The History of Sex in Cinema

In The Bachelor Party, a Paddy Chayefsky film of the late Fifties, a group of young men celebrate the coming marriage of one of their number with a night on the town. After too much liquor and an unsuccessful search for female companionship, they repair to the apartment of a friend and light up cigars for a session of "home movies." Although the audience never saw what they were watching--as the director's camera concentrated on the faces of the actors--few adult members of the moviegoing public assumed for even a moment that these were the highlights of a summer vacation at Yellowstone National Park or footage of family and friends gathered around the Christmas tree. The audience understood, without being told, that what these reasonably typical, respectable, middle-class American males were viewing was a form of hardcore pornography variously referred to as blue movies, French films or, most often in the U. S., stag films.

For although there are Federal, state and local laws that make the production, distribution, sale and exhibition of stag films a serious criminal offense, they are a familiar, firmly established part of the American scene--as likely to be shown next Saturday evening at the local lodge hall as in the pad of a jet-set swinger. But if everyone seems to know about stag films, no one knows much about them. Writings on the subject have been sparse, and most of what has been written is anything but authoritative. Certainly no other aspect of erotica has received less attention from scholars and social scientists. This is a curious omission, since despite their all-too-typical crudity and lack of imagination, stag films seem subject to uniquely ambivalent social attitudes. In public, they are almost universally condemned (as evidenced by strict legal prohibitions against their manufacture or use), but privately they are endorsed by a large and responsible element of the community (as evidenced by the sub rosa stag screenings frequently sponsored by our nation's leading--and most patriotic--civil, social, fraternal and veterans' organizations).

Thus the stag film cannot be viewed as an isolated phenomenon, or even as a kind of subculture that accompanied the development of cinema as a whole. Throughout history, man has used all the graphic means at his disposal to portray his sexuality. Egyptian papyri of 1200 B. C. illustrated a number of positions for sexual congress, and many of the most famous examples of Greek ceramic work extant are decorated with frankly erotic representations, as were the walls of private homes and public brothels in Herculaneum and Pompeii. In India, tourists make nonreligious pilgrimages to the cave temple of Ajanta to view its highly realistic erotic paintings, or to Khajuraho, where no less than 22 temples built in the Tenth Century celebrate the joys of carnal love in exuberant bas-reliefs. Long before the arrival of moving pictures, there were ingenious efforts to portray sexual intercourse in lifelike motion, from shadow boxes to elaborate spring-wound figurines set by Renaissance goldsmiths into elegant music boxes, snuffboxes and clocks. From Rubens to Picasso, the greatest masters of fine art have depicted the sex act in such explicit detail that a wealth of these paintings and drawings have been denied viewing by the general public; it is this kind of artwork that provides the Vatican with the incongruous honor of possessing in its guarded vaults the most valuable and extensive collection of pornography in the world, presumably to remain unseen until the forces of paganism return to Rome.

With the invention of still photography in 1839, the camera joined brush, pen and pencil as a means of depicting erotica; the earliest examples of pornographic still photography are almost as old as the process itself. And it can be assumed that almost as soon as Thomas Alva Edison developed his motion-picture camera in 1890, someone was using it to make the first stag movie. Obviously, here was the ideal medium for the most graphic, explicit and realistic depiction of human behavior--including the sexual. Although records of such unabashed early applications of Edison's invention are sparse, historians of erotica have noted that in 1896 French actress Louise Willy disrobed completely in Le Bain, her aim being less cleanliness than the arousal of lascivious feelings in the viewer. Many turn-of-the-century French film catalogs list similarly provocative subjects. And in Germany, a pioneer producer named Oskar Messter offered much the same kind of entertainment: girls disrobing for bed, exercising or dancing about in wispy costumes or no costumes at all, communal bathing in a sultan's harem and the like. But these pioneer cinematic excursions, though decidedly daring for their time, were designed for public showing, and while catering to voyeuristic tastes, they eschewed the sex act itself and were certainly not in the realm of hard-core pornography.

Seldom has the truly pornographic film been shown in any but surreptitious ways, one notable exception being the Shanghai Theater in pre-Castro Cuba, which offered a continuous show of stag films to the general public. Yet there is evidence that a sizable market for such films did exist as early as 1904, with Buenos Aires then a principal center of production. Movies of fully detailed sexual activity were shot and shipped to private buyers, mostly in England and France, but also in such distant lands as Russia and the Balkan countries. "Decadent" aristocrats, quite probably, were the most eager customers for this form of divertissement, since there were hardly any others who could afford the 35mm home-movie equipment that was then required. Equally important as a market were the European houses of prostitution. By the end of la belle époque, no self-respecting brothel in any of the large cities on the Continent considered its facilities complete without a stock of these films for showing either as an artistic whore d'oeuvre or as an entertainment in their own right. In France, the price of admission to such a show was 100 francs, the equivalent then of about 20 American dollars.

Though European Customs controls were tightened in 1908. pornographic films continued to be smuggled in by those willing to take the risk: but by that time, the Europeans had begun to supply their own markets. One primitive French-made stag film, Le Voyeur, dates back to 1907. Better-developed story lines began to appear about that time. In A L'Ecu d'Or (At the Golden Shield), for example, a one-reeler produced in 1908, a mustachioed soldier arrives at an inn in search of a meal, but because of wartime exigencies, finds the cupboard bare. Soon enough, however, a shapely serving girl takes the soldier's mind off his appetite--his initial appetite, at least--with amorous dalliance. When another willing wench offers him a generous second helping, the soldier is too polite to refuse.

Most of these early curiosities have long since moldered into dust. The extensive archives of erotica collected by the Institute for Sex Research at the University of Indiana include pornographic daguerreotypes dating as far back as 1845. but no motion-picture film that can be dated earlier than 1915. One of the oldest stag films on file at the Institute, however--a U.S. product entitled A Grass Sandwich--has prompted Professor Frank A. Hoffmann of Buffalo State University (whose brief but scholarly contribution to the analysis of stag movies is ponderously entitled Prolegomena to a Study of Traditional Elements in the Erotic Film) to conclude that its "relative smoothness of production shows clearly that experiments in the genre must have been carried on for some years before that time." This film concerns a roguish fellow who picks up a pair of willing hitchhikers and takes them for an afternoon drive in the country. Pulling over to the side of the road, he modestly steps behind a bush to urinate. Curious, the girls follow and watch with unconcealed interest. When they follow suit, the rogue spies on them. Stimulated to boldness, he makes his advances and, encountering no opposition, enjoys himself with each of the girls in turn. Thus, in the very early 1900s. the classic pattern for stag films had been set. Professor Hoffmann has analyzed the basic ingredients in this film as 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."

It is this "focal point" that sets the stag film apart from all other forms of erotic cinema, no matter how explicit, and makes it pornographic. The difficulty of defining pornography itself, however, is compounded by the increasing number of legitimate commercial and experimental films that treat human sexuality with a graphic candor quite impossible half a dozen years ago. Such films as Dear John, A Stranger Knocks, Ingmar Bergman's The Silence and Mai Zetterling's Night Games have not only depicted sexual intercourse and various perversions on the screen, they have also been acclaimed by the critics and applauded by the general public--and it is reasonable to assume that some future films will be even more forthright in their treatment of human sexual activity.

What distinguishes these films from the stag film, making one award-winning art and the other pornography? Is it simply that legitimate art films are sensitively and artistically executed, while stag films are, for the most part, crudely done? Taste and sensitivity in the production of any creative work is certainly a consideration, but there is a more basic difference--for no matter how skillfully made, a true stag film will always remain pornographic.

In their exceptional book Pornography and the Law, Doctors Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen define the distinction between the psychology of erotic realism and "hard-core pornography" in literature, pointing out the underlying differences between writing that may contain erotic passages because the author wishes to honestly record the whole spectrum of human experience and emotion, and writing that has as its primary purpose the erotic stimulation of the reader. The Kronhausens' criteria for distinguishing erotic realism from pornography in literature can be applied equally well to motion pictures, for the stag film shares with other forms of "hard-core pornography" the purposeful appeal to prurient interests that the Supreme Court has used as its yardstick in several obscenity cases.

