Blue Movie Monday: Serena's autobiography now available through BearManor Bare!

Here's a bio that'll go right to the top of our 'must-read' pile: Bright Lights, Lonely Nights by Serena Czarnecki -- better known as Serena, "Porn Star Pioneer of the 1970s" -- is now available from BearManor Bare and can be ordered here.

Blue Movie Monday: SWEET & SOUR (1974)

SWEET & SOUR (1974)

Starring

Mary Margaret

in the most sin-tillating debut of the year

Jamie Gillis

Star of THE SEDUCTION OF LYNN CARTER

Cindy West

Best Actress, N.Y. Erotic Film Festival

Marc Stevens

Star of THE NEW COMERS and DEVIL IN MISS JONES

Amy Mathiew

France’s answer to Marilyn Chambers

Selma Arthur

who stole the show in DEVIL IN MISS JONES

and a host of other surprise performances!

Directed by

H.V. Spyder

[Lloyd Kaufman]

Produced by

Jeffrey Michaels

Original Score by
Andrew Dolon

Mary Margaret proves that there ARE two sides to every woman in the most unbelievably erotic performances ever turned in by a young newcomer to the adult screen. SWEET & SOUR spans the entire emotional spectrum of a woman’s sexual fantasies, played against the background of the lustful and painful reality of a young girl’s survival in the big city. During its highly successful premiere engagement on Broadway, the wildly entertaining sex surprised and delighted both men and women alike, and prompted Screw magazine to immediately single out SWEET & SOUR as one of the best 10 films of the year...

Blue Movie Monday: "In the Flesh" series returns to Anthology Film Archives!

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 505-5181

Anthology Film Archives' scintillating series "In the Flesh" explores the years when sexually explicit movies that emphasized scripts, acting, and production values were still being shot on celluloid. It was the most creative time in the adult film industry’s history, soon to be quelled by the arrival of video. Every screening features appearances by filmmakers, actors, or crew members, as well as critics, scholars, and other participants in or observers of this ‘Golden Age’ of adult cinema. This fourth installment of the popular series brings together three bold, sexy comedies from the late 1970s and early '80s. Joining in the festivities are special guests and adult film superstars Eric Edwards and Sharon Mitchell, as well as the multi-talented filmmaker Damon Christian, who will share incredible stories of making some of the best adults-only comedies of the era.

Series curated by Casey Scott. Special thanks to sponsors Steven Morowitz (Distribpix) and Joe Rubin (Vinegar Syndrome).

Friday, August 29
8:00 PM
THE BUDDING OF BRIE (1980)
83 min, 35mm
Directed by Ron Sullivan
Starring Hillary Summers, Jennifer Jordan, Eric Edwards, Jake Teague, Laurien Dominique, Kandi Barbour, R. Bolla, Michael Gaunt & Ron Jeremy.
Star Eric Edwards will appear in person with other surprise guests!

Saturday, August 30
8:00 PM
TITILLATION (1982)
81 min, 35mm
Directed by Damon Christian
Starring Eric Edwards, Randy West, Kitten Natividad, Angelique Pettyjohn, Gina Gianetti & Mike Horner.
Director/producer Damon Christian and star Eric Edwards will appear in person!

Sunday, August 31
8:00 PM
JOY (1977)
73 min, 35mm
Directed by Harley Mansfield
Starring Sharon Mitchell, R. Bolla, Jake Teague, Herschel Savage, Gloria Leonard, Dave Ruby & Eric Edwards.
Star Sharon Mitchell will appear in person with other surprise guests!

For more information, click HERE.

