My look at the career of Mary Mendum in the new Weng's Chop

 

Weng's Chop #3 is now available to order at Amazon.  This issue has three collectible covers to choose from, including the special Jess Franco memorial one pictured above.  My memories of Franco are featured in the magazine as well as an article I wrote on the career of the wonderful Mary Mendum (Rebecca Brooke).  I hope everyone might give the issue a look and order a copy. 

A new Joseph W. Sarno Collection is on the way!

Joseph W. Sarno's landmark film Inga, as well as its solid sequel The Seduction of Inga, have been out of print on DVD for a number of years now so the announcement of a new box-set containing the films is very welcome news. Arriving on August 14th from Retro-Seduction Cinema The Inga Collection contains both of Sarno's great Inga films (including two cuts of each film) as well as The Indelicate Balance, one of Sarno's truly great works. This three-disc set looks to be basically a repackaging of the now hard to find original Retro-Seduction releases from early in the last decade but I thought it absolutely deserved mentioning for folks who might not have those original discs in their collection. Plus at under thirty dollars this lovely collection is a steal. Here are the full-specs and I do hope the liner-notes mentioned are the original ones written by Moon in the Gutter friend (and past Q&A participant) Michael Bowen, as they are extremely informative and valuable.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Disc 1

- Uncut Bonus Feature Film: Inga Swedish Version (English Subtitles)
- Inga Trailers: 2 Versions! Plus Trailer for the Inga sequel The Seduction of Inga
- Ultra-Rare Outtakes
- Commentary by Director Joseph Sarno, Asst. Director Peggy Steffans-Sarno, Producer Sam Sherman and Film Historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck
- Exclusive Audio Interview with Star Marie Liljedahl

Disc 2

- Documentary: “Innocence Lost: The Story of Inga”
- Documentary: Vernon P. Becker's "Memories Of Inga”
- Pop Video: “Inga's Theme” by Benny and Bjorn
- Sneak Preview: Joe Sarno's Suburban Secrets (2005)

Disc 3

- The "Grindhouse" Cut of Seduction Of Inga
- Feature Film: The Indelicate Balance (1969) with commentary by Peggy Steffans-Sarno and Gary Huggins
- Joe Sarno Trailer Vault
- 12 Page Booklet Featuring Historical Liner Notes

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A with Distribpix's Steven Morowitz

Today I am absolutely delighted to present this recent Q&A I conducted with Steven Morowitz of Distribpix, one of most important film and DVD companies in the world. I have celebrated Distribpix, and several of their most essential releases, time and time again here at Moon in the Gutter and it was an honor getting to pick the brain of one of the leading film archivists on the planet. I know Steven is hard at work on what will be one of the most important restorations of the decade, Radley Metzger's masterpiece The Opening of Misty Beethoven, so I really appreciate him taking some time to answer these questions for us. Comments are appreciated and I hope everyone enjoys the interview, it was a real pleasure!



First off, let me say thank you for taking the time to participate in this Q@A. I think that Distribpix is doing some of the most important archival cinema-based work on the planet so this is a real pleasure. I know Distribpix has had a long and fascinating history. Can you tell me about how the company got started back in the mid-sixties?

Distribpix Inc was founded in 1964-65 in NYC, by my father and his business partner. They began by creating and producing, low budget, black and white sexual melodramas, for the cinemas of NYC. But, before long they had established such a strong base for theatrical distribution and production, they had began to attract the attention of several up and coming filmmakers, like Michael and Roberta Findlay, The Amero Brothers(John and Lem), Ron Sullivan, Joe Sarno, and even Leonard Kirtman. Now, Distribix was a major force behind much of the east coast film production, based around NYC, in the late 60's-early 70's. They had the directors, they had the theaters and they produced!

Can you tell us about some of the key works from this period the company was involved in putting out?

Some of the key films from the Distribpix Filmograpghy are as follows:

1. 1966, The Bed and How To Make It, Directed By Joe Sarno, an important film. Starred Sarno favorite, Judson Todd, and future wife, Peggy Stefans. Filmed in NYC and has cameos by both producers, Farber/Morowitz.




