Henry's Night In (1969)

Masterful Movie

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Porn comedy has "porn" as the adjective and "comedy" as the noun, and that's the problem with HENRY'S NIGHT IN. I'm the first commenter on IMDb for this widely-seen junker because it tried too hard to be funny, and failed.First problem is casting porn stalwart Forman Shane as Henry. He's normally the dramatic lead, often unsympathetic, and to make him into a sort of X-rated Fred MacMurray is ridiculous. Even Fred was better in noir like DOUBLE INDEMNITY than the Disney trivia of FLUBBER.The fantasy premise here is extremely lame. Shane as Henry is a bespectacled nerd, whose wife complains he can't get it up anymore. He goes to a shrink (guy unnerved me, resembling in look & manner Ed Hunt who I loved starring in England's U.F.O. TV series) who recommends that sleeping around with as many women as possible will re-start his libido and get him back on good terms with his wife (yeah, right).In a dumb antique auction having stentorian-voiced Steve Vincent as auctioneer, Henry's bamboozled into buying an old trunk, sort of a grab-bag. It has an ancient tome "Diary of the Invisible Man" inside, which allows Henry to re-create the formula for invisibility and, natch, try it out on himself.Before you can say "what about side effects" Henry is causing all manner of trouble with his new power. Unfortunately, this porn film had zero special effects budget, so the fantasy content is negligible. Jump cuts cause Henry to disappear and reappear, triggered by the act of sneezing, and a few objects levitate crudely on wires.Even though we got endless amounts of full frontal nudity, the action is more a throwback to the early '60s cuties, as there's little humping, using invisibility primarily for voyeuristic purposes or to permit practical joking. Best scene has one of the girls, blonde Phyliss Stengel bumping and grinding in bed making love to an invisible critter, recalling Barbara Hershey in the classic horror film THE ENTITY.Although Shane was immensely tiresome, Mary Bauer (an unsung porn beauty with a perfect figure) as his new neighbor, Stengel and facially challenged but stacked wifey Barbara Kline are a trio of turn-ons. The fact that the anonymous director of this nonsense lets each of their solo masturbation-styled sex scenes, nude shower or bath footage run endlessly is a crime against the film's pacing but gives the fans plenty to watch.Plot twisting regarding the shrink's ulterior motives and a code word "Jack" given to the ladies as post-hypnotic suggestion doesn't amount to much. Basically this could have been a cute little winner of a film worth signing had some effort been put into the script, as well as re-casting Henry with a talented comedian.