Polissons et Galipettes/The Good Old Naughty Days

Across Europe in the early 1900s, porno played in the waiting rooms of all the finest whorehouses. Just as fish tanks are supposed to calm you down in dentist’s offices, these antique films were meant to prep the patrons of the brothels, visual hors d’œuvre to get them in the mood and perhaps provide a tip or two for the young and inexperienced. And if you’ve wondered what these old-time skin flicks were like, what bordello haunters were privy to, how sex has changed in the last 100 years or so, you’ll find your answers in Allston next weekend, when the Allston Cinema Underground hosts a weekend of antique French erotica with Polissons et Galipettes/The Good Old Naughty Days, a compilation of a dozen hardcore shorts filmed between 1905 and 1930.

"There’s a big difference between these films and modern-day porn," says Clinton McClung, the program director at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the booker for the Allston. "Porn today is this seedy, uncomfortable thing. In these, everyone’s having such fun. There’s an innocence to it." These 12 black-and-white silent (save for the mono-emotional piano score) films were culled from a collection of 300 one-reelers discovered in the attic of, according to the press material, "une famille très respectable." Friends and local prostitutes make up the cast of characters, and all remain anonymous. With titillating titles like "School Spanking," "Buried Treasure," and "Abbott Bitt at the Convent," these "awkward little movies," as they’re referred to in an introductory note at the onset of the film, represent an artifact of our sexual history. "They’re definitely cultural more than pornographic," insists McClung.

But lest we get too lofty with talk of artifacts and culture, these films are indeed downright dirty. They’re not Spice Channel skeezy or 3 a.m. Cinemax seedy, all saxophone-soundtracked and soft-focus. As for how sex has changed over the past 100 years — it hasn’t. At least not as it’s documented here. The scenarios are the same; there’s bawdy behavior by nurses, nuns, priests, and teachers, and kink comes in no short supply. There’s mustached-musketeer fellatio, recurrent spanking, and even a randy dog who requires a bit of coaxing by an over-amorous nun. Couplings (and triplings, and quadruplings) come in every combination, and in all possible angles. And the money shot is still the money shot. "It’s great to see how all the things that are taboo today — gay sex, oral sex, sodomy — there’s never been a period without it," says McClung. "There’s this gay explosion right now, and you realize it’s been happening forever."

What separates The Good Old Naughty Days from current porn, besides more hair (armpit and otherwise) and jigglier bodies (there’s no boob-job immobility), is the carefree attitude of the actors. They giggle. They smile. There’s an air of afternoon delight to the whole thing, of a secret Sunday romp among friends. It’s graphic for sure, and hardcore still by today’s standards, but the fun-loving spirit of the thing keeps it from feeling obscene.

As for whether there’s any difficulty to screening a hardcore film, however old it may be, in a neighborhood theater, McClung admits, "I didn’t look into any laws. It’s not like I’m screening Deep Throat." He expects the film will draw a big crowd, but only "one or two old men in raincoats."

Polissons et Galipettes/The Good Old Naughty Days screens Friday through Sunday at the Allston Cinema Underground, 214 Harvard Avenue in Allston; call (617) 912-8626 or visit www.allstoncinema.com.