Anyone But My Husband is classic porn, made in 1975, and featuring all the things we love about classic porn, big bushes, cheesy moustaches, natural boobs, and a plot.
It features CJ Laing (also in Barbara Broadcast) as Nora Pelham, the "heroine" of the title. Nora is in her very early 20s, but even at that young age, has lost the sexual interest of her husband, the sleezy Sam (Robert Kerr) who fancies the under-age teens that he teaches every day.
In the first scene we see Sam post-coitus with his teen girlfriend, who's mother arrives home unexpectedly, and he has to make an undignified escape down the fire stairs. Nora tries to please her husband by turning on a special dinner for their wedding anniversary. She pleads with him, reminding him of their wedding night where he had to smuggle in champagne as she was too young to drink (I think she was 18). Sam brushes her off rudely and she is left to deal with her sorrow (which she does very vigorously in the bathroom using a bottle of Champagne).
Nora goes to see a psychologist or counsellor of some sort, Dr Malcolm (Robert Combs) who advises her to have an affair, so that she sees her own self-worth. Taking this advice to heart, she goes of and has a series of sexual adventures with her female friends, a gypsy fortune teller, and a selection of men.
She returns to see Dr Malcolm and tells him where to shove his advice. She has found her place as a sexually liberated woman of the 1970s. Her husband, during another of his seedy affairs, discovers that he actually loves his wife after all, and in a reversal of fortune, makes a special dinner for her arrival home. When she gets home, she treats Sam the way he treated her on their wedding anniversary, and he is left to masturbate sadly in their grotty little bathroom.
Yes, it has all the makings of classic 70s porn, particularly in the plot. It is surprisingly well scripted and acted. There is an amazing variety of sex to be seen, including a scene where Nora goes with an art gallery owner, only to discover that he is into bondage, discipline and rape (a scene I found unrealistic as Nora is supposed to end up enjoying the sex). However, this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an erotic film. I suppose that, taken in isolation, the sex scenes could be erotic, but as a part of the whole, they (at least for me) were not. While it is never going to win any Oscars, this is a full-on drama, with some sex scenes thrown in.
In fact, I found this whole film to be incredibly depressing. Dave discovered, to his cost, that I wasn't enjoying it in the slightest, and we had to watch something else afterwards if he wanted any chance of fooling around. I certainly wasn't in the mood to fool around while watching it.
Perhaps viewers who can disassociate the sex scenes from the intervening scenes would find it to be an enjoyable film; unfortunately I could not.