2. Satan' Bed, The Findlay's, Starring a young Yoko Ono.

3. The Amero Brothers' Dynamite and Bacchanale.


As the seventies arrived Distribpix really began to thrive as the premiere New York based company making and releasing adult films. It was during this period that the cream of the crop of mostly New York based players began to appear. Legendary names like Georgina Spelvin, Tina Russell, Jamie Gillis and Harry Reems became aligned with your company. In your estimation who were the key players in that period in front of and behind the camera?



Yes, once the seventies had arrived, and even before Deep Throat, Distribpix was already a major production/distribution house- theatrically(remember this was still before videocassettes). So in the early seventies, films like the Postgraduate or Sexual Customs in Scandinavia, were all over the theaters of NYC. These were perfect examples of "white coaters". These were films where the sex was looked at as acceptable, because there was some type of 'academic' angle, where sex was used to illustrate the professor's lesson, but in reality it was sex. These 'white coaters' starred the very same legendary actors who went on to star in the most well known films of the 70's, like Harry Reems, Jamie Gillis and Tina Russell. As a matter of fact, Distribpix played a major role in the landscape of sexploitation and adult cinema, as it became a grounds for actors and directors to work together, find common bonds and make magic.



The Key actors, cast, crew. etc during this time in my opinion would be the following and I am coming from an east coast standpoint, as Distribpix was based in NYC:

Directors like Joe Sarno really showed off his NY style of art house filmmaking with Distribpix. He was a major part of the company, going on to continue working with them for the next 20 years. Also, Ron Sullivan made some great films for Distribpix like, Lust Weekend and Scare Their Pants Off. Jonas Middleton, famed director of Through The Looking Glass, got his start producing Cherry Blossom, under the Distribix label. The famous Amero Brothers film Bacchanle was distributed by Distribpix, as well as many other films they directed in the 70's like, Blonde Ambition and Every Inch A Lady.


***The great Jamie Gillis is The Amero Brothers' classic Blonde Ambition, one of Distribpix's essential releases.***

The key actors of this time were the usual group of NY based actors, like Jamie Gillis, Marc Stevens, Jason Russel, Tina Russell, Harry Reems, these were the same guys that were doing 'loops', they became the face of the NY adult scene. Actually, some of them were incredibly talented.

From the beginning, Distribpix treated the adult-film genre as a viable art-form. Looking at the many titles in the seventies, what are some of the real watershed films that you are most proud of having in the Distribpix library?

Some of the best titles in our library are Through The Looking Glass, Take Off and Expose Me Lovely, The Original Inside Series(Inside Seka, Inside Jennifer Welles, Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, Inside Little Oral Annie), Felicia, Blonde Ambition, and most of the Chuck Vincent films, like Roommates and Wanda Whips Wallstreet.


***A lobby card from Chuck Vincent's masterpiece Roommates, a future Platinum Elite release from Distribpix.***

Not too mention the super incredibly popular "Henry Paris" features.

While I am a great fan of many of the actors who worked so much with your company back in the day like Eric Edwards, Kelly Nichols, Jamie Gillis, CJ Laing, Sharon Mitchell, Samantha Fox, Seka and Jennifer Welles, I have to say that my absolute favorite is Veronica Hart.


***Veronica Hart, Kelly Nichols and Samantha Fox***

I know you are planning special editions of two of Veronica’s most important films, Roommates and Wanda Whips Wall-St, and I was wondering if you might give us a preview of those upcoming packages?

As fas as details on the Veronica Hart stuff, it is difficult for me right now, as I am fully immersed in the restoration of Radley Metzger's, The Opening of Misty Beethoven.

Even though your company houses works by truly great directors such as Sarno, Radley Metzger, Chuck Vincent and Shaun Costello I suspect you must have some opposition from certain film fans and critics who don’t take the adult genre seriously as a viable art form. Is it tough convincing the establishment that these films are much more than just ‘dirty movies’?

Great point, it is so upsetting to me and my team. I work with guys all over the world. Film experts, audio guys, videographers, etc. We take our original negatives and perform 2k scans with thousands of dollars of color correction/scratch removal, etc. We spend months producing extras, commission custom box art. Yes, it is very frustrating. We are like on our own island. We have no major distributor in the mainstream world, no this stuff will not be on the shelf at Walmart, but that is not my point. The point is that we are doing very high level work, the product sells and it should be sold by a major distributor. I sometimes wish that there was no sex in the films, as I feel we would be taken more seriously, it is a damn shame. I dare anyone out there to buy the upcoming "Misty Beethoven" package and tell me that it is not one of the best DVD packages of 2012!!!!


