The Undergraduate

The Undergraduate (1971)

** (out of 4)

Here's another film that probably would have been forgotten had it not being written by cult filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr.. I don't think there's too much known about what all he had to do with this film but rumor has it that he did write the screenplay, which is the main reason anyone knows the picture.

As for the film itself, it's really nothing special and falls into that category of not being good but not being bad either. You're entertainment level will depend on your love for not only the hardcore genre but also the "Report" films that were popular during this period as well as the sexual education films that were popular in previous decades. This film here pretty much has a professor talking to his students as they write papers (and act out) sexual activities. This includes actually sex but the film also covers ways not to become pregnant and the proper way to put on a condom.

Overall, this film isn't really all that well-made and for the most part we're just given clips from other movies that have the "educational" narration added to them. The narration, if written by Wood, doesn't really contain any of the writers wacky nature that fans have come to love. Instead the narration is pretty straight-forward without too many laughable moments. It seems like Wood might have just gotten some text out of a doctor's book and had someone read it. THE UNDERGRADUATE isn't going to appeal to many people but for the most part its decent entertainment that doesn't overstay itself at just 67-minutes.

Newly re-released on DVD by Alpha Blue Archives as part of its laudable tribute to Ed Wood, this obscure porn film turns out to be a direct followup to THE POSTGRADUATE COURSE IN SEXUAL LOVE, a title I enjoyed in a Video-X-Pix DVD. ABA apparently also released THE POSTGRADUATE years back on VHS in a softcore edition.

Though marketed on the basis of Ed Wood's impressive posthumous following (and cult draw literally surpassing all the struggling directors chronicled in Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn's seminal tome KINGS OF THE BS), it is not clear what contribution he made. THE UNDERGRADUATE plays almost identically to its 1970 POSTGRADUATE forebear, whose credited producer "John Flanders" (a likely pseudonym) gets an additional screen credit as director this second time around.

Porn veteran John Dullaghan returns in an identical role as the professor lecturing his class on sex education, and we get to see the young class members acting out sexual activities (including how to put on a rubber) just as before. Besides the prof's spiel, there is plenty of silly voice-over narration telling us about the protagonists.

For good measure (and the usual padding), the prof also shows them a stag film featuring Eve Orlon and busty Nora Wieternik -quite active in hardcore productions at this time.

Of the two, I would recommend THE POSTGRADUATE. If Wood was indeed involved it turns out to be a "who cares?" situation, given the utterly generic aspects of this white-coater exercise.