The Story of the Birth of ‘Erotic Film Guide’ (1982/83): An Issue by Issue Guide

‘Erotic Film Guide’ (1982 – 2006) was one of the longest-running and most colorful magazines to cover the adult film industry.

It was the product of two men who could hardly have been more different: David Zentner was a pornographer who spent time in a Japanese refugee camp in the Second World War and who died under mysterious circumstances. Jim Dawson is an award-winning music journalist and a renowned ‘fartologist.’

On this Rialto Report we look back at the lives of both men, and re-publish all issues from the first two years of the magazine’s life.

The issues include interviews with Vanessa Del Rio, Veronica Hart and Harry Reems, features on films such as Glitter, Maneaters and Cafe Flesh, and pictorals with Kandi Barbour, Lesllie Bovee, Pia Snow, and much more.

Fully digitized copies of each 1982 and 1983 magazine can be found in the article below. You can find The Rialto Report’s collection of digitized resources by choosing Library in our site menu. 

Click on the covers below to access the full magazines. Due to the fact that the magazines are scanned in high definition, allow time for each page to load. If you are viewing on a phone, view in landscape orientation.

Magazines are fully searchable; use the icon displayed in each magazine to search by keyword.

Publications are being shared here purely for the purpose of research. They should not to be used or reproduced for any commercial gain.

With thanks to Jim Dawson.

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David Zentner, and the birth of girlie magazines

Throughout his life, David Zentner attracted trouble like a myopic moth drawn to a flame. And most of the time, he only had himself to blame.

To be fair, that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes life just dealt him a tough hand. Take his early years: he was a Polish Jew during the Second World War, who escaped Nazi persecution by fleeing to Russia with his family. When anti-Semitism threatened to engulf them in Russia, they took an arduous train journey to China, where they settled in a Jewish enclave in Shanghai. A year later, they moved again, this time by boat to Kobe, Japan where they ended the war in a refugee camp. The only two silver linings to his lengthy flight? He was still alive, and he got hold of an immigrant visa to America.

In the U.S., David re-invented himself. The world owed him a break, so he embraced new-found freedoms with both arms. That meant earning money by producing sex magazines.

He settled in San Diego, and formed a publishing entity, D&L Company, with offices at 520 E St. that published racy productions such as ‘Bare’ and ‘Keyhole’. ‘Bare’ was a curious prototype: its first issue was released in April 1953, predating the launch of ‘Playboy’ by a full eight months. It was a distillation of David’s damaged world view: cheap black-and-white underwear pictorials accompanied by anti-communist exposés with outraged titles such as ‘Illegal Love Behind the Iron Curtain’ and ‘What Red G.I.s did to One Million European girls’. His magazines were new, brash, and illicit – and they raked in cash.

David’s new success was threatened in 1954 when he was arrested for “attacking” a 15-year-old girl in a Los Angeles hotel room – on two separate occasions. He insisted he’d merely hired the nubile newbie for a photo session, and accused the underage girl of “acting out of spite”. No matter: the case was abruptly and mysteriously settled out of court, leaving him to continue to build his publishing empire – which he did with alacrity.

He started a new company, Dee Publications, opened offices in Los Angeles at 8511 Sunset Blvd, hired a team of full-time employees, and launched a slew of new cheap girlie titles, including Escapade, Spree, Topper, Bare, and Playtime.

Business was good, but problems were never far away. The enemy of any smut peddler in the black-and-white era was the censor, and the only defense was a detailed understanding of which intimate parts of the human anatomy could be revealed in a published photo. But this was never a binary game: it was an ever-changing set of undefined guidelines in a variety of different markets. The key was the court decisions which established what was permissible, and David followed these legal outcomes as closely as a stock broker watches the market ticker.

Although David learned to walk the fine line that straddled hot titillation and illegal filth, he inevitably ran afoul of the law on occasion. He was arrested, fined, and vilified on numerous occasions, but the charges never hurt him, and by 1964, his magazine empire was successful enough for him to branch out into publishing erotic paperback books, via a new imprint, Bee-Line Books, Inc. The decision was hardly revolutionary: in 1960, Americans were buying more than one million paperbacks a day, and the number of bookstores had increased from 1,500 to 95,000.

David formed new companies by the dozen to mask his involvement, resulting in a corporate structure that resembled a spider’s web. His thinking was that if any of his individual companies was busted, he could cut it off – hydra-like – and grow another in its place.