***Distribpix have been allowing fans to follow their behind the scenes work on their upcoming special edition of Metzger's stunning The Opening of Misty Beethoven at their blog and Facebook page!***

You recently played an important role in the edition of Brian De Palma’s Blow Out on The Criterion Collection! Can you tell us a bit about that?

Really, the Blow Out Thing was a fluke, I own and operate a large film archive, with some kool stuff in it. Some early films from some of the greats. I own the original film elements for Francis Ford Coppola's, Tonight For Sure, which will be an upcoming HD transfer, as well as other rare and odd titles.



De Palma's Murder A la Mod was one of them. They were doing a re-release of Depalma's Blow-Out and a film friend of mine, contacted me and said that he noticed that Criterion was looking for a copy of Murder A la Mod, I had the pristine 35 mm elements, so I contacted them and we made a deal. I really did not have much else to do with it, but I did take the film to the lab and Criterion let me sit in on the transfer, which was super kool! In that case, I was paid for the film rental and that helps to pay the bills. I had no plans for the film, but I do have the archive, so all in all, I was happy to help and get my name on the DVD booklet!



I think it is safe to say that your Platinum Elite Editions are the absolute finest DVDs of their kind ever released. So far you have released Blonde Ambition, Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, The Passions of Carol and now The Henry Paris films as these super-deluxe editions. How did you go about choosing them from your vast catalogue?

For something to get a Platinum release or a major overhaul, it needs to have some sort of importance, a good cast , a great seller, or maybe it was cut/edited really bad, etc. We assemble the elements, see what we can do for extras, begin to script, and go from there. We have so many films that have been transferred and archived, that we have a lot of low hanging fruit and we can harvest them at any time. Unfortunately for us, the video market is tough and right now we are focused on the Metzger stuff-Henry Paris!



Which brings us to your Henry Paris Collection! You have released phenomenal editions of The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann, Naked Came the Stranger, Maraschino Cherry and the rest of Radley Metzger’s ‘Paris’ films are on the way. Tell us a bit about how these landmark films came to you and the care you are taking in putting them out.

Well, The Radley Films are very special to me. First of all, My father dealt with Radley back in the late 70's and 80's. When Mature Pix was running the "World Theater", they played long runs of the Henry Paris films, and soon after my father began to operate that Theater and he knew how successful these films were, but the relationship was cemented, in the early 80's when my father was doing the VHS distribution of the Henry Paris films, under Quality-X, Sam Lake's previous label. Eventually, my father had purchased Maraschino Cherry, which was the last of the Henry Paris films, and Radley kept ownership of the rest.

This opportunity came to me, when a friend of mine found out that Radley was looking for a new distributor to handle his Henry Paris films. When I found this out, I jumped at the opportunity, as more often that not, I sit around too long. I wrote a 2 page hand written letter to him and I spilled my guts and told him that I would be the best person for this job. I heard back from him a few days later, he asked me if I would be able to work within his financial parameters and I agreed. We began to correspond and before long we had an agreement.

The work we are now doing on these Henry Paris films is by far the most in depth, we have gone, not only in the film restoration, but by adding a ton of extra value to the films, like video extras, commentary, subtitles. They are really turning into something special. People from all over the world are buying them and they love what we are doing. Some are amazed that we would even go to these lengths, but it becomes addictive, Each project gets better and you keep learning. So you never know what is next.


What are your hopes for Distribpix in the upcoming year and are there perhaps any other special releases on the way we haven’t covered here?

My hopes for upcoming year is that we continue to have great success producing the Henry Paris films. We are working on finding a licensing deal that would give us the freedom to finally release our Distribpix collection, in a proper fashion and with a mainstream distributor, not the X-rated films, but the sexploitation/exploitation stuff, all 2k scans!! And of course there will be other surprises.

