Porn Stars of the ’80s, part of a nostalgic series of DVD titles from distributor Blue Underground highlighting Screw publisher Al Goldstein’s old New York City cable-access talk show Midnight Blue, is a curious and fitfully engaging release, a sort of time capsule and reference guide of the adult industry all rolled into one, unfolding as it does in a time before the explosion of the Internet commodified, cataloged and celebrated pornographic performers, and particularly the starlets, as exhaustively as is the case now.

Consisting of clips from various shows strung together around tawdry phone sex ads and other low-rent commercials that ran with the programming at the time, Porn Stars of the ’80s runs just over two hours and includes interviews with Annette Haven (who narrowly lost out to Melanie Griffith for the starring role in Body Double), John Leslie, Vanessa Del Rio, Veronica Hart, Ron Jeremy, Nina Hartley, Krista Lane, Samantha Fox and others. Hartley’s chat is illuminating, and funny. Perhaps most interesting, though, is a talk with Paul Thomas, a porn actor turned convicted drug runner. While dated (Goldstein and Thomas spend some time talking about John Holmes, since the interview was conducted before his death, but during the time he was sick and dying), it provides all sorts of tangential highlights and insights into the adult biz, often as much for what isn’t explicitly said as for what is.

Sex therapist Jackie Park also sits in for a segment, and footage from a New York film premiere wherein the mysteries of female ejaculation are discussed by Annie Sprinkle also makes an appearance. What’s lacking, strangely, is the unifying force of Goldstein’s personality; while he was the abrasive on-air talent for most of Midnight Blue, as I understand it, this compilation cedes much screen time to other faces, and consequently feels disjointed and a bit slapdash.

Housed in a sort of light blue, opalescent plastic Amaray case with a cover featuring sketched cartoon representations of its host and subjects, Porn Stars of the ’80s
comes presented in 1.33:1 full frame, divided into 24 chapters,
with a Dolby digital audio track that doesn’t sound like it provides
much of a brush-up. The DVD’s most notable supplemental feature is a pop-up, VH-1-style commentary track that provides the title with its own snarky, built-in self-critique,
as well as all sorts of bizarre trivia. The only other
bonus material consists of a 16-minute appearance by Goldstein on a Los Angeles cable-access show, Hot Seat with Wally George, that quickly devolves into some sort of quasi-good-natured precursor for the sort of screaming showdowns that Morton Downey, Jr. later pioneered into uncomfortable, aggro-entertainment. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Show) B- (Disc)