As I said recently in a short text (available here), I believe that Porno is in many ways the new Rock’n'roll. In the final paragraph I wrote: “What’s more, if this is true, then Irving Klaw is like Chuck Berry…”
Klaw began his career as a fetish photographer in the 40s, when this genre was known as Damsel in distress. He went on to photograph many girls, in bondage or otherwise, including the queen of Pin-up girls Bettie Page. In the 50s he moved on to film loops: “These featured striptease acts and an assortment of fetishistic subjects based on special requests from his clientele. Titles such as Riding the Human Pony Girl, Bondage in Leather Harness, and Booted Amazon Fights Again depicted women in skimpy lingerie and high heels engaging in elaborate bondage, cat-fights, spanking, and slave training.” (from Wikipedia)
Klaw was the first fetish film-maker whose work was well known and distributed; so we could say that he invented the fetish film language, so relevant to porn (Realcore or otherwise) today. Some of his solutions (such as employing wide angle lenses to capture the whole ambience) have become standards, and many of his actresses, like Page, Blaze Starr and Tempest Storm (all 50s Strip-tease stars) still have a huge following today, and still stand as powerful women figures – also thanks to Irving Klaw’s skills.
In the mid 50s he was targeted as a corruptor of youth by a US Senate Subcommittee that linked pornography to juvenile delinquency: “Because of the political and social pressure he faced, Klaw eventually quit the business, and burned his negatives. (It is estimated that more than 80% of the negatives were destroyed.)”
You can find the whole Irving Klaw’s story in his excellent Wikipedia entry, along with some links to relevant sites – including Klaw’s own production company, Movie Star News, now run by his nephew.
