Porn Snapshot '87

As Microsoft released Windows 2.0, Rudolph Hess was found dead in prison, and evangelist/anti-porn campaigner Jim Bakker was defrocked for mingling spit within his flock.

More importantly, ace New York porn director Cecil Howard rushed out Snake Eyes 2. He was on a dream run after Neon Nights, Platinum Paradise, Scoundrels, Foxtrot, and Dangerous Stuff.

His Command Video was one of the first companies to do simultaneous theatrical/video releases.

Today, his work from the period seems even more extraordinary.


Between '79 and '89, I bought every issue of Hustler. For girls, adult film reviews, and outrageous humor, it had no equal. And thanks to Larry Flynt's Fuck you! attitude, it also boasted some of the most courageous journalism you could find anywhere.

These Dwaine Tinsley cartoons (from the June '87 issue) typified the cartoonist's amazing output, and Tinsley's work personified Hustler's unique take on America.

For mine, Adult Cinema Review was the Smut Bible, as opposed to the Adult Film Bible . It was an attitude thing. I don't know what printing process publisher Anthony Malle employed, but it made everything in the mag look so smutty, dirty, and sleazy, and that's why the mag was so perfect.

Just check out this great still from Guillermo Brown's Nasty Habits ('87). You can't get filthier than this. You can practically smell the act -- and the public bathroom setting.

Most of the films ACR covered were shot on film, of course, so that helped the mag to achieve the perfect visual marriage of sex, steam, sleaze, and rampant sluttery.

No points for guessing this pic is from a Bruce Seven epic.

The '87 Aerobics Girls Club was an early entry in an emerging genre (gonzo), but was pretty typical for the late Seven himself.

Once again, the magazine's color processes dirtied up every hole and fold (in a good way).

Starlets Erica Boyer, Tammy Lee curtis, Bionca, Barbara Dare, Sharon Mitchell, Cara Lott, and Lois Ayres kissed and caressed up a storm in this modest effort.

Reviewer Kitty Day got her knickers in a knot when reviewing this for ACR and lamented the lack of penises.

It was a lezbo gangbang tape for Chrissakes, Kitty! (where ever you are today)

"I suppose that certain born-again male-hating feminists might love this kind of thing, and might even find this tape amusing," she wrote. "But I have to ask myself what kind of woman would be watching this tape in the first place, so I'm left with the feeling that the makers just plain blew it."

WHAT???

The market for these tapes was men, Darling. Feminists and healthy hetero ladies weren't encouraged to apply.

Hopefully, Kitty got herself a new day job as a fluffer.

VCA (Video Company of America) really knew how to market Greg Dark's surreal porn ventures -- by steering around their surreal aspects and focusing on the heat. God knows what the Raincoat Brigade made of Dark's work, but I'm sure they didn't mind the pornographic perfection that spilled all over the screen.

The Devil in Miss Jones III and IV remain watershed works. They followed on the hot heals of Dark's New Wave Hookers, Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout White Chicks, Black Throat, and Between the Cheeks.

Dark directed the horror pic See No Evil in 2006 and is responsible for a long pearl necklace of Britney Spears clips.

His X-rated work was incredible then, and is extraordinary now, especially in light of what the competition was doing.

Enter The Economic Realities of The Twilight Zone

I stumbled upon the first issue of this long defunct magazine in Detroit in '81. Its Editorial Director was T.E.D. Klein and its Associate Publisher was Carol Serling, Rod's widow.

I wrote to Mr. Klein to congratulate him on the launch of the mag and wish him well. He sent a kind note back and we exchanged several notes over the following couple of years.

I liked the mag a lot. The first issue's interview with Stephen King was by Charles L. Grant, a solid horror writer of the "quiet horror" persuasion, and a giant of the genre in his own right.

"Grail", the Ellison story, was a terrific way to kick things off. Ellison rarely disappoints.

I loved the mag. I never missed an issue.

At the time, I was regularly buying Fangoria, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Starlog, Hustler, Adult Cinema Review, Adam Film World, The Writer, Continental Films, Films and Filming, American Cinematographer, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Starburst, American Film, Film Comment, Lotus, and Doll Collector.

At least half of those are still kicking.

Starlog ceased publication quite recently, but has on-line dreams.

Speaking of Hustler... The cover of the October '86 issue looks suspiciously like an issue of Larry Flynt's flagship mag (minus the boobage). If they'd slapped Hustler or Swank on the masthead, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

Clearly, the economy realities of publishing a serious, mass market, quiet horror fiction magazine were hitting Publisher and President S. Edward Orenstein hard.

Perhaps he was eying the readership of mags like Future (from Starlog), Omni, and Bob Guccione's New Look. Any way you looked at it, the mag's newsstand identity was confused.

Inside, however, the content remained consistent.

T.E.D. Klein eventually moved on, and was replaced by Michael Blaine.

Contributing Editor Gahan Wilson remained for the journey; his co-Contributing Editor, the great science fiction scribe Theodore Sturgeon (More Than Human, '53), exited the mag (and the planet) due (in all probability) to his exposure to asbestos when he was a young Merchant Marine.

And speaking of Sturgeon... from the late 70's to the early 80's, he was on Larry Flynt's payroll, too. He reviewed books and culture for, you guessed it, Hustler.

The mag's last issue was February '89, and its Editor-in-Chief in demise was career editor and author Tappan King.