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‘The most profitable film ever made’: Deep Throat (1972), organized crime, and the $600 million gross
Abstract
This article provides a detailed analysis of the box-office performance of the controversial hardcore pornographic feature film Deep Throat (1972), the reported very high total revenue of which ($600 million) has become a topic of debate in wider media forums. The article provides a breakdown of both the film’s ongoing box-office earnings in the USA with a new data set and its accumulated total revenue across the world, in comparison with previous estimates that have been made and also with the performances of similar films of the period. It also investigates how Deep Throat was financed and the wider role of US organized crime in pornography in the 1970s. The article argues that the commercial success of Deep Throat was crucial to the evolution of the US pornography business in the golden age of porn after 1972, as it was a catalyst for the increased production of hardcore films that occurred across the 1970s. The film’s success also provided a main impetus for an extension westwards by East Coast crime syndicates, so that they could become involved in the porn industry in California.
This article examines the record-breaking box-office performance of pornography mogul David Sullivan’s 1977 film production Come Play with Me in substantial detail. This film was so successful that it remained on release at one London cinema for nearly four years and went on general release at around 1,000 cinemas across the UK. The article also considers the role that Mary Millington had in generating this ongoing box-office success and her associated capacity as a pornography superstar, who was fashioned as such by her patron David Sullivan. It then more briefly examines the box-office performance of the follow-up films made through the Millington-Sullivan combination. Finally, it considers the hypothesized notion of national porn culture by comparing some popular UK (Come Play with Me), US (Deep Throat), and French (Emmanuelle) pornography films from the 1970s, and then some porn/sex star actresses from the 1970s – Millington (British), Linda Lovelace (American) and Sylvia Kristel (Dutch/European) – as part of wider cinema trends and national film cultures.
Recently, there has been increasing academic interest in the historical foundations of the pornography business. However, these studies tend to focus on individual national contexts rather than exploring the transnational relationships that exist, or have existed, between these countries. This article considers how a transnational approach can further understandings of entrepreneurship in the pornography business. It suggests the need for an interdisciplinary framework to examine transnational enterprise in the pornography business, combining ideas from enterprise alongside criminology and economic geography to frame the enterprise history of the Netherlands-based company Your Choice. Based in Amsterdam, but run by British entrepreneurs, Your Choice’s activities can be dated back to the 1970s, specializing in the transnational distribution of hardcore pornographic films to customers in Britain, where the sale of such material is legally problematic. Drawing on ethnohistorical research, which includes primary interviews, workplace observation, and archival and doctrinal research, I use Your Choice as a case study to show how transnational entrepreneurship in the pornography business can create opportunities as well as help to manipulate restrictive laws and regulations. I also suggest that negotiating such legalities carries risk, as does the need to respond and adapt to ongoing shifts in the market.
This article attempts to evaluate both the popularity and the quantity of currently existing US pornography production studios through the use of DVD sales ranking data from two separate websites (adultdvdempire and cduniverse) and other measures. The article also considers how DVD pornography employs product branding techniques both in general terms and by considering a specific example of one studio in detail: Wicked Pictures, judged here to be the number one most popular studio (as gauged by sales rankings of the top 100/200 titles from the two websites mentioned). In the second part of the article, recent monopolistic changes to the structure of the US pornography industry are considered in relation to the rise of aggregator tube sites such as Pornhub and YouPorn, the function of the San Fernando Valley in California as a pornography industrial district, and the role of both MindGeek and the MetArt Network as umbrella company groupings in these recent developments.
Academic journals don't usually grab popular media attention. However, the press release announcing the launch of Porn Studies attracted a great deal of interest across the media in summer 2013. On balance, the announcement of the journal's launch was largely positive. There were, of course, attempts to poke fun at the silliness of academic investigations of pornography in keeping with the perennial accusations of the superficiality of media studies, as well as more negative coverage questioning the need for a publication of this kind. How, then, to introduce this first issue of a journal that has already garnered more news interest prior to its launch than most academic publications receive over decades? We want to start out with a statement of why we think a journal in porn studies is needed and what we hope Porn Studies will become.
