Celebrating 10 Years of AGFA I Bret Berg, Jimmy Maslon, Lisa Petrucci

hello that was pretty fun my name is Brett from Accra and this is this is Lisa Port Richey again from something weird video and this is Jimmy Maslin friend of Doris and owner of the Doris Wishman catalog what would if she were here tonight what would Doris think of being exhibited in a place like this Oh Jimmy you knew Doris better than any of us Doris like how much I'm not getting paid exactly tell us some of your thoughts about seeing this again and we're preserved for the first time oh it looks really I mean the last time I was transferred it looked pretty good I mean I thought it looked good and this looks even better definitely the only problem with doing a higher res scan is any imperfections are even more obvious but that's part of the charm one of things we strongly believe in at something weird is that the marks that are on a film show that that film got some love they got shown in theaters and people really enjoyed and appreciated it so it's it's part of the film and you know I was watching it and enjoying it like anybody else in a grind house would have I was I'd have transferred definitely shows off the sunburns and the spray paint in his hair oh yeah I was loving the amount of pomade in the one man's hair it should be allowed that's too much coming who are the people that populate this movie are they dancers models where in between well what's interesting is um some endorses early nudist camp movies you can identify a certain act well I shouldn't say actresses models who are pinups back in the late 50s and early 60s in this movie none of them are in it that marietta is who is the Moon Queen and she must have been an exotic dancer or stripped that's what I'm assuming from Miami and obviously the the girl with the red hair was a professional we do recognize one of the blondes Lenny was doing a little mustache joke as the blonde in 2000 maniacs who got her arm hacked off so I can't think of her name Jimmy can you remember anyway that's who that is but yeah in this one there was pretty much unknowns what was going on in Florida that both Herschell Gordon Lewis and Doris Wishman we're doing these incredible unique works what was it about Florida the nice weather yeah they were there's a limited Chicago and the doors lived in New York and there was the one place to get away from in the summer try to make some money this was not doors first Doris's first feature this is probably her like third or fourth right and it's super ambitious its ambitious just just to do a movie but it's also ambitious to do a sci-fi new tqt epic was this any particular standout for her or was this another movie for her well I don't know if you guys noticed but um if anybody's familiar with Doris's work usually there's a lot well there's not much sound syncing at the beginning of this one there actually was and when you look at the credits it says that Anthony Brooks was the director and there was no such thing as Anthony Brooks it was basically Doris and a guy named Ray Rafe through Phelan I think is his name so they were a tag they were teamed together doing this so I think that kind of upped the ante with the film in my opinion anyway it's like she had help and and definitely somebody who had a little bit more experience at that kind of stuff who was the fellow who is on the producer credit with her I think a lot of times those credits that you see on a Doris Wishman film aren't real there's a lot of names one of the credits are actually her she used a lot of pseudonyms because the budgets were so small and she did so many aspects of the movies but she wanted to make it look like it was a bigger production than it was so Herschell Gordon Lewis did the same thing he just had tons of pseudonyms to make it look like we had a date a big crew this came out in succeed one yes where would this have played and what was its life side of 1961 through the years well what's funny is if you were watching closely and they're driving around you see them drive by a theater with a marquee with hide out in the Sun that's the kind of theater that it would have played there weren't really adult theaters back in those days but there were certain theaters that either showed arthouse films or you know exploitation films I guess at the time so and as far as I mean Jimmy could probably give me more information about like what happened to this film like after and I'm sure that the at Racal on it was like you know from 1961 to 64 at the max because by that time people didn't want to watch those kind of movies they wanted to watch nudies you know black new dramas or ruffy's so back in the 80s wasn't that the first release of it on VHS I got I cried the rights from Doris Emraan 1984 she got in contact with Stan Caden Eric Heiden who had Hollywood become poster was my partner at the time we had acquired although her Shakur in those films and subsequently Eric's dad Stan Caden was my lawyer and then Doris Cottle knew about that we acquired these films and Doris got a little stand and asked if we were interested in buying the films and I said yeah at the time I'd only heard of the to Jesse Morgan films and but I flew to New York and acquired the collection for her you know what was