Devoirs De Vacances aka Holiday Homework A truly exceptional example of early 16mm French pornography from the 1920's. As a curator and film preservationist for a small gauge film archive I can tell you these early foreign stag films were not very common in America. They had to be smuggled in past customs whereas American produced stag films were much easier to acquire. The only other stag film genres that are as rare as early French pornography were very early homosexual films and early synched dialogue stag films. My film archive acquired a number of stag films from the Bruce Farrahday Collection. (This film was not one of them.) Bruce is now in his 90’s and I was lucky enough to get a little information from him about the stag film era of the 1930s / 1940s. Back then, it was illegal to own pornography and doubly illegal to own homosexual pornography due to the sodomy laws. We normally don’t give it much thought in this day and age. You can buy almost anything you want. But in that era you could not just go into a store and choose from a bevy of pornographic films in a display case. Here is how Bruce acquired his stag films, when they were illegal, as told to me in relay by the agent disposing of Bruce’s film collection: “I (Bruce) bought most of these films from a Camera Store in Tijuana, “Ramone Ramiez’s Camera Store” on the main drag and you had to ask for them. They would have a sheet of paper with the titles and you would choose from that list. Then they would go in the back room and put your package together with no titles on the can or sleeve in case the border police would check your bags. On average, I never paid more then 15.00 each in the late 1930 and 1940’s for a 400 foot reel.” (Quote was condensed for brevity) If you have a slow computer or connection, video may best be viewed as a download.

Compilation of historical images of Detroit, Michigan (1917-1970), edited by Rick Prelinger for presentation at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) on February 10, 2010. If you have historical film footage of Detroit that I might be able to use for future Lost Landscapes programs, I'd like to hear from you.

The definitive Populuxe film on 1950s automotive, industrial, interior and architectural design.

Essentially a summary of work analysis films which were taken by Frank B. Gilbreth between 1910 and 1924 showing a number of industrial operations from which the motion study technique was developed.