It is conceivable that in the future, legitimate films may--without being pornographic--portray various forms of sexual activity with the same anatomical detail that is found in most stag films, just as it is now possible for a writer to create erotic realism in literature that is just as sexually explicit as true pornography, without being declared legally obscene. Not long ago, a noted marriage counselor suggested, in all seriousness, the possibility of producing a series of films that would demonstrate to newly-weds the techniques of sex. Quite obviously, such a film would include the same overt sex activity that is commonplace in stag films: but such a film, because of its educational intent, need not be pornographic. For their best-selling book Human Sexual Response, Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson engaged in 11 years of anatomical and physiological research that included the scientific study of motion pictures of several hundred couples engaged in coitus and other forms of sexual activity. Yet neither can these films, considered within the context in which they were taken, be considered pornographic--as the stag film is--even though the activities depicted are almost identical.

These subtleties of definition escape not only a great many authorities who have expressed opinions on the subject but also most of the officials responsible for enforcement of our censorship laws. A majority of the members of the U. S. Supreme Court, fortunately, do understand; and the Court's recent decisions strongly suggest that in the future, only the commercial exploitation of true hardcore pornography will justify a judgment of obscenity in the United States.

Unlike the erotic realism of the commercial cinema, the educational intent of the proposed marriage movies, and the cinematic sex research of Masters and Johnson, stag films are intended to be sexual fantasies. Nothing as negative as real life is permitted to intrude, if the producer of pornography can help it. In the fantasy world of pornography, all females are in a state of almost constant sexual arousal, anxiously waiting to be serviced by the first male who happens onto the scene. Thus, the beginning of countless stag reels concerns a female who becomes stimulated sexually by reading an erotic book, masturbating, dreaming, watching a nude male, watching horses have sex, watching donkeys have sex, watching people have sex, hearing people have sex, taking a shower, sunning herself, doing housework, listening to the radio--or even being hit by a car. Curiously enough, in a recent analysis of more than 1000 different stag films--depicting females being aroused by everything from ironing clothes in the nude to masturbating with a live eel--only one film (Home Movies) used as its plot device a couple becoming aroused while watching a stag film.

As for the male participants in these erotic fantasies, they are supposedly always potent, ready and raring to go; and if, in reality, the distractions of lights, camera and a room full of kibitzers frequently make them less than the answer (continued on page 170)Sex In Cinema(continued from page 158) to a maiden's prayer. the producer is likely to fake the action by shooting the coupling from an unrevealing angle or. if the leading man proves to be a real bust-out. by inserting an unidentifiable close-up or two of the crucial connection clipped from another film. The endless line of anonymous males who wander through the homes of these frustrated females in reel after reel of these films includes salesmen, repairmen, handymen, milkmen and grocery boys of every shape and appearance. In the films of the Thirties, icemen and radio repairmen (now replaced by TV repairmen) appear in a dozen or more films. Door-to-door salesmen continue to be ubiquitous, peddling everything from nylon stockings to dildos. There are also bill collectors, census-takers, Kinsey-type sex researchers, tramps, meter readers, chiropodists, burglars (always popular, since the role allows the male to wear a mask), locksmiths (called to open a chastity belt) and even an aviator who drops in in his autogiro.

When a female steps out of the house in a stag film--whether it's a date for dinner (during one film, she winds up under a restaurant table with both her escort and the waiter) or an afternoon appointment with her doctor--she's certain to wind up in a sexual adventure. The medical profession enjoys more than its share of attention in stag films, as this partial list of medical misadventures suggests: Call for Dr. Handsome: Oh, Doctor; Emergency Clinic: Lady Doctor; The Dentist; The Psychiatrist: Dr. Longpeter; Dr. Kildare; Dr. Penis; Calling Ben Casey; Slow Fire Dentist; Doctor's Orders; Dr. Hardon's Injections--and The Doctor's Prescription for Love, which offers a double-header: A husband accompanies his wife on a visit to the family physician, and while the M. D. seduces the missus on the examination couch in his office, the husband, finding nothing worth reading in the waiting room, decides to seduce the receptionist-nurse on her desk.

These pornographic pictures portray a supersexual world in which erotic refusal and frustration are virtually unknown. The plots, when there are any, are used only to get the participants together at the start of the picture: thereafter, as Professor Hoffmann points out. sexual activity is all-important. The cast of characters in a pornographic film ranges from single couples (in just over 50 percent of the films currently on the commercial market) to groups of three, four, five and more, of either or both sexes, with a well-trained dog occasionally added for good measure. The activity covers the spectrum of sexuality. both heterosexual and homosexual, including fellatio, cunnilingus, sodomy, bestiality and mutual masturbation. Because pornography is primarily a male predilection, and stag films are produced primarily for a male market, however, the emphasis in these films reflects middle-class American males' preferences and prejudices. In our analysis of over 1000 stag films produced between 1920 and 1967--a quantity large enough to be representative of the entire commercial-stag-film market in the United States--it was found that male homosexuality was relatively rare (4.9 percent of the films featured homosexual sequences and only 1.4 percent were completely homosexual). But Lesbian activity was quite common (19.2 percent of the films analyzed included some Lesbian activity and 6.6 percent were exclusively Lesbian). This is understandable in a society that has strong male homosexual taboos, but no similarly repressive attitude regarding Lesbianism--coupled with the fact that many males have a strong heterosexual reaction to Lesbian activity. Heterosexual oral-genital activity, is also quite common in these films, especially in the films produced during the past decade: but, once again, the men come out ahead, with 68.8 percent of the films including fellatio and only 46.1 percent including cunnilingus. The mixed emotions with which many men view female sexuality is most dramatically revealed by another set of figures: Though the proportion seems to be changing in recent films, more stag reels in this sampling featured woman-dog relations (2.1 percent) than exclusively male homosexuality (1.4 percent). While woman-animal activity is relatively uncommon in our society, such ideas are quite common in the history of male pornography--even being reflected in Greek mythology: Europa had coitus with a bull and gave birth to a child that was half bull and half man: and the story of Leda and the swan has been a popular inspiration for painters throughout the history of Western civilization. Male homosexuality, in sharp contrast--though a far more common activity--is a subject about which most men feel far less secure and reject far more vigorously.

While the principal function of stag films is erotic entertainment, they also serve as an outlet for the pressures created by social and sexual taboos. In strongly Roman Catholic countries, for example, there is a significant anticlerical strain in the local pornography. Thus, in the French film Monkey Business, a monk is shown in a heterosexual and homosexual debauch at his monastery with a nun and a gardener. As a less rigidly religious country, the U. S. has no marked anticlerical feelings of any kind, so that the irreverent themes so common in the stag films of Mexico, Cuba and France are almost unknown here. The single exception to this rule actually proves the point: An above-average stag reel entitled The Nun's Story was produced in California in the early Fifties. but the title proved so unpopular that it was changed to College Coed.

Thus, though some taboos are obviously fair game for these films, others are not to be trifled with. In recent years, the average age of the performers in pornographic films has dropped considerably: but most middle-aged American men don't want to see Lolita-like nymphettes in their films, because they are too reminiscent of their own daughters. A Midwestern distributor pointed out a film entitled The Private Lives of the Sexy Sexteens as an example of a film for which he has virtually no market. It is an amateur production in which two girls and a boy in their very early teens perform with an older man. "You get to know your audience," this distributor said. "If I showed up with that reel for a smoker at the local Kiwanis or someplace like that, they'd skin me alive."

Even stronger than these taboos are the laws against stag films. Federal statutes prohibit interstate traffic in obscenity, with a penalty of up to $5000 and/or five years in prison for the first offense; and state laws, with very few exceptions, bar their manufacture, sale, exhibition or possession. To the formulators of these laws, and to the police and prosecutors who uphold them, the crime is obscenity, impure and simple. But since those who view such films are frequently such community pillars as veterans' organizations, business associations and volunteer fire departments--all of which are major markets for stag-party screenings--punishment is more often meted out to the producer, distributor or dealer than to the customer, as in the case of prostitutes. By implication, at least, it would seem that the states of Illinois and North Carolina were seeking to protect the after-hours interests of such influential citizens when they, alone among all the states of the Union, specifically declared that the exhibition of stag films, not for gain and to personal associates other than children, was not a crime.

Despite firm and nearly universal prohibitions, the production and distribution of stag films has flourished fitfully in the United States for more than half a century. Because of their clandestine status, no one has been able to provide a very accurate estimate of the number of different film titles currently on the commercial market, nor the number of prints in circulation. Our own extensive research for this installment has made it obvious, however, that previous estimates of 1000 to 2000 different titles are definitely on the low side. One of the difficulties in making an estimate of this nature is the recent discovery that stag-film production and distribution is, by and large, a regional activity. Thus, while some films produced in New York do find their way to Chicago or the West Coast, and vice versa, most of the pornography available in one part of the country or another is actually produced there. This means that a comprehensive estimate of production would have to take into account all the hundreds of small producers and / or distributors scattered across the country--a task no one is in a position to undertake.

