Few films have experienced a more tortured history than the 1951 version of “Native Son,” based on Richard Wright’s 1940 novel. While Wright’s work achieved best-seller status and would be adapted into a Broadway production by Orson Welles and John Houseman, Hollywood studios would only consider a cinematic version if the central character of a disenfranchised African American was changed into an ethnic white man. Continue reading
BOOTLEG FILES 706: “El Sartorio” (1907 Argentine porn film).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: I have no idea – maybe in an anthology of old smut flicks.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The underground nature of early 20th century porn resulted in endless bootlegging.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not as a standalone, and probably not in a documentary on Argentine cinema.
The most widely seen film produced in Argentina was not one of Leopoldo Torre-Nilson’s political dramas or the Oscar-winning gems “The Official Story” and “The Secret in Their Eyes.” Instead, it is a smutty silent short of a mysterious origin that has gained contemporary notability for being among the oldest surviving examples of pornographic cinema.
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