Not too many good films about

[DavidS]

The American hard core film/video market seemed to lose the plot about two decades ago and hardly ever produce anything now of good quality. Sadly the European market seems to be going the same way and although occassionally a film of reasonable standard comes out, it is very much the exception rather than the rule. It is not entirely clear why this is happening. possibly the trade find that it is possible to make more money from poor quality low budget stuff than to invest in higher standards. Clearly we live in a different world than we did a quarter of a century ago when actors and actresses of talent were prepared to appear in porn films but that is no longer the case. Also the generation of directors who moved from the quality soft core market and made hard core are now all retired or dead. Is there a niche European label still making quality films that I have missed or have we got to make do with the best of the rather poor selection that appears to be all that is available?

[Deuce Bigolo]

If it sells they will keep making them like that-BOTTOM LINE

I still find it hard to believe that all titles roughly sell the same amount of units but if true there isn't much hope for the high end

So much produce about that finding the Classy stuff requires a team of private eyes at your disposal

One of the Mods best summed it up a while back when he said softcore scenes out of hollywood have more eroticism than the Porn of today

Eroticism is what real classy porn brings to the fore

What to do when nothing of today floats your boat,head back to the past I'd suggest

cheers
B....OZ

[Len801]

Porn films with plots were the only way to go in the early 1970's. As soon as the porn gates were opened in Sweden/Denmark in the late 1960's, there was nothing but porn magazines and porn loops being offered. The only one that seemed to be making porn with some class and plot line was Lasse Braun (Lasse soon segued those loops like TROPICAL, PERVERSION, CASANOVA, OH PARIS, LOVE IN SCANDINAVIA, etc with actual feature films starring Brigitte Maier).
As soon as the Americans got on the bandwagon, they did a number of pseudo documentaries like CENSORSHIP IN DENMARK, SEXUAL FREEDOM IN DENMARK, WIDE OPEN COPENHAGEN ?70, SEXUAL COMMUNICATION, A HISTORY OF THE BLUE MOVIE, , HOLLYWOOD BLUE, MAKING THE BLUE MOVIE, PERSONALS. But that too was soon ditched when the feds could not stop the flow of hard-core. Censorship in mainstream films also fell in the late 1960's being replaced nationwide with the rating system.
Putting a plot line in hard-core films was a wise choice at the time. It would have been difficult for the authorities to bring up a porn film on obscenity charges. The whole film had to be considered for its ?artistic? merits and not just the naughty parts. Then by the late 1980's it became a question of community standards. So out went the ?nasties?, the incest-themed movies, the violent s/m, and slowly the films with plot lines were discarded by most porn producers. The only ones that continued to produce porn film with plot lines were Vivid, VCA, Wicked, Adam & Eve and Sin City to mention the major ones (by and large they were more interested in the cable and satellite market, than selling/renting their product through the traditional video and sex shops). In addition they started the shoot safe-sex scenes with male actors wearing condoms. By the late 1990's most of the American porn film produced were of the gonzo all-sex type with no or little pretense of a plot (and no condoms). They were easy to make, did not require large outlays of cash, and they were easy easy to market to a public that only to watch men and women just having sex.
The Europeans never got around to this new way of doing things. Their local market was relatively small, and they did not have large aspirations to sell their product outside of their own countries. Today the only Euro producers who sell their product pretty well all over the world is Private and they dub their product in several languages. But their recent large budget films like CLEOPATRA and GLADIATOR have not been critical or fan favorites. Video Marc Dorcel has an agreement with Wicked, and most of their French product is now released in the USA by them. But these are rare examples. Euro product made in Italy, France, Germany, Spain is basically for local consumption, and they prefer to make films with plot lines. Pink?O in Italy is recently trying to mix plot with gonzo and making films that last some 150-180 minutes.
While there are dozens and dozens of hard-core directors working in Los Angeles churning out over 11,000 porn film per year, there are only a handful directors in each of the Euro countries doing films (with plot lines). They only makes a handful of films per year. While porn actresses from the Eastern European countries are either busy in (eastern) Europe making films for the US market (by Christopher Clark, Rocco Siffredi, by US porn directors who frequently travel there) or by traveling to the US, the same cannot be said of actresses from western Europe (only a handful of actresses from France like Katsumi, none from Italy, hardly none from Spain). You can see the sharp contrast in a European actresses? filmography with her US counterpart. Generally Euro actresses have only a handful of films to their credit, while US actresses who have worked far lesser years have made double, triple, quadruple the number of porn films. Tiffany Mynx (active since 1992) has made about 400 films to date. Jessica Darlin (active since 1997) about 200 films. Bella Donna has been active since 2000 with a total of about 200 films, and has even made films during her recent pregnancy. Pretty Euro actress Monica Sweetheart has made over 200 films in the last 5 years, but mostly for US producers. Jayna Oso (active since 2002) has made some 150 films. Ariana Jollee (active since 2002) has done over 230 films, and has even branched out as a director.
The Europeans cannot compete with the quality and quantity of the US product and appear to be transfixed at making only a handful of plot-themed films per year. Unfortunately I don?t know whether Euro directors lurk in this forum and whether they have commented publicly either here or elsewhere about this situation. It would certainly be interesting to hear their comments. But I agree that the older generation of Euro directors were more attuned in producing films with plot themes. Why such a situation continues, is a mystery to me, since it has little economic sense. I have some ideas but no real hard facts to support my personal suspicions.

[zushiomaru]

http://vod.hotmoviesforher.com/video/12 ... ge=finnish
out on dvd, i guess in English,w interviews by MC von Hellen himself(= Alex de Renzy!)

lots more vintage, not that much european,tho..