As with the other films of the porno chic era, it was reviewed by the film critics of mainstream newspapers. The review went on to say, "Damiano has expertly fashioned a bizarre
melodrama", and described the opening scene as "a sequence so effective it would stand out in any legit theatrical feature". Other critics have described it as, along with
Deep Throat, one of the "two best erotic motion pictures ever made".
Roger Ebert gave
Deep Throat a no-stars rating, but described
The Devil in Miss Jones as the "best" of the genre he had seen and gave it three stars out of a possible four. He wrote that the relatively high production values and storytelling were partly the reason for his positive review, but that Spelvin's performance was the main draw: "she is not only the best, but possibly the only, actress in the hard-core field. By that I mean when she's on the screen, her body and actions aren't the only reasons we're watching her. Alone among porno stars, she never seems exploited." Elsewhere (in his December, 1973 review for
Behind the Green Door), Ebert wrote: "The only hard-core film I've seen that was effectively erotic was 'The Devil in Miss Jones' — and it was erotic not because of its hard-core content but in spite of it. It worked because its star, Georgina Spelvin, was so able to project emotion, involvement, and abandon. [...] The genius of 'The Devil in Miss Jones' was that the title character had a fictional reality and motivation that made the sex scenes credible."
Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune also gave the film three stars out of four and called it "a cut above the average skin flick, and that explains why it has done sensational business in New York and Los Angeles. It has a story. It is well photographed. It has a central character who makes a little sense." Critical reception was not entirely positive.
Vincent Canby of
The New York Times was negative and called it "a ridiculous new porno film ... which a lot of people, who should have known better, seem to have been conned into finding a breakthrough movie."
Charles Champlin of the
Los Angeles Times wrote that film left him "at a loss to know how to review. It has a cinematic proficiency 'Deep Throat' lacks and it also has pretensions to a plot. But the plot is still a wraparound for the gymnastics, the appeal is to the hard-core audience and you have the feeling that what is needed is not a review but a second opinion from
Masters and Johnson or any competent physiologist." Filmmaker
William Friedkin has called it a "great film", partly because it was one of the few porn films with a proper storyline. It was one of the first films to be inducted into the
XRCO Hall of Fame. ==Soundtrack==