a near-sighted bus driver, Art Metrano (Police Academy) as a sheikh, Scatman Crothers as a pool hustler named Super Black (!), Kennedy impersonator Vaughn Meader as a lusty preacher, and Joe E. Ross (Car 54, Where Are You?) as a dirty trickster in politics. Like some other movies of the late 60s and early 70s, the major theme here is of chaotic wackiness. As the lead, Lovelace is fine playing herself. There's not much plot, there's a ton of offensive material, and nudity abounds. But if you see it in the right frame of mind, perhaps viewing it as an artifact of its times, this isn't a terrible film. (For a fun bonus, check out all of the protest signs near the beginning of the movie. Pure genius putting the AA people next to the AAA people.)

Yep, it's a total trainwreck, but it's so campy and silly that it's hard to dislike

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 22 March 2018]

Notorious 70's Golden Age adult cinema icon Linda Lovelace decides to run for president as the chosen candidate of the freshly formed Upright party.

Directors Claudio Guzman and Arthur Marks fumble the ball when it comes to the utterly ramshackle narrative, but fortunately keep this infectiously asinine enterprise bouncing along at a constant breakneck pace and maintain a cheerfully puerile kitschy tone that's positively engaging in its unapologetic giddy inanity. The blithely crude script by Jack Margolis is rife with bawdy double entendres, offensive racial stereotypes, leering sexual innuendo, and groan-inducing below the belt jokes. Naturally, Lovelace disrobes with pleasing regularity and participates in a few raunchy simulated sex scenes. The game cast has a field day with the loopy material: Micky Dolenz as a clumsy myopic bus driver, Val Bisoglio as a raving lunatic preacher, Garry Goodrow as a crazy Nazi, Joey Forman as a kooky Chinese guy, Morgan Upton as a lecherous pedophile, and Chuck McCann as a bumbling hitman. Popping up in small roles are Art Metrano as a nutty sheik, Diane Lee Hart as a foxy harem girl, Scatman Crothers as a pool player, and Robbie Lee as a ditsy hillbilly hitchhiker. Although not much of an actress, Lovelace nonetheless has a bubbly and charming enough personality to keep this zany movie humming. A dippy hoot.

A Great Effort But No Laughs

[Michael_Elliott · 2 December 2016]

Linda Lovelace for President (1975)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The title pretty much tells you everything you need to know plot wise. The country is falling apart so a group of people decide only Linda Lovelace can save us so they contact her and begin a Presidential run.

After the success of DEEP THROAT, star Lovelace became a household name and people were looking for any way to try and cash in. LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT was an attempt to try and push Lovelace into a R-rated picture with a wider appeal but obviously that didn't happen and the actress began her slow fall from grace. As awful as this film is, I must admit that I give the producers a lot of credit because I'd give everyone involved with this production an A+ for effort.

With that said, effort isn't enough when it comes to entertainment. I think the best way to sum up this film is by thinking of the final mad-cap sequence in BLAZING SADDLES. That's basically the type of over-the-top humor that is on display here but the only problem is that there's no one as talented as Mel Brooks or Gene Wilder to make this film work. There's a lot of sexual innuendo, a lot of female nudity and a lot of politically incorrect humor. The film tries pumping out one joke after another but the problem is that none of it is funny.

I will give Lovelace some credit though as she certainly manages to hold your attention throughout all the camp. She's certainly easy on the eyes but she also brings across a certain charm and a beautiful smile that really lights up the screen even without any hardcore sex. She certainly gives it her all and is the highlight of the picture.