Forget Pulp Friction and Rambone. If you really want to get freaky this Valentine’s Day, treat your DVD player to a blast from the past.

“It’s been said that as soon as the concept of running film through a projector was created, five minutes later somebody shot a porno,” says Stacey Case, a cult-film aficionado and operator of the Trash Palace.

Long before the net delivered porn straight to your laptop, your grandpa was mail-ordering silent nudie films from the back pages of detective magazines and cruising into the corner store to see what burlesque reels the winking shopkeeper had behind the counter.

And while, thankfully, we’ve moved past the days of the “smoker” (an informal old boys’ club, where the only women allowed were the nekkid ladies projected onscreen), grandpa’s era has left behind a diverse legacy of smut.

Case’s film collection runs the gamut from monster movies to old westerns, with erotic films going back to the 1930s. Highlights include 1960s San Francisco peep show loops (“It’s just solo women writhing around on beds… and every three minutes it says to put another dime in”) and a 1937 girl-on-girl reel (“Lesbians crack up when they see this because the women pull out — of course, because it’s 1937 — a wooden phallus. So obviously what they want is a man”).

While collectors like Case nab their nudie flicks on 8mm and 16mm film, those without a reel-to-reel projector can find vintage porn re-released on DVD. Suspect Video (619 Queen W.) has an erotic film section that boasts material going back to the 1940s. Whether you’re looking for 1950s beefcake (like the Athletic Model Guild series), bump ’n’ grind collections (Best of Burlesque, Vintage Erotica) or batshit crazy 1970s sexploitation films (Ilsa She Wolf of the SS), they’ve got you covered.

Case also recommends checking out Something Weird Video, a film label run by former Dead Kennedys manager Mike Vraney. Says Case, “Every genre of every type of vintage porn you’d ever want to see, whether it’s these old San Francisco peep show booths I have or softcore exploitation films directed by David Friedman, Something Weird releases it all.” 

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