By now, he had offices in New York and Los Angeles, and he collected a stable of hungry writers willing to turn in 40,000-word manuscripts (in order to fit his precise printing format) for up to $600 a pop. Most of the writers found him painfully demanding to work for. Hugh A. Jones, who wrote for David under the pseudonyms ‘Harvey T. Leathem M.D.’ and ‘Dr. Sadie Cousins PhD’ remembers how David “nursed me through my first four books – meaning he hollered, mostly about deadlines.”

For the first few years of their association, writer and publisher never even met; all dealings were done over the phone. Hugh pitched ideas to David: if David liked them, he gave Hugh the green light. Sometimes David published himself, but often he sold them off to other porn publishers at a profit.

After the California Supreme Court approved the sale of ‘Tropic of Cancer’, David sent out a circular to his writers outlining what he expected of them:

“We need tough, strong, hard-hitting sex-action filled books, geared to the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s market – rather than to the standards of even a few months ago.

“What we basically seek is offbeat sex, with emphasis on deviations. Some possible themes to write by: footwear, lined and rubber clothing, ultra-high heels, whipping, gagging, sex rituals, sadism, homosexuality, girls fighting, wife-swapping, group orgies, voyeurism, and aphrodisiacs.

“Plot is secondary. We do not want complicated plots, naïve sex adventures ‘spiced’ with sex – nor pages of rambling, pointless dialogue. I need more characters per book. Naturally I expect the description of these various things to be in good taste. The mere fact that some of these themes are used will sell our books.

The resulting books included titles such as ‘Lesbian Lust,’ ‘Oversexed,’ ‘Lash of Lust,’ ‘Lust in Leather,’ ‘Perversions Resort,’ and ‘Sexurbia.’

Occasionally David would publish non-porn magazines – ‘Special Collectors Issues’ – designed to cash in on events that captured the public imagination, such as the JFK assassination. These cash cows would recycle previously published material cheaply, and made big profits.

In 1969, David diversified again, this time away from pornography. He formed Pinnacle Books, with offices on East 26th St in New York, which published pulpy action and adventure paperbacks. It had immediate and dramatic success: the first book it published was ‘The Executioner: War Against the Mafia’, a fictional account of a returning Vietnam veteran who undertakes a personal vendetta against organized crime. The book spawned many sequels, and the series sold 20 million copies in 15 languages. Other similar book collections followed – many others – and at one point, Pinnacle was publishing 37 different adventure series.

David was making big money, but he was spending large too. He’d developed a taste for what friends describe as, “the easy life.” Others call it hookers and drugs. One prostitute that David saw regularly was adult film actress Andrea True, later famous for her disco smash hit, ‘More, More, More.’ They became friends, and Andrea introduced him to another porn star, Linda Lovelace. Linda, and her erstwhile partner Chuck Traynor, were cashing in on Linda’s Deep Throat notoriety, and were shopping around a book about Linda’s erotic life.

David like the idea, and paid Linda an advance of $40,000. The actual book, The Intimate Diary of Linda Lovelace, was ghost-written by Mel Mandel, a New York writer who’d worked on stage productions and musicals. The resulting book was published via Pinnacle Books, and become another best seller.

But David hadn’t finished with pornographic magazines. In 1977, his latest company incarnation, Eton Publishing, now based out of 8063 Beverley Blvd in Los Angeles, put out ‘Velvet’, a glossy Playboy imitation. It contained highbrow interviews with stars like Richard Pryor, a problem page by former porn star Tina Russell, features by Bill Rotsler, and true to David’s political leanings, a smattering of anti-Russia articles, such as “Soviet Porn: Dirty Lyrics from the USSR”. It was a far cry from ‘Bare’.

A sister publication, ‘Velvet Talks’ followed in 1979, with the gimmick of a 33rpm record stapled to the center. It was a recording of the issue’s centerfold model talking dirty, which you could presumably play back while admiring her physical charms. (“Wow! Now you can HEAR and JOIN me, Terri, your talking cover girl, in a three-way session with Brenda and friend!” announced one issue, boasting that it was the “First Three-Way Sex Disco Record”.)

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Jim Dawson, and the birth of ‘Velvet’s Erotic Film Guide’

If David Zentner was single-minded in his career as a publisher, the same cannot be said for the polymath Jim Dawson.

