In 1981, the prolific Knight Publishing company started to publish a series of trade-publications for the adult film industry. Intended to be guides for the retailer and consumer alike, they provided detailed guides of the availability of adult films. The publications were issued under the banner of the long-standing Adam Film World magazine, and had a variety of names – including XXX Movie Illustrated, Directory of Adult Films, Porn Star Annual, Annual Guide to X-Rated Movies and Video, and X-Rated Movie Handbook.
The 1984 Adam Film World Guides are a who’s who of the Golden Age of adult film – and feature stars including Georgina Spelvin, R. Bolla, Kay Parker, Veronica Hart, and John Leslie. In the words of Kent Smith, the main editor:
This Directory contains reviews of nearly 300 top adult movies… Everyone naturally has his or her special interests as far as sex goes, which is why we have broken down each of the reviews into various categories. We have listed the major stars, the director, and our ratings of the basic aspects of the film.
Another feature of this Directory is the inclusion of the entire catalogs of the major videotape companies, giving the reader not only a wider range of films to study and select, but also the addresses where the tapes of your choice can be purchased. As far as we know, this combination has not yet appeared elsewhere in any book or magazine format, thus making this Directory both unique and extremely helpful to fans of erotic film and video.
In this Rialto Report, we say goodbye to beginning of the end of the Golden Age era as we share digitized issues of all five Adam Film World Guides from 1984, and make way for video vixens like Christy Canyon, Ginger Lynn, Barbara Dare, and Amber Lynn.
You can find The Rialto Report‘s ever growing library of digitized resources by clicking Library in the menu.
Click on the covers below to access the full magazines. Due to the fact that the magazines are scanned in high definition, allow a little time for each page to load. If you are viewing on a phone, view in landscape orientation.
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Adult Film World Guides: 1984
February 1984 – Vol 1, No 11
(click on cover to view full magazine)
Profiling:
–Devil in Miss Jones, Part II
–Sex Games
–Irresistible
–Between Lovers
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1984 Directory – Vol 1, No 12
(click on cover to view full magazine)
Featuring:
-300 adult film reviews
-Profiles of stars and crew including Gerard Damiano, Marilyn Chambers, Samantha Fox, Sharon Kane, and Sharon Mitchell
-Ads for all the major videocassette distributors
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May 1984 – Vol 2, No 1
(click on cover to view full magazine)
Porn Star Annual, featuring:
–Hyapatia Lee interview
–Joanna Storm
–Shauna Grant
–Michael Morrison interview
–Hershel Savage
–Constance Money interview
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August 1984 – Vol 2, No 2
(click on cover to view full magazine)
Profiling:
–Susie Superstar
–The Young Like It Hot
–The Devil in Miss Jones Part II
–The 8th Annual Erotica Awards
–Dark Brothers interview
-X-rated movie year in review
-Best performers and sex scenes
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November 1984 – Vol 2, No 3
(click on cover to view full magazine)
Featuring:
-100 top films illustrated
-Performer directory
-X-rated film directory
-Top directors
-Guide to manufacturers
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The service you provide to fans, researchers, and interested parties is second to none. All free of charge. Thank you for this tremendous asset.
Score!! Thank YOU of for this consistently amazing content – almost 11 years now and counting.
THIS is the golden age of THE RIALTO RPEORT, and we are lucky to be living it.
Another fine post by Rialto Report. Is there an archive of Screw anywhere.
Outstanding (as always), RR!
Awesome Article I Like John Holmes And Peter North Iconic Pop Culture From The 70s 80s And Early 90s Golden Age Of Sexploitation Keep Up Good Work
Incredible resource. Many thanks. As always, great job.
That is a very striking photograph of Lisa Deleeuw, obviously taken at the beginning of her adult career. She still had a youthful look. Watching her films from the early 1980s, she seems older than she actually was. It’s strange to think about her reaching retirement age now. The death of Herschel Savage last week is yet another reminder that the remaining industry participants of that time are not young. Here’s to wishing she will give an interview some day.
Looking through the directory, it is clear that this was published at the end of the theatrical era of adult films. Soon the videotape era would begin, and the number of films being produced exploded. Keeping track of releases during that period must have been a challenge.
Thank you so much for a decade of fascinating stories. A question for The Rialto Report: Is there a general cutoff date that you do not do research beyond? Also, have you ever re-interviewed people that were featured in past podcasts and articles? Many are stretching back to close to a decade now.
Excellent post! And big thanks to Ashley and April of The Rialto Report for their dedication to the history of porn films.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the the Adult Film Guides I had spend months working on have been fully digitized, and available to the public. It was a fascinating time before the internet, before Google. Everything was analog–shot on film, photos were all film, mostly chromes (slides), audio was recorded on tape. And if you wanted to read a review or get information on anything, you had to actually look at a magazine or newspaper. And publishing anything about porn was not widely done at that point in time.
So when the 1984 Directory of Adult Films came out, it was a huge success. And from what the publishers told me it was the first printing they ever did that was completely sold out, with 0 returns. And they had been in business since the 1950s. (Check out the related post: Film World Guides from 1982.)
Thanks for the hard work and dedication.
–Kent Smith aka James Avalon
My first published work was the interview with my buddy Shanna Mcullough in Adam Film World.