Joe Blevins's Blog, page 56

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #14 by Greg Dziawer

This week, Greg chats with James Pontolillo (not pictured here).
For the latest episode of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, I had the wonderful experience of speaking with James Pontolillo, author of The Unknown War of Edward D Wood Jr: 1942-1946 , the indispensable tome that reveals Eddie's service record during World War II and after. It's truly a book that every Wood fan should read.
Jim had previously messaged me with another astounding find, discovering one of Ed's last paperbacks serialized in a magazine in the mid-'80s, close to a decade after his passing. Watch the podcast to hear all of the details:

Podcast Tuesday: "The French Mistake"

Patrick Gorman and Ron Howard on Happy Days.
Somehow, the French people have developed a reputation for rudeness, pretension, and arrogance. In movies, TV shows, and comedy sketches, French characters are often depicted as chortling, dismissive snobs with a seething contempt for foreigners. Think of John Cleese's French guard in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the one who taunts King Arthur (Graham Chapman) with such devastating insults as: "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" There's no comeback in the world for that.
Is this reputation deserved? You tell me. As a child, I went on a European vacation with my family, including a week or so in Paris. Apart from one stressed-out waiter at the (otherwise excellent) Stop Cluny , I can't remember anyone being especially rude to us. Maybe, decades ago, some comedy writer had a bad vacation in France and came back home doing an exaggerated French accent. Fair or not, the stereotype stuck around for decades.
The March 1979 episode "The Duel" is Happy Days' version of the "rude Frenchman" story. The plot has French fencing champion Jacques Du Bois (Patrick Gorman) coming to Milwaukee as part of his college tour and being rude to everyone he meets, including Richie (Ron Howard), Fonzie (Henry Winkler), and Joanie (Erin Moran). It all builds up to the titular showdown between Jacques and Fonzie, with America's pride on the line.
What did we think of "The Duel"? Find out by listening to the latest episode of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast .

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #13 by Greg Dziawer

Milton Knight and some of the topics of this week's show.
This week, it was my distinct pleasure to have a far-ranging conversation about Ed Wood with legendary artist Milton Knight, the man perhaps best known for designing the Robotnik character on the syndicated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Milton has worked extensively in comics and animation as well as being a commercial illustrator, but he's also a major Ed Wood fan. You may remember my  previous interview with Milton from 2019.
In this new episode of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, Milton and I expand on what we discussed in that article. Our topics include: Glen or Glenda (1953), the male rape fantasy of The Violent Years (1956), the curious case of the Bernie Bloom sex comic Not Tonight Joseph, plus lots more!

Milt was recently interviewed at length about all aspects of his career at the  The Grottu Orloff Show , Also be sure to check out Milt's work at  his site  and support his work at  his Patreon .
Many thanks to Milt for joining me and continuing to be a friend of this series!

Podcast Tuesday: "Mork Returns... But Why?"

Robin Williams and Ron Howard on Happy Days.
For decades, clip shows were a necessary evil of network television. Each series only has so much money to work with per season. The producers have to cut costs somewhere. Why not recycle some classic moments from previous episodes, linked together by a thin wraparound story? That way, you let your fans relive some cherished memories without having to make an expensive, all-new episode.
I would say that the traditional TV clip show thrived—if that's the word—between the 1970s and the 1990s. Back then, older episodes were not so easily accessible through DVD or streaming, so fans may have actually welcomed the chance to revisit some favorite scenes. It may have been The Simpsons that killed off these patchwork shows once and for all. The long-running Fox animated series undermined the trope with such slyly self-referential episodes as "So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show" and "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular." After the dreadful "Gump Roast" in 2002, however, even The Simpsons gave up on clip shows.
Happy Days did more than its fair share of clip shows over its decade-long run. Season 6's "Mork Returns" (aka "The Fifth Anniversary Show") is merely one example among many. What sets this apart is the participation of Robin Williams as the manic alien Mork from Ork. Williams' guest shot in Season 5, "My Favorite Orkan," had been a sensation and led to the top-rated spinoff Mork & Mindy. It was only natural that the character would return to Happy Days someday. Why they brought him back for a lowly clip show is anyone's guess.
Does Robin Williams manage to make "Mork Returns" an episode worth watching? Find out when we review it on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast . 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 121: 'Love Making U.S.A.' (1971)