Thanks again for doing this! I have always thought that a film historian who ignores adult-films is a bit like a music-buff who ignores the industrial and underground-punk scenes. Thanks for treating these films, directors and actors with the respect they deserve and I wish you much continuing success at Distribpix!

I also want to thank you for being such a huge supporter of the films that we are restoring and releasing. Your great write-ups have surely been beneficial in bringing us some attention and that is greatly appreciated.

***For more information on Distribpix, please visit their blog for behind the scenes stories, release information, links to their other sites and more!***

Directed by Joseph W. Sarno: Sleepy Head (1973)

A fascinating, if relatively unknown, offering from legendary director Joseph W. Sarno, Sleepy Head (1973) is an admittedly minor work but it is well-worth seeking out for fans of the much-missed director. Starring adult icons Georgina Spelvin and Tina Russell, and featuring Jamie Gillis and Marc Stevens in supporting roles, Sleepy Head was Sarno's first full foray into hardcore filmmaking and, while it is a far cry from his greatest works, it is a worthwhile edition to his filmography, even though it is often just afforded footnote status in his career.



Bernice Wyatt is a lonely woman approaching middle age living in a small Manhattan apartment. Raised in a strictly conservative environment, Wyatt is constantly battling inner demons in regards to her increasing sexual desire. This battle between repression and desire isn’t helped by her friend Nancy, who is constantly trying to get Bernice to push against her proper upbringing and her explore her sensuality. Bernice’s religion-obsessed sister Tracy isn’t helping either as her sheltered beliefs are only attempting to push her further and further away from her desires.



For at least its first hour Sleepy Head is a successful meditation on desire and repression driven by the fearless and intense performance of Spelvin, who was fresh from her legendary turn in Gerard Damiano’s Devil in Miss Jones (1973). Despite being shot quickly, and on an extremely low-budget, Sleepy Head still contains the adventurous, intelligent and stylish direction that marked all of Sarno's work. Opening very much like a horror film with an unforgettable nightmarish sequence where Spelvin is faced with the personifications of both her repressed and lustful sides, Sleepy Head marks itself immediately as something other than just a typical adult production of the period. The opening also strongly announces that this is indeed the work of Joseph W. Sarno, even though he didn’t sign the film at the time, as its lighting and mood recalls a number of his mesmerizing productions from the sixties. With this unforgettable opening, Sarno immediately establishes the heavy and oppressive atmosphere that never lets up throughout Sleepy Head’s 90 minute running time. Almost completely free of a score, with only a couple of brief library cues used, Sleepy Head is, despite its nonsensical title, an extremely serious work that ventures into the type of melodrama Sarno loved before eventually giving way to a typical adult film of the period in its final half hour.




Sarno, by all accounts, didn't take the decision of crossing over into the hardcore world litely and there is a certain hesitation to his style in Sleepy Head that wasn't typical of his other films in this period, like the freewheeling Seduction of Inga and Young Playthings. Sarno’s camera is more static than usual and Sleepy Head’s biggest problem is that it finally just feels like the work of an exhausted artist. This can of course be credited to the obvious budgetary limitations, and shooting schedule, but considering the fact that Sarno had already completed nearly ten features in the seventies by Sleepy Head's release in 1973 perhaps a bit of physical fatigue was setting in. Maybe Sarno was already feeling some of the limitations of this new explicit era he had just entered. Adult film historian and Sarno biographer Michael Bowen told me last year in an interview here that Sarno, "frequently observed that he felt there were inherent limitations to what one could do with a film with hardcore content, so it wasn’t his favorite way to work", and I think that feeling is felt throughout Sleepy Head. Still, despite the weary feeling present throughout the film, Sarno still brings much of his usual directionally flair to the film but it finally really thrives due to its cast, especially Spelvin who is quite unforgettable here as a woman having a real internal crisis.





Georgina Spelvin was already nearing her late thirties when she shot Sleepy Head with Sarno in 1973. Born Michelle Graham in Houston, Texas in the mid-thirties, Spelvin was quite unlike any other adult-film icon before or since. More than just a typical sex-pot, Spelvin had remarkable acting chops and they are on full display in Sleepy Head, a film that is controlled by her believable and intense performance. While Spelvin is the controlling force in Sleepy Head, the rest of the cast is notable as well.



