Tonight on Playboy Radio: Taboo II and the Golden Age of Porn

Had a great time tonight (2011 Aug 25) on Playboy Radio‘s Night Calls talking with Nicki Hunter and Debi Diamond about Kirdy Stevens‘ 1982 classic, Taboo II.

The movie stars Kevin James and Dorothy LeMay (even though they inexplicably put Tammy/Bambi on the box cover, LeMay is so much hotter.  Memo to self, find better headshot for Dorothy…) as brother and sister who after some trepidation live out that old adage “if you can’t keep it in your pants, keep it in the family.”

The story (story!!) picks up a little bit after Taboo, where we follow Mike Ranger’s girlfriend (Dorothy LeMay) as she and her brother, Junior (Kevin James), run into Mike’s mother (Kay Parker) at her stationary stop.  Running into her son’s ex-girlfriend sends her to her friend Aunt Peg, who gives her a massage.  Junior, knowing a fine piece of tail when he sees one, follows her over and ends up banging Kay and Aunt Peg right there on the massage table.  During the romp, it comes out that Kay slept with her son, and this gets Junior to reconsider what a hottie he has in his sister, and he sets out to tap it.

There is lots of tease and build up in Junior’s seduction of his sister and it climaxes with his girl friend (Tammy) eating his sister out on the family room couch when Junior just slides himself in there and takes over.  From there, the taboo has been broken, and we find everyone in the family torn apart by the action.

We also follow the action of Junior’s parents played by Eric Edwards and Honey Wilder.  They’re in a largely sexless marriage, so it’s only a matter of time before Dad boffs Daughter and Mom rides Junior.

And this being the end of the swinging 70s, the movie could not be considered complete without a giant suburban orgy where we have most of the cast list (including a young up and cummer named Ron Jeremy!)

Perhaps the most striking thing about the movie is the notion of consequences.  No one is living happily ever after in either of these movies, which is quite a difference from the normal “fuck and live to fuck some more” vibe that is in most porno.

We also spoke of The Golden Age.  Back in the late 90s, we covered it like this in the Adult Movie FAQ:

The following comes from Peter van Aarle’s excellent web page (mirrored at http://www.rame.net/aarle/golden_age.html) regarding the “Golden Age” of porn films.

Ah, the good old days, when the words “shot on video” were unheard of, and they actually had budgets to shoot an adult movie <sigh>

When the plot of a porno movie wasn’t limited to “Gee, I don’t seem to have the money to pay for the pizza! Now what do we do?” and the talent actually were sent the script in advance to learn their lines.

Heck they even were known to have occasional rehearsals :-)

Oh well, no use crying over things that once were. With the present glut of cheap product (over 2500 pornos were released in the US in 1994!) a good movie is difficult to make. That is to say, you can still make a good movie if you invest time and money in it, but a 4 times higher budget is unfortunately no guarantee for a 4 times higher return.

In fact, the only people who can change things are we the consumers. If we make sure that cheap one-day-wonders don’t make their producers much money then (and only then) is the general quality likely to improve. After all, why should Joe Producer invest a lot of time and effort in making a good product when producing crap lets him rake in the bucks anyway…

So we have the choice: either scour the shelves for hours to try and find the few pearls among today’s dreck or go back to those classics of yesteryear. If you want to try your luck with todays product (which isn’t all bad, really), I would suggest reading some of the reviews posted to the alt.sex.movies newsgroup to help distinguish between the good and the bad. Many of these reviews are archived at several sites.

“Ok”, you say “but what if I want some of those classics? How do I know what to look for?”
Well fear no more, here for your browsing pleasure is a list of many of the best porno movies ever made. Many of them are from the so-called Golden Age which is generally considered to have been from about 1977 to 1982.

Which isn’t to say that there have not been some good movies made before or since that time, nor that there weren’t some awful ones produced during the period, it’s just that so many of the classics were made during that period…

So look at these lists of the true Classics, some very good movies, and some movies which may not stand up to our high standards today but which are nonetheless historically significant.

Revered and greatly missed adult reviewer Imperator had this to say about the epochs of porn:

A note on the Ages according to Me. Note that like all historical divisions these are approximate :-). –

  • The Golden Age is 1976-1984. I have slightly extended it from the traditional 1977-1982 to include “Misty B.” and the many excellent movies of 1984. The Golden Age ends with the retirement of Annie and the rise of Ginger (not that it was Ginger’s fault of course :-)). The fringe period is great fun, since it includes the first Angel & Ginger flicks and Bridgette Monet.
  • The Silver Age (my real sentimental favourite) should strictly be 1984-1986, i.e. up to the retirement of Ginger and Traci, but 1987-1989 had many nice movies with essentially the same stars as 1984-1986, so I’ll include 1988.
  • The period 1988-1995 can be divided and named in many ways. A friend calls it the Cheapskate Age or the Crap Age, but it is innaccurate since it ignores Leslie & Stagliano.
  • The term “Silicone Age” only applies to post 1992 IMHO.
  • The term Neon or Pretentious Age for 1989-1992 does include most of Blake, but it really disregards the rest of the crap… I mean the material :-).  So, my opinion is that the traditional apellation of “Iron Age” is the best and safest.
It looks like the Playboy Radio segment is going to be a standing gig on Thursday nights around 8:30 Eastern / 5:30 Pacific. See you next week.