For a start, Jim is steeped in rhythm ‘n’ blues and classic rock n’ roll music: he’s written books (about Buddy Holly, the Twist, Bill Haley, and Big Jay McNeely to name a few), produced records, toured with musicians, and has had various radio shows dedicated to his passion for music. Jim has also written liner notes for roughly 150 albums and CDs. Not just that, but his story about the forgotten singer Ritchie Valens led to the 1987 biopic ‘La Bamba’, which used Jim’s research as the basis for the story.

Jim’s talents spread far wider than just music. He is widely recognized as the pre-eminent historian of flatulence. Or ‘fartology’, if you will. His books on the subject include the 1999 bestseller Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart, as well as Blame It on the Dog: A Modern History of the Fart (2006), and Did Somebody Step on a Duck? A Natural History of the Fart (2010).

But as William Shakespeare (might have) said: “Man cannot live on music and flatulence alone.” So Jim had to earn his keep by working in the murky world of adult film magazines for the best part of 30 years: “The adult magazine industry paid me real money as opposed to writing about classic rock ‘n’ roll. In fact, it subsidized all my rock ‘n’ roll endeavors. The porn stuff paid the bills, everything else became a hobby.”

Jim began at Hustler in July 1978, and worked for other magazines in Larry Flynt’s portfolio such as ‘Chic’ and ‘Gentleman’s Companion.’ Then he moved across Los Angeles to work for David Zentner at the Eton Publishing offices at 6565 Sunset Blvd.

Jim started working on Velvet, and then headed up David’s new publication: “I took over a magazine that had already been started called ‘Velvet Talks’. That was the one that had a record attached to the middle, where you could hear one of the stars talk to you. We kept that up for a short time, and then finally discarded it because those plastic records were just horrible. After the novelty wore off, I don’t think anybody was interested.”

While Jim worked for Velvet, he hired Candy Samples as the magazine ‘spokesperson’. Jim remembers: “I worked closely with Candy in the early 1980s. She had a column in which she answered letters from readers. In actual fact, it was me who answered all of them. I also supervised some of her photo sessions. Candy was a bright, sweet woman, a divorcee with at least one adult child whom I never met, and she was much older than people thought. She was more like an aunt to me than anything else. She was well kept in a Marina Del Rey condo by one or two well-to-do gentlemen, who may or may not have had physical relationships with her. She also had a much younger boyfriend, who was like a big kid with a fetish for the Road Warrior movies, right down to wearing a leather outfit just like the one Mel Gibson wore.”

While editing ‘Velvet Talks’, Jim found himself inundated with photo stills sent from adult film companies looking to promote their movies. The penny dropped: Jim went to David and pitched the idea of doing a XXX film magazine: “That was my idea. It was the one original idea that I had in all those years! And it was all because of that free stuff.”

David liked the concept, and named it ‘Velvet Erotic Film Guide’. It proved to be a propitious time to launch an adult film magazine, as Jim remembers: “It was before the video revolution, and the companies were always talking about production values. They’d have screenings for the critics. One screen that was used a lot was in the old Technicolor building in Hollywood on Romaine St right near Cahuenga. It was a large place that had been a studio back in the thirties. The building is still there, a big, beautiful old deco building. We used to have a lot of fun there.

“The film companies would always take pictures on set. And they’d send them to us and encourage us to talk about their movies. The pictures were really great. So I start writing stories to go with this material. I think at that time only Adam Film World magazine was doing that. We were one of the first.

David had noticed the success of High Society in New York – which had employed porn star Gloria Leonard as a figurehead. He realized that his magazine would have more credibility – and be more exciting – if it blurred the line between its own staff and the XXX stars that were revered by fans, so porn stars, such as Becky Savage, Ron Jeremy, Candida Royalle, Marlene Willoughby were all hired in the first year as Contributing Editors.

Others such as Lisa DeLeeuw went one step further and were named Associate Publisher – though as Jim remembers, the title was largely honorary: “That decision was above my pay grade. David wanted to have certain people attached to the magazines, and essentially, we’d pay them. He’d bring her in for a photo session which would consist of her taking notes while her boobs were hanging out, and then somebody in-house would write all the copy. She lent her name to the enterprise, but there was nothing more to it than that.”

Masthead for ‘Erotic Film Guide’ with Lisa DeLeeuw as Associate Publisher

“Not that the porn stars we dealt with weren’t smart. Becky Savage, for example, was very smart. A bright, educated person. Some of them would probably qualify for Mensa. Sharon Kelly (aka Colleen Brennan) was clever too.”