Blue Movie Monday: THE BEST OF DISCO DEMANDS (BBE Records, 2012)

It's been a while since we had one of our famous Saturday night disco parties here at the Temple, but this weekend DJ Schlocko showed up with a five-disc Al Kent compilation called The Best of Disco Demands that we just couldn't ignore -- and if you're thinkin' you're too cool to boogie, boy oh boy, have we got nudes for you: once you get past the mouth-watering pulchritude pictured on the slipcase, you'll find the five CDs housed inside miniature LP sleeves, each adorned with a photo of '70s porn starlet Desiree West! The music is pretty good, too. We got through three of the discs before DJ Schlocko snorted enough crushed Smarties off an Ohio Players record sleeve to become crazy-convinced his head was gonna explode like nine cans of shaving powder (Damn, crate-diggers wanna know EVERYTHING! It was Rattlesnake). The track list for each CD is below. We censored all the photos, but you can see them unaltered at Amazon, where this limited edition is still available -- or you can just reach into your screen and peel off the "Disco Special" stickers we slapped over the good parts. Yeah, that'll work. Snort some Smarties and give it a try.

Disc 1

“Giving It All to You” – Cheryl Berdell
“Why in the World Do They Keep On (Funk’in with Me)” – Executive Suite
“Cumbaya Disco” – Disco Warriors
“Suntan” – Sandpebbles of Barbados
“Doctor Dunk” – The Fans
“Let’s Go Disco” – TC & Company
“Dog It” – Chocolate + Joy
“Disco Socks” – Omni
“How Can I Tell Her” - Curtis

Disc 2

“Just Friends – Silver, Platinum & Gold
“Funkathone” – The People’s Workshop
“Take the Music to the Party” – Chocolate City Connection
“Disco Boogie Woman” – Universal Robot Band
“Sound of Disco Rock” – Stringfield Family
“Everybody Party (Get Down)” – The Firebolts
“Theme from Living Proof” – Living Proof
“In the Mood” – Puff
“Wave” – Cordial

Disc 3

“Fiddlin’ Around” – Don Renaldo Strings
“To Be With You” – Jimmy Sabater
“Party People” – Crosstown Traffic
“Hail to Guyana” – Alex and His Soul Messengers
“Gold Connection” – Harold Butler & The Connection
“Dance, Dance, Dance to the Music (Y’all)” – Ike Noble
“The Disco Stomp” – The Legal Defense
“Sweet Jazz Music” – Panache
“Get Ready” – Allan Harris & Perpetual Motion

Disc 4

“I’ve Been Searching” – Arts & Crafts
“Dancing Free” – Hot Ice
“Dancin’” – Volstar
“Party Together” – Superbs
“The Rock is Gonna Get You” – Gordon’s War
“Bahia” – Alice Street Gang
“Hey Mister” – Althea Forrest & Togetherness
“Give It Up” – Mirror
“Disco Joint” – The Live Experience

Disc 5

“Strung Out” – Bobby Sanders & Magic
“I Got It” – The Good Life Ltd.
“Doing Our Own Thang” – Al Tanner
“Fear” – Arthur King
“We’ve Got It” – Sylvano Santorio
“Party Party” – Mr. Q
“You Got Over On Me” – Power of Attorney
“Love is All Around” – Sizzle
“Back in Time” – Brooklyn Express

Blue Movie Monday: Marilyn Chambers autobiography back in print!

Good news, paperback collectors and porno fans! Marilyn Chambers: My Story (Warner Books, 1975) -- the long out of print "intimate, uncensored erotobiography of the pure-as-snow porn queen" -- went back into print on July 31 courtesy of Bear Manor Bare, with a new foreword by Chambers' daughter, McKenna Taylor. You can order a copy here or here.

Blue Movie Monday: LITTLE ANNIE FRANNY (1971)

This animated knock-off of Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's adult comic strip "Little Annie Fanny" opened in New York on October 21, 1971 and was promptly sued out of existence by Playboy for copyright infringement.

Blue Movie Monday: JUNGLE BLUE (1978)

Now available on DVD from Vinegar Syndrome...

From director Carlos Tobalina comes one of the strangest hybrids of exploitation sub-genres ever released to the unsuspecting public. Combining the late 70s jungle movie craze with crime thriller and copious amounts of X rated action, JUNGLE BLUE tells the story of a group of sinister explorers hunting for fortune in the jungles of South America. Along the way they meet a tree-swinging wild man, his sex-crazed companion gorilla, and hoards of scantily clad natives.

