RIP Marilyn Chambers

The recent passing of the legendary actress Marilyn Chambers has attracted little media attention.  This is a shame as Chambers was one of the key pornographic icons of the 1970s, her reputation resting largely on her starring role in the cult film “Behind the Green Door” (1972).

Chambers had neither the looks nor the talent of the likes of Traci Lords but, happily, she was less exploited than either Lords or the tragic Linda Lovelace.  For a start, she was over the age of 18 when she began her hard core career.  She also enjoyed an unprecedentedly advantageous contract which allowed her a percentage of “Green Door”’s considerable profits.

It has been a long time since I have seen the film, which has never been released on DVD in this country.  From memory it is completely unlike any other pornographic movie before or since.  Chambers plays a young woman who is kidnapped and initially forced into performing sundry sexual acts with women dressed as nuns whilst being observed by a large and varied crowd.  Her resistance dissipates.  As she allows herself to be serviced by a well hung black man what began as borderline rape gives way to ritual.  The audience indulges in an orgy of its own and the film ends with a series of stylised split screen shots, slow motion fellatio and psychedelic colours clearly inspired by “2001: A Space Odyssey”.  The climax - a literal one, of course - sees projectile semen treated with all the reverence of Kubrick’s star child.

While “Behind the Green Door” cannot completely be absolved of its rape fantasy elements there is much to admire.  It was the first pornographic film with interracial scenes to achieve any kind of mainstream breakthrough.  Arguably its orgy sequence, which features the overweight and the aged, is at least as tolerant and celebratory toward free, unfettered and consensual sexual activity as anything in more critically acceptable recent films like “Short Bus”.

Chambers and her directors, the much troubled Mitchell brothers, could never top “Green Door”.  However, on the strength of its notoriety she managed to sustain a career in adult entertainment for thirty more years.  Unusually for a hard core performer, she made the occasional non-pornographic work, most significantly the lead role in the David Cronenberg horror “Rabid” (1977), where her acting limitations were sometimes exposed.

America being what it is Chambers also dabbled in the music industry, and even politics.  She twice ran for the position of Vice President of the United States, attracting just under a thousand votes in the 2004 elections.  Presumably her constituency was comprised largely of fans of pre-breast-implant pornography.