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35mm Film
Fun Facts
 
In the late 70's, one hundred 35mm adult feature films a year were produced. Nowadays, the yearly X-rated output is well over 10,000.
There was never any actual triple-X (XXX) rating. The triple X's had no legal or official status, but were made up simply as a marketing ploy by promoters who wanted the audience to think what they were seeing was MORE than whatever X was. The faux-designation stuck though and became a standard moniker for porn movies in general. Following this, X, XX, and XXX, have become references for different degrees of explicitness in different markets.
Hollywood has now (2002) appropriated the XXX notoriety by naming a big budget movie as same - but that has nothing to do with sex movies or ratings.
In Canada there is no X-rating at all. There is Restricted, and then a separate category altogether for adult.
Deep Throat is very likely the biggest grossing movie of all time - and quite possibly the most famous. All told, it has probably taken in over a billion dollars. Curiously, the only other billion-grossing movie was also about a famous act of going-down, but in the latter case it was a large ship rather than Linda Lovelace that went down - a much more expensive special effect.
Deep Throat recently played an extended run at the Brady 39 Cinema in Paris, France, and special screenings of it occur frequently around the world (not to mention ongoing video sales.) One book claims it has been re-mastered in Italy.
In April, 1999, Linda Lovelace (real name; Linda Boreman) flew to Bergen, Norway, to help protest against three screenings of Deep Throat in a 90-seat art-house cinema.
In June, 2001, Deep Throat was screened once at the 300-seat Fox adult cinema in Vancouver, Canada. Public and Press response was overwhelmingly positive. 400 people showed up. Nobody protested.
In April, 2002, Linda Boreman died from injuries suffered in a car accident. The New York Times obituary reported that a close friend had watched Deep Throat with Ms. Boreman nine months before the car accident. It was the first time the former Lovelace had seen all of the movie. "I don't see what the big deal was." Boreman was reported as saying.
The other two legendary adult movies from the dawn of the Porno Chic era in1972 are Behind the Green Door and The Devil in Miss Jones. The infamous Mitchell Brothers of San Francisco produced Behind the Green Door ,"discovering" Marilyn Chambers in the process, while The Devil in Miss Jones starred the less-remembered Georgina Spelvin and, like Deep Throat, featured actor Harry Reems and was directed by Gerard Damiano.
Behind the Green Door was actually shot on 16mm film, then blown up to the standard 35mm theatrical print.
The fourth and last adult film to be produced that ntered the cultural vernacular was 1978's Debbie Does Dallas.
In 1973 the Adult Film Association of America had 190 members. In 1988 it had 325 members. In 1989 it was gone.
Date on which the 35mm adult industry 'crossed over' to video - and cocaine - hell according to the movie Boogie Nights: Jan. 1, 1980.
The name of the new porn video idea that Burt Reynold's character Jack Horner - the porn director - comes up with in Boogie Nights after the dramatized crossover: "On The Lookout"
Date of adult film legend Jamie Gillis' revolutionary porn video "On The Prowl" that was obviously copied by the fictional "On The Lookout": 1989.
From a high of 2,000 or more Adult Movie Theatres in the early 1980's, by the late 1980's there were probably 100 or so left - and most of those had converted to video projection.
Year that actor Paul Reubens - then famous as "Pee-Wee Herman" - was arrested for lewd behaviour at a porn theatre and had his career torpedoed: 1991.
Status of that porn theatre today: gone.
Status of Paul Reubens career today: fine.
Modern porn video (or DVD) titles commonly sell 2,000 or so copies. 7,500 total sales is considered a "modest hit."
Cost of Nurse Nancy, the film that Paul Reubens was watching, on video: $9.95 (US).
Cost of the very first porn videos, in the late 1970's: $300.
The first X-rated video manufacturing company to produce their own adult film was VCX, which made High School Memories in 1981.
Besides cinemas dedicated to showing adult movies in the 70's and 80's - such as California's Pussycat chain - numerous regular theatres also showed sex movies, either just sometimes or on certain nights of the week.
Besides the Fox Cinema, there is still an old movie theatre in Rio De Janeiro that shows original porn movies.
Drive-Ins were also a common venue for Adult movies in the 70's and 80's.
There are hardly any Drive-Ins left anywhere in North America.
There is still a 35mm 'XXX' Drive-In operating - on weekends only now - in a small town outside of El Paso, Texas.
Texas is also home to a video-projection 'XXX' Drive-In.
The first "contract girl" - a porn actress paid to perform sex scenes for one company exclusively - was Ginger Lynn, who Vivid Pictures signed in 1984. Her first film for Vivid - which was Vivid's first film - sold 6,500 video copies in one month.
Ginger spawned a wave of "Lynn" actresses - including the famous Amber Lynn and Porsche Lynn, and lesser Lynns such as Marilynn, Black Lynn, and Lynnz. The "Lynn" name phenomenon is still going today.
Ginger Lynn is still active in the adult industry.
Although all-natural body hair was the norm in adult film throughout the "Golden Age", trimming and shaving of female pubic hair was not unknown - in an extended scene in Deep Throat in fact, Linda Lovelace lathers up and shaves herself.
The first male performer to cut back pubic hair was Ron Jeremy - circa 1980 - for purposes of exaggerating penis size, which was odd because at 9-3/4 inches his penis was already amongst the biggest in the business.
Ron Jeremy also shaves his back for sex scenes, which has nothing to do with penis-size perception.
Mai Lin, probably the earliest Asian porn actress to work regularly in the Golden Age, had remarkably long pubic hair.
Mai Lin appeared with Ron Jeremy in the 1990 porn video Three Men and A Geisha, in which Jeremy gets his pubic hair shaved off completely.
Mai Lin also spawned a crop of namesakes, such as Mai Le, China Mai, and Mai Tai. Like Lynn, the Mai name influence continues on to the present day.
In a historic confluence, the Lynn and the Mai naming trends met up in 2000, when an actress with the moniker "Mai Lynn" appeared for the first and only time in a porn video.
In 2002 an entire Documentary - Fluffy Cumsalot - was devoted to how porn stars got their names.
The 80's white porn star Jerry Butler did in fact get his name from legendary black soul singer Jerry Butler, which contravenes every manner of porn name acquisition revealed in Fluffy Cumsalot.
Paradoxically, Jerry Butler (the porn star) did end up 'singing' too, in his 1990 tell-all, career-curtailing, confessional biography Raw Talent.
No porn actor ever copied Jerry Butler's first or last name.
In 1986's Beverly Hills Cox, Jerry Butler has a renowned sex scene with Ginger Lynn on the hood of a Porsche.
Porsche Lynn began her porn career in 1986.
Due to her habit of shaving her pubic hair completely, Porsche Lynn was charged with "portraying child pornography" one time when she performed in Kentucky. · In the late 90's a phenomena of successful black singers and rappers making porn videos - amateur, professional, or illegal - began.
Johnie Keyes, the black stud who was featured in Behind the Green Door, is rumoured - circa 2001 - to be a construction worker in Seattle.
There are still porn videos being made that adapt the titles of Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones, and Debbie Does Dallas.
Contrary to popular belief, there are porn movies still being made on 35mm film. But they are only released on video (and now DVD.)
In recent years, explicit sexuality has once again become an element of mainstream cinema.
In recent years, mainstream cinema has embraced shooting on video.
The adult video industry is bigger than the mainstream movie industry.
Adult video rental revenues are higher than mainstream rental revenues.
An astonishingly high percentage of 35mm films from the Golden Age of Adult Cinema are still available - on video.