Never released on video in the US, JUNGLE BLUE has been restored from 35mm camera negatives and is being presented uncut on DVD for the first time!

Directed by Troy Benny [Carlos Tobalina]
Starring Nina Fause, Jose Ferraro, Annette Haven, Kathy Silverman [Candida Royalle] and Bigg John [David Pinney]
1978 / Color / 79 minutes / AR: 1.85:1

Order your copy NOW

Blue Movie Monday: MARILYN AND THE SENATOR (1975)

Now available on DVD from Vinegar Syndrome...

William Margold stars as The Senator, who agrees to impregnate a beautiful CIA agent played by Nina Fause. As complications ensue with the senator's ability to 'perform,' his wife and associates become increasingly suspicious of his affairs, resulting in myriad bizarre plot twists and revelations. Originally released at 128 minutes with an intermission and advertised as MARILYN AND THE SENATOR, PART I & II, the film was later cut and re-titled SWINGING SENATORS. Vinegar Syndrome presents, for the first time in a home video format, the full length director's cut, scanned from 35mm camera negatives!

Directed by Carlos Tobalina
Starring Miss Nina Fause, Mr. William Margold, Miss Heather Leight, Sharon Thorpe, Bill Kaye [William Kirschner], Miss Liz Renay, Mr. Erroff Lynn, and Zarina Gullian [Serena]

1975 / Color / 128 minutes / AR 1.85:1

Extra Features: Audio commentary with star & co-writer William Margold / Original theatrical trailer

Order your copy NOW

Blue Movie Monday: BIJOU (1972)

Now available on DVD from Vinegar Syndrome...

Acclaimed director Wakefield Poole’s second feature, the surreal and trippy BIJOU, set a new standard for explicit cinema when it opened in 1972. The film concerns a construction worker (Bill Harrison) who witnesses a car accident and pockets the female victim’s purse, in which he discovers her invitation to a club named Bijou. There, he enters a strange erotic world where dark fantasies becomes reality. A fever dream blending the erotic and the divine in equal parts, BIJOU is a psychosexual puzzle that rewards multiple viewings.

Scanned at 2K from the original 16mm elements and fully restored, this new version of BIJOU finally allows the film to be seen in all its original visual splendor.

Directed by Wakefield Poole
Starring Bill Harrison [Ronnie Shark], Cassandra Hart, Lydia Black, Robert Lewis, Peter Fisk [Peter Schneckenburger], Bruce Williams [Bruce Shenton], Bill Cable, and Rocco Passalini

1972 / Color / 75 minutes / AR: 1.33:1

Dual-Layer DVD-9 | Region Free | MONO
+ Original Theatrical Trailer
+ Director’s Audio Commentary & Video Introduction
+ Video Interview w/ Author Linda Williams
+ Video Interview w/ Wakefield Poole + Unused Audition Footage

Order your copy NOW

Blue Movie Monday: THE SATANIST (1968)

Here's a first look at THE SATANIST, a long-lost B&W horror nudie from Zoltan G. Spencer (THE HAND OF PLEASURE, TERROR AT ORGY CASTLE) that will be screened in Philadelphia at Exhumed Films' Lost Film Festival on Sunday, July 20. Also being screened are SKATETOWN U.S.A., Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr in Freddie Francis' SON OF DRACULA (as YOUNG DRACULA), the rare 69 minute version of Andy Milligan's BLOOD, and Alan Ormsby's THE GREAT MASQUERADE, #62 on our Endangered List. Tickets for this event can be purchased here.

Blue Movie Monday: WET RAINBOW filmmaker revealed!

Two years ago in the Facebook group "Adult Films 1968-1988" we posted a newspaper article from 1993 in which Hollywood screenwriter Djordje Milicevic (VICTORY, RUNAWAY TRAIN, IRON WILL) "outs" himself as writer-director of the hardcore flicks WET RAINBOW and VAMPIRE LUST -- and then we forgot all about it. Yesterday, while searching through USB drives for an ad mat to run for this week's "Movie Ad of the Week," we found the article and realized we never posted it for our Temple readers. Here it is...

