Inserts (film)

Inserts is a 1975 British film, written and directed by John Byrum while he was in his twenties, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper, Bob Hoskins and Veronica Cartwright. The film was originally rated X but later re-rated as R.

The plot concerns actors and directors in the early 1930s who were unable to make the transition from silent films to talkies, and thus turned to making pornography. The film's title takes its name from the double meaning that "insert" both refers to a film technique and sexual intercourse. Inserts was filmed like a stage play on one set and filmed entirely in real time.

Plot

Prior to the opening credits we see portions of the stag film that is shot in the course of the movie. Voices are overheard that make it apparent that men and women are watching this in the present day. At the end a man complains that there was no "Come shot", something that will later develop into a plot point.

The story takes place in Hollywood in the early 1930s, shortly after the start of the talkie period. A visionary and gifted young Hollywood director known as Boy Wonder (Dreyfuss) has fallen out of favor with the studios. This is ostensibly due to his reluctance to lower his standards or abandon his artistic and experimental style (such as using a hand-held camera) for the sake of churning out lesser quality stag films for easy money, due to his alcoholism and his fear of leaving his house. He works out of his decaying mansion, which is the only one left on a street being turned into a freeway.