Any attempt to estimate the number of different stag-film titles currently on the commercial market is further complicated by the fact that films often remain in circulation for 10, 20, 30 or more years. Some of the more popular titles originally produced in the Thirties and Forties (such as Mexican Dog. Matinee Idol and Unexpected Company) are still to be found on the market today. The most dramatic examples of the seeming immortality of many of these movies are Strictly Union, dated by the Institute for Sex Research as having been produced in 1919: and Le Télégraphiste, a French film made in the early Twenties; both reappeared on the New York market a few months ago, one of them under a new title. As long as a reasonably good print of any film exists, it's always possible for a manufacturer to make a new negative from it and thus begin the life cycle of a particular film all over again.

To complicate matters even more, some distributors retitle old films and distribute them anew, thus fooling some of their customers into purchasing the same film a second time--hardly a good way to build customer relations; but then, stag-film distributors have always been concerned more with their pubic than their public image. Accordingly, the vintage stag film Mexican Dog was being sold on the West Coast not long ago under the title Sportie. While the Cat's Away was sold again under the imaginative second title The Mice Will Play and--to confuse things further--also as Play Girl. A recent film from Detroit has appeared with three different titles: Scroungy Truck Driver and, for those who don't care for that image, Clean Cut Truck Driver, as well as Scroungy Turned Chicken for good measure. And at various times, the stag classic Pricking Cherries has also been sold as The Dream Salesman, Sock Salesman, Office Girl's Dream and Secret Dreams. As though to harry the most inveterate cataloger, certain titles also have a way of appearing and then reappearing on wholly different films, so that in our own compilation of 1000 film titles, there are two of Picnic, two of Sleep Walker, three called Strip Poker, three Call Girls and no fewer than five entitled The Lovers. Two different films have been called Unexpected Company, and one of these has also been sold as Love Bug; but two other and quite different films have been titled Love Bug, too. Obviously, there is no central title-registration bureau in the stag-film field.

While many of the same films are still on the commercial market today, the business itself has changed markedly. During the Twenties and Thirties, stag films were mainly a road-show operation; for a flat fee of $50 or $100, the dealer would provide enough reels for two or three hours of entertainment. Since movie projectors were uncommon and expensive at the time, the road-showman usually supplied 16mm equipment along with the films, as part of a package deal for the show. Respectable lodges, veterans' and fraternal organizations were his primary customers. The stag-film ritual, as practiced in clubs, lodges and fraternal halls across the country in the Twenties and Thirties--and still, to some extent, even today--is oddly reminiscent of the puberty rites practiced by more primitive societies. A research associate at the Sex Institute has offered this interpretation of a typical stag party: "The participants can be seen as a kind of community of respectable middle-class males. For these men, the stag evenings have a kind of ritual function; they allow the males to express crude emotions in a masculine context, and each gets from this, in a sense, homosocial confirmation." He added that the viewing of stag films by males was in no sense to be regarded as an indication of homosexuality, either latent or actual. "The group viewer," he went on, "is able to prove he knows the language of sexuality--a language he can't use elsewhere except in comparable situations. The need for this approbation of his fellows is at least as strong as his need for approbation from women."

Throughout the Forties and well into the Fifties, the largest market for stag reels remained men-only smokers. But with the end of World War Two, good 16mm movie equipment became available at far more reasonable prices, initiating a home-movie boom. Private individuals now wanted to rent or purchase stag films for private viewing, or for screening at parties with friends. The men who had been putting on the road shows for so many years became the first distributors, wholesalers and retailers for this new market. And many camera stores began stocking a few reels of stag films for rental to special customers, since the films not only paid for themselves in two or three rentals but also served as a catalyst for the rental and purchase of movie projectors, screens and other equipment. The rental of a 400-foot, 16mm stag reel averaged from $5 to $10; the purchase price of a reel, from $25 up. With the introduction of inexpensive, good-quality 8mm home-movie equipment in the late Fifties, the home-movie market spiraled and, with it, the individual market for stag films. The outright sale of films to private collectors now far surpasses the combination of shows and rentals. At the present time, the cost to the manufacturer of a single 8mm reel, including film, processing and overhead, is approximately $1.75 per 200-foot reel of black-and-white film. The manufacturer usually sells the reel in quantities of 100 or more to distributors for approximately $3 a reel, although many manufacturers act as their own distributors. The price paid to the distributor by the wholesaler runs from $4 to $5 a reel, and retail outlets are charged an average of $7 a reel. The retailer then charges the customer anywhere from $10 to $25 a reel, depending on what the traffic will bear. Prices average about $15--somewhat lower in the East and somewhat higher on the West Coast.

When stag films began finding their way into private homes, something else happened as well: Women had access to them for the first time. Not too many years ago, it was understood that no nice girl, of the sort one wanted as a wife and mother to your children, could have anything but a negative reaction to the crudities of a stag film. Never mind about the women portrayed so provocatively in those films, who responded erotically to everything from a passionate passage in a book to the taste of pistachio ice cream. Nice girls weren't like that and nice girls wouldn't like stag films. Or would they? Kinsey found that one out of every three females was capable of being sexually aroused by erotica. But Kinsey's study was made 15 years ago; in today's more sexually permissive social climate, that figure has probably increased. To be sure, not all women have a taste for stag films; but not all men respond positively to pornography, either. Some men are repelled by the unabashed eroticism of a stag film; others are simply bored by it. Kinsey found that a single stimulus could elicit, from men and women alike, a wide range of sexual responses and that, while women generally are not as readily responsive as men to erotica, the spectrum of responses for both sexes so overlaps that a great many women are far more susceptible to such stimulation than are many men. It isn't surprising, then, that the viewing of stag films has become a heterosexual activity in the past few years. And many social scientists regard this as a step in the right direction. Says one of them: "It means that the female in our society is being allowed, at long last, to savor her own sexuality unashamed and to share this experience with her husband or loved one." In any case, there can be no doubt that the over-all audience for stag films is increasing, both because of the increasing availability of home-movie equipment and because of the increasing acceptance of erotica in our more sexually permissive society.

But even with this increase, the sale of pornography is hardly the big business that some supposed authorities have suggested. The profit margin is too slight and the largely localized production and distribution too disorganized to produce the sort of multimillion-dollar pornography business that some writers have claimed exists. If there were actually any sizable profit to be made from the sale of stag films, the crime syndicate would long since have absorbed it. just as it has done with gambling, narcotics and prostitution. But the racketeers don't bother, because there isn't enough money in it to make the risks worth while.

In order to account for the willingness of those who produce and distribute stag films to undertake those risks, one must therefore look beyond the profit motive. Stag-film making, observes a research associate for the Sex Institute, "is the only illicit activity of its kind in which most of the professionals in the business appear to be 'hooked' on the product. The professional bookie doesn't usually play the horses, and the man who pushes narcotics isn't usually an addict, but most of the men who produce pornography are emotionally as well as economically involved in their work." They would almost have to be, for the majority of stag-film producers must work on a very short shoestring, indeed. To economize, and to get the most out of his investment in the performers, the producer frequently photographs three or four separate reels in a single session. The so-called Mandy series is a typical example of this technique: Filmed in New York in the late Fifties, it includes five separate reels--Twin Mandy, Selfish Mandy, Sleepy and The Rack, Parts I and II -- that employed the same two blonde females and three young males in a single hard day's night. The producer of this series, who shot about 70 reels over a two- or three-year period, made a practice of shooting his films in such series as these--each taking no more than an afternoon and/or evening to complete. The economy-minded producer of the so-called Mirror series shot seven different reels in a single session in a New York apartment, involving two males and one female.

With economy such a vital consideration in stag-film production, not a foot of film is wasted, if it shows anything at all--and a general lack of editing is one of the hallmarks of current stag-film production. Some producers shoot the same sex activity with several cameras, so that they will have more original master prints from which to work. It is also not uncommon to have still photographers shooting the action, too, since there is a related market for this form of pornography. Occasionally, in such cases, an overzealous second cameraman can be seen stepping into range of another camera and even momentarily blocking its view of the action. Such goofs are almost never edited out of stag films produced during the Sixties.

