What is the oldest adult movie of all time?
There’s always an allure to films of an erotic nature. Whether it be a sex scene or an examination of the act of sex itself, adult-themed films have always proven to be popular. This discussion is often centred around pornographic films, which largely eschews the narrative in favour of either hardcore or sometimes softcore sexual intercourse.
Despite the reputation, adult films have an interesting history. Long before the porn industry of Hollywood rose out of the ground, arousing cinema had been used for several decades. There was much pornographic use in the French films of the early 20th century, especially in the works of Eugene Pirou and Albert Kirchner.
But as far as the earliest pornographic film goes, we have to go right back to 1907 for the Argentine short film El Sartorio, which is widely considered the oldest surviving adult movie of all time. The title translates from Spanish to the English title The Satyr, which might give some clues as to its plot and narrative.
In fact, El Sartorio might actually be the first-ever cinematic use of a close-up of genitalia. While several people believe that the film indeed goes back to 1907, there are a few doubters who believe it actually originated in Cuba in the 1930s, but for the most part, it’s said that the film comes from the very beginning of the 20th century.
Other film scholars suggest that the film, in sum, serves as a parody of the Vaslav Nijinsky ballet Afternoon of a Faun, which was first performed in Paris in 1912, which, if true, does suggest that it arrived after 1907. However, the Guinness Book of World Records indeed states that El Sartorio is the oldest adult movie of all time.
Narratively, the film details a group of young women who take a trip through the countryside before a satyr – a Greek mythological creature with the ears and tail of a horse and a constant erection – appears before one of them. That woman naturally faints at the Satyr’s arrival.
When the woman recovers, she performs oral sex on the Satyr before having full intercourse with him. When the other women return from their frolicking, they shoo him away, and the film ends. And that’s the first ever adult film on record; not quite an erotic masterpiece, but a historical artefact nonetheless.
While the exact date of El Sartorio is contested, the Kinsey Institute date it between 1907 and 1912, which puts its adaptation potential of Nijinsky’s ballet into doubt. The German writer Kurt Tucholsky also details seeing a stag film in Berlin that sounds similar to the movie in his journals from 1913.
Check out El Sartorio below.
