Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies
1993
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Jan 10, 1997 · Screwed: Al Goldstein’s Kingdom Of Porn. Fittingly taking the cinematic low road at the same time that higher-profile porn entrepreneur Larry Flynt gets the all-star screen treatment, Screw ...
screwed Al Goldstein's Kingdom of Porn Directed and edited by Alexander Crawford; director of photography, Mr. Crawford; produced by Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland; released by Cinema Village ...
- Background
- Print Publications
- Movies and Television
- Other Business Ventures
- Political and Religious Views
- Personal Life
- Life in Florida
- Final Years
- Legacy
- Filmography
Goldstein was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to a Jewish family. He attended Boys High. He captained the debate team at Pace College and interviewed Allen Ginsberg for the college newspaper. He served in the Army in the Signal Corps as a photographer [citation needed], He worked as a photojournalist, taking pictures of Jacqueline Kennedy on a 1962 ...
Screw
In November 1968, Goldstein and his partner Jim Buckley, investing $175 each (equivalent to $1,530 today), founded Screw, a weekly New York City tabloid. It featured reviews of porn movies, peep shows, erotic massage parlors, brothels, escorts and other local offerings of the adult entertainmentindustry. Such items were interspersed with news concerning sexual topics, critical reviews of sexual books, and hardcore "gynecological" pictorials. Goldstein regularly ran, without permission, photos...
Bitch magazine
In the March 11, 1974 issue of Screw, Goldstein ran an ad seeking subscribers to a new magazine, Bitch, which "brings women's sexuality out of the closet for the first time" and also "takes women out of politics and puts them back on their back where they belong." (Note: there have been several other magazines also called Bitch.) The first issue "contain[ed] an explosive symposium about blowjobs by four women who talk about giving head and what they like and don't like about it". Also include...
Smut Magazine
In the same March 11, 1974 issue of Screw, Goldstein also ran an ad seeking subscribers to Smut, a magazine "so filthy that not only do you have to wash after every page, but every reader must disinfect after reading! SMUT is so dirty, so scummy, that once you have it on your hands you can't get it off!" The magazine offered pornography in images and words, without the news articles found in Screw.
It Happened in Hollywood
In 1973, "Screw Magazine present[ed]" It Happened in Hollywood, a pornographic movie, produced by Goldstein's partner Jim Buckley. Goldstein played a character in the movie, and is also credited as "fourth unit director." At the 2nd Annual New York Erotic Film Festivalit won awards for Best Picture, Best Female Performance, and Best Supporting Actor.
Midnight Blue
In 1974 Goldstein began Screw Magazine of the Air, soon renamed Midnight Blue, a thrice weekly hour-long adult-oriented public access television program that ran for nearly 30 years on Manhattan Cable Television's Channel J; federal regulations regarding public access to cable TV systems made it impossible for the cable system to refuse his program. (Similarly, Goldstein used a legal prohibition on the censorship of political advertisements to force television broadcast of pornography, under...
SOS: Screw on the Screen
In 1975, Goldstein issued SOS: Screw on the Screen, a stridently unsexy attempt at a cinematic newsmagazine that included a lot of goofy comedy, a gay scene, and several minutes of Goldstein ranting about America's sexual hypocrisy. Also appearing was Honeysuckle Divine (who often appeared in SCREW). A poster of her was on sale in the same issue. Honeysuckle Divinewas a Times Square stripper whose specialty was inserting objects such as pickles in her vagina, shooting out many of them. She pu...
The Screw Store
In the May 17, 1976, issue of Screw Goldstein ran an ad for the "Screw Store", which offered dildos, including a "Bicentennial Dildo", vibrating Ben wa eggs, and a vibrating cock ring.Selling dildos brought one of Goldstein's many arrests.
Al Goldstein's Cinema
The October 17, 1977, issue of Screw contained an advertisement for "Al Goldstein's Cinema", located at 8th Avenue and 46th Street near Times Square. Admission was 99¢. In the same issue, in the movie listings, it is described as "a large, comfortable porn house which shows average hardcore features. Some of these are first-run features, some have already played theaters in the city."The theater is not found in a listing of porn theaters from 1979.
Rabbit Ranch
In 2001, on Saint Martin, an island in the Lesser Antilles, Goldstein planned to open the Rabbit Ranch, the first of what he hoped would be a chain of 10 to 30 bordellos that would flourish wherever prostitution is legal.He intended to use the profits to finance his second run for sheriff. The brothel never opened; authorities refused to give him a license because he was not a citizen of that nation. "We didn't bribe the right people or something," he said.