One corner-cutting gentleman in Brooklyn kept a tight rein on expenses by confining his business to a family operation. His stag-movie repertory company consisted of himself, his wife, daughter, son, niece and nephew. The only outsider on the payroll was the cameraman, who handed over the exposed film immediately after shooting the required footage. The producer developed, printed and marketed his own product. Nor is it unusual for a producer to appear in his own films: when a male participant failed to turn up as scheduled for the shooting of a recent stag film in California, the producer promptly stepped in as a substitute, explaining plaintively afterward, "What else could I do? Both the room and the girl were already paid for." In keeping with the modest production budget, female stag-film performers are usually paid between $50 and $150 for their labor of lust: males, predictably, are willing to perform for $50 or less--and not infrequently for nothing. Locations for these surreptitiously made films have ranged from cheap motel rooms to deserted beaches, from city apartments to rooms in large, bustling hotels. Several noteworthy series in the late Forties, early Fifties and the Sixties were filmed in houses similar to those in hundreds of middle-class suburban communities.

While the shoestring economy of stag-film manufacture has remained relatively unchanged from the beginnings of the form until today, the content of the films--like their distribution and exhibition--has undergone, over the years, an evolution that sets the stag films of the Twenties, Thirties, Forties and Sixties apart from one another as distinctively as the Hollywood feature films of the jazz age, the Depression, the War years and the psychedelic Sixties. The stag reels of each decade are distinguishable not only in matters of costume, setting, furnishings, hair styles and the like but also in the sexual activities portrayed, the enthusiasm with which they're performed, the type of participants involved and the story framework--or lack of it--in which the action is placed.

Marcel Pagnol, the great French film director, is said to have discovered an employee processing a pornographic film in his Marseilles laboratory and, after rebuking him, having asked: "Don't you have trouble making such films?" "Oh, no, monsieur," the man answered. "That's never the trouble at all. The trouble is always the story, monsieur, the story!"

The story has always been the important thing about French stag films--distinguishing them from the best that other countries have been able to accomplish in this genre. But until the Thirties, the story was even more important in U. S. stags, often overshadowing the sexual content--something the French stag-film maker would never allow. Strictly Union, for example, produced in New York in 1917, not only appears to have been professionally produced but tells its bawdy story with some jocularity. The scene, a title informs us, is The Fuckem Right Studio, and two actresses at the studio are identified as Minnie Womb and Lotta Crap. This broad humor continues as Minnie disrobes in her dressing room while being spied on by "Hard Penis, the property boy, who is strictly a union worker." True to his moniker, he bursts into the dressing room, where Minnie, reduced now to black stockings, is not in the least reluctant to accept his advances. As the young man warms to his work, titles such as "The Seventeen Jewel Swiss Movement" and "Hair Pie" interrupt the action; then the boy suddenly notices a clock on the dressing table indicating the hour of six--quitting time. Being a good union member, he promptly rises, slips on his overalls and departs.

Rudimentary joking of this sort remained a staple ingredient of the American stag film throughout the Twenties. Professor Hoffmann discovered an element of folklore in some of the more antique examples he analyzed, citing particularly The Pick Up, made in 1923. The plot line of this picture, he found, was based on an off-color joke that not only had made the rounds for several years but was deemed folksy enough to be included in a collection of waggish tales. In the film, a man picks up a girl in his car, drives her 10 miles into the country, parks and makes the usual proposition. When she refuses, he makes her get out and walk home. The next week, he picks up the same girl and drives her 20 miles into the country. Again the proposition; again the refusal. On the third repetition, he drives 50 miles into the country--and this time the girl accepts his advances. Later, the man asks why she didn't give in the first time, and she responds that she would walk 10 miles, even 20 miles. "but damn if I'll walk 50 miles to save a man from a dose of clap!" "Sexual activity." added Professor Hoffmann, "although present, is brief, and very much subordinated to the joke element."

One of the most striking examples of the emphasis on story line over sexual content in U.S. stag films of the Twenties is the elaborately plotted and photographed Mixed Relations, filmed in 1921. Produced by professionals, with extensive use of both exterior and interior scenes, the film begins with a train pulling into a station and a young lady stepping off carrying her bag. "Coxville, U.S.A.," a caption announces, "where men are men and women are double-breasted." Further captions then explain the complicated premise of the picture: The young lady is "Dora Somass," arriving for a visit with her sister, the wife of Judge Humps. The judge was supposed to meet the train but has forgotten about it, so Dora steps into the station and calls her sister's home. The plot thickens when Dora is accidentally given a wrong number: in the ensuing conversation, the man who answers concludes that Dora has never met her brother-in-law, and since she sounds on the phone like a hot number, he decides to pretend that he is the judge. The unscrupulous stranger picks up the unsuspecting Dora at the station and drives her to a secluded spot, where he makes a precipitate pass at Miss Somass, who proves quite receptive till a policeman spots the pair in the car. "The eagle eye of the law spoils good jazz," announces a caption. The cop puts them under arrest, hops on the running board and directs them to the courthouse. When they arrive and Dora climbs out of the car, loverboy seizes the opportunity to make his getaway in the car. With only Dora in custody, the cop is about to enter the court when Judge Humps appears in the doorway. "A case of jazzing on the road, your Honor," the peace officer explains. The judge nods knowingly and, taking the girl into custody, informs the policeman that he will have to try this case privately. Unaware that it's his sister-in-law he has in custody, the judge takes Dora home with him and proceeds to seduce her on the living-room couch. "Just the kind of whang that Dora likes," says the caption. But soon after the sexual activity is under way, the scene shifts to an approaching female. "The wife's card party broke up early." we are told. She enters and catches the couple on the couch. "Sister!" both girls exclaim in shocked surprise. In the final scene, the wife is chasing the judge--nude except for socks, shoes and bowler hat--down the road. The moral, tacked on at the end: "A push in the bush is worth two in the hand, but don't let your wife know about it." Of the entire 15-minute film, less than three minutes are devoted to actual sexual activity.

Probably the most noticeable difference between U. S. stag films of the Twenties and those produced in the Thirties is an increased concentration on sexual activity, with a concomitant decrease in the narrative element. But even the films of the Thirties featured more elaborate plots, sets, editing and subtitles than are evident in more recent years. In addition to humor, there was a frequent use of other nonerotic and even antierotic devices during both decades. Particularly pronounced in the Thirties was a pervasive antiwoman theme, with the female treated as a sex object rather than as a sexual partner: as might be expected from such an attitude, there's relatively little foreplay prior to the main event, and little evidence of authentic emotion or passion. Consistent with the subordinate status of women that characterized the period, females performed fellatio on male performers far more often than the males responded with cunnilingus (three times as often in the Twenties and four times as often in the Thirties). Also in keeping with the mores and taboos of the time, many of the performers in both decades were relatively unattractive and close to middle age. The males were usually lower socioeconomic types--pimps, drifters and the like, the females generally prostitutes, working for a modest fee. As with the producers and distributors of these films, there seems to have been an element of "kicks" and exhibitionism involved in their motivation, for the pay they received was little more than they could have earned if they had spent the same amount of time plying their trade in private.

The major series of the Thirties--thronging with such sleazy characters--was produced in Chicago early in the decade. Approximately 40 films--including such titles as Piccolo Pete, Hycock's Dancing School, Bedroom Secrets. The Passionate Farm Hand. The Gigolo, Golden Shower and When Pop's Away, Mom Will Play--were made by this group, and many are still being sold on the commercial market today. The most unusual film in the series is Matinee Idol: if there were such a category as "camp" stag films, this one could easily qualify. The sexual scenes couldn't have been any broader or funnier--intentionally or otherwise--if they had been choreographed by Busby Berkeley. The film opens with gorgeous Blondie Blondell bowing demurely to an enthusiastic London theater crowd at the end of her feature dance, which must have been a fetching bit of terpsichore, since she isn't wearing a thing except her shoes. At that moment. "Wee Wampus" -- Blondie's maid--is straightening up the apartment in preparation for her mistress' return. Startled by a knock at the door, she finds not Blondie but "Lord Fuckem of Fuckem. Fuckem & Fuckem, Ltd., sole agents for Everip Cundrums"--Blondie's faithful boyfriend. As a title card next informs us. "Wee decides to try and vamp his lordship" before her mistress gets home, which is more of a project than you might assume, since Wee weighs in at around 250 pounds, most of it pure blubber. Tearing off her kimono, Wee gains the upper hand by shooting him with "tit-rays." Unable to withstand such a high-caliber barrage, he succumbs. But no sooner has he leaped into the saddle than Blondie arrives home. After some embarrassed apologies from his lordship and mumbled profanities from Wee Wampus, Blondie and boyfriend retire to a plush lounging area, where they proceed to perform sexual intercourse as though it were a ballet. So inspired is his lordship by the lithe and lovely Blondie that he achieves three separate climaxes, the last of which is caught, in slow motion, at the moment of ejaculation. The actor who portrayed his lordship appeared in over a dozen other stag films in the series, so he must have been something of a local celebrity in his day: but none of his other performances managed to touch the one he gave in Matinee Idol.