One of the staff writers that worked for Jim writing the film reviews was the legendary Kalton Lahue, who had written an exhaustive collection of books starting back in the 1950s: “Weird guy. He wore Air Force jumpsuits, the ones with pockets everywhere. He was fairly old, but always had unnaturally dark hair and an unnaturally dark mustache. He was the first guy that told me that he had a penis implant.

“He wrote books on automotive parts and repair for this automotive magazine. One day, he handed me a book. It was something he’d written on silent film. It turned out he’d written many books on the subject.”

Jim juggled his work for David and ‘Erotic Film Guide’ with his interest in music but eventually left the ‘Velvet’ stable when other opportunities came up: “I was writing for a couple of magazines in London. One was Fiesta. I actually had a column. I’d just recycle stuff that I’d used on Velvet.”

‘Velvet’s Erotic Film Guide’ changed its name to “Erotic Film Guide” in 1983, and then again in 1984 to “Erotic X-Film Guide”. It continued until 2006 before disappearing completely.

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David and Jim: Aftermath

David Zentner died in 2002. According to Jim, his body remained unclaimed for the longest time, despite that fact that he had a girlfriend: “I don’t know why she didn’t claim it. I don’t even know whether he died in poverty, though he might have been near broke. He just died alone and friendless, I guess. We had a little memorial for him.

“He’d lost ‘Velvet’ to the New Jersey printer, Great Western, in 1991, probably because he was spending more money than the magazine’s dwindling sales could recoup. He was a mysterious guy.”

“I’d worked for ‘Velvet’ on and off over the years, and when Great Western took over, they called me and art director Jeff Riley back to carry on the magazine without him. Jeff and I more or less kept ‘Velvet’ going for 15 more years, until 2006.

Jim now works for the American Film Institute unearthing old movies and researching silent film.

His most recent book, Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero, published in 2012, is a fascinating history of the locations used by postwar film noir directors in downtown Los Angeles.

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‘Erotic Film Guide’: The Complete 1982/83 Issues

April 1982 (No. 4)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Film Reviews: Flash, Centerfold Fever, Skintight, The Filthy Rich, Little French Maid –Annie Sprinkle: Bitch Goddess of Porn -Letters to the Stars -Becky’s Spice Box -Old Time Orgasms –Lesllie Bovee Profile -Young Seka -Porn Star Connie Peterson -Video Porn: Suze’s Centerfolds –Nancy Hoffman: America’s Porno Superstar

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June 1982 (Vol. 1 No. 1)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Film Reviews: Urban Cowgirls, Desire for Men, Between the Sheets, Centerspread Girls, Undercovers -Becky’s Spice Box -Profiles: Lee Carroll, Hillary Summers, Mike Ranger –Veronica Hart Interview -Old Time Orgasms -Letters to the Stars -Closeup: Tara Aire -Video Porn: Bizarre Video Productions

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August 1982
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Film Reviews: Never so Deep, Amanda by Night, The Blonde Next Door, Lips, Inspirations -Becky’s Spice Box -Profiles: Lee Carroll, Christy Welles, Kandi Barbour -Old Time Orgasms -Interview with Vanessa Del Rio -Photo feature: Serena & Lesllie Bovee -Letters to the Stars -Video Porn: Swedish Erotica Volumes 31-34

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October 1982 (Vol. 1 No. 2)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Film Reviews: Titillation, Beauty, Pandora’s Mirror, Moments of Love, A Thousand and One Erotic Nights, Wild Dallas Honey -Becky’s Spice Box -Profiles: Aunt Peg, Maria Tortuga -Porn Stars: Ron Jeremy & Terri, Little Oral Annie & Victoria Knoll, Liza Moore -Video Porn: Candy Girls -Letters to the Stars

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January 1983 (Vol 1, No. 4)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-A night at the 6th Erotica Film Awards -Letters to the Stars -Film Scoops from The Big Apple -Film reviews: One Way at a Time, Foreplay, The Seductress, Cafe Flesh, Intimate Lessons -Becky’s Spice Box -Profiles: Hillary Summers, Lisa De Leeuw, Pia Snow, Marie Sharp –Harry Reems Interview -Velvet asks the Stars -Video Porn: Suze’s Centerfolds Collection 6

