Take One (Mar-Apr 1973)

“The thing with Eve is that being beautiful in our society means power, real power.” ST ET LL ES eS RENE RS DN, PG SEE LS BRI TERE EEN GERI REET Mitchell Brothers, who had been raided for beaver films several times already, went to court and won a_ 10-day restraining order to prevent police harrassment. During those 10 days, they celebrated the purchase of a new Bolex by screening honest-to-God couples (and trios) doing the deed for real. Sutter Cinema and Leo Productions began operations in San Francisco under Arlene Elster and Lowell Pickett, two volunteer workers at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. Leo produced films for the Sutter Cinema. To do so, they provided raw stock, cameras, and editing equipment to practically anybody who asked. It was done on a trial basis, and many of the filmmakers came from San Francisco State College's film department. For their first film, they were given 600 feet of stock and paid something like $35 (the same fee actors and actresses got). If the finished product was accepted, they were allowed to make a longer film for more money. If that was good, they moved up to features. The films were shown mostly at Sutter Cinema, though some attempts were made by Leo to distribute them elsewhere since, at that time, no film paid for itself in just one theater. Distribution possibilities were few due to legal problems, however, and Leo suffered further from generally dubious management. In less than a year, the arrangement was terminated, and today Sutter Cinema, still run by Arlene, gets most of its films from independent producers or _ better-established distributors. The Sutter remains one of San Francisco’s two “class” porn houses, along with the O'Farrell, which the Mitchells have provided with a spacious lobby lined with erotic art, plush rocking seats in the theater, and similar ritz. The main idea at first was to get that action up on the screen, however possible, and quality was hardly a consideration. Porn audiences didn’t ask for anything more than sexual fantasy for the sake of sexual fantasy, depending mainly on the length of the film. A loop (which is 10 minutes of film; the term dates back to the days of nickel arcade machines, when it really was a loop) made no pretense toward anything but fucking and sucking. Couple meets. Couple has at it. End of film. A “short” might add props besides a bed, and might include another body or two as well. It’s not until three reels and up that anyone even attempted to fabricate a “plot” and even then it was fairly tenuous. In Los Angeles, Bill Osco made Mona, probably the first feature porn film that wasn't a documentary. It wasn’t much, but stands up well next to what's being 14 Mimi Morgan, as Eve, before the resurrection. touted today. Sherpix got into the act most notably with Jeff Gerber’s Bad Barbara, the story of a girl who leaves her boyfriend to fuck around with other boys and girls until she gets disillusioned with the swinging life and decides monogamy’s best after all. Clay McCord made Wet Lips and others in L.A. The Dakota Brothers and their Signature films were popular in Southern California, as was Richard Robinson’s Adultery for Fun and Profit. |n New York, there weren't many films being made, but they were being widely shown. In a few other big cities — Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Atlanta — hardcore was also making its presence felt. Then came Deep Throat, and suddenly porno was cocktail party and dinner table discussion all over the country. Arlene Elster believes porno films should be considered as underground art films, due to the limited budget on which they’re made. That idea ignores the fact that while underground films are made specifically for a small, avant-garde audience, porn films go for the lowest common denominator and thus the biggest audience possible. Screw Magazine judges them according to a peter meter which indicates the oomph behind the erection induced by the film. That’s fine and dandy by me — if it gets me off, it's doing what a porn film is supposed to do — but the formula neatly excludes that half of humanity born without a peter. Women is losers in porn films, a fact which absolutely nobody disputes. | found in my own “research” that since the films make up their own rules as they go along, a handy way to rate them is relative to each other. Because by most standards that are commonly COURTESY MITCHELL BROTHERS applied to film, the porns just don’t make it at all beyond the fact that they provide us with the one fruit forbidden by most all other film. In terms solely of fantasyfulfillment, the cheap loops, with their one-to-one shooting ratio, flash frames, audible director's cues, shadows, visible light stands and all, are every bit as good as the more “professional” productions. Nothing is asked of the films except that they make that connection between the viewer and the heaving, throbbing mass of flesh on the screen. By a similar token, if you’re going to shoot a featurelength film, you’re going to have to provide something of interest beyond the sex. Everyone seems to agree to that. The main thing Deep Throat has going for it besides Ms. Lovelace’s virtuosity is the hype inadvertently created by a judge who dug into his thesaurus and hauled out more adjectives to describe it than Julius Hoffman did to describe the Chicago 8. (The story, for those of you who just returned from outer space and haven't heard it, is about a woman who doesn't enjoy her sex life until she learns from a doctor (Harry Reems, a New York porno stalwart) that her clitoris is in her throat. In order to get herself off, she then has to learn how to run a penis down her throat without gagging. She does, and lives happily ever after.) Production values are minimal and the acting is lousy; the only emotion Linda seems capable of projecting is the joy of giving head. Deep Throat cost about $25,000. When it first came out, it enjoyed only a moderately successful run. Then came the obscenity bust and conviction. By November 1, 1973, about a year after it was released, Deep Throat had grossed, according to Variety, $5,108,914. Phil Parisi and Lou Perry, who originally bankrolled the film, had by then muscled out writer-director-producer Gerard Damiano in a power play Damiano won't discuss for fear of getting both legs broken, he has said. Amidst endless jokes about sword swallowing, Linda Lovelace became a household name, proving that a homely girl-next-door type can make it into Playboy, gashed torso and all, as often as the more idealized variety. Deep throat became: both a noun and a verb in American slang. The film’s overwrought campy humor had a lot to do with it, as did the feeling that Linda’s specialty was so awesome and unreal that it was hard to take. Whatever the case, she took to gallivanting with Sammy Davis Jr., and started preparing a “legitimate” stage career with a bedroom farce called Pajama Tops. But in the wake of Deep Throat, countless other ambitious porn films have surfaced.