Blue Movie Monday: CONFESSIONS (1977)

Now available on DVD from Vinegar Syndrome...

Two forgotten B-pictures from one of the X rated film world’s most talented auteurs, Anthony Spinelli, presented from film sourced transfers for the very first time!

EXPECTATIONS (1977)
Two women, one a wealthy socialite and the other a swinger, decide to swap lives. However, as the novelty wears off, they become slaves to each other’s misery.
Directed by Arvid Beller [Anthony Spinelli]
Starring Suzette Holland [Chris Cassidy], Delania Raffino, Jack Wright, Joey Civera [Joey Silvera], David Blair [Blair West], and Desiree West!
70 minutes / Color / AR: 1.85:1

CONFESSIONS (1977)
A bored, upscale housewife decides to dabble in the world of anonymous sex and prostitution, but quickly learns the unfortunate reality of such a lifestyle.
Directed by Leonard Burke [Anthony Spinelli]
Starring Cindy Johnson [Kristine Heller], John Leslie, Ron Rogers [Peter Johns], Eric Mann [Joey Silvera], Sonny Lustig, Karen Cusick [Dory Devon], and Terence Scanlon [Jack Wright]
68 minutes / Color / AR: 1.85:1

Scanned in 2k from 35mm archival prints.

Order your copy NOW

Blue Movie Monday: THE MARRIAGE MANUAL (1970)

"It is hoped that films such as this one, may one day be made available to ALL those who are about to embark upon marriage, or those already married and struggling under the unfair burdens of inadequate sexual understanding. The only thing that stands between you and compete sexual fulfillment, are the barriers of ignorance…The fences of prejudice that society has put up. The mere fact that you, as a consenting adult, will be allowed to view this motion picture…is proof that these fences are slowly but surely coming down. 'The Marriage Manual' brings to the screen in vivid and intimate detail…THE ART OF LOVE…THE ART OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.

It is our hope and intention that by exposing ignorance and social prejudice…we may relieve the atmosphere of frustration and despair. It is necessary to talk openly and honestly about sex. Make no mistake about it…sex is the cornerstone of your marriage.

We urge you to see this motion picture. It is our firm belief that both husband and wife can benefit greatly by the frank and honest instruction of sexual intercourse as shown in the 'The Marriage Manual.' It is a film you won’t forget, and it may well open up for you and your wife a full and rewarding sex life."

Blue Movie Monday: HOT CIRCUIT (1971)

Two years before their softcore skin flick THE CHEERLEADERS became a big drive-in hit, former documentary filmmakers Paul Glickler and Richard Lerner made this hardcore homage to Le Ronde, which nabbed the Best Picture award at the first New York Erotic Film Festival (November 1971) but is remembered today by only the most dedicated students of cinema smut. There's no way the VD handoff of Schnitzler's original would've survived the "love the one you're with" sensibilities of the time, but 40 years later you'll wish this trailblazing explicit feature had more going for it than just body parts bumping together. For those unfamiliar with the source material, the tag line in the ad above explains the structure more concisely than any plot synopsis ever could, except that Glickler & Lerner mercifully closed their circle in 9 rather than 10 chapters. Despite having each character participate in two consecutive couplings, the final result still plays like a bunch of unrelated loops strung together, and fans of THE CHEERLEADERS are advised to check out only the second ("The Salesman and the Babysitter"), fourth ("The Adventuress and the Woodcutter") and final ("The Hustler and the Stripper") tales for evidence of the zaniness that was to, uh, come. If there's a highlight, it's chapter two, in which a bumbling air conditioner salesman is serviced by two barely legal babysitters on a backyard jungle gym to the strains of Judy Sherman's haunting "Waiting for You," although the overall effect now is more creepy than erotic. Segments go on just long enough to reveal that the cast members aren't as attractive as they originally seemed, with Kit Fox as "The Babysitter" sticking around the longest with 3 appearances in a row. Pic might be worth a look for historical value alone (512 F.2d 1361, "The United States of America v. Sherpix, Inc."), although on that front there are far bloodier battlefields to visit before this one.

