Dave Cummings

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There are some really great shots of Angel Dark, Lucy Love, Ellen Saint, Claudia Rossi, Monica Sweetheart, et al.

There is also some interesting titbits in an interview with the photographer, Vittoria Perzan. She talks about gaining access to porn sets and having to dress down and look scruffy when she takes photographs on set or the actresses tend to get stroppy with her. There is also this interesting comment:

"But I also think that it's true to say that if you are not taking part in the sex yourself, you will be aware of this quite off-putting, almost 'hormonal' smell that sometimes occurs when the actors are having sex. It's not sweat, it's almost chemical, this thing that happens when two bodies are locked together in the sexual act. If you're there from the beginning you probably wouldn't notice it, but if you come into the room from the outside, you certainly do! Maybe it's similar to that smell of fear that adrenalin produces."

The book is generally positive of the porn industry and poses the question of pornography as high class art.

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Here's a review from Publisher's Weekly,

This compulsively readable book perfectly captures the pop culture zeitgeist. It doesn't hurt that the history of American pornography is inextricably intertwined with all the subjects that captivate us: sex, drugs, beauty, fame, money, the Mafia, law enforcement and violence. McNeil (Please Kill Me) focuses on the industry's dark underbelly: suicide (Savannah), fratricide (the Mitchell brothers), Mafia hits (John Gotti whacked Robert DiBernardo, the mob's point man in the porn business) and gangland slayings (John Holmes). But beyond the scintillating subject, it's McNeil's skillful technique that elevates this oral history, coauthored by journalists Osborne and Pavia, above the tedium of a courtroom transcript.
Most chapters contain multiple story lines, which McNeil cleverly weaves together by the end. And the book's two most fascinating stories—about the making of Deep Throat and the Traci Lords child pornography case—involve unreliable narrators, which gives them a Rashomon-like quality. In the case of Deep Throat, the movie that catapulted hardcore pornography into the mainstream, its star, Linda Lovelace, claims she was forced to perform in the movie, though everyone else connected to the film contradicts her. As for Lords, her detractors make a compelling argument that far from being the victim she portrays herself to be in her book, she deceived the industry about her age so she could make a fortune and leverage her sob story into a mainstream Hollywood career. Whether recounting high-profile scandals or answering trivia about the origins of porn films and lap dancing, this is a relentlessly gripping read. B&w photos.

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Edited by - joey starr on 1/25/2006 5:52:31 PM

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Edited by - Tinaka on 1/25/2006 6:01:10 PM

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Edited by - phatbasey on 1/25/2006 8:51:17 PM

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I note that both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk have the book available on pre-order (with a February 6 2006 release date) at a slightly cheaper price - about US $25 and 14 UK pounds, respectively.

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I have a copy of The Other Hollywood , but there are too many quotes by the former publisher of AVN for the book to have any credibility.

--t

tod-hunter.net. Porn. Politics. Mainstream.

Edited by - todhunternet on 1/26/2006 11:32:03 PM

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Steve Holmes

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For interesting insights on porn, I recommend Naked Ambition or Pornucopia.

For a partial fact/partial fiction book which is more a compilation of interviews from past journalists, you could read The Other Hollywood.

The AVN one is good if you are a big porn watcher and want to see some great movies which you may have missed. The top 10 lists make it interesting, but there aren't any anecdotes about the porn business.

The Big Porn of Porn is very pretty to look at and a very entertaining read. I'm a little biased in my one complaint though: the '5 modern classics' are listed as Loaded, Les Vampyres, Misty Beethoven: The Musical, Sex Angels and Repo Girl. Does anyone really thing that more than 2 of those movies will be talked about more than 5 years from now? Somehow Fashionistas, listed in pretty much every other top 10 list I've seen, is not mentioned once in the entire book. C'est la vie.

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However, I was disappointed that it was such a clip-job, esp. after all the years the book had been talked about. I also thought it was surprisingly weak in the final chapters when it dealt with people I've actually interviewed. The extensive footnotes from Luke Ford were a tad scary (though I read Luke for entertainment purposes).

There's a million stories in the Naked Valley. I'm glad he stopped where he did.

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To which I add: Bingo.

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