Views on the Iranian regime
In April 1989, Goldstein ran a full page ad in Screw offering $1 million for the assassination of the Ayatollah Khomeini, in response to Khomeini's February 1989 fatwa against novelist Salman Rushdie for allegedly blaspheming Islam.(Khomeini died of natural causes in June 1989.)
Views on religion
In his 2004 book XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without a Shul, Luke Ford wrote about a conversation with Goldstein, in which Ford asked Goldstein why Jews were dramatically overrepresented in the porn industry. He answered, "The only reason that Jews are in pornography is that we think that Christ sucks. Catholicism sucks. We don't believe in authoritarianism." Ford then asked, "What does it mean to you to be a Jew?" To which Goldstein responded, "It doesn't mean anything. It means that I'm calle...
Friendship with Larry Flynt
One of Goldstein's best friends was Larry Flynt. Goldstein said that Flynt's Hustler magazine, founded seven years after Screw, stole the Hustler format from Screw, but that he was not angry. According to Goldstein, Flynt succeeded in creating a national publication, at which he had failed.
Family
Goldstein married five times and had a son, Jordan Ari Goldstein, with his third wife, Gina. According to Goldstein, he and Jordan had a close relationship until the Goldsteins' divorce. They became estranged after Al called Gina "a contemptible vagina".
While mostly associated with the city of New York, Goldstein was also a well-known figure in Broward County, Florida, making the cover of a local alternative tabloid, New Times. He owned a 10,000-square-foot mansion in Pompano Beach, famous for its statue, 11 feet (3.4 m) high, of a raised middle finger on the back lawn, visible to boaters on the I...
Legal issues and financial woes
In 2002, Goldstein was found guilty of harassing a former employee, having published her telephone number and place of employment in Screw and encouraging readers to call her and tell her "to stop being such a cunt." Goldstein was sentenced to 60 days in jail. He served six days before the charges were overturned on appeal. Goldstein apologized as part of a plea bargain. Unable to make payroll, Screw folded in 2003; only 600 copies were sold of the final issue.Goldstein's company, Milky Way P...
Death
Goldstein died on December 19, 2013, aged 77, from renal failure at a nursing home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Obituary
Goldstein was described in his obituary in The New York Times as "a cartoonishly vituperative amalgam of Borscht Belt comic, free-range social critic and sex-obsessed loser who seemed to embody a moment in New York City's cultural history: the sleaze and decay of Times Squarein the 1960s and ‘70s."
Documentary
In 2003, Lancaster Pictures produced a documentary on Goldstein entitled Goldstein: The Trials of the Sultan of Smut. It focused on his legal troubles. Larry Flynt, Ron Jeremy, and Jimmy Breslin appeared in the movie. He claimed to have had 7,000 sexual partners.Another writer called him "a hairy, sweaty, cigar-chomping, eczema-ridden fatso".
Retrospective
In his 2011 book Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! – of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers, an American Tale of Sex and Wonder, former Screw writer and editor Mike Edison documents Goldstein's rise and fall against the successes of his peers Larry Flynt of Hustler, Bob Guccione of Penthouse, and Hugh Hefner of Playboy. Edison also lauds Goldstein as a staunch fighter for the First Amendment, quoting Gay Talese, who referred to Goldstein in his book Thy Neighbor's Wife, saying, "We need a free society,...
Unless otherwise noted, Goldstein appeared as himself in the following movies: 1. Dynamite Chicken(1971) 2. It Happened in Hollywood(1973) 3. Let My Puppets Come(1976) 4. Denial(1998) 5. Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes(1998) 6. Sex: The Annabel Chong Story(1999) 7. Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV(2001) 8. Porn Star: The Legend of Ron...
Jan 10, 1997 · SCREWED: AL GOLDSTEIN’S KINGDOM OF PORN. Documentary about pornographer Al Goldstein, directed by Alex Crawford. At Cinema Village. Time: 85 mins. Unrated. 2 STARS THIS MAY WELL TURN out to b…
Screwed: Al Goldstein's Kingdom of Porn 1996 1h 25m Documentary List. Reviews Filmmaker Alexander Crawford profiles the publisher of Screw magazine. Read More Read Less. Cast & Crew ...
- Documentary
- Al Goldstein
- Alexander Crawford
Al Goldstein, the publisher of the notorious hard-core pornographic magazine Screw, provides the subject for this documentary that is a low-brow answer to Milos Forman's glittery 1996 biopic of pornographer Larry Flynt, The People versus Larry Flynt..
The remarkable highs and lows of Goldstein's porn-pioneering career are profiled by filmmaker Alexander Crawford who takes viewers from Goldstein's humble origins in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to his opulent homes in Manhattan and Beverly Hills, from his bustling publishing offices to the set of his hit, raunchy cable-access show "Midnight Blue."