The development of the web has increased the diversity of pornographic content, and at the same time the rise of online platforms has initiated a new trend of quantitative research that makes possible the analysis of data on an unprecedented scale. This paper explores the application of a quantitative approach to publicly available data collected from pornographic websites. Several analyses are applied to these digital traces with a focus on keywords describing videos and their underlying categorization systems. The analysis of a large network of tags shows that the accumulation of categories does not separate scripts from each other, but instead draws a multitude of significant paths between fuzzy categories. The datasets and tools we describe have been made publicly available for further study.
A fascinating overview of prostitution and sex work in the United States, from the Colonial era to today, examines the issue as it affects men, women, and transgender individuals of all races and classes.
Prostitution and Sex Work is the first book since 1921 to offer a historic overview of this controversial topic—and what our views on it say about American society. Exploring key people, places, and events, the guide includes descriptions of the myriad variations of the sale of sex and of the venues where prostitution occurs, as well as recurring themes such as panics about sexually transmitted diseases and the ever-present issue of violence in the sex trade.
After reviewing the history of prostitution and sex work over the past 400 years, the book offers detailed information about the legal context of prostitution in America during the last century. It focuses particularly on the period since prostitution was criminalized during a panic over "white slavery" in the early 20th century, drawing parallels with current "sex trafficking" topics. An appendix of materials produced by sex workers is especially informative for those wishing to truly understand both sides of the issue.
This book presents thought-provoking research and data about pornography that will prompt readers to reconsider their positions on a highly controversial and current issue.
Why do people use pornography? Is porn addiction a fact or myth? What is revenge porn and is it illegal? Can pornography be more diverse? This interdisciplinary collection presents well-researched facts and up-to-date data that encourage informed discussion about controversial and relevant issues in contemporary society. Chapters address topics such as the history and cultural trends of pornography, labor and production practices in creating porn, the effects of technology, current issues in obscenity law, and myths and facts about the effects of pornography.
New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law challenges assumptions about this popular yet controversial industry. Contributors include top scholars from media studies, sociology, psychology, gender studies, criminology, politics, and the law. This book provides a comprehensive overview of pornography that will help students, educators, and general readers deepen their understanding of this provocative subject.
At the end of World War II, Hollywood basked in unprecedented prosperity. Since then, numerous challenges and crises have changed the American film industry in ways beyond imagination in 1945. Nonetheless, at the start of a new century, Hollywood's worldwide dominance is intact — indeed, in today's global economy the products of the American entertainment industry (of which movies are now only one part) are more ubiquitous than ever. How does today's ‘Hollywood’ — absorbed into transnational media conglomerates such as NewsCorp., Sony and Viacom — differ from the legendary studios of Hollywood's Golden Age? What are the dominant frameworks and conventions, the historical contexts and the governing attitudes through which films are made, marketed and consumed today? How have these changed across the last seven decades? And how have these evolving contexts helped shape the form, the style and the content of Hollywood movies, from Singin' in the Rain to Pirates of the Caribbean? This book explains and interrogates the concept of ‘post-classical’ Hollywood cinema — its coherence, its historical justification and how it can help or hinder our understanding of Hollywood from the 1940s to the present. Integrating film history, discussion of movies' social and political dimensions and analysis of Hollywood's distinctive methods of storytelling, the book charts critical debates alongside the histories they interpret, while offering its own account of the ‘post-classical’.
