Customer Reviews

A History of X: 100 Years of Sex in Film

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The PW review really summed it up -- this book is poorly edited, incoherent, meandering, and filled with shameful generalizations about the nature of men, women, and sex (and Jews, and...). If it weren't about the only book out there that even bothers to attempt to review the history of porn movie making (with most of its focus on the California era of the 70's through the 90's), it would deserve one star -- or less.

As it is, its facts are wrong, its gossip misleading, and its author clearly conflicted about his love and loathing of sexually explicit entertainment. But it is an interesting enough read (perhaps in the train wreck sense) that I finished the book. I didn't learn much more than I already knew, however. The shame of it is, this could have been a really good book, had some editor taken Ford firmly in hand and made him shape his chapters into a coherent form. It's not for nothing that the man has earned fame as a porn industry watcher; Ford has a trashy tabloid style that certainly grabs the attention (and there's nothing wrong with trashy tabloidism in its place!). But instead of guidance, he was handed a book contract and allowed to ramble without rein. The result is sad and unworthy of being clad between two covers. Blog-like ramblings on a website are one thing; I expect more rigorousness from a book I'm supposed to pay for.

The Publisher's Weekly review says it all: let me add that Luke Ford's "A History of X" must rank as the most poorly written and worst edited book ever published; I cannot recall ever having read a worse book all the way through (yet I did, in widely spaced sessions, read it all the way through -- I did not abandon it, which is one of two good things I can say about the book).

Aside from the author's lack of coherence and a pitiful grasp of syntax, there are numerous errors (Ford simply can't add; when he mentions the passage of time, it is enough to strain credulity). The errors (I am a professional editor by the way) are SO numerous, I started underlining them after the first two dozen pages to calm my rage. An extremely inept writer, Ford uses liberal doses of quotations that sometimes fill half the page (albeit, in different blocks on the same page) as he seemingly is unable to paraphrase or mold source material into his own voice. Ford will present a quote and not even try to interpret it or question its validity. For instance, he uses a quote saying that John C. "Johnny Wadd" Holmes (whose woebegone life inspired the film BOODIE NIGHTS) was a true bisexual who willingly engaged in homosexual acts in his gay films, a questionable assertion; I have read more than once that Holmes despised being reduced to making gay pornos and had "elevator trouble" on the sets.

Other examples of a questionable use of quotes come in his recap of the career of Russ Meyer, the most respected (by the mainstream; I don't know if that is true with industry insiders) pornographer ever to make a dirty movie. In his discussion of Russ Meyer's BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS on pp. 106-7, Ford writes that critics "disagree" (note that he does not use the past tense) with Meyer's own assessment that B.V.D. is his best film. Yet, Leornard Maltin in his "1996 Movie & Video Guide" gives the film three out of four stars and notes that two "prominent critics" picked the film for their 10 best American films of the 1968-78 decade! In other words, this film (which I first saw in Boston 21 years ago as a midnight cult film that brought great guffaws of appreciation from the audience -- the theater was packed!) IS appreciated by the critics (that was why Ford's use of the present tense is important; I don't know if the film was dismissed critically in 1969, but he's flat wrong to say it currently is disdained; I've read that if Meyer's MUDHONEY, a steamy "Tobacco Road" style story had been shot in French, it would be considered a masterpiece; when discussing Meyer, he never mentions his inspirations such as Erskine Caldwell or the cultural background of Calvinistic guilt that the World War 2 G.I. generation confronted, and which likely was old hat by the explosion of hardcore; no analysis of the generation gap here). Ford backs his dismissal of Meyer's film with a quote calling B.V.D. an "atrocious film". (This is EXTREMELY questionable.) What is not discussed is that BVD was a big money-maker for 20th Century Fox, and its success was instrumental in that studio financing Meyer's filming of Harold Robbins' THE SEVEN MINUTES. In 1969-70, the Hollywood studios were reeling financially and the old guard was in shock, fighting a rearguard action against boards of directors and stockholders reacting to the astronomical success of EASY RIDER, which was made on the cheap as were Russ Meyer's profitable softcore movies, which is the reason why 20th Century Fox turned to him. This pivotal background is not discussed by Ford, who seemingly disdains Meyer. He also uses a quote of Meyer on the same page in which Meyer claims that the softcore pornography game was up for him as soon as hardcore became popular, but the fact is Meyer continued to make profitable films for seven years after DEEP THROAT was a national sensation in 1972. Ford's marshalling of quotes makes for a losing battle.