In the Forties and early Fifties. U.S. stag films generally declined in quality, with less attention given not only to humor but to plots, sets and editing. The settings for these films were usually lower-middle-class houses or apartments, and the performers continued to be chosen from the lower socioeconomic levels of society. In this period, especially, many of the male and some of the female performers wore masks or otherwise attempted to conceal their identities by the use of often rather bizarre disguises. This is the period, too, when many of the male performers made a habit of removing everything but their black socks for their performances; thus did the masked man in stocking feet become a classic symbol of the U. S. stag film. The only other thing worn by a disproportionately high number of the male performers in reels produced during this period, for reasons that are unclear, were tattoos--usually tributes to motherhood or the flag.

Because raw film stock was scarce during World War Two, very few films were produced during the first half of the Forties. Ever resourceful, however, some stag entrepreneurs attempted to make up for this shortage by pasting together segments from existing films into what the Sex Institute calls "potpourri pictures." Some producers also began combining nonpornographic "girlie" films with actual pornography--using the former to establish the story line and the latter to introduce the sex activity. This same sort of doctoring has also been performed on a number of old burlesque short subjects and "beaver" films ("girlie" flicks of completely nude females, without any actual sex activity). Perhaps the most imaginative and amusing example of this sort of film editing was described to us by a Midwest stag-film distributor: According to him, one producer had secured a print of a Wartime Army training film on venereal disease, the first half of which told the romantic story of a soldier's pickup, followed by his shamefaced appearance in the dispensary with V. D., and frighteningly documented case histories that made syphilis and gonorrhea seem the real horrors of war. The stag-film producer simply retained the romantic pickup and seduction scenes from the start of the picture, removed the dire consequences of the GI's dalliance and replaced this footage with close-ups, where the identities of the two participants were not readily discernible, from a gamy stag film. There is real irony and more than a little poetic justice, we think, in the fact that this Government-sponsored antisex film ultimately became a decidedly provocative motion picture intended to turn people on rather than off.

Less than provocative, but at least patriotic, was another stag reel shot during the War. The male performer in this film, graphically entitled Swastika in the Hole, portrays Adolf Hitler, complete with Nazi uniform and wearing a rubber Hitler mask. This bogus Führer is seduced by a brunette who induces him to undress, only to discover he is wearing a pair of panties with a swastika pasted on them. When he fails to satisfy the young woman sexually, she taunts him as a laughable example of his "master race" and he despondently shoots himself--after which the girl cuts the swastika from his panties and pastes it over her vagina. But stag-film makers generally elected to ignore the international hostilities and concentrate on the escapist fantasy material favored by those who were fighting the War on the home front.

Two major stag-film series produced in the late Forties and early Fifties are especially typical of the post-War period. One of them, the so-called Merry-Go-Round--Emergency Clinic series, has never been traced successfully to its source: but in all likelihood, it was produced in the East. In addition to the two films mentioned in the series title, this group included Night School, The Dentist. Detective One Hung Low. Black Market, Midnight Till Dawn and Varsity Girls. The same portly male appears in most of the more than 30 films that have been identified as belonging to this series. An exhibitionist to the core, this authentic "sex star" seemed to delight in demeaning the females in these films; but he was sometimes responsible for brief bits of ribald humor than added to their entertainment value. He also completed his performances by withdrawing at the moment of orgasm and ejaculating on his partner's stomach; but this is actually a rather common practice in pornographic films, apparently intended as proof to the audience that what they have been watching is the real McCoy, with genuine sexual arousal and full completion of the act. The other major series of the period has been traced to Nashville. Tennessee, and is accordingly known as "The Nashville Series." Many of its films--including such titles as Butcher Boy. Dice Game and I'll Cry Tomorrow--achieved wide circulation far from the locality of their production. But few, if any, of the films in either series equal in spontaneity and seemingly honest passion a two-reel feature entitled Unexpected Company. Probably shot somewhere in the Midwest about 1950, this outdoor epic concentrated on the sexual activities of two athletic and attractive young couples in a secluded forest.

In the youthful good looks of the performers and the enthusiasm of their performance, this film was an anachronism in its day--but a harbinger of liberating trends to come. For in the late Fifties, the effects of the accelerating Sexual Revolution began to make themselves felt almost as dramatically in stag films as in society at large. By the beginning of the Sixties, youth and attractiveness had become the rule rather than the exception for stag-film stars; many are not only personable but well groomed and fashionably attired. Most of the female performers in today's stags are in their late teens or early 20s--almost a decade younger than their counterparts of a generation ago: and though most are still recruited from the ranks of professional prostitution, many films are now being made with semipro and non-professional females, who may agree to perform more for erotic and egotistical reasons than for the traditional economic considerations. Whatever their motivation, today's young performers are considerably less inhibited than their predecessors and more honestly oriented sexually: and the results, not surprisingly, have far greater erotic impact. Current stag films also include more amorous foreplay than in previous decades--and far more diversity in the sexual activities depicted. Our aforementioned analysis of films produced between 1920 and the present reveals a remarkable increase in oral-genital activity--both fellatio and cunnilingus--between the Thirties and the Sixties, mirroring the increasing acceptance in society as a whole of such variations in sexual relations. Thirty-seven percent of the films produced in the Twenties were found to include fellatio. In the Thirties, the percentage increased to 48.5 percent, and remained about the same through the Forties. In the Fifties, however, the figure leaped to 68 percent; and in the Sixties, to 77.3 percent. In commenting earlier on the relatively low status of the female in the stag films of the Twenties and Thirties, and on her use as sexual object rather than sexual partner, we cited the rare performance of cunnilingus by the male in those films. The increasing sexual emancipation of women in the intervening years is reflected clearly in an equally striking increase in the incidence of oral-genital activity performed on the female by her male partner. While cunnilingus occurs in only 11.1 percent of the films produced in the Twenties and just 12.6 percent of those made in the Thirties, the figure rises to 16 percent in the films of the Forties and then jumps--doubling and redoubling in the past two decades--to almost 32 percent of the films produced in the Fifties and more than 64 percent of those made in the Sixties.

As we have indicated, the sexual preferences and prejudices of the all-male smoker audiences of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties very much influenced the kind of activity commonly portrayed on screen. When stag-film audiences became smaller, more private affairs with mixed audiences in the Fifties, the films themselves, predictably, began catering to a wider range of erotic tastes. Today, along with more variety in position and performance, there is far more group activity--orgies involving three or more participants--than heretofore. There has also been a slight increase in appeals to the quirkier sexual proclivities--mild sadomasochism, garter-belt and high-heeled-shoe fetishism and the like--but these shifts have not been as marked as one might expect. The number of Lesbian and male homosexual films, too--always a marginal minority--has remained relatively stable, despite the increasing social acceptance of these inclinations in the past decade.

But the barriers in an even more sensitive area seem to be breaking down--at least in stag films. It has been suggested by some sociologists that the white man's sexual guilts and fears may be as responsible for racial bigotry as the economic considerations--guilt over having taken advantage of female Negro slaves and fear that the Negro male may retaliate in kind. Whatever the cause, sex between white males and Negro females has long been as common in stag films as sex between Negro males and white females has been taboo. In the Twenties, our statistical analysis shows, white females and Negro males were paired in less than I percent of the films, while 6.8 percent of the films in the decade paired a white male with a Negro female. In the Sixties, the white male-Negro female figure was almost the same, but a sharp rise to 4.4 percent has occurred in the number of films depicting intercourse between Negro males and white females. In this quarter, at least, racial anxieties show healthy signs of waning.