We may know pornography when we see it, but the business of pornography is a surprisingly elusive subject. Reliable figures about the industry are difficult to come by and widely disputed, but one matter that is hardly debatable is that pornography is a major and ubiquitous enterprise. Porn allegedly accounts for one-third of all internet traffic currently, though the data about actual consumption is unclear. Reports in recent years have suggested that 70 million individuals visit porn sites every week; that among viewers aged 18-24, women watch more porn than men; and that among middle-aged, white-collar workers, three-quarters of men and half of women have admitted to looking at pornography websites while at work. While debates and emotions around porn can run high, there is a crucial need for reliable information and rational conversation. In this book, Shira Tarrant parses the wide range of statistics that we have on the pornography industry, sorting myth from reality in an objective, fascinating and knowledgeable fashion. She looks at ongoing political controversies around the industry, the feminist porn wars, the views of the religious right, the history of pornography, landmark legal cases, and the latest in medical research. The Pornography Industry also explains the industry basics -who works in porn, why people become performers, how much they earn, and what happens on a porn set. It further delves into important questions such as: how many teenagers watch porn and should we worry about it? What is porn piracy and can it be stopped? What can the industry do about sexist and racist pornography? Does porn cause violence against women? Can people become addicted to porn? Is watching porn the same as infidelity? By presenting competing perspectives in an even-handed way, The Pornography Industry will enable readers to explore these provocative issues and make their own best decisions about the debates.
Smutty Little Movies traces the adult film industry’s transition from celluloid to home video beginning in the late 1970s alongside an examination of the cultural and legal efforts to regulate, contain, limit, or eradicate pornography. Drawing on a wide variety of materials, Smutty Little Movies de-centers the film text in favor of industrial histories and contexts. In doing so, the book argues that the struggles to contain and regulate pleasure represent a primary entry point for situating adult video’s place in a larger history, not just of pornography, but media history as a whole.
This article documents the involvement of leading members of American organized crime, specifically the East Coast Syndicate lead by Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, with some US media industries in the 1940s and 1950s. It does so by tracing the creation, ownership and business history of two television-manufacturing companies, Consolidated Television Incorporated and the Tele-King Corporation, which it has been alleged were controlled by Syndicate interests. It uses various forms of primary and secondary sources to do this, such as FBI files, witness testimony and published accounts. It also examines the types of media products that these companies manufactured, why Syndicate members ventured into this investment sector, and how Syndicate control was initially exerted, maintained, and then exposed.
This dissertation examines the cultural and legal efforts to regulate, contain, limit, or eradicate pornography as the adult film industry transitioned from celluloid to home video. Beginning with the Panoram visual jukebox of the 1940s, through the peep show booths of the 1960s, and into the adult motels of the 1970s with their closed-circuit television systems, I trace the pre-history of privacy in terms of pornography and spectatorship, and then identify the key people, companies, and films involved in the early period of adult video in the late 1970s. The regulatory efforts against pornography signal larger cultural anxieties surrounding ???appropriate??? gendered and sexual behaviors for women. The industry self-regulated by appealing to narrative as a marker of ???quality??? and ???respectability,??? values that are central to the cultural battles over pornography and women???s sexuality. I explore how this historical struggle played itself out in a number of key texts and moments, including "Adult Video News," the first adult video trade journal, the formation of Femme Productions by former adult film performer Candida Royalle, and the establishment and consequences of the Meese Commission in 1986, which attempted to shift the national discourse on pornography. Drawing on a wide variety of material, including newspapers, mainstream and adult magazines, industry publications, trade journals, interviews, and other discourses to locate this somewhat liminal history, I de-center the film text in favor of industrial histories and contexts. In doing so, this dissertation argues that the struggles to contain and regulate pleasure represent a primary entry point for situating adult video???s place in a larger history, not just of pornography, but media history as a whole.
