Film History Is Framed In Blue

NEWARK, Del. (TNA) – Thomas Edison is often credited as the inventor of the film camera, but there’s a good possibility he may have also been America’s first pornographer.

At least that’s a theory from Dave Thompson, author of “Black and White and Blue: Adult Cinema From the Victorian Age to the VCR” (ECW Press).

Edison received a patent for the camera in 1891 and while few films from that era exist, Thompson says he’s pretty sure that sex was one of the first activities committed to celluloid.

A sexy scene from 'New York Honeymoon,' a stag film made in 1950

He also says it’s possible Edison was responsible for the first adult film.

“Edison was quite a showman,” Thompson said. “He knew early on that sex and violence were going to be popular with filmgoers. And he raised a lot of controversy by filming women performing risqué dances.”

Although there is no proof that Edison ever filmed actual sex, Thompson says there is evidence suggesting the inventor made lots of films that were never catalogued and some of those may include explicit sex scenes.

Whether or not Edison was a pornographer, Thompson says that the earliest filmmakers were quick to jump on the idea of filming sex.

For instance, he says when the first film camera arrived in Brazil, it was almost immediately used to film sex, and when the Shah of Iran bought a camera back in 1900, he ordered one of his minions to make a porn film.

It took a few years before cameras became cheap enough for the plebeians, but by the 1920s there was a cottage industry of aspiring filmmakers filming the lower classes getting down and dirty.

In fact, one clever coal miner in Cripple Creek, Colo., may have been responsible for making the first erotic infomercial. Thompson says the miner had an interest in photography and convinced his bosses to let him borrow a camera.

Then he went to a local bordello and filmed the ladies playing with each other. He would show the results to his fellow miners and many of them soon scampered to the whorehouse hoping to find the women from the films.

Soon, adult movies earned the title “stag movies,” since they would usually be shown to all-male audiences at men’s clubs. Unlike today’s average porn viewers, who usually have discerning tastes about what kind of woman they like to see naked, Thompson says that back then the filmmakers and viewers were just happy to find women willing to perform sex on camera.

“To me, the appeal of those early stag films is that the performers could be anyone – your neighbor, your librarian,” he said. “Usually, just finding someone willing to have sex on camera was enough.”

Surprisingly for Thompson, money wasn’t always the main motivating factor for the women who performed in the early pornos.

“For many, just being on camera was enough,” Thompson said. “Cameras were still new and the idea of `being in the pictures’ was thrilling.”

Thompson found this out firsthand while doing research for the book. One of his neighbors, an elderly grandmother, confessed to him that she had appeared in quite a few stag films during the 1930s.

She told Thompson that she started out doing the films for the money and earned $100 per film – a lot of money during the Great Depression. But she also enjoyed the sex, and admitted some of her on-the-job training was put to good use when she married.

She even told him that when her husband was away during World War II, she considered going back to the business for a few extra bucks.

Thompson says his neighbor’s enjoyment of her work was fascinating to him because it seemed to contradict one of the myths surrounding the early stag films: That the women were junkies and hookers coerced into making the films.

“There’s this idea that the women are shitty actresses coerced into making the films,” Thompson said. “But if you watch the films, you realize that if they were coerced, then they must be good actresses to be able to depict that level of excitement or joy.

“They’re either shitty actresses enjoying the sex, or good actresses pretending they’re enjoying it. You can’t have it both ways.”

Thompson says the clandestine nature of stag films means it’s nigh impossible to track down who made which films and when. That’s probably why his book is one of the first serious studies of this little-appreciated genre of film.

He hopes the book changes that for good.

“There needs to be more study done about stag films because they’re the only living documentary of American and worldwide sexual practices in the 20th century,” Thompson said. “You can see how values about sex changed before World War II and afterwards.

“American soldiers learned a lot about sex in Europe,” Thompson said. “Sex was very basic before World War II and became more adventurous afterwards. The swinging scene of the 1950s and ‘60s was an outgrowth of the U.S. military in World War II.”

Although porn is more mainstream than ever, Thompson feels nostalgic for the days of old when stag movies had an illicit allure. Still, he believes what makes early 20th century erotic films so appealing to him is alive and kicking.

“Amateur porn is ‘the stag rides again,’” Thompson said. “It’s the true spirit of stag because the performers are in it for a degree of glory, not riches.”