Blue Movie Monday: THE PASSIONS OF CAROL (1975)

Shaun Costello's stylish porno reinterpretation of A Christmas Carol missed its Xmas 1974 release date by two and a half months, opening at the Capri Theater in New York just in time for Saint Patrick's Day '75. Variety trashed it ("Blah, humbug") and 8th Avenue porn audiences stayed away in droves, but in the 35 years since its disappointing world premiere THE PASSIONS OF CAROL has gained something of a cult following among fans of NYC-shot hardcore. As with musicals and rom coms, we have a difficult time warming up to porno pics unless we find the leading ladies desirable or at least physically attractive -- and Mary Stuart, cast here in the "Carol Screwge" role, does absolutely nothing for us. However, the high-definition transfer looks very nice, Costello's liner notes and audio commentary (moderated by film historian Joe Rubin) are informative and entertaining, and '80s action film enthusiasts might get a kick out of seeing Sonny Landham service two women at once to Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells." For more info on this release, head over to the Distribpix Blog.

TARGET SMUT: In Search of a Lost Anti-Porn Classic

Target Smut:

In Search of a Lost Anti-Porn Classic

by

Whitney Strub

TARGET SMUT may have had more direct impact than any anti-porn film in history — admittedly, not a momentous claim when one considers the rather inglorious canon that would include such entries as the feminist polemic NOT A LOVE STORY or this year's DON JON — yet it remains one of the most obscure. Produced by Citizens for Decent Literature in 1968 to attack the Supreme Court, it served its purpose with gusto, then disappeared immediately, still a lost work today.

Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL) was the preeminent anti-smut organization of the 1960s, nestled snugly between earlier Catholic pressure groups and later Christian Right ones. Less widely acknowledged, it was also without question the dominant producer and distributor of anti-porn films in that era, one of which, PERVERSION FOR PROFIT, might be the most famous title in the genre.

Founded by Cincinnati lawyer Charles Keating in the late 1950s, CDL amassed a rapid national following and exerted a powerful influence by the late Sixties, reaching its peak when President Richard Nixon appointed Keating to the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Later Keating let CDL languish as he shifted his interests toward junk bonds in the 1980s, contributing to our current era of disaster capitalism during the Savings & Loan catastrophes of the Reagan era. Apparently sexual decency meant more to him than the financial sort.

I spent a good portion of my twenties obsessively pursuing CDL through archives across America. From right-wing literature collections in Los Angeles and Kansas, to fragmentary records from local chapters in Arizona and Pennsylvania, to the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, I chased every lead I could identify. It was the nerd version of detective work, and ultimately, I titled my first book, Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right, after CDL’s film.

The group occupies a central role in my narrative of modern conservatism, and in my favorite chapter I show how they successfully modernized pro-censorship positions for an American public that didn’t want to see itself as Victorian or prudish — but also disliked the increasingly graphic sexual content of books, films, and magazines from the late Fifties onward.

As hard as I tried to look under every stone and follow the scattered CDL paper trail to its bitter end, you always miss something. Just this summer, digging through a collection at the National Archives in Washington, DC, I stumbled upon a file that seemed slightly out of place. The collection I was investigating was the records of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, mostly dated 1953-61 — but inside was a folder from 1968, with a transcript for TARGET SMUT.

With this, we can partially reconstruct TARGET SMUT — though some background might help.

As Keating built CDL into an empire, he smartly recognized the importance of controlling cultural narratives. It was the age of Marshall McLuhan, and not just lefties like Castro and Godard were thinking critically about the powers of the mass media. From early on, CDL turned not just toward repressing sexual expression, but also toward producing it, in the form of a series of short anti-porn films that tended to wallow in sensationalism.