Whatever the pigment or predilections of the performers, the stag films of today tend to get down to business--the business of sexual coupling in one form or another--far more directly than in earlier decades. The sometimes elaborate plots and ribald subtitles that once introduced and interspersed the on-screen erotica have been all but abandoned in favor of nonstop action. In fact, it isn't uncommon to find in recent films that the director has printed anything and everything that occurs--or fails to occur--in front of the camera, from the moment he begins shooting to the end of the roll, without a frame removed. As a result of this cinéma vérité technique, a good many current stag reels include sequences in which the performers are looking toward the camera for instructions; and sometimes the action reaches its climax with another quarter reel yet to go, leaving the cameraman with nothing more erotic to record on the last 50 feet of film than the performers washing up, getting dressed and departing. Premeditated or not--and the latter is the more likely--this "technique" results not in a carefully planned and plotted sexual playlet but in a somewhat spontaneous erotic event.

The best--and the majority--of these "new wave" stag films are being made today in New York City. One producer-distributor group there has shot no fewer than 80 new films in the past two years--thus gaining clear title to the record for the largest number of stag films produced by any one source. The films made by this group are also consistently superior--in casting, photography and execution--to most other stag films currently being produced in this country. The performers in such popular New York--produced numbers as Wild Night, Pajama Game, Young Blood, Love Nest and Swinging Hotel are usually young, attractive and enthusiastic and run the gamut of variations on their single theme. Among the reels are a few male homosexual films and many more Lesbian ones: but these activities, rather than being stressed, are intermixed with heterosexual play. The same group shows a decided leaning toward ensemble entertainments: Well over half of their films involve three or more participants (Pajama Game features one male and two females: Love Nest, one male and three females: and both Wild Night and Swinging Hotel, two males and four females). Girls in garter belts, nylon stockings, high-heeled shoes and nothing else are a hallmark of the series; and one of the male performers has already achieved a form of stag-film immortality, having appeared in more than 50 of the group's films, an achievement that no other stag performer has come close to matching. It is rather fascinating to trace this man's rise to stag stardom from his early appearances in films such as The Exchange Students, in which he and his partner modestly attempted to hide their identities behind masks; in Wild Night, where at the outset he wears a mask but discards it in the heat of passion, attempting (unsuccessfully) to avoid identification thereafter by turning his face away from the prying camera: and, finally, to full-fledged star of such recent films as Village Ball. The Maid Is Made and Lucky Prowler, in which he seems as proud of his face as he is of the remainder of his profile. As befits his eminence, he frequently commands close-up attention: invariably, he rises to the occasion with a spectacular performance.

The Midwest, too, has several major producer-distributors at the present time, most notably in Detroit, where Rank Productions (not to be confused with J. Arthur of the same name) has made and released 60 titles in the past two years, including such popular items as The Beat Generation. How Deep Is My Valley, Young at Heart. Piece Corp and Les Girls. But the performers--mostly couples rather than groups--are of generally unprepossessing appearance compared with New York's, and the quality of Rank's print reproduction is extremely poor. Another enterprising Midwest producer, based in rural Indiana, has made more than 30 films, with such contemporary titles as Pussy Galore. The Professionals, Dr. Kildare, Dating Game and The New Civil Rights Act: but these don't rival the big-city productions in performance or technical professionalism.

It might be logical to assume that Hollywood, as the center of the motion-picture industry--attracting, as it does, hundreds of girls a year who come to California in search of screen fame and fortune, fail to find film or TV work and wind up "getting by" in other ways, some legitimate and some illegitimate--would also be the nation's major source of stag films: but there is little evidence to support such a conclusion. The sources for stag films have always tended to be close to the biggest markets, and the major markets--for whatever reason--have always been the big cities in the East. Then, too, ever since the Hollywood sex scandals of the Twenties, the studios have been deeply concerned about the Tinseltown image, and their self-policing activities have undoubtedly extended to discouraging potential pornographers within the profession. In a city with such a dense population of party girls, swingers and sex freaks of every stripe, of course, it's inevitable that some stag films have been made for private consumption. But these have almost certainly been kept under lock and key in the pornography collections of those who made them, for very little of an outstanding nature has ever found its way into the commercial market. Contrary to rumor, incidentally, none of these features any recognizable movie personality. A few noteworthy commercial reels have emerged from the Los Angeles area in recent months--featuring such titles as Lesbian Call Girl. Holiday Inn and The Beatles--but all have been inferior in quality as well as in quantity to those turned out in the East.

Though the security precautions practiced by Hollywood's "home-movie" makers have prevented these private productions from finding their way into the open market--and from being seized by the authorities--others haven't been so cautious or so lucky. With the growth in popularity of inexpensive 8mm movie equipment, an increasing number of nonprofessionals throughout the country have responded to the erotic possibilities inherent in the filming for personal pleasure of husbands, wives, lovers and friends in sexual situations. And not infrequently, the producers of this amateur erotica have then naïvely sent the films to a professional photo lab for processing; in so doing, they have at the very least run the risk of losing the film: for most legitimate photo processors confiscate such reels and, having notified the customer of the fact, presumably destroy them. Kodak has a long-established policy of confiscating not only all pornography but also all nudes in which any pubic hair or sex organs appear--although, in the latter case, they have absolutely no legal justification. (Actually, even the confiscation of hard-core pornography of a noncommercial nature is open to question in some states, where the mere possession of pornography is not expressly prohibited by law. A recent California Supreme Court decision affirmed that the private production of pornographic pictures, solely for personal pleasure, is permissible under that state's obscenity statutes.) A more serious problem may arise, however, if an amateur film falls into the hands of an unscrupulous film processor. In such a case, a lab technician may return a print of the film to its owner, while making a duplicate print for himself; or he may confiscate the film but fail to destroy it--keeping it. instead, for his own amusement or allowing it to fall into the hands of a professional pornographer, so that another amateur film is added to the commercial stag market. In just this way, a number of nonprofessional erotic films have become a part of the commercial pornography available to anyone with the necessary cash and contacts in any major city of the U. S.

In this connection, a California case just a year ago, involving several married couples, had truly tragic repercussions. The couples participated in periodic sex parties together: and on one occasion, a newcomer to the group photographed some of their erotic activity--supposedly for his own entertainment. Soon after, however, he was arrested in a commercial vice raid involving both prostitution and commercial use of pornographic films. As a result, the unsuspecting married couples were arrested on charges of adultery, producing a pornographic film and sexual perversion (because oral-genital activity was involved). They were forced to plead guilty to perversion charges in return for suspended sentences and a lengthy period of probation. The sensational newspaper coverage of the case, however, cost both husbands their jobs, and one of the wives stated that "we are now second-class citizens. My husband's claim for unemployment insurance has been denied and also his application for life insurance. His chances of finding a decent job are very remote. I have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown since our arrest. This mess has ruined our reputation, taken our life savings and caused grief and humiliation to our children and other members of our family."

Such prosecutions are all the more poignant because they are relatively rare. The performers in pornographic films--both professional and amateur--are rarely arrested, though their appearance in the films would make their identification, arrest and prosecution a relatively simple matter. The emphasis in such prosecutions has traditionally been on the commercial producers and distributors rather than on the films' performers or customers.

Although most of the stag films available on the U. S. commercial market were produced in this country, many made abroad are also to be found here--most of them produced in Latin America (primarily in Mexico and pre-Castro Cuba). France and England. The pornographic motion pictures of each country have their distinctive characteristics and reflect, to a degree, the social and sexual taboos of the cultural climate in their place and time. There has also been an evident catering, particularly in Mexican and Cuban stag films, to American touristic voyeurism--discernible in titles such as Rin Tin Tin Mexicano, Shirley Temple Se Enamore and Mexican Honeymoon, all produced in the Thirties, when Mexican and Cuban films became commonplace on the market here. Mexican Dog, one of the best-known items produced in the Thirties, is still available on the American market. But most of the Cuban films found here--including those with such titles as Busty, Caban Dream. La Vibora and Accidente Afortunado--were made in the late Forties and early Fifties, when Havana was a popular resort for the American tourist. Whatever their date or place of origin, these Latin films almost invariably use females who have the look of the prostitute about them--understandably so, in view of the fact that most of them were filmed in the once-flourishing brothels of Tijuana and Havana. In Cuban films, true to the legend about them, many of the male performers are especially well endowed, for they are the same men, specifically chosen for their attributes and staying power, who performed in the live "exhibitions" provided by many of the Havana houses of prostitution before the Castro revolution. In fact, the film Cuban Dream has also been sold under the title Superman to intrigue customers aware of the fabled Cuban "Superman"--supposedly a performer of extraordinary stamina and dimensions--who was a popular figure in sexual folklore from the late Forties until Castro sent him underground. But the stories of his prowess have been perpetuated by numerous Cuban studs who performed under the same pseudonym.

