A story of the future and interpersonal relations. I think.
Frankly, I'm not too sure what the hell it's about. It may be that this brief film -- about 20 minutes -- carries a moral message of some weight, though banal. Or it may be that there is no moral message at all, and that it's intended as a divertisement, like a Laurel and Hardy two reeler.
In the future depicted here, a young lady, Lucy Egerton, is woken by the automatic voice telling her it's time to get up. She dresses in what appears to be plastic and includes a tiny skirt and a transparent face shield of the sort used by riot control officers.
At the foot of the bed is a man's head and naked torso. Egerton begins to assemble the device after consulting the manual. It's not as easy as the instructions make it sound. It never is. But the android's purpose seems to be sex and once she has the arms and legs on, she gets to choose the size of the penis. A sensible young lady, and not a savage masochist, she choose a medium-sized Schlong.
The thing breaks down and loses its erection -- or something, the film isn't really physically explicit. So she calls customer service and bitches about it, as if it were a vacuum cleaner or an electric toothbrush. While she's still complaining, the device -- played beautifully by the goofy M. J. Judgefield -- plunges ahead with his dedicated function and manages to excite Egerton by means of a lavish display of continental affection.
I kind of enjoyed it, after framing it as an amusement rather than a lecture. After all, we already know that in the future everything will be cold and functional, including sex. "Farenheit 451" explained that. And the mechanical machinations of role playing have been detailed by sociologists like Erving Goffman and in tales like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Man That Was Used Up," in which a compelling speaker is revealed to be nothing more than a torso with fake extremities and details, that must assemble itself every morning.
Anyway I've been suspicious of these predictions of an arid future for some time now. If the pundits believe that passion, violence, jealousy, and pain will be absent, it can only be because they haven't lived through my marriage. Now THERE is the configuration of tomorrow.
Frankly, I'm not too sure what the hell it's about. It may be that this brief film -- about 20 minutes -- carries a moral message of some weight, though banal. Or it may be that there is no moral message at all, and that it's intended as a divertisement, like a Laurel and Hardy two reeler.
In the future depicted here, a young lady, Lucy Egerton, is woken by the automatic voice telling her it's time to get up. She dresses in what appears to be plastic and includes a tiny skirt and a transparent face shield of the sort used by riot control officers.
At the foot of the bed is a man's head and naked torso. Egerton begins to assemble the device after consulting the manual. It's not as easy as the instructions make it sound. It never is. But the android's purpose seems to be sex and once she has the arms and legs on, she gets to choose the size of the penis. A sensible young lady, and not a savage masochist, she choose a medium-sized Schlong.
The thing breaks down and loses its erection -- or something, the film isn't really physically explicit. So she calls customer service and bitches about it, as if it were a vacuum cleaner or an electric toothbrush. While she's still complaining, the device -- played beautifully by the goofy M. J. Judgefield -- plunges ahead with his dedicated function and manages to excite Egerton by means of a lavish display of continental affection.
I kind of enjoyed it, after framing it as an amusement rather than a lecture. After all, we already know that in the future everything will be cold and functional, including sex. "Farenheit 451" explained that. And the mechanical machinations of role playing have been detailed by sociologists like Erving Goffman and in tales like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Man That Was Used Up," in which a compelling speaker is revealed to be nothing more than a torso with fake extremities and details, that must assemble itself every morning.
Anyway I've been suspicious of these predictions of an arid future for some time now. If the pundits believe that passion, violence, jealousy, and pain will be absent, it can only be because they haven't lived through my marriage. Now THERE is the configuration of tomorrow.