Exxxotica Chicago 2011

So I decided to make a quick 3-day trip up to Chicago to check out its first Exxxotica show. I had been to the Miami show the previous year, and it seemed about the same size in terms of number of exhibitors. Numerous porn girls that had signed for last year’s Chicago Exxxtacy show commented Exxxotica was much bigger in terms of booths and girls.

Stage shows were fun with a heavy bdsm theme. My favourite one was the Pretty Things Peep Show which featured Stoya performing her aerial tricks for the first time.

aerial Stoya

Click on Stoya for the photos from Exxxotica.

The amount of fans that attended the Chicago show was impressive. One promotion that contributed to this turnout was that women got to attend Friday for free. This resulted in the most gender balanced porn convention day that I have ever attended. Many girlfriends and wives attended with their men and I saw groups of women browsing with no men in sight. They seemed just as elated to meet the female porn stars and buy their products as the typical fanboy. Maybe even more so since they did not have to pay the entry fee.

However, this female balance did not translate to the parties. Only people who had bought vip tickets to the show were allowed into the Friday after-party or they had to pay $20 at the door. You see where this is going. Since the women did not have to buy tickets for the show, they would have had to pay 20 dollars to get in. You had a ballroom full of sausage absent-mindedly staring at go-go dancers. Mr. Pete and I were absent-mindedly helping ourselves to a grey goose bottle in the vip section until the show organisers objected that it was their hooch. Oops. I didn’t even bother checking out the Saturday after-party but heard the same complaint from people that had attended.

About the only other disappointment about the show was the lack of nudity compared to last year’s Exxxtacy show. Chicago seemed lax about the nudity during that show but every girl this year told me they couldn’t flash people because they were fearful of some thousand dollar fine due to a warning from the show’s organizers. Is that the going rate for indecent exposure in Illinois?

Goodnight, Reviewer-man: Den of CAVR Passed Away

“Desperate as the night moves on, just a look and a whisper, and they’re gone…” – Bruce Springsteen, “Jungleland”

My friend and colleague Den passed away on Thursday; I only heard about it this morning from an email Dirty Bob sent over.

I’ve known Den since 1996 or so; we’d see each other once a year at the trade shows (ECVS or, later, AEE) and we’d be in email contact often.

Den had some health issues back in 2006 which slowed him down physically (and eventually, a few years later, made it impossible for him to travel to Vegas for AEE).  It was around that time that Den approached me about taking over hosting responsibilities for his site and making sure it would continue to exist after he was gone.  Luckily for all of us, this first event was just a scare, and we were granted five more years worth of reviews.

Shortly before Den announced his retirement, he called to tell me that he’d gotten some bad news from his doctor and it would seem that his time left was short; but he was adamant that no one know about his disease until after he was gone.  Like everything he did, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.  He wanted to go on his own terms; I convinced him to tell a few mutual friends who lived nearby so at least he would have someone close.  He agreed and a few days later he wrote up his retirement announcement.

He was very concerned that his site not go away, and I assured him — as I did back in 2006 — that his site (and his legacy) will stay online as long as the IAFD does (which I hope is forever.)

Since I’ve been a pretty behind-the-scenes guy in recent years, I am flattered he thought enough of me to induct me into his Hall of Fame.

Attempts at writing much more are failing right now, so I will leave with some links to some nice writeups in the trades and his colleagues, so here are the links.  I hope to write a proper tribute soon.

XBIZ: CAVR Founder Den Passes Away

AVN: CAVR Founder Den Passes Away at 67

Gram Ponante: Den of Inequity: Legendary Porn Reviewer Dies

Roger Pipe’s Tribute to Den: Den Retires, All Hail the King

Den’s Retirement Announcement: CAVR remains On-line!

This is how I remember Den (he’s the one who doesn’t look like Buttman): at the ADT Party in the Rivera in 2003 just hanging back and smiling at his good fortune to be in the same room with people he loved watching and talking to. (Den’s write up here)

Here’s another shot from a few moments after, which is notable if only for having Den and Peter van Aarle (in the white IAFD sweatshirt on the left) in the same shot…  (and apologies to Stagliano for catching him mid-blink.)

Den, I hope you and Peter get to meet up again wherever you are.

Goodnight, Big Tit Queen… Echo Valley Dies in Car Crash

Another sad addition to the Dead Pornstar List at rame.net

Big bust actress Echo Valley died over the weekend as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash in San Antonio, Texas. She was 56.

Fox San Antonio reports that Echo was turning into a bar when her car was rear-ended by a pickup truck.  Finding seatbelts difficult to wear due to her large breasts, Echo was thrown from the car and passed away at the scene.

News Source: Fox 29 San Antonio: Adult Entertainer Dies in Crash

Photo Credit:  Mommy Got Boobs

Filmography at IAFD: Echo Valley