The X Movies of May 1970

Fifty years ago this week, it's obvious from the movie ads running that the "New" grown-up Hollywood was in full swing. Back then the "X" rating didn't necessarily mean pornography, it meant movies for adults. True, the X was usually applied for sexual material, but the movies weren't explicit in the way we would come to think of X movies just a few years later. All of the following ads are for movies that were playing fifty years ago, on May 1, 1970, though some of these are 1969 movies playing in second-run or at "popular price" houses. Most of the X's here weren't given for one particular scene or image, but for a general tone of decadence or eroticism.

Midnight Cowboy was the first (and so far, only) Best Picture winner to be rated X. It's kind of a buddy movie with an inexperienced Midwest boy turned gigolo in New York City being taken in by a sickly, crippled con man. But with scenes of gay oral sex and a orgy (neither one explicit), it got an X and still managed to win awards and make money. This ad is from a Tucson engagement.

The Damned (also a Tucson ad) has Nazis, Helmut Berger in drag, and Third Reich moral rot. It was later shown on late-night network television; though heavily trimmed, it still caused controversy. It was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay.

From Columbus, De Sade, billed with the R-rated Chastity, was actually a pretty artsy movie which tip-toed around Sade's actual life and works. Still, the title was probably enough to freak out the ratings board. It's very stagy, and Dullea does not suggest Sade in the least. The second ad is from its New York opening in the fall of '69

End of the Road, based on a book by John Barth, is about a disturbed academic, and the rating here seems to be due to an abortion scene. It's an interesting and intense movie but does not invite repeat viewings. It was given a wider release on New York in May, but the ad below is from its initial run in February.