Pretty Pennsylvania born Tina Russell was only in her mid-twenties in 1973 but she had already shot more than two-dozen adult features. Already well on her way to becoming one of the most popular adult icons of the period, Russell is interesting as Spelvin’s younger bible thumping sister in Sleepy Head, although she clearly doesn’t have Spelvin’s range. A real memorable film-personality, Russell would tragically pass away at the age of 32 in 1981 due to Stomach Cancer.




As Bernice’s provocative friend Nancy, Judith Hamilton occupies the other large role in Sleepy Head. Hamilton, who would appear in Sarno’s terrific The Swith or How to Alter your Ego in 1974, made relatively few films but she’s fine in Sleepy Head and brings a real knowingly decadent feel to the film. The rest of the film’s iconic cast only appear in mostly supporting roles, with several just appearing in a scene or two.




Sleepy Head does ultimately collapse in on itself in the final half hour, where Sarno all but sacrifices an interesting story for typical adult-faire, but fans of the great man will find much to love here. Bowen would write in his liner notes to Sarno's Girl Meets Girl box-set that while Sleepy Head, "marked the first time in Sarno's career that he used a pseudonym on one of his films", it still, "clearly retains hallmarks of (his) signature style." Sleepy Head is obviously not a film for everyone due to its extremely explicit nature and many politically-obsessed filmgoers will want to pass on it. For adventurous film-lovers though who love Joe Sarno and swinging seventies cinema, Sleepy Head is an essential title.





Considering the rarity and age of Sleepy Head, VideoXPix's DVD of the film is in very good shape. The colors are slightly faded due to age, and some reel damage is noticeable in spots, but overall the disc offers a relatively clean uncut print of the film and its a fine way to view it. Sadly no extras are offered, save for a trailer to the Sarno directed All About Gloria Leonard. Fellow Sarno fans interested in the disc can visit this (NSFW) link.

A Moon in the Gutter Q&A with adult film historian Michael J. Bowen

Today I am really thrilled to present this Q&A I conducted via email with noted adult film historian Michael J. Bowen. Readers here, who might recall some of my posts on the films of Joe Sarno, will know how much I admire Michael and value his work, so this was a real pleasure to do. Michael talks about his background, his work with Sarno and Doris Wishman, as well as his other projects and interests. Enough of my rambling...let's here from the man himself:


Michael with actor Tod Moore ("Judson Todd") and Peggy Steffans-Sarno at the recent Anthology Film Archives tribute to Joe Sarno.

Michael, Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I greatly admire your work and I am thrilled to have you as part of this series. To start with, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background and your work as a film historian?

I started out as kind of a film buff, I guess, as a kid growing up in the Boston area. I worked for a period of time as the assistant manager at a repertory theater and was just always interested in cinema from an aesthetic point of view, going to repertory and art theaters all the time. Like many people, I first came across sexploitation movies on videotape in the 1990s and was fascinated to realize that there had been this whole, dynamic, commercial cinema that had basically fallen entirely below the radar of traditional film connoisseurship. I also realized that a certain cadre of filmmakers working within this genre were exceptional “outsider” talents, and so I began to look more closely into the films and into their production context. In the early 2000’s, I also decided to apply to the PhD program in Cinema Studies at NYU as a means of formalizing my studies and have used it as a base of operation for my expanding research on independent commercial cinema in New York in the 1960s and ‘70s. I am not, per se, a generic exploitation movie fan – especially horror movies – but I engage with certain films that I feel bear the hallmarks of original, aesthetically interesting filmmaking.

Who were some of the initial filmmakers that got you interested in cinema and what were some of your early favorite films?

I started out as a kid as a fan of bad science fiction movies, mostly seen on “Creature Feature” type re-runs on TV. I used to keep a card file with the credits for every film I saw, laboriously (and probably inaccurately!) copied off the screen as they flashed by (this was well before the days of home video, natch). I think I first encountered genuine masterpieces of world cinema – classic and silent Hollywood and foreign art films – on public television. I was always (and continue to be) a pretty canonical fan of the great post-war European cinema: Fellini and Bergman were early favorites; I’ve become quite addicted to Antonioni, Bresson and Dreyer as I get older. I’m also kind of a sucker for the edgier “indie” classics of my formative years, the 1970s: Scorsese, Nicolas Roeg, David Lynch. That said, I am not exactly a classic auteurist because I’m the first to admit that many of the great filmmakers made some pretty lousy movies during their careers. I guess I was always attracted to films that privileged formal over narrative elements.

