Customer Reviews

Cut Throat Business: I Am Having the Last Word

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I totally agree with S.K.'s review, and have a hard time figuring what book the good reviews were from. I tried to read it, but could only get about half way through it. It seems like they printed the original unedited manuscript. I can overlook a few typo's, but this filled with either no editing or really bad editing that it became too much of a chore to continue reading. After skimming chapters in the last half of the book I found that it just continues to read like a first draft manuscript. I finally gave up trying to read this manuscript about half way through the book......Aside from that this isn't really about the creative side of the industry, but rather about the packaging and distribution aspect of the adult film industry. It would be like reading about the rigors of a corporate mail room to get a picture of what the coporation is really like. It would basically be viewing the corporation from the bottom looking up. If you're interested in the behind the scenes look and the perspectives of those involved with the actual filming of adult films, then this is definately not the book you're looking for.

I just finished reading this book for the second time, and, I have to admit, I liked it better, much better, the second time around. You see, I originally read the first edition and was put off by the poor writing style that some of the reviews have noted. Then, on the insistence of a friend, I shelled out some coin for the second edition and settled down for what turned out to be quite a good read. Yes, the current second edition is well written and properly edited. I don't know if the first edition was released by mistake, before the editor had finished the job or if the second edition was sent back to the editor after some of the comments below. Either way, the results are great and the book now has a life of it's own. In any event, my point is that this book is a great compliment to round out any book you buy about this industry. It tells the story of ordinary people in the not so ordinary world of adult film. It's not about hype or glam or the attempted legitimization of this industry. It is, however, all about the happenings down in the trenches of the world of porn and it makes no excuses for what takes place. It is what it is!

So, I say to you, ignore the older reviews of the first edition of this book as they are absolutely obsolete and do no relate to the current edition. I think the author does a good job at describing the type of people she worked with and the actual happenings inside an adult film studio. No, it does not detail the set up for shooting scenes, contain explicitly detailed sex scenes (something I think some of the reviews were looking for and didn't find, and that's what put them off), or have X-Rated photos inside to "stimulate" more than just your mind. It does, however, tell a compelling story that really gets beneath the varnish and exposes the core of an industry that is truly operating on the fringes of legality in every sense of the word. I liked the fact that the author tells us about the industry as seen through her eyes, not the eyes of a ghostwriter or rose-colored glasses. She takes us along with her on her journey through the inner-workings of a morally corrupt industry and shows us the real people behind the scenes. In some ways this is akin to reading a daily journal or diary as it seems to have taken the highlights from her experiences and dispenses with the mundane filler.

To sum it up, I was pleasantly surprised by this book and I think you will be too, so be certain to pick up a copy (second edition) and judge for yourself.

(Negative stars not permitted, unfortunately...)

Believe the bad reviews written here by burned customers. The positive reviews must be written either by the author or people indebted to her.

This is an AWFUL "book" -- and I use the term loosely. I would have thought that a worse book about the porn industry than Luke Ford's could not have been written , but I would have been wrong.

This, uh, OBJECT is definitely on my list of all-time worst books *ever* published. In fact, the general appearance of the book indicates it may be a vanity press affair -- odd type face, double-spaced lines (!!!), lack of standard publishing info, etc.

It is a sub-literate effort. Badly spelled, with poor grammar and syntax, each plodding 5th-grade declarative sentence piled onto the last one in an endless tedious progression. It is PAINFUL to read!

Apart from being atrociously written, the overall story also manages to be somehow both boring and trivial. It's not even good gossip, just the settling personal grudges by someone who is, maybe, not the sharpest pencil in the box. So-and-so is mean; somebody else is a drunk; another guy is an OK guy. Pow! Zap! Dull! Pointless! And as someone has already pointed out, this screed is only very VERY tenuously related to anything at all to do with the adult film industry.

You'll be annoyed at the incompetence and aimlessness of this effort, and I guarantee will learn nothing significant. Save your money - sooner or later somebody will write a decent book about adult movies.

I bought this book on the recommendation of someone on this page. Assuredly, you can read the tremendous endorsement on one of the above posts.

Me, being literate, I find this book to be a complete joke.

The grammar and writing style are on the level of a 2nd grader. I understand fully that English is not the author's mother tongue, in which case the call for (need for) an editor is all the more glaring. I assure you there was no editorial process done on this abortion! The grammatical errors and blatent misspellings in this book are extremely distracting, at best. The sentence structure is a joke. I should provde samples of what I refer to, but I am too lazy. I could quote a quip from virtually *any* page and it would make any thinking human's hair stand on end.

Also please know, as I did not realize, then when they refer to this book as describing the porn "video" industry, please understand...that this is actually about the cut/splice/duplication aspect of the creation of VHS tapes. Not the shooting of the tapes or anything like that...just how the raw footage is made into the final VHS product. Who cares??!

This book is a joke and on a 1-10 scale, I would rate it -21.

I have to join the consesus on this one. This book is strictly amateur hour with its numerous typo-s, awful diction and just plain poor writing. (It should be noted that the author makes indications that English is not her native tongue . . . Duh!) With the book jacket's limited information, you're also likely to assume that this book was written by an adult film actress (Why else would she only give her first initial?!) when in actuality all this women did was edit porn films and design their video/DVD jackets. Needless to say, there is nary any insight to film shoots. (I myself know learned more from merely working as an "extra" on a lark one time.) Between the lines there ar also some hints of Anti-Semitism, followed immediately by the writer denying any sort of racism.