Ford's sense of style and pacing are atrocious: on that I think critics WILL agree. The poorness of this book may be attributable to the wholesale layoff of copy editors by publishers. On page 29, a paragraph relates, in the words of journalist cum pornographer Mike McGrady, how the spoof NAKED CAME THE STRANGER was conceived in a "gin mill," a memorable phrase of my father's G.I. generation. (The quote, about the alcholic consumption of alcohol by writers in that era, is no way relevant to the story, by the way.) However, the force of this turn of language is dissipated when the term gin mill is repeated in the quote in the next sentence (Ford's quotes do run-on, like my own sentences) and is completely obviated when Ford -- now in his own voice -- uses the same phrase gin mill without any irony or consciousness of style in the very next paragraph -- with only one sentence without the now worn-out phrase intervening between McGrady's voice and his own!

This book is a pure excercise in amateurishness in both style and contruction. There are hardly any transitions between the stories his material relates, and there is a lack of interconnecting material to elucdiate for us why two stories are placed next to each other. A HISTORY OF X seems to be a rough draft which never had seen the hands of an editor of any experience, published with little regard to quality (thus mimicking the very genre it chronicles). Sometimes, the material in adjacent paragraphs is not even related to each other.

Factual errors include attributing the production of BONNIE AND CLYDE to the post-1968 dropping of the ratings code (the film, a nominee for Best Picture of 1967, was shot in 1966 and its success, along with that of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, was instrumental in dooming the code) [p.31]. We are told that porn actress Kelly Nichols "did three mainstream films in the summer of 1983....A few years later, Nichols was Jessica Lange's stunt double in the remake of KING KONG" [p. 170]. In the planet I inhabit, as do most readers, the remake of KING KONG that introduced the world to Jessica Lange was released in 1976!!!! (Lange had already won the first of her two Oscars by the time KING KONG introduces her to the public on Planet Ford.)

Then, there is his inability to add: 1980 comes 10 years (rather than a decade, which one could allow) after 1969 [p. 30]. After running through a chronology of Linda Lovelace's life (born in 1950) which brings her up to the years 1969-70, two sentences later she moves to Florida and it is 1967 (what did she use; a time machine?) [p. 45]

I will give Ford credit for the chapter about the Mafia's involvement in the porno business; I was not aware of the extent of its control over the industry (a subject skirted by the film BOOGIE NIGHTS). However, I was irritated about Ford's handling of the Supreme Court's 1973 Miller decision, which applied community standards to porno and put the brake on the whole party until the skyrocketing sales of VCRs in the 1980s. While Miller is mentioned frequently, I never felt that Ford truly elucidated the deleterious effects the decision had on the development of the pornographic film industry or on the arts and entertainment industry in the US as a whole. The decision is just not given the WEIGHT it deserves in the text, though I must concede, this may be an honest matter of different interpretations.

My point is, though, there is precious little interpretation or application of authorial skill to the telling of this fascinating story. A HISTORY OF X is slapdash effort that should shame the publishing house, Prometheus Books.

"I'm a star," Dirk Diggler says in BOOGIE NIGHTS working off a riff in a Sly Stone song, but the only reason Ford's book gets a star is because amazon.com won't allow someone to give NO STARS. (Although they do alow an author to rate his own book; how tacky, but so is this whole sorry production.)

One of society's most controversial areas of discussion is pornography. Most books written about that industry usually trash the filmmakers, actors and actresses calling them depraved, perverted, and indecent and morally corrupt. Luke Ford delves into the industry with a brash, unbiased viewpoint to give you a first hand look at what goes on.

Talking about Marilyn Chambers, John Holmes, Traci Lords, Linda Lovelace Ginger and Amber Lynn, Ford shows the behinds the scenes stories of how these people got into the business and what they are doing to promote their work.

Ford, who amazingly enough does not work in the pornography industry, takes an almost unheard of position of impartiality, to show you that everything you have heard may in fact not be the whole truth. Ford's ability to be objective throughout the book is a refreshing change.

Although this book is graphic in some parts and the details may take you a step back when you read them, the book does give the reader a new insight into the pornography industry. Whether you agree or disagree with what these people do for a living, The History of X may have you thinking a whole new way.

Somewhere, buried in this book, is some interesting, little-known information. This author would seem to have a lot of the inside dope on the subject - he's obviously followed the subject for many years. So it's worth a read if you are REALLY interested and can manage the author's, uh... "style."

Because this author can't write worth beans. Everything previously reviewers have alleged about him is true, and more. If there was *any* copy editing or checking involved, it's not obvious. This book IS rambling, discursive, contradictory, aimless, and badly organized.

