Insatiable's my name when it comes 2 Marilyn

It's been so long since my last Crap Mondays post, but then, it's been so long since I've fallen balls-over-head in lust with a craptacular track outside of the sphere of current pop music. I'm happy to report that it's happened again, and all because of a charming little film called Insatiable.

(Things turn a little blue here, so I'm saving the MP3 and commentary for after the jump...)

Download: Marilyn Chambers "Shame On You"

The only thing more masturbatory than singing the theme song to the porn film you're starring in is masturbating. During the opening moments of 1980's Insatiable, Marilyn Chambers does both (hence the moaning on the MP3 -- I don't think "Shame On You" was ever included on one of those porn-music compilations and I'm pretty sure that there wasn't a soundtrack album -- rip of the song could be as good as it gets). Insatiable was recently reissued in Raincoat Theater's series of 2-disc Definitive Collector's Editions, along with The Devil in Miss Jones and Debbie Does Dallas. Insatiable is the coolest of the three, I think, because the film itself isn't a porn cliché or a household name like the other two. It pretty much capped the porno chic era...at least at the time. It strikes me that looking at these films and Deep Throat as literature (or at least a pop-culture relic instead of just a means to getting off), as we're able to now via documentaries and commentaries and behind-the-scenes extras, creates sort of a rebirth of porno chic, albeit in the dorkiest way possible.

While Insatiable, like the "classics" that came before it, aspires to a plot, it's on-the-way-to-gonzo threadbare -- Chambers plays Sandra Chase a model/actress (stretch!) who can't get enough sex (bigger stretch!) and so she has it a lot (biggest stretch, pun intended). Really, that's it. It's occasionally hilarious, especially during the would-be expository (but for the lack of anything more to expose!) scenes in London, which are filmed in such soft focus that the movie might as well be offering future visions of your glaucoma.

Also, Marilyn's hair is fabulous.

Mostly, it's satisfying to watch someone doing what they're meant for. Chambers clearly loves her sex work and it seems that she was put on Earth to achieve orgasms for us all. What she was not put on Earth to do, however, is sing, which is why "Shame On You" is the most entertaining part of Insatiable. The track is a play on the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me," cliché, which is as good of a subject for a song as any, if you ask me, especially if said song appears in a porno so as to wink at the viewer's own feelings about watching something to tawdry. "Shame" is kind of a downtempo disco number until it gets to the chorus and it turns into something like "The Night That the Lights Went Out in Georgia." In a voice that I can only describe as "blonde," Marilyn coos: "Sometimes love ain't nothin' but a misunderstanding between two fools," a pro-porno/promiscuity sentiment if ever there were. I think the melody of the chorus was ripped off in the Spice Girls' "2 Become 1" (how appropriate!). The song otherwise has the effect of Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" with out-stretched labia.

Speaking of that, one tidbit Chambers shares in her commentary of the film is that there was a prevailing notion at the time of filming that men wanted to see prominent female genitalia (this could still very well be the case), and so she put clothespins on her labia to make them stand out. When I told slutmachine about this, I used the phrase "puffy pussy lips" and, as I was saying it, I realized that it's kind of a tongue-twister. How's that for cunning linguistics: a tongue twister about labia. People, twist your tongue around these puffy pussy lips, please.

Anyway, "Shame On You" is awesome and in my head constantly lately. I love it and I hope you will, too.

I also am aware that this is the second straight post ("straight") regarding a female porn star. OMG, I am totally losing my homosexuality. Just kidding! I'm actually working on a book called Appreciating Straight Porn the Gay Way*. Yay, blogger book deals!

*This, too, is a lie.

Comments

[sbrainb]

fuckin' awesome.

by the way, I LOVE the new header graphic!!!

[Pet]

That IS fabulous hair. No lie. I think it would look hotter on Winston though.

[keisha]

lol, what's the point of porn in soft focus? art???

[Jose]

Rich, I love you!!

As an adolescent, my dad maintained a library of the prevailing "classics" of the '70s porn days, so of course titles like Co-Ed Fever, Candy goes to Hollywood, and Insatiable informed my earliest ideas of sex. Those movies had a certain style, camp, kookiness and viscerality that the greasy looking porns of today can't touch.

