Speaker 1: We're all owned by the Syndicate Body and Soul or
should I just say Bunny?
Speaker 2: Hello? Filthy movie Lovers, Something Weirdos and Anti Criterion Bros.
To the twenty eighth episode of The Sin Syndicate, the
only podcast that treats an early morning movie lab raide
as holy writ and believes that every home video distribution
company should be run by a five foot tall pop artist.
My name is Gentry Austen, writer and researcher, and I'm
here with my co host, adult film historian Casey Scott.
And in this week's episode, we are joined by the
Queen Bee herself, Miss Lisa Petrucci, the owner operator no
longer CD replicator of Something Weird Video, which if you're
listening to this podcast you should be intimately familiar with.
Lisa is going to be talking with us about all
things s WV, but specifically we asked her to come
on and chat with us about the recent announcement of
the new double and triple feature home video releases dedicated
to the films produced by the Mighty Monarch of Exploitation,
The thirty ninth Thief David F. Friedman.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to make hold the
sight so strange, so horrifying, so utterly monstrous, that I
heard those of you who are easily frightened or upset,
who's up a rob nervous dishorders, weak hearts, or queasy
stocks who experienced nightmarees, and any children under the age
of sixteen years before goal witnessing Miss Exhibit.
Speaker 2: Dave was an integral part of this Something Weird story,
and beyond being an early business partner, he was also
a really close friend of both Lisa and late husband
Mike Rainy. So we will get into all that and
more with Lisa, but first some updates and news from
the sexploitation world. I think Casey wants to keep teasing
our first joint project together, so take it away.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I also think it. I thought it was
appropriate to maybe mention it again because we got this
project because of Lisa. So we're having Lisa on which,
by the way, is a great Christmas present for both
us and the listeners. It's very appropriate that that we
close out the year with a visit from our queen. Yeah.
So the releases should be announced January twenty twenty six,
and we can't. I will say that it is coming
from AGFA, and it has a commentary by us, it
has liner notes, it has a liner note piece from Gentry.
There's an interview that we did with an actress from
the film, and also there's another set of liner notes
from another friend of the show that we looped into
the project as well. It really is like top to
bottom kind of you know, we were involved with a
lot of it. Yeah, so I'm excited and it's yeah,
I don't want to give too much more away, but
I think that's enough. It's something to get excited about.
And well it should be announced in January, is what
is what I was told.
Speaker 2: So hmm, yeah, I'm really excited to see how it's
all presented.
Speaker 3: Me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a light couple of weeks since
we last chatted regarding announcements. I think a lot of
the boutique labels are just trying to get all their
stuff out to you guys before Christmas. Casey just got
a big box today.
Speaker 4: I know that.
Speaker 2: One thing that I did notice was they finally announced
that partnership between it's sort of sexploitation adjacent is that
partnership between Delirium Home Video and Vinegar Syndrome. I think
they're now an official label partner, if you've been kind
of keeping track of that. They had recently announced some
of the Jess Franco Irwin C. Dietrich titles and then
they pulled them and people were wondering what was going on,
And yeah, the reason they pulled them is that they
wanted to present them through Vinegar Syndrome and they got
some new art and some other cool stuff. So yeah,
I'm kind of excited about those. If you're a Jess
Franco fan, you should be as well. The first one
is going to be Doriana Gray, which is a It
comes in a soft and a hardcore version. It's a
beautiful film. I think if you like what Jess Franco's
vibing on, you will enjoy it to another great performance
by Lena Romey. But I am most excited about getting
Rolls Royce Baby. I don't know if you've seen that one, Casey,
have you that one?
Speaker 3: I have not, but I think that that is one
of the only releases of Lena Romay's movies where she
actually does an interview like oh because yeah or when?
At least I know, because all of these have already
been released on Blu Ray through Astar Entertainment, Yes or Swiss.
I guess yeah, I think it was a fic officially Swiss. Yeah,
we don't want to make that error. But yeah, So
I was nervous when they announced this. I was like, well,
the Swiss one had both versions of Doriana Gray on it,
but then the website was updated to show it has both,
so it's like, Okay, great, then I don't need that
that ascot Elite Blu Ray. This is perfect, and then
I'm hopefully Yeah, I'm hoping that we get all of
them because all the Franco I kind of like all
the Franco d Trich movies I don't have. I don't
have one that I don't like. I think they're all
interesting for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all the women in Prison once he did
are good for that group. I love love Letters of
Portuguese none. So yeah, there's a lot of good a
lot of good possibilities there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Rolls of Royce Baby is probably my favorite Lena
Rome performance outside of an official directive Jess Franco film,
and it's yeah, it's it's crazy, it's totally a love
letter to her from someone who's not just Franco. So
it's kind of interesting in that listing. Yeah, but there
are other podcasts that cover Jess Franco more extensively than
we will. But sure, yeah, I know you do as well.
So I wanted to mention that I'm excited about that. Yep, reminder, listeners,
send your q and a's or sorry, listeners, send your questions.