The respectable narrator of a not-so-respectable documentary.
I've been seeing the title in Ed Wood filmographies for years, but until very recently, I had not actually sat all the way through director Joe Robertson's 1971 sex documentary Love Making U.S.A. Why? Well, I guess I never found the movie particularly appetizing, since I knew it simply contained recycled footage from Love Feast (1969), an earlier collaboration between Robertson and Wood. But it was always there—an itch begging to be scratched. When I saw that Something Weird Video offered a download of the film for only $5.99, I took the plunge.
My background knowledge of Lovemaking U.S.A. was minimal. Philip R. Frey's The Hunt for Ed Wood referred to it as "a 'documentary' about the porn industry. There are scenes from early porn films, as well as footage of contemporary productions." David C. Hayes' Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2001) had a vivid but somewhat misleading description: "This is a very, very sad period in Wood's life. The film is a XXX hardcore porn that stars John Holmes, Joe Robertson in drag and Ed. Luckily for everyone involved, Ed isn't naked... he just conducts 'sexy' on the street interviews." Neither Frey nor Hayes had claimed to see the film, but both were seeking a print for review.
The plain title card for Love Making U.S.A. 
Then there is Something Weird Video's own description of the film, written by porn blogger Prince Pervo . Since he definitely has seen the movie, Pervo's capsule review is more accurate: "Love Making U.S.A. isn't just another porn film," he writes. The critic explains the grab bag nature of the movie. It contains, among other things: a "prehistoric stag film" called A Free Ride (1915) ; some behind-the-scenes footage from Tomatoes (1970) (another Robinson film) with Anna Travers; a few minutes of John Holmes making love to the strains of Ravel's Bolero; and a documentary segment shot in Griffith Park at an event called Gay-In III. Pervo notes that director-producer Joe Robertson himself appears in this segment as "a tough gay-basher who turns out to be wearing nylons and high heels." As for the Ed Wood content in Love Making U.S.A., Pervo writes: "Then — surprise! — we watch the infamous Edward D. Wood, Jr. take pictures of smut-star Casey Lorrain [sic]!" 
Viewers will remember actress Casey Larrain from her roles in two Joe Robertson sexploitation flicks, the aforementioned Love Feast (aka The Photographer or Pretty Models All in a Row) and Nympho Cycler (aka Misty) (1971), both of which costarred Ed Wood. Casey is also one of the prostitutes at Madam Penny's Thrill Establishment in Ed Wood's Take It Out in Trade (1970). When she spoke to the authors of The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood (2015), Casey stated that she had only worked with Ed once for "a week and a half to two weeks" and that the footage had been spread out over several films. "I only worked with him the once," she said, "but he apparently cut that footage up and used it in all kinds of different projects."
Reader Rob Huffman shares this anecdote about his meeting with Casey Larrain:

"When I spoke with Ms. Larrain, she thought Take It Out In Trade, Nympho Cycler, and Love Feast were are all one movie. Bear in mind she was thinking back 50+ years ago. She has specific memories of a screening of dailies for Nympho Cycler, though. She said Wood was there and he was indeed the director of the film. She did two hardcore scenes with [John] Holmes before calling it quits. Her whole approach to the films was that she was a hippie who was unashamed of her nudity. She knew she was attractive, and was already modeling. It was just a gig."

I cannot confirm that Love Feast, Nympho Cycler, and Take It Out in Trade were all shot at the same time, but the footage in Love Making U.S.A. is definitely recycled from Love Feast. Those of you who have seen that 1969 sex comedy will remember that Ed Wood portrays Mr. Murphy, a drunken sot who summons young women to his home by pretending to be a fashion photographer. Casey Larrain plays Linda, the very first model to show up at Murphy's doorstep, only to be steered into his bedroom.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 120: A brief introduction to "Range Revenge"

