The Halcyon Years of Adult Film Don’t get me wrong; I heartily enjoy recent releases such as Help! There’s a Black Man in my Wife’s Ass and Transsexual Heartbreakers Vol.22, but as the credits roll and I replay some of the films’ more tender moments, my post-orgasmic glow gives way to the sad realization that porn’s finest hour came and went before I was even born. It isn’t simply the absence of cogent, if not entirely plausible story lines and the truly gifted John Holmes, Marilyn Chambers and Linda Lovelace that I lament. Nor is it merely nostalgia for non-digital porn. I want to be lured into dark, suspect theaters by enticing advertisements promising nymphomaniac housewives and girls inexplicably going bad. X-Rated: Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s is a tribute to an era in which kitschy graphics and campy taglines not only sold sex, but also immortalized it. "I Feel it Coming: To him, every bed is a battlefield!!" (1971.) Genius. "Misfits…degenerates…caught in the act!!! See How They Come." (1968.) Now that's art. I'm not saying The Whole Ten Inches — an upcoming film not starring the comedy gold of Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis — won't be memorable, it just won't be worth remembering in forty years. — Grant Stoddard  scroll for more posters >>>

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