Some Call It Loving

Some Call It Loving
The movie poster for the film Some Call It Loving
Directed by	James B. Harris
Produced by	James B. Harris
Written by	James B. Harris John Collier
Starring	Zalman King Carol White Tisa Farrow Richard Pryor
Music by	Richard Hazard
Distributed by	International Video Entertainment
Release date	November 16, 1973
Running time	103 min.
Language	English

Some Call It Loving, also known as Sleeping Beauty is a 1973 drama film written, produced, and directed by James B. Harris, based on a short story by John Collier.

The film opens on a mansion balcony overlooking the sea. A young man, Robert Troy (Zalman King), approaches a woman, Scarlett (Carol White), who is wearing a funeral veil. They discuss the young man that they are mourning. Troy asks Scarlett if she loved him, and she answers that she did.

Troy visits a carnival where he pays $1 to enter a "Sleeping Beauty" attraction. Inside the tent, a carny is dressed up as a doctor (Logan Ramsey), alongside two women dressed as nurses. The doctor makes a show of examining the Sleeping Beauty (Tisa Farrow) to demonstrate that she is healthy. He then announces that "red-blooded men" can pay another $1 to kiss the Sleeping Beauty and try to wake her.

After the show, Troy presses the carny for details about the woman, finding out that she has been asleep for eight years. The doctor offers to leave Troy alone with her for $50. Instead, Troy asks how much it would cost to buy her. The carny suggests $20,000, and Troy agrees. The carny gives Troy a bottle and explains that its contents will keep the woman asleep. Troy takes the woman back to the mansion.

Troy announces to Scarlett, who is in bed with a bald female lover, that he has purchased a Sleeping Beauty. Troy then goes to his regular gig at a nightclub, where he plays baritone sax and leads a 6-piece band. After his set, he checks in with a junkie named Jeff (Richard Pryor) to make sure he is taking the pills that Troy bought for him.

Scarlett and Troy live a cloistered life of privilege in their mansion. They play elaborate games with each other and a string of women. Currently, Scarlett is pretending to run a finishing school. Her newest student is a young woman named Angelica (Veronica Anderson), who dresses as a French maid and waits on Scarlett and Troy. Scarlett gently corrects mistakes in Angelica's service.

Meanwhile, the Sleeping Beauty awakes, and Troy discovers that her name is Jennifer. He gradually shows her around the house, as she acclimates to being awake for the first time in years. Together, they watch Scarlett and Angelica do a dance routine while dressed as nuns. When the jukebox switches to a tango, Troy hastily shuts it off and closes a curtain to hide the women from Jennifer. He puts her to bed. Jennifer thanks him for waking her, quoting Alfred Tennyson's "Sleeping Beauty": "I ’d sleep another hundred years, O love, for such another kiss." Troy jokes that he did not kiss Jennifer to wake her, and she responds that she did not sleep for 100 years.