Barbara Parsons and Conrad Brooks in Range Revenge (1948).
What was Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s first movie? That sounds like a pretty basic question, but the answer is not immediately clear. As with determining his so-called "last" movie, a lot depends on your definitions and parameters. 
If you were going strictly by Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood, you'd think that Eddie had never stepped behind a camera until he made Glen or Glenda (1953). In Burton's film, he decides on the spur of the moment to become a filmmaker and assembles a cast and crew through his theater and studio contacts. But dedicated fans know that our man from Poughkeepsie had been involved in both film and TV productions for several years by the time he made Glenda.
If you don't limit yourself to Ed's feature-length directorial efforts, the field of candidates for his "first movie" widens considerably. How far back do you want to go? In Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992), a man named Fred Robertson -- apparently a friend of Eddie's father -- remembered seeing about four minutes of footage that Ed Wood shot as an adolescent with his first camera. Robertson recalled "scenes of [Ed] playing G-man with cap pistols" and "a couple of guys playing cops and robbers." So it sounds like there was at least some semblance of a narrative to what I'll call The Robertson Footage. 
Do we count this as Ed Wood's first movie? Before you answer, consider that the current IMDb entries for such prominent filmmakers as Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, and the Coen brothers contain similar homemade efforts. Incidentally, I think I've discovered a slight discrepancy in the saga of Ed Wood's infamous first camera. A photo caption in Nightmare says that Eddie received a "Kodak City [sic] Special," as a gift on his 17th birthday in 1941. But in that same book, Kathy Wood relates an anecdote about her late husband filming the doomed Hindenburg airship, which famously crashed in 1937. Was this yet another of Eddie's tall tales?
Ed Wood clutches a Kodak 16mm camera.
Since The Robertson Footage has never resurfaced, let's confine ourselves to Ed Wood's professional efforts from his 30-year tenure in Hollywood. Most filmographies, including the one in Nightmare, begin with the wobbly Western called Streets of Laredo or Crossroads of Laredo, shot in 1948 but abandoned in post-production and not completed until 1995. When I began this series of articles eight years ago, Laredo was the first Ed Wood movie I reviewed. At the time, I called it "very primitive and somewhat of a chore to watch."
A dark horse candidate for Ed's directorial debut is another 1948 Western -- Range Revenge, starring Wood mainstay Conrad Brooks and his two brothers, Henry and Ted, alongside Barbara Parsons and B-Western star Johnny Carpenter. Rudolph Grey doesn't even mention Range Revenge in Nightmare of Ecstasy. Other books like Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2001), The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood (2015), and Ed Wood, Mad Genius (2009) skip over it, too. 
Conrad Brooks alone kept the memory of the film alive. The first opportunity fans had to see this footage was in 1993, when Connie hosted a grab-bag-style documentary called Hellborn: The Aborted Masterpiece of Edward D. Wood, Jr. , produced in conjunction with Cult Movies magazine. That hourlong tape contains previously unseen footage from Eddie's abandoned juvenile delinquent movie Hellborn, but it also includes what Brooks claims is Ed Wood's first professional directing job in Hollywood.
Connie's story about the footage goes this way: In 1948, he and his brother, Henry Bederski, were visiting Hollywood from their native Baltimore for a few weeks. They hadn't come West to be in showbiz necessarily, but they got to know a few people in the industry, including Edward D. Wood, Jr., himself fairly recently arrived from Poughkeepsie. Connie and Ed became fast friends, and Henry told Ed about his plan to make a modest "home movie" of himself and his brother to send back to Baltimore.
Sensing an opportunity, Eddie took over the project, offering to film the little screen test on a "good camera" for $60. That's nearly $700 in today's money, probably a hefty chunk of change for Conrad Brooks in those days. Henry and Connie felt Ed was overcharging them, but they acquiesced because they liked him and felt he needed the cash. The original plan was for Connie to act, Henry to direct, and Eddie to act as cameraman. Once they started filming on 16mm in Griffith Park, however, Ed cajoled Henry into acting and took over as director.
As with The Robinson Footage, it seems like there was at least some attempt at a narrative with Range Revenge. "The script was thrown away," Brooks told Cult Movies editor Michael Copner with a chuckle. This suggests that there was a script in the first place. Despite that, the actor remembers the shoot being a lot of fun. Brooks balks at giving the film a title. "Call it whatever you like," he jovially tells Copner. 
In later interviews , however, the actor specifically referred to the project as Range Revenge and said that his brother Henry had written a script for it and was annoyed by Eddie's interference. According to Brooks, Ed Wood "took over the whole picture" and "just shot things at random." The 11 minutes of overexposed black-and-white footage on the Hellborn tape bear out that description. 

Podcast Tuesday: "Putting the FUN in Funeral!"

Henry Winkler on Happy Days.
Do you ever think about your own funeral? It's difficult not to. As Tom Lehrer once famously sang, "When you attend a funeral, it is sad to think that sooner or later those you love will do the same for you. And you may have thought it tragic, not to mention other adjectives to think of all the weeping they will do." 
So right now, I'd like you to imagine your own little send-off ceremony. Who will show up? What will they say about you? Will it be a lavish, extravagant affair or perhaps something a bit more humble? Maybe your funeral will be a joyous celebration of your generous and productive life. Maybe it will be like something out of a soap opera or a Greek tragedy, with the mourners wailing uncontrollably because you were snatched away so quickly from them by the cruel hand of Death. Maybe it'll just be a little dull.
In the Season 6 Happy Days episode "Fonzie's Funeral (Part 2)," Arthur Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) gets the rare opportunity to attend his own funeral! Some gangsters want him dead, so he pretends that he is, and the Cunninghams throw a fake memorial service in his honor. Calling himself "the widow Fonzarelli," Fonzie dons a black dress, a gray-haired wig, and a veil so that he can be there without arousing suspicion from the bad guys.
The Cunninghams know Fonzie is really alive, but some of the mourners think the service is real and grieve accordingly. Among the attendees: Officer Kirk (Ed Peck), Arnold Takahashi (Pat Morita), and the cast of Laverne & Shirley (Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams Eddie Mekka, Michael McKean, and David Lander). Fonzie gets to hear what all of these people say about him when they believe he's dead. That's a privilege most of us will never have.
Does any of this make for a good episode? Find out when we review "Fonzie's Funeral (Part 2)" on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast . 