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March 1983 (No. 3)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Tiffany Clark Interview -Letters to the Stars -Film Scoops from The Big Apple -Film reviews: Body Magic, Purely Physical, My Sister Seka, Olympic Fever, Ultra Flesh -Profiles: Seka, Lisa De Leeuw, Nancy Suiter -The Erotic Films of Damon Christian -Film Guide Asks the Stars -Video Porn: Darling Rangers

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May 1983 (Vol 1, No. 6)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Marlene Willoughby Interview -Letters to Lisa De Leeuw -Film Scoops from The Big Apple -Film reviews: Peaches and Cream, The Girl from S.E.X., Sexcalibur, I Like to Watch -Profiles: Nancy Hoffman, Maria Tortuga, Vanessa del Rio -On the Road with Lisa De Leeuw -Locker Room Lust: Bridgette Monet & Liza Moore –Harry Reems Sinks into Cement at the Pussycat Premiere -Deep History: X-Rated 3-D Video -Film Guide Asks the Stars -Top Ten Greatest Films

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July 1983 (Vol 1, No. 7)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Annie Sprinkle Interview –Candida Royalle Dishes X-Rated Dirt -Film reviews: Up n’ Coming, Satisfactions, Scoundrels, Mascara, Fantasy Follies -Profiles: Serena & Jamie, Marlene Willoughby, Kandi Barbour, Loni Sanders, Gina Martell, Hyapatia Lee -Stars Share what Makes a Good Cocksucker -Live from New York: Plato’s Party -Hollywood Confidential Exclusive –Sorority Sweethearts Preview -What’s Happening in X-Rated Video -Porn at the Consumer Electronics Show

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August 1983 (Vol 1, No. 8)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Paul Thomas Interview -Love on Stage with Tiffany Clark –Candida Royalle Dishes X-Rated Dirt -Scoundrels’ Party -Behind the Scenes: Nasty Girls, Virginia, Midnight Heat -Profiles: Angel, Sharon Mitchell, Brooke West, Marlene Willoughby, Shauna Grant, Mona Page & Gina Martell -Screenwriters: They Write the Schlongs -Previews: Puss n’ Boots, That’s Outrageous, Midnight Heat -X-Tra Film Mart

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September 1983 (Vol 1, No. 9)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Candida Royalle Dishes X-Rated Dirt -Screenwriter Rick Marx -The East Coast Film Critics Awards -Interviews: Kay Parker, Jerry Butler -Previews: Hot Dreams, All American Girls, In the Pink, Talk to Me Dirty Part 2, Consenting Adults, Glitter, In Love, Eat at the Blue Fox, Groupies Galore -Behind the Scenes: Nasty Girls, Virginia, Midnight Heat –Angel meets Angel Cash –Kelly Nichols Profile –In Love Party

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October 1983 (Vol 1, No. 10)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-Is there Sex After Sex Films -Interviews: Michelle Maren, Henri Pachard, Georgina Spelvin, Shana McKenzie -Previews: The Devil in Miss Jones Part 2, -Profiles: Candy Samples, Anna Ventura, Cara Lott -On the Set: Glitter -Behind the Scenes: Maneaters -The Girls of Bad Girls -Carnal Comix

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November 1983 (Vol 1, No. 11)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

-The Slut vs. Bimbo Dilemma –Candida Royalle Dishes X-Rated Dirt -Interviews: Joel Holzman, Samantha Fox -The Seventh Annual Erotica Film Awards -Pornstar of the Month: Marisa Monteil -Previews: Sexcapades, Naughty Girls Need Love Too, The Young Like it Hot, Flash Pants, Between Lovers, Valley Girls -Porn at the Consumer Electronics Show -Blue Confessions -Profiles: Rhonda Jo Petty, Sharon Mitchell, Misty Dawn, Blair Castle & Alan Royce

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December 1983 (Vol 1, No. 12)
(click on cover to view full magazine)

Contents:

–Candida Royalle Dishes X-Rated Dirt -Interviews: Gerard Damiano, Melanie Scott, Marilyn Chambers, Hyapatia Lee -Previews: Night Hunger, Let’s Get Physical, Body Girls, Sweet Young Foxes, Tuesday’s Lover, Silk, Satin & Sex –Annie Sprinkle & George Payne on Stage -Profiles: Angel, Sue Nero, Kimberly Carson -X-Rated’s Leading Make-Up Men

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