Despite being a big fan of his work,I have somehow not gotten round to seeing auteur film maker Russ Meyer's 5 final works for the last year or so! Preparing to write my 800th IMDb review,I felt that it was the perfect time,to at last count down Meyer's minutes.
To my dismay the previous review was off. This movie is not for box office, that's the problem.
The Seven Minutes was Russ Meyer's follow up to his big studio debut, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. That one made a lot of money for 20th Century Fox but also caused it a fair bit of embarrassment and flack due to its salacious content and X rating.
Adaptation of Irving Wallace's book about a 30-year-old novel titled "The Seven Minutes," banned worldwide for three decades as being depraved and obscene, coming under fire once again after the son of a major political contributor in California is charged with raping a girl--under the influence of the erotic material! This coincides with the case of a bookstore manager arrested for selling a recent reprint of "The Seven Minutes", resulting in a trial that pits pornography against free speech.
After scoring a hit at Fox with "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," Russ Meyer plays it straight with a courtroom drama? Well, sort of...
After Russ Meyer hit it big with BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS for 20th Century Fox, he directed his second movie for the studio's two-picture deal with him. THE SEVEN MINUTES was a box office flop and ruined any chances Meyer may have had to continue with Fox.
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.
I just watched this film on Bravo. While I admit to being a bit of a Russ Meyer fan in the same way many people slow down to look at train wrecks, I actually found this movie surprisingly entertaining.
