Prolegomena to a Study of Traditional Elements in the Erotic Film

Abstract

PERHAPS THE WORD EROTIC in my title is somewhat misleading, in that it is generally applicable to a broad range of sexual and amatory matters. When I speak of the erotic film, I am not referring to that genre of the art cinema dealing with sexual matters in either a straightforwardly frank or an abstract manner (although I might note parenthetically that this is an area deserving of study), nor am I referring to those second and third rate popular productions known as nudies, which generally are composed of relatively equal proportions of thin plots, female nudity or partial nudity, and burlesque comedy. Rather I am speaking of those thoroughly illegal pornographic productions usually known as stag films-or, I am told, among the college fraternity crowd as skin flicks. Erotica always has been quick to assimilate and make use of technological advances, and its cruder relative, pornography, has not been far behind. development of true photographic processes began about i840, and there are in existence pseudo-artistic daguerrotypes dating back at least to 1850, and pictures of frank sexual activity almost as old. Motion picture techniques were developed in the I890's, and in his volume L'erotisme au cinema II Lo Duca includes stills from an 1896 film, Le Bain, featuring Louise Willy and shots from Fatima's dance at the Chicago Exposition of I896.2 In his History of Eroticism he points out with illustrations how early film companies like Pathe carried spicy productions in their catalogs. He notes, too, a pornographic film, The Voyeur, dating from I907.3 oldest frankly pornographic film in the collection of the Institute for Sex Research is A Grass Sandwich, made in about i915, whose relative smoothness of production shows clearly that experiments in the genre must have been carried on for some years before that time. This short film opens with an automobile drawing to a stop in a wooded area. man driving it indicates to his two female companions to wait for him, and he goes into the woods to urinate. However, the girls are curious, go to spy on him, and are at least titillated-if not somewhat excited-by the sight. They in turn find it necessary to relieve themselves, and the man, who has become aware of their proximity, spies on them. Without further ado, he makes his advances, is accepted, and begins coital activity with one of the girls. other watches with interest and soon indicates that she wants her share. man turns his attention to the second girl and the film comes to a rather abrupt end. Here already developed are many of the basic elements which make up the typical pornographic film: a simple but contrived situation to provide initial motivation; sexual excitation of the female by visual means, comparatively rare in real life but a persistent theme in these films; a direct and rapid seduction-so direct and rapid that in many films it cannot properly be called a seduction at all; and finally, sexual activity, which of course is the focal point of the film. On the basis of about 400 reels of film in the Institute for Sex Research plus fairly extensive files on production, performance, and distribution, there appear to have been three peak periods of production of pornographic films: the mid-I92o's, the few years just before World War II, and the present-production picked up at the end