A passion for pointless footnotes masks not only all this literary chaos but also a very weird, murky, attitude that can only be described as self-loathing. It's like the old crime magazines that used to glorify sex and violence by publicly deploring it - in lengthy and graphic detail. Why somebody who so clearly despises his topic should spin his wheels so furiously about it escapes me.

If you can find this book at a library, yard sale, or etc. it might be worth reading once over lightly. But pay full hardback price for it only if you've got money to burn.

As somebody has already written: surely there must be a better basic source on the subject?

Fo someone who has never seen, read, watched, anything on the adult industry, this book is sensational. For most people however, it is merely a way for Mr Ford to get rich, by presenting a rather dull narrative of re-hashed garbage about the adult film industry. I suggest potential book buyers visit one of Mr Ford's websites, read the same thing for free and save your money.

A history of pornographic film that achieves neither coherence nor climax, Ford's book suffers from the disregard for narrative and production values typical of pornography. Though Ford (who runs two Web sites covering the porn business) makes sporadic efforts at delineating the development of sex in films, such attempts tend to get derailed by his rambling, defensive discussions of favorite porn figures and by collections of often contradictory quotations, grouped approximately by topic. Even when a particular subject catches Ford's interest -- the Cosa Nostra, for instance, discussed at length in Chapter 5 -- he fails to shape it into a readable story. Nonetheless, such interludes of relative lucidity offer a welcome respite from Ford's offensive generalizations about, among others, Jews ("Though only two percent of American population, Jews dominate porn"). Perhaps most disturbing of all, Ford doesn't appear to be especially well-informed on his topic; he barely mentions gay porn and the vast majority of his many, many plot synopses are quoted from other sources. He's not even clear on whether porn should have plot and character or whether they're just annoying distractions. Finally, there's not much new here. Even porn devotees will find little of interest, unless the pictures (not seen by PW) prove more alluring than the text, which reads like a very rough draft.

this is an ok book for those who like to read ANYTHING about the porn stars we so love. i preferred jerry butlers raw talent for more of an "inside" personal touch.

This is a hystorical recapturance of the pornogoraphy industry, that fails to bring its readers;clarity, objectivity and history as well as worthy information. Although this book attemps to uncover the thesis that it presents, it fails drasticly making it the most unclear, piece of work i have read. The reader may be delighted by the evidence that is provided in the book, in order validate the claims being made, it again fails by allowing an overtake of these evidence, abandoning the whole point at hand. In the end this is a poor example of writing, and a unuseful source of information, that can be better obtained and understood by the sources that set out to validate a non existant and unclear thesis and objective.

I was appalled by this book, because what is presented as a history lesson is actually nothing more than a spoof on the sex industry.

Mr. Ford mixes bizarre personal commentary about sex with rote listings of historical content. I did not feel I could take anything here as fact. The presentation is strikingly tabloid, as gossip is frequently intermingled throughout the text with unsupported fact.

Furthermore, there is nothing new or enlightening here. Accusations of Mafia involvement in the X industry are left wholly unsubstantiated. The role of HIV is sensationalized, but not of any real information value. Mr. Ford fails to offer a single documented case either of Mafia involvement or actual HIV impact on the X industry.

The book focuses on the sex industry's golden period from the mid-eighties to the late nineties. However, in terms of the stars, commentary and history, this book could just as well have been written 15 years ago. Apparently nothing much has changed or happened in the sex industry in that time by Mr. Ford's account. If the sex industry is so stagnant, why bother to write a book about it at all?

I also question the very specious sources quoted and footnoted by Mr. Ford, primarily pornographers and sex industry magazines.

I was appalled by this book, because what is presented as a history lesson is actually nothing more than a spoof on the sex industry.

Mr. Ford mixes bizarre personal commentary about sex with rote listings of historical content. I did not feel I could take anything here as fact. The presentation is strikingly tabloid, as gossip is frequently intermingled throughout the text with unsupported fact.

Furthermore, there is nothing new or enlightening here. Accusations of Mafia involvement in the X industry are left wholly unsubstantiated. The role of HIV is sensationalized, but not of any real information value. Mr. Ford fails to offer a single documented case either of Mafia involvement or actual HIV impact on the X industry.

The book focuses on the sex industry's golden period from the mid-eighties to the late nineties. However, in terms of the stars, commentary and history, this book could just as well have been written 15 years ago. Apparently nothing much has changed or happened in the sex industry in that time by Mr. Ford's account. If the sex industry is so stagnant, why bother to write a book about it at all?

I also question the very specious sources quoted and footnoted by Mr. Ford, primarily pornographers and sex industry magazines.