I know you the most from your extraordinary work documenting and writing on Joe Sarno but can you tell us about some of your earlier work as a film historian and writer, specifically your work on Doris Wishman?

Historical research is essentially tedious and empirical. The first few times you phone up an old film personality and conduct an interview, it’s kinda fun, but ultimately the real work is 80% document-based. I’m sure I’ve ruined my eyesight reading through thirty years’ worth of Variety and scanning old film ads on microfilm, but that’s were you collect most of your data. In rare instances some of my interview contacts have preserved records that they’ve been kind enough to share with me – always very exciting – but that’s an exception. I’ve often said, documenting the careers of low-budget outsider filmmakers (as opposed to “big names”) is like the difference between eating crabs and eating lobsters – no tail meat! But over time I’ve been able to pull together lots and lots of scraps of information that are gradually beginning to add up to some sort of a “big picture.” In truth, I’m probably more of an archivist than a writer by nature; I enjoy building my dossiers and databases and think of books and articles as just a means for delivering the info. That said, I hope the interpretive aspects of my writing speak in some meaningful way to the films I engage with: that’s where writing really trumps evidence.



As for Doris, I met her at Harvard University (I was attending Brown at the time) in the mid-1990s, where she’d been invited for a modest retrospective of her work. I guess we just hit it off and I realized that somebody, somewhere, ought to make an effort to document her life and career. She certainly could have selected a more product-oriented biographer – I’ve been fiddling around with this project for over a decade now – but I think Doris saw my sincerity and was happy to work with me. I loved her dearly.

How were you first introduced to the cinema of Joe Sarno and how did you first come into contact with him?

I first saw Joe’s films, like many people, on Something Weird videotapes. I was working with Doris at the time, however, and really had no intention of expanding into research on other directors. I initially contacted Joe, in fact, because he had worked with several actors who had also worked with Doris – including, of course, the divine Ms. Cleo Nova, a.k.a. Joe’s wife and production partner, my dear friend Peggy Steffans. The day we met was memorable because it was September 10, 2001, the day before the World Trade Center was attacked. At any rate, I just thought Joe was the most extraordinarily kind and sincere guy - and I fell in love with Peggy right off the bat - so we just sort of became friends. Then I realized that Joe’s career needed to be documented as badly (if not more so) than Doris’s (because it was so much bigger) and began expanding my research and interviews to include information about Joe’s work. So I guess you could say that my installation as Joe’s biographer was kind of an outgrowth of the fact that I liked the guy so much and was always enthused about the prospect of foraging in new fields. Since so many of his films were missing or dispersed or difficult to find at the time I met him, it probably took a couple of years for me to actually get to see the majority of his work.

To my eyes Sarno is one of the key filmmakers of the sixties and seventies. For folks who are just being introduced to his works what film would you recommend as an ideal introduction, and do you have a personal favorite you would like to share with us?

Overall, I’ve always felt that Joe Sarno fans are very self-selected: there’s a certain rhythm to his work that not everybody is able to groove with. My favorites of Joe’s films tend to reflect my own interest in cinematic minimalism, films where Joe simply lets a situation build and is not primarily focused on the mechanics of technique. I usually weed out the Sarnoites from the tourists by suggesting that they watch Vibrations (1968): if that doesn’t strike you as one of the best fucking movies ever made, then you probably aren’t going to get too carried away by the rest of his work. For me, Vibrations is Sarno in crack form... one light, agonizingly tight framing, oodles of repressed desire. Perfect.


Misty poster courtesy of Michael's terrific Sarno Facebook group, Red Roses of Passion.

Among his earlier efforts (and don’t forget that several of his mid-Sixties films are still officially “lost”), I really like The Sex Cycle: it’s so naïve yet so engaging it literally makes me high: it’s like a dream I want to remember forever. And in terms of his later soft-core work, Abigail Lesley and Misty (if you can find a bootleg) are so melancholy and sincere that I feel they ought to be counted among the top 100 films of the 1970s.