So when it all boils down, what is the author's bold observation about the adult industry -- That everyone is a self-serving, money-grubbing scumbag. This 'shocking' revelation indicates that she must started her new job within minutes of clearing Customs.

Welcome to Los Angeles, Lady -- Where you don't have to be in the porn industry in order to get screwed . . .

I did simply buy purchasing this book.

The positive reviews on this book are clearly written by the author or her friends. The book is extremely poorly written, being full of basic grammitical errors and incorrect spelling. The story is really a non-event about a women spending 2 years and 7 days working in the back office of video porn distributors. About her working long hours and being "good" at her job. It came across as a big complaining session about her former work collegues. I say "who cares"! The book was simply painful to read. A mildly retarded 4 year old could have done better. All I have to say is don't waste your money on this book.

When I first started to read this book, I thought it was going to be yet another porn star cashing in on their last moments of fame. I guess the author had some things to tell, and did!
We can't always please all readers or races, but some can't ignore the fact that what the author says is what many people feels but don't come out and says it outloud, about porn, race and religion. I agree that it can be touchy but hey, it is freedom of speech and why not excersise it, the porn companies do. Why not just take this very straight forward book about porn and many other things for what it is, the ugly and dark truth about people, about porn and how those two affects the involved. If you didn't like what the author had to say about black population well is that because you are black or because it is the truth, most of the time it is the truth that hurts, and see it in print may not make matters any better. I am black and I can't agree more in what the author said in the book. Political correct or not, or simply cold hard facts it is all up to you.

Save your money. Don't buy this book. The author was, and maybe still is, a "behind the scenes" worker who did adult film editing and compilations for small companies. She tells us about the people she has worked for and with. It is obvious that she thinks that many of the senior people were extremely dishonest and subordinate workers were lazy and unreliable. She tells us about some of these people, but never paints a helpful picture. Hemingway she is not.

Several reviewers suggested that her descriptions are accurate. That may be so, but in my opinion the book is very badly written and tedious. I understand that English is not the native language of the author but is obvious that no editorial checking ever took place. The spelling and grammar are awful. Yet it was a quick read - it took me less than an hour. The book is about 200 pages long but with a very large font and double spacing. It would fill far less 100 pages with a regular font and normal single spacing.

The content is also very repetitious. In brief, the story could be told in a magazine article. But that would require writing skills far beyond those shown by Ms Bridge. The author never addresses one obvious question - why did she not get another job or at least find a company in the adult video industry that was not run by scumbags? She also never tells the reader much about the industry besides the shortcomings of those she has worked with.

If you want to read a well written book, try "Coming Attractions" by Stoller and Levine. It describes a production episode at the other end of the adult video spectrum.

This is, without a doubt, the worst book I have read in the last two decades. The author seems to be functionally illiterate, and the subject matter is just plain dull. The book apparently went to press without the benefit of proofreading, much less editing. Furthermore, I am convinced that the few positive reviews that appear below were written by the author's mother (or, perhaps, the author herself). In short, if you are considering buying this book, save your money, unless you are seeking a surefire cure for insomnia.

'Cut Throat Business' is a vanity-press book from 2003 that I bought here online many years ago and just got done reading and I do have to say that I'm shocked that it's actually available, via 3rd partysellers, at almost $14!! Whoa! Maybe those prices were arrived at prior to the current recession or this book is considered a cult-relic of everything not to do when self-publishing.

The plot of this 'tell-all' has already been described in other reviews here but: it's a story of a woman who works in the San Fernando Valley for a bottom-feeder porn outlet as an editor/post-production catch-all who is underpaid, lied to and treated abysmally by co-workers/bosses whom she can never trust. There's a story there, don't get me wrong, but Ms. C. Bridge never fleshes it out. For the money she was making ($500 a week at an editing bay!?) she could have worked at Rite-Aid and done better. What made her keep trying? What was it about the business that appealed to her in the first place? These aren't judgemental questions, but could have served as some background for her story.

Instead, 'Cut Throat' reads like an unedited unemployment arbitration letter. I think that's what she should have done- used it as the basis for a legal judgement for back pay. The disjointed, stream-of-consciousness style of the book speaks to her justified disgust with her particular employer and one can only hope this book was helpful to her. English is also not her first language, by her own admission, so the typos and syntax-bumbling deserved a read-through from a good friend before going to print.

My biggest issue with this book is that her brush is very wide and in her rush to have her last word, she blankets the adult industry with her own predjudices: Blacks are immature and untrustworthy; Jews run the industry and are synagogue hypocrites; every performer and production worker is a drug addict. I mean, really. No one will confuse the adult industry with a church revival, but her third-shift post-production job experience didn't have her in the mix of anything vast enough to base these generalizations on. Her distaste, and in some cases pity, for the adult performers are based on her executive producing an adult film herself with a partner and getting duped. I don't doubt that's infuriating but giving a partner some hundreds of dollars to score downtown L.A. despondents for a three-scene video doesn't seem too altruistic on her part either.

Her book aims to expose the industry but serves to expose not only the industry as gross but her own foibles as well. There are many stories to be told about the industry, this isn't one of them and it's not worth the money. Maybe as a blog, where she'd have had some time and spell-check to tell her story, it could have worked. Again, it's an old book and hopefully the author has found some peace of mind. As a purchase or an enlightening read, it's a rusted tank and what you get for the money--a hasty screed--is also pretty cut-throat.