Okay, so it’s not more bondage-from-old-movies footage. But the named ‘Django’ and the word ‘Unchained’ actually do belong with each other thanks to a repulsive Quentin Tarantino film called ‘Django Unchained.’ Thus my excuse for moving from chained women to Django Reinhardt. Above is a remarkable short film of the
This extraordinary clip from ‘I Cover The Waterfront’ (1933) shows that kink in Hollywood was alive and well years before one might think. (I’m discounting so-called ‘adult’ films of the era). Here we see Claudette Colbert shackled up in a pillory and forced to submit to unasked for kisses. Of
Yesterday we watched a deeply strange BDSM musical number from a 1933 Eddie Cantor vehicle, staged by Busby Berkeley. Twenty-years later, the same mind that brought us slavegirls-on-parade came up with a fascinating, nightmarish concept for an Ann Miller number in ‘Small Town Girl’ (1953) called ‘I Gotta Hear That
Here’s a production number from the 1933 Eddie Cantor vehicle “Roman Scandals” that will leave you…well…I don’t know…it kind of depends on your pre-code tolerance for things that one doesn’t expect to see even in pre-code movies. I’ll leave it at that. Though the movie was directed by the underrated
All week we’ve been watching people disrobe without ever getting down to the skin. Today we’ll jump ahead to what happens once the clothing is removed–or, more accurately, what happens a couple of steps after the clothes have come off. It seems that in pre-Code era the act of taking
Yesterday we watched a Victorian-era woman undress without every getting anywhere near being clothes free. Today’s ancient peek into voyerisum, early-20th century style, consists of something even less revealing. It’s a short clip of three women thinking about disrobing. So little happens in this piece of film that must have
It appears that early ‘adult’ cinema included a genre that can only be referred to as ‘Undressing Porn’. But porn isn’t an accurate word in this case because the examples of this genre that I’m finding don’t really go much beyond the outer layer of undergarments. Perhaps it was a
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2U9wMtzcM Here’s a frustrating but fascinating reel highlighting a number of suggestive and alternative interactions between people from what one-hundred years later came to be known as the LGBTQ community. Aside from referencing some footage from pioneering German sexologistt Magnus Hirshfields scandalous 1927 ‘Laws Of Love’-an early ‘informational’ film on
From the moment the camera was invented, the desire to photograph erotica of any and all sorts came into being. Pornography in cinema goes back to the turn of the century and while much of the film is lost (but documented orally, so to speak) certain specimens survive that cannot
My interest this past week in period movie sword fights–we didn’t venture any further than 1940– was triggered (yes, I said triggered) by TCM’s showing of “Captain Blood” last weekend. So it’s only befitting that we end with he sword fight that kicked off this madness to begin with. Once