Background:
Yeah, people were probably trying to make porn a few minutes after Dauguerre first walked out of the darkroom. And I love those sleazy 1930s exploitation classics like Sex Madness and Reefer Madness. But for me, porn in the U.S. pretty much began when adult bookstore owners started importing Lasse Braun film loops and running them in old nickelodeons. On the Left Coast, early porn folks were grinding out shorties as well, and even a few "feature" films. These never made to the bigger movie theaters like Mona and Behind the Green Door, but instead were underground hits that didn't post the showtimes--the reel restarted after they could rewind it and do some basic cleaning. No one really knows when Tomatoes first debuted, some say 1968, one reel says 1970, no one knows for sure. The druggy laid-back feel probably places it in the Bay Area. It may not be the first feature porno ever, but it's one of the earliest smutflix American perverts put out.

Basic Info:
Title: Tomatoes
Year: 1968-1970
Director: Joel Poete

Cast:
Donna Nation
Stephanie Sarver
Heather Starr
Anna Travers

Plot:
Simple but not often duplcated: Upstanding Stanley is hired by Mr. Watson to collect the rent in his apartment building stuffed with insatiable harlots. While Stanley starts out as a conscientious young man, the whores continue to prefer defiling Stanley instead of breaking out the checkbook. Each new door represents a trip further into his sexual freedom (or moral laziness, depending on your view). By the end of the film, Stanley is high as a kite, and leading the whole building in a big orgy. Orgies were popular back then, that's what I read in Penthouse. I don't know why that died off, changing times I suppose.

And yes! You can still experience late 1960s pornography with all its mod music, bushy cunts and Beach Boy's haircuts. Pay a visit to Something Weird Video and pick up Bucky's Dragon Art Theatre Triple XXX Double Feature, vol. 13.