The success of Devil's Films/IVC is due, in large part, to the lust of their directors. "I hate to be crude but it's true," says Mike Rubenstein, whose company exclusively distributes both the Black Street Hookers and the Inner City Black Cheerleader Search lines. "These are guys who love black pussy."
"Black girls are these guys' lives," he goes on to say about director/producers Nate Woodburn and N.T. "That's what they love; they put their heart and soul into it and their full-time job is making these movies and hunting for these girls all around the country."
This dedication to the sultry subject matter brings a steady supply of customers to the tapes, which come out nearly every month. Past volumes of the Cheerleader Search and Street Hookers lines still sell for new release prices. Although Mike is reticent to say exactly how well his tapes are doing on the free market, it's safe to say that he's staying solvent.
Rubenstein started working in the adult industry in 1991, when he answered a "video sales" help wanted ad in the newspaper. With a background in music (he started his own punk label in high school), Mike didn't find the generic classified ad suspicious. When he called the number and discovered the job was in porno, he went for it. Soon moving on, he checked out a few other companies in the industry before deciding that he was as qualified as anyone to make adult product. In 1991, he and a partner formed Rosebud, which satiated the public's hunger for all things anal. In those dark ages of the early ‘90s, "anal" was still something of a specialty.
"Rosebud always stuck to niche markets. I never wanted to compete with people who were just doing pretty girl features, I wanted to stick with more hardcore, niche-oriented stuff," he says about Rosebud's catalog, much of which is still currently available in IVC's catalog.
After Rosebud disbanded, Rubenstein went out on his own. Black stuff had always done well for Rosebud, and when he was approached with the idea for Inner City Black Cheerleaders, he agreed to distribute it. Before that time, there was no committed serial project devoted to black women.
In addition to distributing both Cheerleaders and Street Hookers, Rubenstein's production company, Devil's Films, has its own projects, mostly all-sex videos concerned with transsexuals and blacks.
The Gangland series provides a showcase for white women being gangbanged by a group of black men. Black Oil concentrates on oiled women, who begin by frolicking in the shiny stuff before proceeding to hardcore sex, and in Black Snatch, viewers are treated to all-girl pandemonium.
Rubenstein limits his advertising, rarely taking ads out in magazines. His Website, www.devilsfilm.com, includes a pay area full of photos, but it does not sell the videos directly. "The stuff is selling off its reputation," says Mike. "The customer knows the difference between good stuff and bad stuff."
--- Anne Bateman
