Cobbled together out of new footage and recycled bits from the previous year's LOVELAND (1973), THEY SHALL OVERCOME (1974) is a wonderful slice of '70s sexual liberation cinema that's more entertaining than it has any right to be.
Loopy plot concerns Aaron, nebbish manager of a New York garments factory, who has a crush on a female coworker. Alas, she's devoutly Christian, which means not only that she won't put out before marriage, but that Aaron's totally out of the question because he's Jewish. Enter local mad scientist Dr. Folkoff, who's working on a pill to eliminate socio-sexual inhibition (specifically the negative influences of culture and religion that lead people to avoid expanding their sexual boundaries). After being treated to a couple demonstrations of the pill in effect (presumably some of the repurposed footage, which features a young Jamie Gillis!), Aaron slips the pill in both his and his coworker's drinks one evening and soon finds the two of them making love on one of the factory's fabric stations. One more trip to Dr. Folkoff, and the couple (as well as some coworkers) ends up invited to a meeting of the Freedom F*ckers, a swinger's club where adherents of the good doctor's pill (and philosophy) come together to put his beliefs into practice.
There's not a huge amount of dramatic incident to OVERCOME, which, like DEEP THROAT a few years earlier, resolves its central conflict around halfway through. In the same way as that earlier film, the final two reels mostly represent a victory lap - but boy, what a lap it is! Anchored by a fantastic, probably 8-minute rock song that repeats (almost in its entirety) twice, the final 15 or 20 minutes are essentially a nonstop orgy, mostly repurposed from LOVELAND, though with careful integration of the new actors on the sidelines. If you, like me, find one of the chief pleasures of '70s porn to be watching rutting bodies cut together with great music, the conclusion of OVERCOME should leave you amply satisfied.
While it's easy to fault the film's thematics as naïve (like so many of the era's sexual liberation manifestos), they nevertheless represent a charming time capsule of a period when free-love adherents really thought the world could come together (both literally and figuratively) just by relaxing their inhibitions and embracing their libido. That the film presents this idea in such a jokey register while also seeming to take it semi-seriously produces a perfect balance between pie-eyed idealism and genuine desire for change: maybe we would all be happier if we let go of our hang-ups and just got it on. It's not exactly a nuanced or subtle thesis, but it's welcome in a genre that can too often tend toward the empty-headed or cynical.
Ultimately, your tolerance for OVERCOME will come down to your patience for this kind of naivety, along with your general appreciation for the film's fluffy, frothy aesthetic. It's not high art, but it's a whole lot of fun, and a genuine turn-on to boot. For a sex film, what more do you want?
Loopy plot concerns Aaron, nebbish manager of a New York garments factory, who has a crush on a female coworker. Alas, she's devoutly Christian, which means not only that she won't put out before marriage, but that Aaron's totally out of the question because he's Jewish. Enter local mad scientist Dr. Folkoff, who's working on a pill to eliminate socio-sexual inhibition (specifically the negative influences of culture and religion that lead people to avoid expanding their sexual boundaries). After being treated to a couple demonstrations of the pill in effect (presumably some of the repurposed footage, which features a young Jamie Gillis!), Aaron slips the pill in both his and his coworker's drinks one evening and soon finds the two of them making love on one of the factory's fabric stations. One more trip to Dr. Folkoff, and the couple (as well as some coworkers) ends up invited to a meeting of the Freedom F*ckers, a swinger's club where adherents of the good doctor's pill (and philosophy) come together to put his beliefs into practice.
There's not a huge amount of dramatic incident to OVERCOME, which, like DEEP THROAT a few years earlier, resolves its central conflict around halfway through. In the same way as that earlier film, the final two reels mostly represent a victory lap - but boy, what a lap it is! Anchored by a fantastic, probably 8-minute rock song that repeats (almost in its entirety) twice, the final 15 or 20 minutes are essentially a nonstop orgy, mostly repurposed from LOVELAND, though with careful integration of the new actors on the sidelines. If you, like me, find one of the chief pleasures of '70s porn to be watching rutting bodies cut together with great music, the conclusion of OVERCOME should leave you amply satisfied.
While it's easy to fault the film's thematics as naïve (like so many of the era's sexual liberation manifestos), they nevertheless represent a charming time capsule of a period when free-love adherents really thought the world could come together (both literally and figuratively) just by relaxing their inhibitions and embracing their libido. That the film presents this idea in such a jokey register while also seeming to take it semi-seriously produces a perfect balance between pie-eyed idealism and genuine desire for change: maybe we would all be happier if we let go of our hang-ups and just got it on. It's not exactly a nuanced or subtle thesis, but it's welcome in a genre that can too often tend toward the empty-headed or cynical.
Ultimately, your tolerance for OVERCOME will come down to your patience for this kind of naivety, along with your general appreciation for the film's fluffy, frothy aesthetic. It's not high art, but it's a whole lot of fun, and a genuine turn-on to boot. For a sex film, what more do you want?