To this day, Marilyn's performance in Insatiable gives me a charge, even though I'm gay. The scene on the pool table? Hot. Miss Marilyn had a complete handle on the material, literally and figuratively.

I used to think that I just didn't understand the plot when I was younger, or that maybe my dad had an incomplete copy of the film, in which the London-filmed arc would wrap with prim Aunt Susan walking in on Marilyn mid-coitus (would she disapprove or join in?), but a recent viewing assured me that it was indeed random footage thrown in for apparently no good reason, LOL.

I can hear the guitar-pedals in the chorus of the theme songs just the same.

Rich, I love you. You are indeed a kindred spirit in pop inanity. Please keep up the inspiring work.

[lEE zETT]

No, dude, NO. You MUST write the book. How else will i know what wine and cheese goes with Jeff Palmer Raw?! :(

[james stacher]

rich, you should also check out her 12" of benihana. its on roulette records and can be found for less than $5. its a breathy downtempo disco song with lots of cooing and an orgasmic breakdown at the end. i often bring it out when i dj for the "late nite,time to find someone and get laid quick" slowjams part of the night.

[Lora]

I'd buy that book!

[Brandon]

Wow. This was actually the first porn I ever saw. Back when I was about 13, I copied it from a Beta tape I found in my dad's closet onto a VHS so I could watch it in my bedroom. I even tried to seduce a neighborhood boy by showing it to him, but it unfortunately didn't work.

[andy beta]

this movie also has a brief appearance of a box of Ivory Soap, which Chambers used to pose for, pre-porno. Cunning stunt, indeed.

[Talia Josephine]

I'd fourfour me so hard.

AWESOME new header!!!

[Julia_Claudine_Deveraux]

I LOVE 70's porn! I thought it was only me who dug it. I have a very old orgy porn video starring Black folks sporting big huge afros! Marilyn's feather is the hotness in the shot above.

PS: I would love to get my hands on some old John Holmes videos. haha

[Foxy]

You are not wrong. There is a bit of "I need some lovin' like I never needed love before..." in that track. Which only makes "2 Become 1" an even more genius track.

[Ridwah]

Love the song, but it's the banner that got me all hot and bothered! HAHAHA
This has got to be my favorite so far. Reminds me of the Network televison version where the censors came up with, "I'd have me. I'd have me so hard."

[ryan d]

I just played the track in my living room while my roommate was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I went out to smoke a cigarette and when I came back in, he was whistling the song. I asked him about it and he said he had no idea what he was whistling. Awesome.

[johnO]

"Cunning Linguistics!" You are so damn witty! That whole paragraph was genius!

Oh, and the voice, you describe as blonde. It does sound much like Paris Hilton with her little "Oooh, that's hot. Scott Storch" ditty that you wrote about before which forced me to seek it out and listen to it (damn you). OMG! I LOVE 4-4!

[rustyspigot]

Haven't seen that movie, but Marilyn said in some interview that she really wanted the guy she did it with on the pool table, but was married at the time, so the movie offered her the perfect outlet.

Oh, to suffer for your art.

[Tremayne]

Whoa... Is that Kahlen from ANTM??? Rich? Anyone? Bitch looks just like her...

[Annerose]

These comments have been invaluable to me as is this whole site. I thank you for your comment.

[Silverhead]

I remember Marilyn Chambers from NY in the early 70's and if doing a movie provided an outlet for being maried, no such thing.

If anyone wanted her you had to last 10 minutes and she was cold, cold bitch. She does give anything away free. She claims to have the pussy lips to show but honestly had such a hairy pussy and ass, nothing would show..

[Silverhead]

I remember Marilyn Chambers from NY in the early 70's and if doing a movie provided an outlet for being maried, no such thing.

If anyone wanted her you had to last 10 minutes and she was cold, cold bitch. She does give anything away for free. She claims to have the pussy lips to show but honestly had such a hairy pussy and ass, nothing would show..

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