3/10

Among the glut of ‘80s teen comedies, THE JOY OF SEX (90 mins., 1984, R; Cinematographe) was one of the few that became notoriously difficult to track down over the years.

Despite being a Paramount Summer of ‘84 comedy that found director Martha Coolidge working in between her memorable hits “Valley Girl” (1983) and “Real Genius” (1985), this infamously troubled picture only wound its way onto VHS before essentially being banished into home video purgatory for decades. Now remastered in Cinematographe’s limited-edition Blu-Ray set, curious viewers can finally get an understanding of what happened with this teen comedy that was being pulled apart by the disparate intentions of its filmmakers and studio executives.

On the surface, “The Joy of Sex” – which takes its title from a ‘70s non-fiction bestseller Paramount paid a fortune for – provides its target audience with the trappings of traditional genre fare: a somewhat hapless high school girl (Michelle Meyrink) mistakenly believes she’s going to die and sets out to lose her virginity, something that’s complicated by her gym-teacher father (Christopher Lloyd). At the same time, one of her classmates (Cameron Dye), likewise is on a journey to “do it,” runs into comical circumstances which preclude him from also doing so.

Like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” a number of adult roles are included to spice up the youth element, including Lloyd plus a bald Ernie Hudson as the school principal and Colleen Camp, undercover as a student. Unlike that 1982 genre classic, however, “The Joy of Sex” is a ramshackle mess of a movie – shot quickly for reasons I’ll list below, and hampered by heavy studio interference, this charmless picture is all over the place in terms of its intentions. Coolidge, a last-minute fill-in on the movie, was mostly unable to exert much (if any) creative control here, with her efforts to infuse some genuine warmth into the story off-set by leering sexual/comical elements brought in by the studio. These low-brow moments weren’t in the movie’s script or part of the director’s plan; instead, execs hoping for the next “Porky’s” tossed them in, only to have some of the movie’s nudity excised in the editing room after it tested poorly.

Speaking of that, there’s no rhythm or consistent tone present in “The Joy of Sex,” with the finished product bearing only a dash of Coolidge’s directorial touches. In hindsight, she may have been better off removing her name from the picture, as this doesn’t fit in with either of her pictures that bookend it. Only the movie’s ending and some sequences with Meyrink (who would appear in a quirkier role in "Real Genius") ring true – yet the picture’s sweet finish seems to come out of a different movie altogether than the one we’ve sat through.

The project’s fascinating production history was one reason for its issues. In fact, Paramount tried to get “The Joy of Sex” off the ground several times previously, first in the late ‘70s when Charles Grodin wrote a script Paramount passed on (Grodin ended up making his script, ironically shortly after this movie’s release, as the little-seen 1985 MGM comedy “Movers and Shakers”). “Joy of Sex” was then reconfigured under the National Lampoon umbrella, with John Hughes authoring a new script comprised of self-contained vignettes intended to star John Belushi. Penny Marshall was even onboard the project, only to have that, too, go by the wayside once Belushi tragically died (National Lampoon later sued to have their name removed from the production – which says something, considering they retained it on the grossly unfunny “Movie Madness” and “Class Reunion”!).

With time running out on their option, Paramount ultimately pressed “The Joy of Sex” into production with a small budget and a new script from Kathleen Rowell (“The Outsiders”) and “J.J. Salter,” a pseudonym for Rowell’s sister Joyce (Salter) and Joyce’s husband John. With all of these elements going against it, the movie understandably bears the hallmarks of a movie with too many cooks in the kitchen, and yet it’s still lightly amusing, even while coming off best viewed with the kind of “how did this get made?” curiosity some of us movie buffs employ, especially for films of this vintage.

Cinematographe’s super Blu-Ray addresses all the production’s issues with fascinating new supplements. These are highlighted by an interview with Coolidge, who candidly discusses the movie’s issues along with the writers, who are gracious and honest about the picture’s failings. There are also interviews with Colleen Camp and fellow co-star Lisa Langlois, a video essay on Coolidge’s work by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, plus assorted text essays which stage a stronger defense of the movie than the filmmakers themselves do. Visually the 4K-remaster (1.85) looks super and the original mono sound is clearly rendered (the back cover indicates stereo but this does not seem to have been a film intended for Dolby Stereo).