By Peter Berton
LONG ISLAND, NY – Before the advent of mass-market VHS adult tapes, watch-at-home moving image porn was difficult to find and even harder to view. Watching required a movie projector and screen, plus viewers had to find a source for 8mm or 16mm “stag films.”
Those difficult days are long gone, but some of the charmingly quaint porn remains. Cinefear Video, led by vintage movie buff Keith Crocker, has transferred an impressive collection onto DVD.
YNOT.com: What is Cinefear Video all about?
Keith Crocker: Cinefear is a collectors-only site dedicated to providing fans of vintage cinema an opportunity to collect rare, lost, and out of print genre films that have not been made available via the usual channels. We have been in business since 1990.
When we started, we offered horror and exploitation films only. We never had any intention of offering old adult films until all the local video stores started going out of business. Then we started getting requests for old porn titles that were no longer available. At that point we had to comply, because like any business, the more variety you offer the more prospective customers you will attract. We already dealt in exploitation films that featured nudity and softcore sex, so why not make the leap and offer hardcore as well?
What kind of old adult videos do you offer?
Vintage. By that we mean of the era of porn produced between the late 1960s and early 1970s. That means 8mm loops and 16mm “one-day wonders.”
A “one-day wonder” is a feature-length porn film that was shot in one day or a weekend. They offer very little in terms of production value, but they offer a hell of a lot as far as sex goes. These were usually made by the mafia in an attempt to mass produce and mass market hardcore porn, which had become a novelty at the time. However, some of the 8mm loops we’ve transferred are far older than the ’60s. Some actually come from the 1950s and ’40s.
Where do you get the vintage porn?
The bulk of what we offer comes off of 16mm and 8mm film prints, which we have collected, archived and transferred to DVD ourselves. Some comes off long out of print video cassettes; some come off foreign sources, as well. It’s a mixed bag when it comes to acquiring materials that never saw the light of day on DVD.
These days we spend more time converting film prints to DVD. It takes a lot of time and care, and we operate on no budget, so the work here comes more from the home front and is given personal care and love.
What sells best?
I’ve moved more 8mm transfers than anything else. In fact, I’ve got volumes of lost loops just waiting to be transferred, and I hope to have them up and out by the fall of 2014.
8mm loops have a charm that is so lost from the industrial porn of today. Porn today is like McDonald’s: It’s fast food. The minute one piece of porn is completed and released, the urge for the next piece renders the shelf life of the current piece to a status of nonexistence.
In other words, porn is over-produced and the market is over-saturated. Hence, no one knows what to buy or collect anymore. On top of that, all the tube sites give the viewer more than enough to get off. You don’t even have to buy porn anymore, so it’s been rendered to zero value.
8mm porn loops are very interesting in that they offered fresh faces, various types of interesting sexual situations and sometimes cute little plots that added the erotica to the product. After all, it’s the foreplay and what leads up to it that is far more interesting than the sex itself. The element of tease is something that is missing from today’s porn. It’s an artifact from the past.
Are adult videos really collectible?
Yes, by all means the vintage stuff is. A lot of adult video companies went out of business during the early days of video. Hence, certain films were not mass-produced, making their collectible status very high.
Also, the way the industry works today, yesterday’s stars and films are today’s garbage. The industry does not believe vintage porn shot on film in the ’70s is of any worth. Plus, no one wants to do the work of collecting and transferring dusty old relics and making them available to the same folks who more than likely collected them years ago on film, but have since discarded the prints or no longer have the projection equipment to play them on. Believe it or not, people want what others discard.
At Cinefear, we make oldies-but-goodies available for the folks who want them. We fill that void. It’s not overtly profitable, but it’s a noble cause. Someone has to do it.
What advice do you have for would-be collectors?
Know what you are interested in. In other words, don’t collect simply to collect; rather, acquire what you enjoy watching.
Everyone who’s into porn should take time to watch the heroes and heroines of the genre. Actresses like Linda Lovelace, Andrea True, Desiree Cousteau, Seka. Male actors like Jamie Gillis, John Leslie, John Holmes. These people were once the kings and queens of adult films.
If you’re a fan of porn and want to watch its evolution, you must start at the beginning. 8mm loops and 16mm one-day wonders are a great way to see what porn was all about back in the day.
Porn has become so industrial that it no longer has the fantasy element that made it erotic years ago. The play is gone; it’s way too fetish-oriented and mechanical now. Old porn has the fantasy missing from the recent stuff produced in the cyber age.
Do yourself a favor and give some time to golden oldies your grandparents were watching. Don’t dismiss it, because you’ll miss out on material far hotter than anything you’ll see today.