Though they often share with Cuban and Mexican films the element of anti-clericalism mentioned earlier, French stag films are a distinct cut above those produced in Latin America, both in technical quality and in the sexual sensitivity of their production. Until quite recently, they have been made with considerable care and imagination. The plots of French stag films, as we have pointed out, have always been more elaborate than in those produced in America, but without any less sexual emphasis. This stress on story line is particularly marked in a 1923 French reel, Je Verbalise (I Make a Report), in which a hunter meets a pretty laundress and finds that his advances meet little objection. A game warden happens upon them just as the hunter corners his quarry. The lawman's first impulse is to arrest the two for trespassing, but when the man and the maid invite him to join the fun, he doffs both his badge and his britches and does so with bisexual gusto. Even more elaborate is Mecktoub. The hero of this 1925 film is a photographer who enters a harem to take pictures of its fair inmates and, in the absence of the sultan, decides to take liberties as well. The sultan returns, has the lensman seized and forces him to look on while he and his bodyguard enjoy the women. The photographer snaps pictures with all the frenzy of David Hemmings in Blow-Up, but is unceremoniously kicked out of the harem when he attempts to employ a tool other than his camera.

All but halted during World War Two, French stag-film production resumed its imaginative course after the War. One of the most exceptional productions of the period was Esprit de Famille (Family Spirit), in which the three participants--a male and two females--never step out of character, either during the initial development of the elaborate plot or during the equally elaborate sexual activity that follows. The two girls, sisters in the story, were probably professional actresses, for they enacted their parts with considerable skill. Well made. too, is the 1952 film La Femme au Portrait, in which a young couple purchases a portrait of a female flamenco dancer and hangs it in their apartment. The girl is strangely drawn to the female figure in the painting, but the man has little patience with such aesthetic responses. He pulls her abruptly into the bedroom, forcibly enjoys her, chalks up his success on the wall and promptly dozes off. The girl, however, returns to the painting and finds to her delight that it has come to life. The two make Lesbian love together and then proceed to amuse themselves à trois with the man, totally unconcerned either with his pleasure or his protestations. At last, the two women climb into the picture frame together and, to symbolize her triumph, the dancer leans out from the portrait and places on the exhausted man's head the horns of the classic cuckold. The pseudonymous producer, Mezig (which, spelled backward, is French slang for ejaculation), was evidently stressing the dire results that could occur if a woman was not properly satisfied by her man--a theme generally lacking in American stag films of the time, which placed paramount emphasis on the man's satisfaction.

More than ordinarily imaginative, too, is Un Petit Conte de Noël (A Little Christmas Story) produced about the same time. On Christmas Eve, a disconsolate teenage girl is alone in her living room, masturbating on the divan. Suddenly, Santa Claus climbs out of the fire-place, surprising her at this solitary occupation, and asks what is wrong. No one loves her, the girl replies; even her governess has rejected her; in a flashback, it is learned that what the governess rejected was a proposition. Good old Saint Nick, true to his embodiment of the Christmas spirit, is more than ready to sacrifice himself for her welfare. But at that moment, an angel appears and admonishes him, whereupon the playful Saint Nick produces from his bag of Christmas goodies an astonishing lever-operated machine that sets in motion an impressively proportioned dildo. While the girl straddles it with evident satisfaction. Santa, watching from the divan, grows exceedingly restless--so much so that when the angel reappears, he abruptly seizes her, tears off her wings and rapes her. As an impish final touch to his bout of irreverence, the angel is shown having the time of her celestial life.

In recent years, the French stag film has fallen on hard times, as has all French pornography under the puritanical reign of Charles de Gaulle. But as France has become more suppressive, her neighbor across the Channel has become increasingly permissive toward pornography, and it is Britain that currently supplies the majority--and the best--of the foreign stag material available in the American commercial market. Stag films (along with every description of photographic and literary pornography) are sold on a relatively open basis in London today in numerous hole-in-the-wall newsstands and bookshops throughout the Soho area: but they fetch the steep price of $45 per reel--approximately three times the going rate for stag films sold more secretively in the U.S. Though print quality is not as professional as the best currently made here, the performers in English films are usually younger, more attractive and more enthusiastic than those in most American stags. Because the majority of these films have been produced within the past two or three years, they feature the bright Mod and mini outfits that have become world famous--and they also suggest that there may be parts of London that are really as "swinging" as its reputation. In a good many of these English films, there is an extensive use of garter belts, stockings, high heels and other fetishistic accouterments to which the English seem especially partial: predictably, there is also a good deal more sadomasochistic activity--whipping, spanking and the like--than one finds in most American films. For the English, as for Americans, however, the French have long represented the ultimate in sexual expertise and fantasy--which may account for the number of English films preceded by such French titles as Auto à Sappho and ended with the tag line Finis. This Gallic flavor also has the advantage of suggesting to overly curious officialdom that the films were produced outside the country. A look at the contents of these films, however, would leave no doubt as to their actual place of origin; exterior shots of Hyde Park and other London landmarks abound.

So does Lesbianism. But as in American pornography, male homosexuality is relatively rare. The English would seem to have no similar taboo against sex between relatives, however, for the incest theme is exploited in extenso in such films as My Young Sister, Closely Related and A Family Affair. Nor do they shrink from a number of sexual variations that used to be called "acts against nature." In 100% Lust, for example--a film devoted exclusively to just that, sans any plot whatsoever--one scene shows two males in a rare example of simultaneous vaginal and anal insertion with the same female.

While all of the above stag films have managed to reach the American market, no accurate measure of the quantity is possible. The Customs Bureau in New York, as avidly as it examines films for erotic and pornographic content, seldom encounters the hard-core variety. In a recent case, however, the Customs authorities discovered a clever subterfuge. A shipper from abroad mailed what was apparently a cardboard tube of the kind used for protecting a rolled-up photo or poster. In this case, it was the print of an illustration from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and could be seen by opening the ends of the tube. But upon removal of the brown wrapping paper, the examiner found that still another wrapping had been tightly wound around the outside of the tube and sealed with plastic tape. Beneath it, he found a 200-foot length of stag-movie film wound in a spiral around the tube. "But the fact of the matter is." said a Customs expert, "that the legitimate shipping channels do not need to be used by anyone attempting or desiring to bring such material into the United States. Why should someone risk using the mails when it is obviously very simple to bring it in other ways? We certainly do not have the manpower, or time, or the inclination, for that matter, to examine every single person entering the country from a foreign port. It would, frankly, be quite simple for almost anyone to bring an 8mm film in without risk of detection. A 200-foot reel can be wound tightly into a roll less than half an inch thick and no more than two inches in diameter. You could hide it in a watch pocket. Remember also that it is not necessary to bring in a large shipment, which would be adding to the risk. Only one print, or negative, is all that is needed. Five hundred prints could be made from it, and a man would be in business." Seizures by Customs, as a result, seldom average more than two or three a year.

As we have indicated, most of the stag films sold on the U. S. commercial market--whether American-made or imported--are single 200-foot reels of 8mm black-and-white film, with a running time of approximately 12 minutes. There are numerous variations, however, in this basic commodity. Increasingly, for example, two-part films are becoming available--sold separately as well as in two-reel combinations with a full running time of approximately 25 minutes. Color stag films, too, are becoming increasingly common in the commercial market. Though most of them are still quite poor in tonal quality, a few good color reels are currently being produced in New York. The prices are approximately twice that of the going rate for black-and-white. There have also been a few stag films shot in sound--most of them produced in the Thirties and Forties for stag-show purposes--but almost all of them are painfully amateurish. One prize example of ineptitude is Doctor's Orders, in which the male performer attempts to read his lines--like a laundry list--from a script placed on the pillow next to his partner's head, while he proceeds to simultaneously make love to her.

Occasional novelties of a somewhat more exotic nature have been added to the stag-film scene. A fully animated cartoon, for example, titled Abbie's Buried Treasure, was produced in the late Twenties or early Thirties, in a style reminiscent of the early Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat cartoons, and remains a standard staple on the commercial market. In it. the hero has numerous unusual, and quite humorous, sexual adventures with several Disney-type animals who perform in a definitely un-Disney-like way. When the 3-D fad hit American motion pictures in the early Fifties, one enterprising producer even went so far as to shoot a 3-D stag film titled Sales Lady. The ultimate dream of most pornography fanciers, however--a professionally produced feature-length stag-film talkie in Technicolor--probably exists only in fantasies. It is conceivable, of course, that such a film or films may have been made for or reposed in the private collections of a King Farouk or some Hollywood czar of yesteryear: but if so, they have never appeared on the commercial market.