Podcast Tuesday: "The Candy Man Can... But He Probably Shouldn't"

Richard Moll, Gino Conforti, and Cliff Emmich on Happy Days.
There's "over the top," there's "way over the top," and then there's "Fonzie's Funeral." If you thought "Hollywood" and "Westward Ho" were the silliest multi-episode sagas in Happy Days history, you ain't seen nothing yet. "Fonzie's Funeral" has it all: gangsters, explosions, secret passageways, counterfeit money in coffins, the works -- all done in the hammiest way possible. Scenery isn't just chewed, it's devoured. This is a story so utterly absurd, it took two episodes to tell it.
Actually, this is par for the course in Season 6. For some reason, the show did a lot of Scooby Doo-esque episodes with creepy villains and spooky music that year. "Fonzie's Funeral" is the culmination of a trend that started with "Fearless Malph,"  "The Evil Eye," and "The Claw Meets the Fonz." You wouldn't think a nostalgic family sitcom set in the suburbs of Milwaukee would have a lot of use for stock shots of lightning, but these turn up frequently on Season 6 of Happy Days.
The plot of "Fonzie's Funeral" involves Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Richie (Ron Howard) discovering that a counterfeiting ring is operating out of a local funeral home. The mastermind of this criminal operation is a corpulent, white-suited villain known only as the Candy Man (Cliff Emmich), aided and abetted by his two henchmen, diminutive Sticky (Gino Conforti) and towering Eugene (Night Court's Richard Moll). When Fonzie turns some of their "funny money" over to a treasury agent (John Moskal, Jr.) as evidence, Candy Man's goons retaliate by blowing up the garage where Fonzie works. "Part 1" ends with Richie racing to Fonzie's rescue. Does he make it in time to save America's favorite mechanic?
This is just one of many questions my cohost and I will ponder when we review "Fonzie's Funeral (Part 1)" on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast .

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #12 by Greg Dziawer and Joe Blevins

Each person's fingerprints are unique. Remember that.
Last week, I presented  a vintage magazine article for your consideration : a lengthy review of the 1979 Swedish Erotica loop "Sweet Alice" starring Seka and Big John Holmes. This week, Joe Blevins joins me on The Ed Wood Summit Podcast  to break it all down. Among many other considerations, we do ultimately make our summary statements. Could Ed Wood have written this?
Watch and tell us what you think:

We'd love to hear your opinions, any and all, so please comment on the video at YouTube and don't be shy. Could this be, in FACT, one of the final substantial pieces of text ever written by Edward D. Wood, Jr. before he finally fell into the BIG BLACK?

Special thanks to our brand spanking new sponsor at The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, TripleXBooks! Visit triplexbooks.com and get your vintage adult paperback fix! They're currently having their "Xmas in July" sale with all books just $1 apiece.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Erotica Odyssey, Part 4 by Greg Dziawer

This week, let's look at a text from the late 1970s and guess if Ed Wood wrote it.
For the last few years, I have been scouring the texts from late '70s Swedish Erotica film magazines, looking for evidence of Ed Wood's participation. Eddie's known magazine credits virtually ceased after 1975, but we have evidence that he was still  cashing checks from Swedish Erotica  right into the summer of 1978. His paystubs from that period bore the euphemistic name "Art Publishers, Inc."
Today, I present to you the entire (uncredited) text from Swedish Erotica film magazine #28. The issue features a pictorial with text entitled "Sweet Alice." Unusually for this series, the pictorial comprises the entire issue. Most of the SE film mags included three to four features apiece and sometimes even a page of short capsule reviews. 
The photos for the pictorial were taken on the set of the corresponding silent 8mm film, also titled "Sweet Alice" and released in 1979 as loop #240 in the Swedish Erotica series. It stars John Holmes and an uncredited Seka. I am deliberately avoiding any textual analysis, because I want you to read the story without any preconceived notions.
Let's go!