Sherpix

Sherpix, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Film distribution
Founded	April 15, 1965 (1965-04-15)
Founder	Louis K. Sher
Defunct	March 1, 1974 (1974-03-01)
Fate	Ceased operations and disbanded
Headquarters	New York City , United States
Area served	United States, Canada
Key people	Louis K. Sher (founder)
Products	Art house cinema, international films, erotica, adult films

Sherpix, Inc. was a US-based independent distributor of films that operated across the United States and Canada between 1965 and 1974. Established by Louis K. Sher as a branch of his arthouse cinema network, Art Theatre Guild (ATG), Sherpix focused on distributing art house cinema, international films, erotica, and eventually American-made adult films. Its primary audience comprised progressive middle-class viewers, including young couples, which set it apart from conventional adult theaters and positioned it as a challenger to obscenity legislation in the United States.

History

Sherpix began its operations on April 15, 1965. By 1968, it handled the distribution of Andy Warhol’s films Flesh and Lonesome Cowboys. The company achieved commercial success with the 1969 softcore film The Stewardesses. In 1970, Sherpix made notable progress in American pornography distribution by broadening the exposure of the documentary Pornography in Denmark: A New Approach, recognized as the first feature-length hardcore pornographic film legally shown in the US. That same year, Sherpix also released Mona, the initial non-documentary hardcore film with a narrative plot screened in American cinemas.

Although initially profitable, Sherpix found it difficult to fully capitalize on the Golden Age of Porn. It financed the avant-garde gay erotic movie Pink Narcissus (1971), which was directed anonymously by James Bidgood due to creative disagreements over Sherpix’s edited version. The company was repeatedly targeted by obscenity prosecutions, which imposed significant financial burdens. In 1973, Louis K. Sher was convicted on obscenity charges in Washington, D.C., intensifying pressures on the business. Under mounting legal and fiscal strain, Sherpix ceased operations in January 1974 and formally disbanded on March 1. The obscenity conviction against Sher was overturned on appeal the following year.

List of films distributed by Sherpix

For titles originally released outside the United States, dates correspond to their American debut.

Release date	Title	Notes	Reference
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Crazy Paradise	Initially released in Denmark as Det tossede paradis. This was Sherpix's inaugural release. Later reissued in the US in 1966 by Allied Artists under the title Once Upon an Island.
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	00-2 Most Secret Agents	Originally an Italian film titled 00-2 agenti segretissimi. Re-released stateside in 1966 by Allied Artists as Oh! Those Most Secret Agents!.
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Eros	Released first in Brazil under the name Noite Vazia; also known as Men and Women.
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Flesh
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Lonesome Cowboys
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Template:Sortname
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Popcorn: An Audio/Visual Rock Thing
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Naked Zodiac
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Without a Stitch
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Pornography in Denmark: A New Approach
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Satanis: The Devil's Mass
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Meat Rack
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Sesso	Originally an Italian release titled Nel labirinto.
REDIRECT Template:Date table sorting	Mona the Virgin Nymph
Template:Dts August19,1970	Template:Sortname The Love Doll
Template:Dts September21,1970	Not So Quiet Days	Originally Danish release titled Stille dage i Clichy. Sherpix reissued it under this alternative name.		Template:Sfn Krafsur \u201976 p...
Template:Dts October6,1970	Template:Sortname A History of the Blue Movie		Template:Sfn Krafsur \u201976 p480
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts October15,1970 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Template:Sortname The Story of F \u2019\u2019		\u2018\u2018Template:Sfn Krafsur \u201976 p1033 \u2019\u2019
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts October30,1970 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Sexual Encounter Group}} \u2019\u2019		\u2018\u2018Template:Sfn Krafsur \u201976 p972 \u2019\u2019
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts November1970 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Hollywood Blue}} \u2019\u2019		\u2018\u2018Template:Sfn Krafsur \u201976 p481 \u2019\u2019
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts December17,1970 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Template:Sortname The Coming Thing \u2019\u2019		\u2018\u2018Template:Sfn Krafsur \u201976 p194 \u2019\u2019
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts May24,1971 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Pink Narcissus \u2019\u2019
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts October11,1971 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Punishment Park \u2019\u2019
\u2018\u2018Template:Dts April3,1972 \u2019\u2019	\u2018\u2018Weed \u2019\u2019