that like meeting Doris Doris was a character she in fact she shared her offices at an optical lab I think it was called B&O optical in New York that's why our trailers all looked amazing because she got all these great optical effects probably for free and then I think the first thing that happened was Jonathan Ross who was like the from England did the incredibly strange films documentary series and that was maybe in 1986 and they were but they came to do one on Herschel they were gonna do one on a Russ and I pitched Doris and they went for it I remember Italian Russ that I had the hoe Doris films and I realized the rust said he it really gets pissed off people would always come up to and ask him if he made the chesty Morgan movies and that would really piss Russ Meyer off but we did that and he the film started getting a buzz a bigger buzz and then and then Doris was getting then she was regretting selling the films and she was getting pissed off because she realized she had sold the films and there was a demand for them and she didn't hold her films anymore so she stopped speaking to me for a while yeah she had some really unkind words for you yeah I actually I passed the I think was the new art theater it was the Doris Wishman Film Festival and I walked in there Doris hadn't spoke to me like in four years and so I stood in line where the people were waiting to get autographs and as soon as I got to the front door scores hello and I go hey Doris its Jimmy and she couldn't see that wall shields Jimmy Maslin you just ruined my day well like 15 minutes later she was warmed up and asking about my daughter and my dog and everybody you know because I should come off as kind of gruff an ornery at first but she was a real pussycat now how did you get like now take oh good how did you get involved with something weird about you tell Omar I get oh yeah okay so okay I was probably in the early 90s I put out I've maybe gone through different three different distributors the first one was continental video comet video I think Charles ban was wizard video or called video that was the first go around and and we had great success with the distribution of all the Herschell Gordon Lewis films then I started noticing in it was some magazine that somebody was pirating a few of the films I hadn't put out it was something where video I'm gonna not only they're pirating my films they're using the title from one of the Herschell Gordon Lewis films as their title adding insult to injury so I was I but I thought well I was yeah I wasn't too happy about it and I hear Caden was partner at the time knew Mike and he called me up he say hey Mike brainy's in town and he wants to talk to him thinking Mike Ranney the guy guy this piratey in all our films so I went down there to see Mike and I wasn't too happy to see him and Mike ran up to me and said hey look I know you're pissed off at me but I want to I want to come clean and I want to become your distributor and I want to do it all you know it's good do a handshake deal or a contract and and and you know get it right it's a best friends yeah we became best buddies from now yep the doors have any particular cinematic loves or likes did she watch movies a lot according to her no I think that she just liked making movies and the whole process and the joy that she got from it from everything I've heard and read that she's said but um because when people would say what kind of films you know are you inspired by she didn't say any should just be like my films yeah for those who weren't at the Miskatonic talk yesterday she did not come to filmmaking early it came to it somewhat in midstream yeah she was she must have been in her 30s um she had gotten married and within five months her husband passed away and I'm out to say that was devastating before that though I should preface this with them she worked for a couple of distributors over the years so me she was very familiar with film distribution especially low-budget films and art house films and adult films I mean she had already been familiar with Walter Bebo's film Garden of Eden and that was part of the reason that she decided to make hideout in the Sun her first movie because she saw how much money that was making and she goes I can make one of those and she actually made a really good first nudist movie but um that was pretty much the beginning I mean she said she just didn't really didn't know what she was gonna do with the rest of her life and she had to keep herself occupied so why not make a nudist movie was this her first movie in color actually I don't the Sun was actually all of the first movies were in color and then it's in about 1965 that she goes to black and white it's incredible use of color and she knew the right location to photograph in color for sure we'll take some questions from the audience in just a second but what do we know about that theme song well now it's gonna be stuck in your head god knows how long it was written by her niece Judith and Judith wrote a lot of the music for her films I don't know the guy who sang it was wasn't anybody famous yeah definitely we did a show called real wild cinema in the 1990s and Sandra Bernhard sang that song on the show that was pretty good too we have any questions