An even more popular part of the folklore surrounding stag films are the stories of famous motion-picture stars who supposedly performed in pornographic pictures early in their careers. The most famous of the film stars frequently mentioned in connection with stag films is Joan Crawford. It was rumored during the Thirties that Miss Crawford had appeared in pornographic films when she was a Shubert showgirl under her real name--Lucille LeSueur. While reminiscing about her wedding to Franchot Tone in her autobiography, A Portrait of Joan, however, she stated: "There was only one discordant note. On our wedding night. I received an anonymous phone call. I'd received such phone calls before and had been afraid to tell anyone. Two men said they had in their possession a stag reel in which I danced. They wanted to sell it to me. I had made no such movie; I suggested they contact Mr. Mayer in Hollywood or MGM's legal wizard, J. Robert Rubin, in New York. Mr. Rubin viewed the film and assured the men that: 'If that's Joan Crawford, I'm Greta Garbo.' The threats of blackmail which had followed me for so long ended the minute Mr. Rubin saw that film." Though the rumors still persist--usually involving the current sexpots of legitimate cinema--no evidence of the existence of any such star-studded films has ever been uncovered by the Sex Institute or during our own research for this chapter.

In the book Hollywood Babylon, however, a highly sensational exposé by experimental film producer Kenneth Anger, the author alleged that Garbo "was to become the 'star' of pornographic pictures. That was in the 'secret' version of Camille, which is rumored to have been made under cover in the studios of MGM itself. When the existence of this version became known, it having been shown in all the 'specialized' theaters of Latin America. Louis B. Mayer immediately fired a number of assistants, as well as a hapless double of Garbo." Pornographic scenes of another look-alike couple, according to Anger, were similarly spliced into the Clark Gable-Jean Harlow classic Red Dust.

Of all the thousands of films available on the commercial stag market, the only one that actually features a "name" performer is Smart Alec, starring the famous stripper Candy Barr. This film was made early in Miss Barr's career--during the late Forties or early Fifties--and is still a commonly sold item and, understandably, one of the most popular with devotees of the genre.

As stag films go, Smart Alec is one of the best available; but the pornographic movie that can claim any real artistry or artistic purpose in its making has yet to be made. The closest to the execution of such a film came when Kenneth Anger began shooting a movie based on the Story of O, the much-esteemed novel of sadomasochistic erotica by Pauline Réage. The French government, however, stepped in before the completion of a single reel and cut off Anger's resources. Candy, an erotic novel with pretensions to parody, has been optioned for a film version more than once, but it has yet to be made. Meanwhile, Terry Southern, the novel's co-author, has let it be known that he is at work on a novel for Random House to be called Blue Movie. The plot, suggested by renowned film director Stanley Kubrick, is said to deal with the making of a feature-length pornographic film by a famous director who has managed to enlist his film-star friends as featured performers. While this ultimate pornographic film can be described within the pages of a novel, it seems highly unlikely that it will reach the screen--at least within the foreseeable future, contemporary movie mores being what they are.

This is not to say that society's attitude toward pornography, in all its forms, is not shifting at this very moment. With the tumbling of taboos since the late Fifties, the audience for pornography has enlarged dramatically. My Secret Life, for example, a graphically explicit Victorian sexual saga once confined to a few privately printed copies, recently became a best seller in both hardcover and paperback editions. Fanny Hill, so long hidden under the counter, is now available most every-where, and while certainly as detailed as any stag film in its description of sex acts, has been cleared by our highest courts of its obscene taint. Molly Bloom's sex-charged soliloquy at the end of Joyce's Ulysses, which once spurred censors to ban the entire book in this country, is now being heard in moviehouses in every major city, with hardly a censor around to blow the whistle.

Commenting on this increasing social acceptance of pornography, Professor Steven Marcus, an eminent student of Victorian erotica, wrote recently in Encounter, "The free publication of all the old pornographic chestnuts does not necessarily indicate to me moral laxness, or fatigue, or deterioration on the part of society. It suggests, rather, that pornography has lost its old danger, its old power--negative social sanctions and outlawry being always the most reliable indicators of how much a society is frightened of anything, how deeply it fears its power, how subversive to a settled order it conceives an idea, or work, or act to be." Viewed in this same liberal light, the stag film undoubtedly warrants a prominent place in this History of Sex in Cinema. Not only do these films carry to the ultimate that erotic element that has pervaded the film medium since its inception but, because they present unabashedly those very frontiers of sexuality from which all other film makers draw back--overtly depicted fornication and the other variants of sexual behavior--they delineate the danger zone for the film maker and the target area of society's lingering disapproval.

Stag films still carry society's disapproval because they are deemed in most official--and usually uninformed--quarters to be harmful to their viewers. Few psychiatrists, however, would be so categorical about their ill effects, and an increasing number feel that stag films are not only a harmless diversion but even a healthy aphrodisiac for perfectly normal sexual appetites. One therapist has conceded that "if sexual repression is so far advanced that the only reaction to a pornographic film is revulsion, then viewing it could further confirm the repressed viewer's fear of sex." But he adds. "The direct, though passive, exposure to sex provided by a stag film, in circumstances free from the unconsciously expected punishment and shame, can help to eliminate the fear of sex." This view has been confirmed by Drs. Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen. While agreeing with the statement of a Brown University group of psychologists that "There is no reliable evidence that reading or other fantasy activities lead to antisocial behavior." the Kronhausens go further and suggest that "erotic books may fulfill several eminently useful and therapeutic functions." In Pornography and the Law, they state: "If erotic literature or art tend to lead to sexual acts, we would consider this a natural phenomenon that much more likely than not would enhance mental health and human happiness, provided that it met the conditions of not being forcefully or fraudulently imposed on another person."

In years to come, it is to be hoped that true obscenity will be recognized as the graphic depiction not of the love act but of man's inhumanity to man. As the late comedian Lenny Bruce wrote in his autobiography. "I would rather my child see a stag film than The Ten Commandments or King of Kings--because I don't want my kids to kill Christ when he comes back. That's what they see in those films--that violence.

"Let me just take your kids to a dirty movie:

"'All right, kids, sit down now, this picture's gonna start. It's not like Psycho, with a lot of four-letter words, like "kill" and "maim" and "hurt"--but you're gonna see this film now and what you see will probably impress you for the rest of your lives, so we have to be very careful what we show you. . . . Oh, it's a dirty movie. A couple is coming in now. I don't know if it's gonna be as good as Psycho where we have the stabbing in the shower and the blood down the drain. . . . Oh, the guy's picking up the pillow. Now, he'll probably smother her with it, and that'll be a good opening. Ah, the degenerate, he's putting it under her ass. Jesus, tsk, tsk, I hate to show this crap to you kids. All right, now he's lifting up his hand, and he'll probably strike her. No. he's caressing her, and kissing her--ah, this is disgusting! All right, he's kissing her some more, and she's saying something. She'll probably scream at him. "Get out of here!" No. she's saying, "I love you, I'm coming." Kids, I'm sorry I showed you anything like this. God knows this will be on my conscience the rest of my life--there's a chance that you may do this when you grow up. Well, just try to forget what you've seen. Just remember, what this couple did belongs written on the walls of a men's room. And, in fact, if you ever want to do it, do it in the men's room.'

"I never did see one stag film where anybody got killed in the end. Or even slapped in the mouth. Or where it had any Communist propaganda."

Make love, not war, is Bruce's humane exhortation--one that is being echoed increasingly by a host of young people who find themselves as mistrustful of their society's puritan heritage as of their Government's 71-billion-dollar arms budget. Already--while tacitly approving the sexual explicitness of Dear John and other films with a high sexual quotient--the liberal-minded Swedes discourage in motion pictures the more gruesome aspects of violence that are left untouched by censorship in this country. If this view gains ground across the Atlantic--and there is every promise that it will, in time--it's possible that the act of love may someday become as open, natural, spontaneous and socially acceptable a subject for the writer, the artist and the director as it is for those who patronize their works.

This has been the 17th installment of "The History of Sex in Cinema." In Part XVIII, authors Knight and Alpert continue their scholarly survey of erotica on screen with an insightful assessment of American films in the permissive Sixties.