"The Deuce" - HBO Series with James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal

.....??? So Hollywood has exploited the porn industry(?), but it HASN'T exploited the Mafia?? I'm afraid you've completely lost me but that's cool, seems like you've got some skin in the game!

 

They've exploited both, but respected the Mafia more, in my opinion.

 

A porn star's not gonna 'whack you'..............
............'off', maybe.......

 

I've found series 2 to be very underwhelming so far.

 

i think i've given up. it's just not interesting at all anymore.

 

This is a weird one, but I actually agree with you on this.

The sad thing is how sex is seen as so terrible and shameful while killing is so glorified.

Hollywood likes to keep the pimping under wraps and different decorations.

 

I was in the Times Square area when I was a kid in the early seventies going to the movies every night, live theater and bookstores. I think this program is just stunning. There is contrivance and padding but both seasons are stunning.

Four comments: 1) Maggie Gyllenhaal is a little too old to be showing her business, but her age helps make her character authentic. 2) the actresses have beautiful teeth and complexions, whereas the prostitutes and whores in Times Square should be missing teeth, have broken noses, bad skin and sores, and talking about their vaginal infections. 3) the pimps are too nice. 4) the cops are too nice.

Also, at the end of season 2, Deep Throat was NOT a cross-over into mainstream movie. Not really. Those films played to a specialized audience, and usually in specialized theaters.

Bring on season 3.

 

Sorry, but it was. Johnny Carson made jokes about it. It was such a cultural institution that Wordward and Bernstein names their informant Mark Felt with the name.
Mainstream critics like Judith Crist reviewed it and other porn films.
"Porno chic" was a real thing, and like Burt Renyold's Jack Horner in Boogie Nights, thought they were going to make "...a real G**damn movie."

No, it didn't play the multiplexes, but it played the theaters it did play at for years.

 

I don't care what is shown is BOOGIE NIGHTS. The film is largely wishful thinking.

Porn movies played in porn theaters, not in mainstream theaters.

Porn theaters were mostly empty. Attendance was not big. Clientele was male. People were carded going in and cops walked up and down aisles making sure there was no illegal activity going on. They were not "safe" places for the public.

There were porn theaters in mainstream neighborhoods, but they didn't show Deep Throat one week and Cahill U.S. Marshal the next.

 

I don't think it's so much 'keeping the pumping under wraps' as much as it is simply basic business 101. It's a distasteful subject to the majority of the American public which means they won't go see movies about it, therefore why make them? Not Hollywood's fault people don't like pimps!

 

The director placed it all in Los Angeles, when the truth was it was in New York originally then San Francisco and then finally the San Fernando Valley. But everything in the film was based upon real events, fictionalized versions of real people.

I honestly do know quite a lot about it but every time I seem to talk about it my posts get deleted. So it's not even worth bothering. Suffice to say, for a period of time in the 1970s, regular suburban couples did go to x-rated theaters

 

whoa...I don't know about all that, the clientele ws male part is true, but cops walking up and down the aisle wasn't true (from what I re..heard ) and I knew several theatres that would alternate adult movies with horror movies or even high fallutin fare. I mean we're not talking about AMC theatre chains but this was a different time, i dnt know what you mean by 'safe'....most people were there to watch the film not mess with other people.....

 

Well that's OK, because the adult industry exploits Hollywood as well. No shortage of porn parodies out there, many of which I feel cross the line and infringe on intellectual property.

 

Untrue .. in the late 70's to early 80's there were many non-porn theatres that showed X rated movies - usually run by smaller or independent chains. This pretty much ended after video became available.

The Pope is correct as well.

 

yeah the rialto report is a fascinating look at that time from the people there, the majority of the actresses weren't prostitutes, the deuce is trying to shoehorn the porn/prostitutes into one storyline and it doesn't really work. if he picked one I think it would've worked much better.....

 

Your quote is wrong by one letter. I never said that. The pimping goes on all the time in Hollywood just like any other business. People whore women and men out in a million different ways, but as soon as they show what is actually going on in a blatant honest way, that is what made them uncomfortable, not modern America.