Your liner-notes that have graced Sarno’s DVDs are extremely insightful and informative. Do you have plans in the future on perhaps releasing a full-scale biography?

Sometime in the next few years (but please don’t hold me that that!), there will be a major Joe Sarno biography. Joe had an extraordinary career and it has to be accurately documented. I also spent many, many hours interviewing him on audiotape a few years ago, so there are lots of observations he made that I want to get out there.

I know you have had the great fortune to meet and interview many of Sarno’s key collaborators and actors. Is there someone in particular that has proven elusive that you would like to sit down with?

Yes. Her name is Patricia McNair and she starred in many of Joe’s seminal sexploitation classics of the mid-1960s under the name Lorraine or Laurene Claire. She was an extraordinary presence in Joe’s films and someone I have never been able to track down.



Before he passed away you helped Sarno on the extras of his extraordinary Abigail Lesley is Back in Town. I think the film is a masterpiece and the DVD that came out earlier this year became an instant favorite. Along with the incredible commentary and interviews you got to go back to Sarno’s hometown of Amityville with him. Can you talk about this mini-doc a bit as I find it incredibly moving?

Since Joe shot most of Abigail Lesley in and around Amityville, we wanted to go back and find some of the locations he used. We had, in fact, not planned to interview him in the car on the way out there, but I am so grateful that my extraordinary cameraman, Scooter McCrae, thought to start rolling while we talked. Then, of course, we were lucky enough to have had access to the house where Joe grew up since his childhood friend Henry Marcley now lived there – a wonderful guy! So I wish I could say that I had the prescience to plan everything that happened that day, but it just kind of fell together – as it turns out, less than a year before Joe passed away. I’m very glad we got it on tape.

The late Jamie Gillis also was on hand for the film’s extras. What were your impressions of him and did you get the sense that he was happy to have some of his work recognized as important?



Jamie was an extremely sincere, intense, thoughtful guy the few times I met him and he seemed to think the world of Joe as a director. I believe he was very happy to receive recognition for his work as an actor – not just a porn star – during his last few years.

By the late seventies, Sarno was working fairly actively in the adult film industry. How did Sarno feel about his time in that industry and did he have any favorite performers from the era he worked with?

Joe was a director’s director: if he wasn’t making a movie, he didn’t know what to do with himself. So I know he put his heart and soul into making explicit, X-rated films as well. That having been said, he also frequently observed that he felt there were inherent limitations to what one could do with a film with hardcore content, so it wasn’t his favorite way to work. But given the vagaries of the adult film market, he was very grateful to have the chance to stay in production and was proud of every film he made.



In terms of his favorite actors, Joe got along with 99% of his actors famously, so I doubt he privileged one over the other. He was very fond of Tina Russell, Georgie Spelvin (a great lady!), Jennifer Welles, Annie Sprinkle. He and Peggy were very close to Rob Everett (Eric Edwards) and Harry Reems. Joe managed to get the best out of everyone he worked with: the actors trusted him because he was intensely sincere about his work.

One thing I greatly admire about you is your dedication to filmmakers who are so often ignored and sometimes greatly maligned. Have you had a lot of opposition from certain film elitists who don’t see the value in directors you admire and find important?

The “opposition” one encounters to the kind of work I do usually takes the form of silence. And it comes more from academics than from contemporary film critics, most of whom, I have found, have a very soft spot in their hearts for the labors of filmmakers like Joe and Doris. The problem that academic intellectuals have is that most films of this nature do not naturally lend themselves to textualization: in other words, most interesting “outsider” filmmaking lacks a certain self-consciousness, an explicit aesthetic agenda, that most intellectuals look for and try to translate textually into articles, etc. So the silence of the films tends to inspire silence in the scholars – and believe me, if anybody abhors silence, it’s academics! So I guess I see myself as a little bit of a fish out of water in this respect, but it has always been a reflex of mine to respond to naiveté and spontaneity in art. Most intellectuals want art-makers to be intellectuals too. I don’t.

Do you have any future career plans you would like to share with us?