It's so we can give you a Yes, we want
to do a episode answering your questions. It doesn't matter
what they are. They can be stupid or silly or serious.
Just send us something so that we have an episode
to make. And of course, like I said, you know,
if it's if it's if it's specific towards a question
for Casey or myself or Alex, just let us know.
Otherwise we will just treat it as a general question
and answer. Thus, so yeah, we're going to try to
do that early January, so I will keep bothering people
online about that deadline, So end a year for sure.
Get those to us again, since syndicate email, it's in
the show notes, message us, Facebook, Instagram, wherever. Just send
them to us.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't hold back, So ask anything. Yes,
there's very few things that I will not discuss. I
have no shame left, so yeah, ask whatever you want.
Speaker 2: End of the year wrap up, Casey, what do you got?
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's kind of interesting. We haven't even been
doing this podcast for.
Speaker 2: A year, but it's been quite a year.
Speaker 3: It feels like a lot because we've been doing so much,
so much deep diving and so much research, and we've
gotten involved with, you know, boutique label projects and yeah,
so I mean it's been it's been quite an experience
that he is because of you, because you invited me
to join you to do this podcast. So I just
wanted to thank all the people that have been listening
to us and been helping us out and contributing to
us documenting the history kind of from the beginning. We've
had a nice following from the beginning, and we've had
really good contributions from, among others, like Sean Langrick has
been very helpful, Mike McCollum, John Charles, Alex Holmes, of
course Alex DeSanto, who's kind of our unofficial third since
syndicate member. And we've also been really blessed with some
really great guests we've had, We've had special guests and experts.
We had Dennis Kampa and Melinda Bellis to talk about
Texas exploitation. We had Will Sloan to talk about ed Wood.
We had Jana Jones to discuss Louise Bunny down, Patrick
Crane to cover Bob Chin. And then we had of
course Dakotonit Newt and Christopher Velasco to take us over
the Ocean to do our first international crossover episode, which
I think we're going to do a few more in
the new year. I'll tease that because we do have
a mutual friend that we would like to discuss potentially
some European exploitation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nothing to add there everything that Casey said, Yeah,
just thanks for listening. Like you said, we're not even
a year in, and I think we've kind of, you know,
like I told Casey and Alex, we've kind of found
our people. You know, we found our tribe, as they say,
And we appreciate everybody who's been following along with us
and yeah, sending us stuff online. You know, this is
just this isn't this is a community project in a
way as well. You know, we welcome input and research
from everywhere all angles. So yeah, thanks again for everybody
to listen, and yeah, hopefully some fun stuff in twenty
twenty six. Yeah, we've got some stuff lined up that
might surprise you or maybe not. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Last potential guests lined up too, Yeah, trying to get
all those scheduled. Actually, our January is busy, kind of
pack January. Our January February is pretty packed. So if
you're listening and I've reached out you to schedule something,
I will get back to you to schedule something. Because yeah,
I mean, like Gentry says, this is really more of
a community project because there's not one person who's the
main historian of everything, and there are people who will
know who I'm referring to. It's all. It's a group
project because there's it's such a multifaceted industry and history
that one person can be responsible for it. And so
we're all kind of able to contribute and help each
other out and kind of build this history, especially considering
that most of the figures involved in it are gone.
So it really it takes a village to kind of
tell this story. And I'm happy to be a part
of that village for sure.
Speaker 2: I forgot to mention. Yeah, you follow the Disconnected Instagram account,
you'll know that they also they host a Thursday night
live show where they kind of run through all the
new releases. They have a guest on and they usually
do some sort of like stir fun thing at the end.
We are going to be on that show January eighth,
so tune in. I know Ryan is pretty excited. If
you caught, our friends Dakota and Chris were on there
recently and for a especially unhinged episode. So we have
a lot to live up to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a high bar to meet, So I
don't know. I think between the two of us, I
think we can get pretty unhinged.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm not saying I'm trying to be unhinged.
Speaker 3: I just naturally am. I think if people, if people
know that, I will say some things. So you know,
I'm a very bad self censor when yeah, I'm being recorded,
probably because I just feel so comfortable. You know, I
don't trust a lot of people, so so I chatting
with yeah, with you, with you and Alex and everybody,
I'm like, I'll just say whatever and just be open
and honest. Of course that leads to some crazy shit.
Speaker 2: But I think you had one last update Jerry Denby.
Speaker 3: Yes, any opportunity I have to give Alex credit, I
will do it because Alex, and I've said it before,
I love being wrong if it means that the history
is going to be corrected. So Alex suggested we were
discussing Sandy Johnson, and we had talked about pre CIP
Sandy Johnson. He Alex had suggested, I think he was
a partnership with Jerry Denby before CIP, and I said that, well,
he wasn't a partner with Al Rubin. It turns out
that both things are true. The three of them were
together in a partnership. I always think of Al Rubin
just because of the Cassavetti's connection, and so I forgot
that Jerry Denby was also an early part of that,
of that Sandy Johnson connection.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they were all together in the Sex Blaters.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. And then there was another one they did
called Secret Society, which was their other movie. I think
they only did two movies, and I think I don't
think Denby was involved with Beautiful, the Bloody and the
Bear from what I recall, But that was Reuben and
Johnson again, I think.
