page_title: A Free Ride
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: A Free Ride / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: A still from A Free Ride (1915)
context_page_description: A Free Ride, also known as A Grass Sandwich, is a stag film of the silent era, considered the earliest extant American hardcore pornographic movie. It depicts a motorist who picks up two women from the roadside and later engages in several sex acts with them. Although most scholars consider A Free Ride a 1915 film, some sources claim that it was produced later. The film's director used a pseudonym and the cast remained anonymous. The filming location is not known, although it may have been produced in New Jersey. Two contradictory theories have emerged regarding the identities of the cast: some sources suggest they were people with low social status, but others assert the opposite. The Kinsey Institute has a print of the film in its collection. A Free Ride was screened at the inauguration of the Museum of Sex. In 2004, Lisa Oppenheim, a New York-based artist, remade the film.
context_section_description: British author Dave Thompson, in his book Black and White and Blue: Adult Cinema from the Victorian Age to the VCR, notes that D. W. Griffith is credited by one source as director on A Free Ride. But this claim is rejected by film historian Kevin Brownlow and author Thompson himself. The identities of the cast are not disclosed in the credits (the title card says "starring the Jazz Girls").  Thompson asserts that the cast do not resemble identifiable contemporary silent film stars.  He claims the crew strove to make the cast unidentifiable, noting that the actor wears a large fake mustache and a hat.  When the actor's mustache became detached before the end of the film, he hid his face until the mustache was reattached.  Thompson notes that some historical accounts, which he describes as "casual histories", have suggested that the cast of early pornographic films were drawn from among people with low social status such as the homeless, drug addicts, the mentally ill, prostitutes, and petty criminals.  Thompson argues that there is almost no documentary evidence for this claim, and suggests that the actors likely had higher social status.
  A Free Ride was shot outdoors. According to cultural historian Joseph W. Slade, there is a legend that it was shot in New Jersey. Most scholars, including Al Di Lauro, Gerald Rabkin and Jonathon Ross, believe that the film was produced in 1915 and is the earliest surviving American hardcore pornographic film. Los Angeles Times columnist Jay Jones notes A Free Ride is believed to be the first pornographic film made for commercial purposes. The 1915 production date is disputed by some sources. According to the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, the film was made between 1917 and 1919. Film scholar Linda Williams also writes that the assertion that A Free Ride is the earliest surviving American stag film is "doubtful". Kevin Brownlow writes in his book Behind the Mask of Innocence that, "judging by the fashions, the film was actually made around 1923". Thompson says that the evidence presented to support the later production date is shoddy, but notes that some other experts agree with Brownlow's assertion. Evidence cited in support of a 1923 production date includes the similarity of one of the women's hairstyle to that of Mary Pickford, an actress who dominated American film industry during the 1920s. Proponents of the later date claim that the woman wore a Pickford-style wig. However, Thompson indicates that the curly Pickford-style hair became popular in the 1910s, citing a 1914 interview in Photoplay magazine in which Pickford said that she felt exhausted by incoming letters that inquired about her hair. Thompson further disputes the claim that the woman in the film was actually wearing a wig.
caption: The actor wears a large fake mustache and a hat which led author Dave Thompson to conclude that the crew strove to make the cast unidentifiable.
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