from the audience about nude on the moon Doris Wishman or something weird or anything like that I thought I saw a hand in the back the costumes okay I'll bring him back to you the moon doll will hi there okay so as I was watching it and just being stunned from the title sequence on I actually started thinking who was Mike who was it that first stumbled on this not knowing what it would be was it was it an a 16-millimeter screening how are these films discovered well I mean with these Doris films Jimmy would know better about you know knit on the moon did that ever get the big box VHS release no I didn't think so Bob Briggs had a series and he put it out he was the first one to put it out okay so there you go yeah so people I think first saw these I mean in contemporary times on VHS so there was there was a buzz about them it was just a matter of like where could you find them after those ones were not a print and fortunately you know Jimmy and Mike were able to bring them all back together and then you know release the whole dortmund not even the whole Doris Wishman library but the 60s films and some of the early 71 as well any other questions from the audience there I think I think it might have been this optical lab that doris had to hook up with I have no idea you know optical which was on all our press kits you know a seance and ask her from the grave the costumes are incredible even even the nude people are still wearing some incredible costumes who put those together do we know anything about this probably a relative arose made it I'm sure maybe Judith made him yeah what are some of your other favorite works of hers well my favorite Doris Wishman film is indecent desires and that one is a little bit later in the 60s and it's about a guy really creepy guy and he finds a doll in the trash and he proceeds to molester it and it ends up that this beautiful blonde woman is the object of his affections and she starts to think she's going crazy and all these horrible things start happening to her but doors put a lot I keep thinking to myself like that came from her mind and I like makes me like like want to know more about like Doris's mental processes because there's some really wacky things she came up from that point on I mean like amazing transplant you know even a lot of those early 70s movies love toy I mean it's about as perverted as it gets it's like how does some like middle-aged lady come up with that especially someone who is asexual as she was let me die a woman of course oh yes do we know if she preferred nudie cuties or the harder stuff I think she was really proud of those nudists movies and what's interesting about them is is there a lot they look a lot different than the movies from the mid-60s they have a more cinematic feeling to them like there's actually location shots and movement and vehicles and all that kind of stuff I've come the mid-60s it's a lot more stuff I mean I like those films a lot don't get me wrong but they're like they take place in rooms or in Central Park or you know there's not a lot of things happening out there I think Doris was like embarrassed about the hard film she made the hardcore stuff I mean and oh yeah she just associated herself yes so even Harvard honored her and they had a screening of Harvard archives or something some years ago and they played the trailer wheel and they've one of the trailers really had the hardcore version of love toy or something like that and apparently she she tried to blame me for putting inserting hardcore scenes people don't mean she ran it on the Hall of holla'd Harvard I cat Donda Island said I'm they kill Jimmy Maslin me put these scenes in it she was embarrassed about the hardcore stuff you know I talked to her biographer Michael Bowen a lot over the last couple of months and he was saying that she never really stood behind the camera to see what was getting framed she kind of like bark out orders to like whoever it was you know mostly in the 60s see Davis Smith and so when she would end up with the footage it was almost like found footage and then she would like put it together like a jigsaw puzzle and I think she had a lot of fun doing that but it also made for like really weird continuity issues and I don't know just it don't it basically became Wishman land so one of the Doris movies that is most impactful on me is let me die a woman which is a crazypants documentary about trans women in 1970s New York how did she get she stumble upon that subject to want to cover I guess someone she knew told her about a doctor that did you know sex change operations and that you know she should speak with her I meet them and she did and she thought that would be a really interesting she always was going for a gimmick in extreme gimmick that certainly was at the time and so she actually funny cuz I was reading something well I was you know doing my research once again it's funny I've had to revisit a lot of these films like that I watched twenty years ago like in the last few months so I have a lot of new insights on them but anyway those insights oh just with just patterns let me cuz I never really looked for the patterns in her films and it's just like yeah basically like you know that's a formula and it's there all the time but as