This review contains mild spoilers.
As my friends south of the border are celebrating their Independence Day, I figured I would join in vicariously with my viewing choices. And what better way to celebrate than with a pornographic political satire? I mean, the poster has the American flag as well as an appealing shot of Annette Haven's back, so how can you lose? Probably the most impressive thing about Henri Pachard's
Public Affairs is how heavily it commits to actually working as a political satire. (His western
Showdown, which I enjoyed, had a play-acting quality, but this feels like the real deal.) The politician here, a congressman running for senate played by Paul Thomas, actually has a defined set of political accomplishments and positions, namely a proposal to loosen land ownership disclosure laws in exchange for foreign contributions, as well as an anti-pornography agenda. The latter marks him as an obvious villain in the genre, although the movie stretches some credibility when it has him endorsed by a radical feminist anti-pornography activist (who happens to secretly be a sex maniac), when in reality his supporters would more likely be the Evangelical right. The movie is cagey about which side of the spectrum he's running from outside these handful of proposals. It's also interesting that he stresses his outsider status and business credentials ("I'm proud of being a businessman, that's what New York needs, a businessman"), which invites comparison to a certain modern day politician, but really has been a card played in political campaigns since Watergate cast a stain in the public eye on established insider status. Now, if I can briefly spoil the ending (skip to the next paragraph if you don't want it ruined), while it probably read as cynical during its original release, but it might seem a bit more optimistic in present day. Sure, it's disappointing that blatant corruption couldn't bring down the crooked politician and it took revelations of his infidelity to do it, but at least that stuck.
In contrast, you can look at Cecil Howard's
Spitfire, which carves out its politician as having a moralizing, anti-sex agenda but doesn't try to define it in any coherent terms. This also compares favourably to that movie in terms of the lead performance. In
Spitfire, Robert Kerman played the politician as too obviously sleazy, to the point that it was unlikely he would succeed with the demographic he was supposed to be pulling votes from. Here, Paul Thomas plays the character with a lot more polish and coldness, and is compelling especially when showing his lack of scruples in private. From having listened to a bunch of Rialto Report interviews, I've gotten the impression that Thomas was a bit of an ******* or at least pretty full of himself, and without relitigating beefs that I have no further insight into, those qualities lends itself well to his performance here. I think his performance does suffer in that he comes off a bit too calculated, so that he comes off like a real politician but not one who would be as popular as this movie purports him to be. (I do think
Spitfire is worth checking out as Howard is a reliably strong visual stylist, and it has a good supporting cast, particularly Tigr as Kerman's nymphomaniac daughter.)
This movie does have a dilemma inherent to pornography, in that the sex scenes maybe work at cross purposes with the dramatic thrust in the movie. The sex scenes are quite well executed (in large part thanks to the enthusiasm of the performers), but many of them feature Thomas treating his assistant played by Annette Heinz quite badly. (I should note that the bad treatment is in terms of emotional callousness, not sexual assault, the latter of which is frequent enough in the genre that I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. I should also note that the sex scenes will frequently cut to dramatic moments or montage through them, which I would wager upset the raincoat brigade but pleased the "watching it for the plot" brigade.) These scenes are clearly supposed to be hot (and, ahem, mission accomplished), but we're also supposed to empathize with Heinz. And I think she does give the movie some heart, doing some reactive work during her scenes that I found quite affecting. (One especially tricky moment has her climax while on the verge of tears.) I'd only seen her in one other movie and don't recall her performance there, but I was quite impressed with her in this movie and am interested to seek out more of her films.
The other supporting role that surprised me was by Joey Silvera as Thomas' campaign manager, a former pimp who feels a certain loyalty to Thomas for having given him a second chance. There's a nice texture to his performance, a mixture of desperation, misguided loyalty and moral conflict conveyed with elegant understatement. I've found him a reliable supporting player in the genre, but this is the best I've seen him. Of course, as you round out the cast, you have to get to the gal on the poster, and Annette Haven gives the real movie star performance here. I liked the way the movie painted her sexual agency as a sign of independence and strength, in contrast to the sleaziness of Thomas and his donors. Haven has to put up with an amusingly annoying George Payne, who keeps whining about Haven's insistence of pursuing this story and also runs out the door the moment they finish having sex. Robert Kerman shows up as Thomas' biggest donor, mangling a German accent and spouting a bunch of probably fake German ("the language of love") for comic relief. He has the good fortune to be married to Kelly Nichols, who provides a nice, low key counterpoint to the more overtly comedic and dramatic performances around her and imbues a not entirely positive character with a certain dignity. If there's a theme here outside the politicking, it's of women having to put up with subpar men.