The thing about Boogie Nights that painted a very clear concise picture was Buck's story where simply because he did adult films, he was denied any right to get a simple loan for a start up company. A loan that most any college student can get by virtue of just asking for it with zero credibility.

When I hear that people don't like pimps and then buy into the women that are being bought and sold by the "casting coach" that everyone and their mother know is going on, that is what I find ironic.

As for people not liking it, the numbers don't support the theory at all. One of the key parts in history is the story of Constance Money who was absolutely heading to mainstream, but was turned down for the same reason like Buck. Her story is not the only story, and that is why there are celebrity mugshot books that actually omit their lurid past, or famous people that get caught in questionable acts.

Again people don't like pimps? You know television execs liked to claim that people wouldn't accept a full on show about Zombies and having mutilating death on mainstream networking, but isn't it funny how that all changes with a little bit of money put behind a subject matter. Of course that is so much more healthy for people to see right?

If one actually looks at a behind the scenes of what is actually going on with people being mistreated in the name of art, well lets just say that something consensual is going to be the least of my worries. I think a lot of this is going to come full on if this attitude of firing people for accusations that aren't even illegal keep happening. I am in no way supporting any kind of political discussion, but something has got to give in regards to people expressing something in their personal lives, and then having their lively-hood taken away like it is all good with no professional rhyme or reason. I still get sick at that scene in Boogie Nights where the bank loan officer is judging, and yet how many real criminals does he give much more money to each and every day who in no doubt are doing more so called harm to society then a poor guy who if you watch the film, is actually wanting to get out of the business in some capacity so he can sell frickin' stereos! Yeah, lets just banish him to moral hell because he chose a profession that paid the bills and I saw no indication of that man hurting anyone at all.

 

@genesim - My post was simply my opinion of the reality of the situation, where as you seem to be getting into whether it's right or wrong. Not sure but it sounds like yr a little agitated by the subject, if I poked a nerve in any way I apologize!

 

they did have their heyday!

 

Not at all personal. Sorry if it came off that way.

 

Time, Newsweek and Johnny Carson didn't deal with porn movies previous to Deep Throat.
The New York Times featured an article on it (January 21, 1973).

As a 13 year old at the time of the movie's release, even I became aware of the Deep Throat phenomenon. I didn't see it (obviously), but I was fully aware of its existence as well as the media attention given to the movie.

 

They showed Deep Throat at a film class while I was in college, 1974 or '75. They had to move the class to the big auditorium to accommodate the crowds auditing that class session.

 

The thing is that I don't consider that movie even good.

Where everything was about to break open into mainstrean was the Opening of Misty Beethoven, The Image, or Anna Obsessed brought on a new wave where they were considered actually good films worth acting that led to Annette Haven and Constance Money getting bit parts in 10.

Unfortunately the Radley Metzger fights and the fact that she wasn't really that good of an actress wasn't helpful.

The tidal wave to legitamacy came crashing down with her not getting some major biography role because of her ties to the adult industry. ..and while some have tried to venture out no-one has really come close...Tracy Lords withstanding, but I don't take her seriously at all.

Sorry to get off topic. My 2 cents.

 

I've been going through old editions of the NY Times from the late 60s and early 70s, and in those days many "regular" movie theaters showed porn, before there became actual theaters exclusively devoted to it.
Interestingly, "Deep Throat" open and played for years at a theater in Times Square called The World. Why was the theater named that ? Well, for year, they were a showcase venue for foreign films

 

However, several porn actresses of that era would work in strip clubs like the Melody Burlesk (interestingly, where Frankie's wife works on the show), and more than a few worked as prostitutes "under the radar", as opposed to working the streets.

 

It really depended on the theater. In NYC, the East Side porn theaters were clean and well maintained, with a clientele usually of businessmen. The same at the bigger theaters in Upper Times Square. However, the theaters actually on 42nd Street always had a very bad rep, and were to be avoided.