Beginnings Blue Movie by
Andy Warhol,
released in June 1969, Although
Blue Movie involved
sexual intercourse, the film, starring
Viva and
Louis Waldon, included substantial dialogue about the
Vietnam War and various mundane tasks. Nonetheless,
Blue Movie, besides being a seminal film in the 'Golden Age of Porn', was a major influence, according to Warhol, in the making of
Last Tango in Paris (1972), an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring
Marlon Brando, and released a few years after
Blue Movie was made. Also around this time, in June 1970, the
55th Street Playhouse began showing
Censorship in Denmark: A New Approach, a film documentary study of pornography, directed by
Alex de Renzy. According to
Vincent Canby, a
New York Times film reviewer, the narrator of the documentary noted that "pornography is more stimulating and cheaper than hormone injections" and "stresses the fact that since the legalization of
pornography in Denmark,
sex crimes have decreased." Nevertheless, afterwards, in October 1970, the
History of the Blue Movie, another
film documentary study of
pornography directed by
Alex de Renzy, was released and featured a compilation of early
blue movie shorts dating from 1915 to 1970. Film critic
Roger Ebert reviewed the film, rated it two-stars (of four), and noted that the narrator tells us "solemnly about the comic artistry of early stag movies". In December 1971,
Boys in the Sand was
released and opened in theaters across the United States and around the world, and reviewed by
Variety magazine. Featuring explicit all-male sex scenes, the film's title is a
parodic reference to the gay-themed
1968 play by
Mart Crowley, and the
1970 film adaptation The Boys in the Band. in New York City on June 12, 1972, and was advertised in
The New York Times under the
bowdlerized title
Throat. After
Johnny Carson talked about the film on his nationally top-rated TV show and
Bob Hope, as well, mentioned it on TV,
The Devil in Miss Jones The 1973 film
The Devil in Miss Jones was ranked number seven in the
Variety list of the top ten highest-grossing pictures of 1973, despite lacking the wide release and professional marketing of Hollywood and having been virtually banned across the country for half the year (see Miller v. California, below).
William Friedkin called
The Devil in Miss Jones a "great film", partly because it was one of the few adult erotic films with a proper storyline.
Roger Ebert referred to
The Devil in Miss Jones as the "best" of the genre he had seen and gave it three-stars (of four). Ebert also suggested the film's box office receipts were inflated as a way of
laundering the profits from illegal activities, although such a method would have required organized crime to be paying taxes on their illegally obtained income.
The Devil in Miss Jones was one of the first films to be inducted into the
XRCO Hall of Fame. The sound-recording, cinematography, and story-line of
The Devil in Miss Jones were of a considerably higher quality than any previous porn film. The lead,
Georgina Spelvin, who had been in the original Broadway run of
The Pajama Game, combined vigorous sex with an acting performance some thought as convincing as anything to be seen in a good mainstream production. She had been hired as a caterer, but
Gerard Damiano, the film director, was impressed with her reading of Miss Jones's dialogue, while auditioning an actor for the non-sex role of 'Abaca'. According to ''
Variety's
review, "With The Devil in Miss Jones'', the hard-core porno feature approaches an art form, one that critics may have a tough time ignoring in the future". The review also described the plot as comparable to
Jean-Paul Sartre's play
No Exit, and went on to describe the opening scene as, "a sequence so effective it would stand out in any legit theatrical feature."
"Porno chic" An influential five-page article in
The New York Times Magazine in 1973 described the phenomenon of porn being publicly discussed by celebrities, and taken seriously by critics, a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of
The New York Times, as "porno chic". Some expressed the opinion that pornographic films would continue to extend their access to US theaters, and the mainstream film industry would gravitate toward the influence of porn. Several Golden Age films referred to mainstream film titles, including
"Alice in Wonderland" (1976),
"Flesh Gordon" (1974),
"The Opening of Misty Beethoven" (1976) and
"Through the Looking Glass" (1976).
Supreme Court's 1973 Miller v. California Supreme Court's 1973
Miller v. California decision redefined obscenity from "utterly without socially redeeming value" to lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". Crucially, it made 'contemporary
community standards' the criterion, holding that obscenity was not protected by the
First Amendment; the ruling gave leeway to local judges to seize and destroy prints of films adjudged to violate local community standards. The Miller decision obstructed porn distribution. until the emergence of the internet in the 1990s.
Post-1973 In the aftermath of
Miller v. California (1973), with the consequence of fragmenting distribution in the American film market and putting mass box office returns beyond the reach of pornographic films, the brief commercial foray into the production of pornographic films with higher artistic and cinematic production values that occurred between 1972 and 1973 was not sustained. With their relatively modest financial means, a predicted move of organized crime into Hollywood failed to materialize. An indication of the returns still possible was that a 1976 release,
Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy, favorably reviewed by film critic
Roger Ebert in 1976, reportedly grossed over $90 million globally. Some historians assess
The Opening of Misty Beethoven, based on the play
Pygmalion by
George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative,
My Fair Lady), and directed by
Radley Metzger, as attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets. Author
Toni Bentley called the film the "crown jewel" of the Golden Age. In general, after 1973, adult erotic films emulated mainstream filmmaking storylines and conventions, merely to frame the depictions of sexual activity to prepare an 'artistic merit' defense against possible obscenity charges. The adult film industry remained stuck at the level of 'one day wonders', finished by participants hired for only a single day. The ponderous technology of the time meant filming a simple scene would often take hours due to the need for the camera to be laboriously set up for each shot. Repeated sustained performances might be required on cue at any time over the course of a day, which was an issue for men without the recourse to modern
Viagra-type drugs. Production was concentrated in New York City where organized crime was widely believed to have control over all aspects of the business, and to prevent entry of competitors. Although their budgets were usually very low, a subcultural level of appreciation exists for films of this era, which were produced by a core group of around thirty performers, some of whom had other jobs. Several were actors who could handle dialogue when required. However, some participants scoffed at the idea that what they did qualified as "acting". By the early 1980s, the rise of home video had led to the end of the era when people went to movie theaters to see sex shot on 35mm film with production values, ultimately culminating with the rise of the internet in the 1990s and beyond. ==Feminist criticism==