Honestly, the 1970s were a fever dream. If you weren't there, it’s hard to explain how a woman famous for a single hardcore film became a household name invited to the Oscars. But that was the era of "Porno Chic." Everyone was talking about it. Somewhere in that chaos, a movie called Linda Lovelace for President was born. It wasn't a porn flick. Not really. It was an R-rated sex comedy that tried to pivot a literal X-rated icon into mainstream stardom.
It failed. Spectacularly.
But the story behind it? That’s where things get weird. You've got Micky Dolenz from The Monkees showing up. You’ve got Scatman Crothers. It’s a time capsule of a moment when Hollywood thought they could sanitize a scandal and sell it back to the public as a joke.
The Weird Plot of Linda Lovelace for President
The premise is basically a 95-minute punchline. The country is a mess (sound familiar?), and the major political parties are failing. A group of "independent leaders" meets in a field and, for reasons that only make sense if you’ve had too much 1970s "herbal tea," they decide to nominate Linda Lovelace.
She runs under the Upright Party.
The whole movie is a road trip. Linda travels across America on a campaign bus to "arouse the national spirit." She meets voters in big cities and backwoods towns. There’s a scene with a near-sighted bus driver played by Micky Dolenz. There’s a hitman called "The Assassinator" played by Chuck McCann. It’s a series of sketches, most of them leaning on low-brow humor and puns about her "talents."
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It’s campy. It’s crude. And according to almost every critic who saw it in 1975, it wasn't particularly funny.
Why a Mainstream Movie?
You might wonder why she’d even bother with a non-porn movie. Basically, her manager and producer David Winters saw how college kids reacted to her. She was doing speaking tours. Students treated her like a folk hero of the sexual revolution. Winters figured, "Hey, let’s make her a real actress."
They shot it with a decent budget and a real director, Claudio Guzmán, who had worked on I Dream of Jeannie. They even released versions ranging from PG to X, trying to catch every possible demographic.
It didn't work. The movie was a commercial flop.
The public didn't want a "clean" Linda Lovelace. Or maybe they just didn't want a movie that started with a title card saying it "intended to offend everybody" and then spent the next hour making jokes that felt like they belonged in a burlesque hall from 1950.
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The Dark Reality Behind the Screen
Here is where the "fun" 70s comedy turns into something much heavier. If you watch Linda Lovelace for President now, it feels uncomfortable for reasons the director never intended.
Years later, Linda (whose real name was Linda Susan Boreman) came out and said she was coerced into everything. She claimed her husband at the time, Chuck Traynor, was abusive and forced her into the industry through violence. By the time this movie was being filmed, she had actually left Traynor for David Winters, but the shadow of that era hung over her entire career.
She eventually became a vocal anti-pornography activist. She testified before the Meese Commission. She wrote a book called Ordeal.
Looking back, the "carefree, fun-loving" Linda you see on the campaign trail in this movie feels like a performance of a performance. The industry was trying to keep the "Porno Chic" money train moving, and she was the engine.
The Forgotten Cast and Cultural Footnotes
The cast list is a "who’s who" of people who probably needed a paycheck.
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- Micky Dolenz: The Monkee himself.
- Scatman Crothers: A legend, playing a pool hall hustler.
- Joe E. Ross: From Car 54, Where Are You?
- Vaughn Meader: Famous for his JFK impersonations.
It’s a bizarre mix of B-list comedy pros and a woman who was the most famous person in the world for a few months for all the wrong reasons.
Is it Worth Watching Today?
Probably not for the "plot." If you’re a film historian or you love the aesthetic of 1975—think grainy film stock, wide collars, and questionable haircuts—it’s a fascinating artifact. It represents a specific bridge in American culture where the underground and the mainstream collided and then realized they didn't really like each other.
The movie ended up being her final screen appearance. She died in 2002 after a car accident, having spent the last two decades of her life trying to distance herself from the "Lovelace" name.
Actionable Insights for Film Buffs
- Seek out the 2013 biopic: If you want the real story, the movie Lovelace starring Amanda Seyfried is a much better look at the tragedy behind the scenes.
- Check the legal history: If you're interested in censorship, look up the "Miller v. California" Supreme Court case from 1973. It's the reason movies like this even had a chance to hit mainstream theaters.
- Context is everything: When watching 70s sex comedies, remember they were reacting to decades of strict Hays Code censorship. The "crudeness" was often a deliberate, if clumsy, middle finger to the old guard.
The film exists now mostly as a bootleg or a specialty DVD for collectors of cult cinema. It’s a reminder that fame is a weird, fleeting thing, and that sometimes the most interesting part of a movie is why it was made in the first place.
To understand the era better, research the "Porno Chic" movement of the early 70s and how it eventually led to the "Slasher" era of the 80s as public tastes shifted from sex to violence.