The Seven Minutes

The Seven Minutes is a 1971 American drama movie directed and produced by Russ Meyer. The movie was based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Irving Wallace. Plot After a teenager, Jerry Griffith (John Sarno), who purchased the erotic novel The Seven Minutes is charged with rape, an eager prosecutor who is against pornography (and preparing for an upcoming election) uses the scandal to declare the book as obscene, sets up a sting operation where two detectives enter a bookstore and purchase a copy of the eponymous book, then the prosecutor brings charges against the bookstore for selling obscene material. The trial soon creates a heated debate about the issue of pornography vs. free speech. The young defense lawyer, Mike Barrett (Wayne Maunder), must also solve the mystery of the novel's true author. In examining the history of the book, the defense attorney discovered it was written by J.J. Jadway, an American expatriate living in Europe. The book was originally published in English by a publisher in France, and eventually picked up by various tawdry publishing companies in the United States, most of whom tried to emphasize the more lurid and salacious aspects of the book. Its content was considered so sexually explicit that it was banned as obscene in over 30 countries. Apparently. J.J. Jadway was so despondent over the treatment of his book that he committed suicide; one of his friends found him and reported it. As the trial takes place, the prosecutor finds ordinary members of the public who find the book grossly offensive (one of whom admits on cross-examination by the defense that she cannot even repeat out loud one of the words used in the book to describe what the female protagonist was doing in bed with her lover), and the defense finds professionals in academia and the media who attest to the book's value as literature. The prosecution then puts the young man who committed the rape on the stand to say the book drove him to it.