far as let me die a woman she said that was the most depressing movie she ever made and that the only reason it was okay was cuz she made so much money from it but she really did like you know she was there for the interviewing of these Chen transgender people and she just kept saying how sad and how bad she felt for them because they just seemed so unhappy and she wasn't there for the operation sequence he had somebody else do that Thanks so I just wanted to mention really quick there's this great zine that was just published not too long ago right yeah it was a reprint of something she had done back in the 90s so light industry just re-released this yes I think it's still available for sale if anybody's it is just google it it's like on Amazon or anything but if you look if you look up like Doris Wishman fanzine it will come up there's a great interview that's a transcript of a video which is you well actually what it was was okay oh come on I'm a little annoyed about this really my question was I just wanted to know how Doris spent the last like a couple of years of her life making films yeah yeah and was she working in that store yeah she was working in an adult novelty store selling dildos which is where she got the idea to make the film dildo heaven shot on video oh it's gonna say let's go back to that easy oh the transcript for that interview was from a documentary that Dave Friedman and Don Davis had started shooting in the 1970s actually it was called that's exploit a and we actually named our documentary that's exploitation in honor of that Dave Freeman was involved with it there was 16 millimeter footage of Doris and her son Gordon Lewis and Russ Meyer and all of these other people involved in this exploitation film business and the soundtrack was lost so there was just picture track but there was typewritten script for everything transcript and we had published that in one of our catalogs at one point the interview with Doris and then it showed up elsewhere without our permission I was wondering before we take a break if Jimmy you could tell a few stories about being blowflies manager is it because around the same time as you acquired the Doris Wishman films you could blow fire I came into your life yeah was that what was a record collector I don't know if anybody know the blowfly is here Clarence read in the I was a big fan of Clarence read blowfly and in the early 70s and started searching for him in the I just he disappeared for a while and I think I find out found his number on the back of an album cover or the company that he worked for a pan just later on and called Miami's baby nineteen late 80s and found him and and I brought him out to LA at that time I think a guy named Jack Zander who was that who worked for wrote for LA Weekly he got killed in a car crash but he was a DJ and I went to a club and I saw him like playing KC and the Sunshine Band song and he morphed it into blowflies version of the song and so I told Jack I said I found blowfly want to bring him to LA and he said well if you bring him to LA we want to do a big expose on him on the LA Weekly in LA Weekly so when I brought him out here I think this group fishbone they found out that I was bringing him out here the flee from the Chili Peppers found out about it too and their manager called me up and said they want to be in his backup band so bad that if you say you'll they have to pay to be in the backup band they will pay to be in blowflies backup bad so we did a show a club lingerie I think in the early 90s with dolomite and blowfly together and lying around the block knows Jimmy knows everybody you also directed cramps music videos I did a few cramps videos yeah did it maybe yeah I think three crafts music videos and how did you end up working with him actually I was doing a bluff we're gonna do a blowfly music video and my friend KK Barrett who was an art director was supposed to direct it he got a job so he couldn't direct it for me and so I end up directing the blowfly video myself and then IV and much from the cramps all the video and they loved it and they asked me to direct their videos it was all by accident alright so we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna come back with an agfa edited presentation called smut without smut bizarro horror night so our creative director Joe Ziemba is a lifelong fan of something weird and movies like that that come out now also on blu-ray and nice additions so vinegar syndrome had put out a number of early 70s adult films with horror themes so he decided to make some smart without smut he cut out the smut and what you'll see is the remainder and it's really fun hilarious they are good yeah really fun so thanks to vinegar syndrome yeah for letting us do that in the first place and we're gonna take a short break shimmy and speaking back on the Doris Wishman films our haddock headed down to Agfa to be transferred and they'll be seeing a new life in the next few they're all gonna be scanned to 4k in the next few months yep yeah than a vegetable release it looks like we haven't signed a contract yet but a box that will be coming out with somebody alright thanks again Lisa and Jimmy for coming out and doing it down from Seattle all right thank you let's take a break