The industrialization of prostitution and the sex trade has created a multibillion-dollar global market, involving millions of women, that makes a substantial contribution to national and global economies. The Industrial Vagina examines how prostitution and other aspects of the sex industry have moved from being small-scale, clandestine, and socially despised practices to become very profitable legitimate market sectors that are being legalised and decriminalised by governments. Sheila Jeffreys demonstrates how prostitution has been globalized through an examination of: The growth of pornography and its new global reach the boom in adult shops, strip clubs and escort agencies military prostitution and sexual violence in war marriage and the mail order bride industry the rise in sex tourism and trafficking in women. She argues that through these practices women's subordination has been outsourced and that states that legalise this industry are acting as pimps, enabling male buyers in countries in which women's equality threatens male dominance, to buy access to the bodies of women from poor countries who are paid for their sexual subservience. This major and provocative contribution is essential reading for all with an interest in feminist, gender and critical globalisation issues as well as students and scholars of international political economy.
Pornography catapulted to the forefront of the American women's movement in the 1980s. In Battling Pornography, Carolyn Bronstein locates the origins of anti-pornography sentiment in the turbulent social and cultural history of the late 1960s and 1970s. Based on extensive original archival research, the book reveals that the seeds of the movement were planted by groups who protested the proliferation of advertisements, Hollywood films and other mainstream media that glorified sexual violence. Over time, feminist leaders redirected the emphasis from violence to pornography to leverage rhetorical power. Battling Pornography presents a fascinating account of the rise and fall of this significant American social movement and documents the contributions of influential activists on both sides of the pornography debate, including some of the best-known American feminists.
Just how risky is the movie industry? Is screenwriter William Goldman's claim that "nobody knows anything" really true? Can a star and a big opening change a movie's risks and return? Do studio executives really earn their huge paychecks? These and many other questions are answered in Hollywood Economics. The book uses powerful analytical models to uncover the wild uncertainty that shapes the industry. The centerpiece of the analysis is the unpredictable and often chaotic dynamic behaviour of motion picture audiences. This unique and important book will be of interest to students and researchers involved in the economics of movies, industrial economics and business studies. The book will also be a real eye-opener for film writers, movie executives, finance and risk management professionals as well as more general movie fans.
This book is a comparative study of organized crime groups from five different parts of the world: Europe; North America; Central America/South America/Caribbean basin; Africa; and Asia/Western Pacific. Each part contains two case studies and a shorter essay, a vignette. From Europe the case studies focus on the Italian mafias and the Russian mafia; the vignette, on the Albanian mafia. From North America the case studies highlight the US Mafia and the Mexican drug cartels; the vignette, organized crime in Canada. From Central America/South America/Caribbean basin the case studies concentrate on the Colombian drug cartels and gangs of the Caribbean; the vignette, on organized crime in Cuba. From Africa the case studies examine resource wars and Somali piracy; the vignette, relations among international drugs trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism in North and West Africa. And from Asia/Western Pacific the case studies spotlight the Chinese Triads and Japanese Yakuza; the vignette, relations among international drugs trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism in
This article takes a business history approach to analysing Hammer’s early success in the horror genre by providing a detailed case study of the commercial and contractual aspects of their first two Gothic horror films, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), both of which were international box-office sensations. New data on pre-production financing, budgetary outlays, box-office performances and financial receipts are presented and interpreted, alongside an account of the individuals and companies involved in these dealings such as Cadogan Films, Eliot Hyman, Universal-International, Warner Bros. and the National Film Finance Corporation. Through this analysis a greater understanding of the structural and institutional factors involved in Hammer’s early business success are revealed, and the commercial consequences of the contracts that were made are outlined.
Although there has been much general discussion in the academic literature about the influence of cross-media adaptations on the success or otherwise of the additional media outputs that result, there has been less actual empirical investigation of this hypothesized link using quantitative data to test the arguments being made. This article consequently examines the commercial effects of the release of film adaptations on the sales and printing of the original books in question, by first analysing data on the outputs of two well-known popular novelists of the inter-war period (A. E.W. Mason and Baroness Orczy). It then examines this topic from a company history perspective, documenting the fate of a specific British film production company (Stoll Picture Productions Limited) that specialized in this type of literary adaptation. Finally, some more general observations about the cultural economics of cross-media productions are deduced.
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