PERVERSION FOR PROFIT is surely the most famous of CDL’s films, partly due to its internet ubiquity. We laugh today at its campy scare tactics, but the film was taken seriously in its day, paralleling the rhetoric coming from national authorities like J. Edgar Hoover. Serious debates were held over the film’s merits, as in this fascinating St. Louis episode:

Another early CDL film, PAGES OF DEATH, is lost, to the best of my knowledge. Jim Lindeman at Vintage Sleaze recently ran a great piece on it, and here’s an ad for what I believe was its world premiere, in Cincinnati, 1962:

A third CDL film, PRINTED POISON, popped up on the second disc of the HEAVY PETTING DVD several years ago; like PERVERSION, it wallows in the very muck it claims to fight, charting the course of a district attorney’s awakening to the need for smut-busting.

This trilogy constituted the core cinematic canon of CDL into the late 1960s, as seen in this mailing (archived at the University of Kansas’s Wilcox Collection in 1969, but circulating in the years beforehand):

Which takes us to TARGET SMUT. By 1968, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren had spent a solid decade liberalizing obscenity law, until the boundaries of the legally acceptable had shifted from Lady Chatterley to “split-beaver” shorts and, soon, hardcore. Nothing better symbolized to CDL the moral rot at the heart of the so-called sexual revolution. Keating and CDL filed briefs in numerous Supreme Court obscenity cases, and they generally went disregarded, adding insult to perceived injury. So when President Lyndon Johnson nominated Abe Fortas to replace the retiring Earl Warren as Chief Justice, CDL geared up for revenge. Fortas, already a sitting justice on the High Court, was among its more liberal members, and for a growing portion of the conservative public, “liberal” meant “libertine.”

Conservative attacks on Fortas had begun immediately in early 1968, but gained little public traction. South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, one of the reactionary leaders of the anti-Fortas cadre, vilified him constantly, on a variety of grounds: he had communist ties, he was soft on crime, the appointment was sheer LBJ cronyism (on this last point, he was correct). None of it seemed to stick — until Keating and CDL lawyer James Clancy offered a new line of attack: Fortas, who had once filed a brief on behalf of Playboy, was singlehandedly responsible for the porn-driven moral decline of America.

TARGET SMUT was apparently cobbled together as a visual indictment of Fortas and the Court. The filmstrip itself, unfortunately, has yet to surface, but the transcript at the National Archives survives; while it doesn’t provide a direct sense of the visuals, it offers strong hints. The narration details the legal history of obscenity, tracing it back to the 1688 English case of “rebel playwright” Sir Charles Sedley, who exposed himself on a balcony in the hopes of “bringing about a change in the social mores.” “Today,” it warns, “we have ‘rebels’ in the same and other professions, who entertain the same ideas.”

From there, things jump to the 1957 Supreme Court case Roth v. U.S., in which the Court established modern American obscenity doctrine. Linking Roth back to Sedley’s case is “our Judeo-Christian culture and the Common Law of our Anglo-Saxon heritage,” CDL explains. The research and facts are generally solid, but the ideological spin is heavy-handed; central to CDL’s legal argument is that power should reside with juries but has been usurped by appellate judges—an analysis that seems blithely oblivious to the entire course of American legal history since the Civil War. Because Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas refuse to recognize the validity of obscenity charges, TARGET SMUT contends, their votes should be “disqualified as not in consonance with the law”—a deliberate misunderstanding of the constitutional interpretation that is the High Court’s very function.

TARGET SMUT points to Abe Fortas as a significant part of the problem, and touts CDL’s own role in challenging such decadent judicial politics, recounting in heroic terms the 1966 Court term, in which “expectations were high,” as CDL counsel “climbed the 42 marble steps of the United States Supreme Court building.” Instead, a devastating setback occurred as the Court sat on over two dozen cases until 1967 before summarily reversing virtually every obscenity conviction that had reached it. “The root of this Nation’s problem,” the narrator argues, “is the United States Supreme Court and the extra-judicial judgments of some of its membership.”

