National Lampoon's Joy of Sex Information

National Lampoon's Joy of Sex (also known simply as Joy of Sex) is a 1984 film directed by Martha Coolidge. It was written by Kathleen Rowell and J.J. Salter, based on the sex manual by Alex Comfort.

Plot

Leslie Hindenberg has just entered her senior year of high school. She visits her doctor to have a mole examined, but she mistakenly believes she only has six weeks to live and goes about trying to lose her virginity. However it is difficult for her to accomplish her goal when her father is the school's phys ed coach. Meanwhile, Alan Holt is a teenager whose pals brag about their sexual encounters. He is rather frustrated as he cannot stop thinking about sex and attempts to lose his virginity anyway possible.

Cast

Actor	Role
Cameron Dye	Alan Holt
Michelle Meyrink	Leslie Hindenberg
Colleen Camp	Liz Sampson
Ernie Hudson	Mr. Porter
Lisa Langlois	Melanie
Darren Dalton	Ed Ingalls
Christopher Lloyd	Coach Hindenberg

Production

Paramount Pictures paid a great amount of money to secure the rights to Alex Comfort's sex manual just so they could use the title, which they found to be highly commercial.

In 1978 they hired Charles Grodin to write a script, telling him the movie ?could be about anything'. Grodin decided to use this exact situation as the premise: a Hollywood writer struggles to write a script based on a sex manual after a big studio acquires the rights. When he finished his first draft, Paramount passed. Grodin finally managed to get his screenplay green lit by MGM in 1985 as Movers & Shakers. In that movie, the sex manual is now called ?Joy In Sex'.

According to the book Wired, John Belushi was supposed to appear in this movie, but he died before filming began.

Director Coolidge was fired from the movie for cutting many scenes of gratuitous nudity but declined an opportunity to have her directing credit appear as Alan Smithee.

Release

The film was given a theatrical release in the United States by Paramount Pictures in August 1984. It grossed $4,463,841 at the box office.

The film was given a release on VHS by Paramount Home Video in the 1980s. As of 2011, the film has still not been officially released on DVD.

Eleanor Mannikka of All Movie Guide has nothing but disdain for the movie: </ref>}}