2/5 Good collection heavily censored
  by R. King (Mississauga, ON Canada)
Good cross-section of material. Heavily edited they appear choppy and they did not have a plot to begin with. Narrator babbles giving no insight or real knowledge. Cult Epics' Anno series has the complete version of many of these films and is a much better product.

3/5 Interesting but far from great
  by Anyechka (Rensselaer, NY United States)
This documentary could have had the potential to have been so much more in-depth given the subject matter, but unfortunately ends up relying almost solely upon clips from erotic/pornographic films from the dawn of cinema to the modern era, coupled with a narrator who almost never shuts up. Why weren't there any wraparound segments featuring, for example, film historians, sexologists, or veterans of this genre of film? It's also disappointing how almost none of these films we're shown clips from are even identified or dated, other than a general sense of the progression of eras as the documentary winds on. Even the bonus shorts (shown in their entirety and identified apart from the few anonymous French shorts) aren't given any dates, leaving the viewer to have to guess at just when they were made. For example, how would anyone be able to guess that 'Uncle Si and the Sirens' is really from 1938? It's a silent film, and almost no one would think to date anything silent that far into the Thirties!





There really isn't any in-depth coverage of the history behind erotic cinema. It's more like a cursory review of its history, which does a serious disservice to people genuinely interested in this subject matter. For example, the narrator never even names the Hays Code, though he does describe the new production code that came in in the early Thirties. There also isn't terribly too much corroborating background information to go along with such subjects as Americans' Puritanical views towards nudity and sex, why the French were so much more open and liberal about showing these things, the outside forces influencing these respective societies to have these views, and the slow but sure evolution towards less censorship and more openness. And for being a documentary about erotic films, and the narrator's comments about how hypocritical and Puritanical many people were about the subject, the camera always cuts away from anything too erotic. And being from Passport Studios, a bug periodically appears in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, which can be very annoying and distracting. One expects to see a logo appear onscreen when watching something taped off of the television, not when watching a supposedly professional DVD! Still, it is worth watching for all of these rare vintage clips, and it does help to shatter the myth that there was no real erotic cinema until about 1970.

2/5 Skip it
  by Early A. Dopter
The film is inaccurate (ignorant of how early porno films began), shows boring parts of boring films (explicitly cuts hard-core scenes), a know-it-all narrator won't shut up with his useless unimaginative commentary, absurd newsreel intercuts that the director thinks gives the film "weight". Gets two stars instead of one for a contribution to history of cinema. The real history of porno is a 1970s film called "History of the Blue Movie" which apparently was allowed to copy some early stuff from the Kinsey archives; this film was definitely available on VHS at one time, and is well-worth tracking down.

3/5 Interesting but Misleading
  by Martin Shackelford (Saginaw, MI USA)
This is an interesting collection of French and American erotic films. Unfortunately, the narration provides quite an inaccurate history of the subject. Turning the sound off enhances the quality of this collection, alas.

Martin Shackelford
Saginaw, Michigan

1/5 Lame
  by Jett Black (Earth)
Don't waste your time with this one. It is completly edited. Cinimax is edgier. seriously. check out that erotica from the 30's 40's 50's series instead.