Sprinkled throughout this dry legal discussion are plentiful descriptions of the texts at play in the cases, and it is near-certain that TARGET SMUT made ample visual use of them, much as the other CDL films had done. Images of the Court building and carefully chosen low-angle frown shots of Fortas or Douglas can only maintain viewer attention so long, after all; more captivating are such titles as Bondage Boarding School, Travelling Saleslady Gets Spanked, Lust Hungry, and Flesh Avenger. We are offered graphic descriptions of the textual and visual content of books and magazines. In one example, “The buttocks of many are elevated and thrust toward the camera, as if in invitation to sexual intercourse or sodomy. Lesbianism and group orgies are suggested by group shots of naked females in physical contact.” This was no doubt driven home by presenting the images in question to the audience — for purely legal inspection, of course.

In my favorite example, TARGET SMUT accuses Jack Smith’s queer underground film FLAMING CREATURES of depicting “masturbation of the male organ, and other sexual symbolisms.” While I think CDL might misunderstand the nature of symbolism (Smith’s film is nothing if not gloriously literal on the organs in question), I assume they included imagery from the film, in the process breaking inadvertent new ground for the conservative avant-garde.

TARGET SMUT concludes by channeling the poet Alexander Pope with the question, “Will our Nation embrace the monster vice?” Fortas, of course, is the monster, CDL the dragonslayer.

As propaganda, this is far from CDL’s finest moment; however stimulating and striking the images were, the narration is simply too legalistic, with few of the thundering exclamations of the earlier films. Still, as cobbled-together agitprop, it worked. Under CDL’s guidance, Strom Thurmond embraced the obscenity analysis and ran with it; by August, his earlier condemnations of Fortas had receded, as he struck the one new note over and over again. Here’s the lead to his newsletter, Strom Thurmond Reports to the People, from August 1968, to give a sense of his rhetoric:

The new line worked. Backstage realpolitik involving tensions within the Democratic Party had likely doomed Fortas from the start, but it was the CDL-provided language of obscenity that sealed the deal with the public. Thurmond screened TARGET SMUT, and also a short striptease film labeled O-7, for fellow members of Congress and journalists, until “Fortas” and “filth” became inseparable terms. When the Senate held hearings, Clancy was invited to testify, and obscenity dominated the discussion.

When I dug through Lyndon Johnson’s mail, it was striking to see the sudden impact: through the spring of 1968, few letters from the public, many in support of Fortas, then an eruption of indignation and opposition. The nomination collapsed, Fortas was soon driven off the Court when unrelated accounts of improper financial arrangement surfaced, and incoming President Richard Nixon managed four appointments, setting in motion a half-century of increasingly hardline conservatism at the marble palace.

CDL, of course, roundly applauded itself:

A grateful Nixon appointed Keating to the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography to pull off the same trick—destabilizing it and undermining its 700-page social science report in 1970 that argued for the decriminalization of adult obscenity. Though the Commission presented a very compelling case, it was Keating’s outraged dissenting report that drew more attention—and was cited favorably by new, Nixon-appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger, despite its outlandish claims of otherwise healthy people corrupted by smut (I tell the whole sordid story of the commission and its fallout in Perversion for Profit).

So, TARGET SMUT may be the most tangibly influential anti-porn film in history—but where did it go? I’m not sure. CDL lawyer James Clancy left a disappointingly thin array of papers to the Library of Congress, and I found a 1991 letter tentatively suggesting a University of North Carolina grad student might have a copy—but that’s where the trail ends, at least thus far.

If where it went is unclear, why it vanished might be more explicable. In an ironic twist, CDL’s own lurid obsessions caught up with them in Minneapolis, after a set of 1968 screenings:

Nietzsche’s oft-quoted line about fighting monsters has long since entered the realm of cliché, but bears paraphrasing: whoever fights smut should see to it that in process he does not become a smutmonger. Of course, the fact that CDL tacitly embraced the contradictions of doing both was central to its success—and indicative of deep and persistent undercurrents in the history of American sexuality.

Whitney Strub is the author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right, and Obscenity Rules: Roth v. United States and the Long Struggle over Sexual Expression. He blogs at strublog.wordpress.com.