Outside of attempting to complete all of the above (gasp! moan!), I would very much like to bring more attention to great, French “outsider” filmmakers like Jean Rollin and Jose Benazeraf – tremendous talents whose work has not always been valued by their own countrymen. It would be nice to help arrange decent retrospectives of their films in the U.S. And I have a few side projects lingering as well: a book on actor/director Neil Flanagan composed in the vein of Rudolph Grey’s Ed Wood biography, Nightmare of Ecstasy; and a substantial essay on the dubbing industry in New York during the 1960s and ‘70s, a fascinating and important element of the cultural history of foreign film reception in America. I have also been assisting porn auteur Carter Stevens pull together a memoir about his own extraordinary career for quite a while: he’s a wonderful guy and I’m sorry I have not been able to focus on it more exclusively. My biggest problem, obviously, is that I never run out of subjects that interest me! One day it will all get done.

Cult Epics first (of what I hope will be many) Radley Metzger DVDs, a special edition of Score, has recently come out and Michael's fine work can be found on that disc's supplements. I also wanted to mention that Michael has been working tirelessly in the last few years uploading thousands of additions and corrections to the IMDB's listings for the adult films of the sixties and seventies. He has also uploaded hundreds of accurate release dates (you can usually tell his as he includes the city in which the premiere occurred) for these films that he has verified through his exhaustive research.
Thanks again to Michael for agreeing to do this and I hope it will lead some folks here to seek out some of the films mentioned above. Also, please take a moment and join the Red Roses of Passion Facebook page as Michael and I would greatly appreciate it.

Directed by Joseph W. Sarno: Butterflies (1974)

Shot in the early-to-mid part of 1974 in and around Munich, Joe Sarno's Butterfly (or as it is now more commonly known, Butterflies) has become one of the director's most popular works, even though it is finally an inconsistent piece that is only punctuated by moments of greatness. Starring Adult-Icons Harry Reems and Eric Edwards and featuring lovely Sarno favorite Marie Forsa (in her final film with Joe), Butterflies is a near great film that only really falters in its final act due to some regretful thematic inconsistencies.







Butterflies is, for at least the majority of its running time, a powerful and quite unforgettable production fuelled by the haunting Forsa (who goes through an astonishing transformation from fresh-faced farm girl to world-weary city swinger). Visually Butterflies also represents Sarno at his finest, with its vivid color photography of the Munich countryside providing a perfect counterpoint to the sometimes garish, but always interesting, interior settings.







The film is incredibly erotic and viewers seasoned on today's so-called 'steamy' mainstream productions will be thrown for a loop by Sarno's unapologetic scenes of full-on sexual intensity. Of course, one of the great things about Joe Sarno's films, that separates them from almost any so-called 'sexploitation' works you can name, is that they allow the viewer a full peek into the character's private desires and passions without seeming leering and voyeuristic. Much like Forsa at the beginning of Butterflies, Sarno's work is pure without being, for lack of a better term, innocent.







Cast-wise Butterflies is totally remarkable and it contains a few of the most memorable actors Sarno ever worked with including, of course, Forsa, Edwards and Reems. Tall, charismatic and mustached Harry Reems, seen here just a few years after his legendary turn in Gerard Damiano's Deep Throat (as well as Sarno's unfortunate follow-up) is particularly good. Managing to be both sleazy and charming, Reems should have been a much bigger star than he became, and his turn as the manipulating playboy Frank in Butterflies is one of his great on-screen performances. Reems is, simply put, unforgettable here.








Ironically Reems might be a little too good here as Butterflies does slip up some, to my eyes, when Sarno switches too much of his attention from Forsa's character to Reems in the film's final stages. Film Historian Michael Bowen points out in his excellent liner notes to the film's DVD that this noticeable change in the film's point of was, "possibly the result of a reflex on producer's Nebe's part to convert Reems into its star attraction." It's a pity as it does hurt a film which, frankly, was more than big enough for two star turns.







Minor issues aside, Butterflies is a startling film and it is thankfully available on DVD in a solid special edition from Retro Seduction. Along with Bowen's always excellent notes, the disc contains a documentary (featuring Sarno), some stills and a commentary from its producer Chris D. Nebe. Butterflies is available as a part of the terrific Girl Meets Girl collection (which combines all three of the Forsa-Sarno films) and as a limited edition double-disc set where it is paired with a rare hard (insert happy) version of the film.