Speaker 2: Thanks Alex.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 2: All right, well let's bring in our guest, Lisa Patrucci.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm back.
Speaker 2: What's your cat's name? Is it something weird related name?
Speaker 4: Well, it's actually was a pop culture related name. I
have three and there Barnabas, Quentin, and Angelique, so guess
dark Shadows.
Speaker 3: I love that. Okay, great, the.
Speaker 5: Three parrel, elderly and decrepit. Now yes, well, how are
you guys doing good?
Speaker 3: Better? Now? This is this is my Christmas present that
we get to talk to you.
Speaker 2: You know, we've been putting this off, Like I think
when we first started, we were like, okay, at some
point we have to have Lisa on. But we were
just waiting for the perfect moment to do it. And
when I I think Casey had told me about this
David Friedman collection coming out, I was like, well, that's
probably the best time once that gets announced.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely to you know, have a big splash, because
I mean there's been other things, like, you know, we
did launch the cull Picks something weird channel, and we
did some other things as well, but this was this
is a really big deal. But you know, I was
still waiting for like, you know, district Picks and Melasine
to make the announcement first. So now that they have,
we can move forward with any kind of promotion such specifics.
From the first day, I saw the syndicate on Instagram,
and I'm not on there that much. I mean this
was even before I was like even on there, I
was just like, whoever this is. It's like they're inside
my brain, so like glad that it was. I'm like,
I wish I was doing this. I don't have time,
but I'm so glad that you are. And I know
that passing the baton to people like you really means.
Speaker 5: A lot to me.
Speaker 2: So well, I remember the first time you reached out,
you were like this, I don't remember the exact Messa,
but you're just like, this is great, but can you
just tag us?
Speaker 4: I know that was really the only thing I wanted,
is because like, Okay, it's great to know about this stuff,
but where did it come from? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about it because I was like
new to like posting clips and videos from you know, movies.
I was like, oh, yeah, of course I should be
doing that. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 5: No, I mean it's me.
Speaker 4: I mean that there's like so many people out there
doing stuff and some are doing it great and others
are just cringey. And I mean I just saw that
this was like, oh my gosh, this is totally what
I would do if I was a fan.
Speaker 2: Well, I think Cultpics was also a big help because
so much stuff was on there, so it's easy to
like capture through Cultpics as opposed to like recording on
a TV screen, you know.
Speaker 4: So yeah, well I noticed too, like with some of
the latest posts that it is like the latest things
we've posted on Cultpics, which is cool, and there's a
lot of them are like buried deep in the catalog stuff.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I got excited when he posted Marina
and Jennifer. I was like, yes, I love those. See
more duelism movies. So I was like, yes, okay, good,
get more eyeballs on these please because they're they're enjoyable.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, those are definitely way very deep in the catalog.
Most people aren't even aware of them. So way, So
how do you usually start this.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I just well, just me personally, I
have to say, not only would the podcast not exist,
I would not do who I am today as an
adult without you and Mike and Something Weird. And I
think I speak for a lot of people on that.
I mean the way that the company started and it built,
built and grew over time. I mean it became its
own cottage industry that I think everyone else has been
trying to imitate for years now, and I think it
stands alone as its own. Something Weird is its own entity.
And yeah, I mean we've had now generations of people
who are into these films and researching these films, and
it's because of you and the work you and Mike
did well.
Speaker 4: I mean I have put all the credit on Mike.
I mean because literally he's the one that started all
of this. I mean I came along in ninety four.
I mean I met him in ninety three, and you
know a lot of people know the story. I was
just some fangirl going to Chiller Theater and I had
called the Something Weird offices and asked if I could
interview Mike and Dave because I know that they were
going to be guests there, and you know, I had
just only you know, dip my toe into sexploitation cinema
and I was just especially fascinated by the New York
Ruffis and all of that kind of stuff, and I
just needed more information and understand like why were these
films made and like meet the people now who were
like putting them out there and stuff. And Mike was like,
oh yeah, I just come to my table. And I
walk up to the table and like literally, you know,
like like a cartoon character's eyes, just like the hearts
came out, and he just was so excited.
Speaker 5: He's like, you really like these movies. I'm like yeah,
and he goes, well, who are your favorite directors? You know,
he's like testing.
Speaker 4: I go, well, I love the finlays and door wishmen,
and that just sealed the deal that plight. So and
you know, we stayed in touch just in the beginning
as friends. Like he would send me boxes of like
whatever the latest releases were before they had come out,
like in the clam shell cases. So I'd get these
just handwritten VHS tapes with like Ultimate Degenerate or whatever.
He had just recently transferred and I worked in an
art gallery then, and I don't know, my bosses were
just kind of like what is this one? I got
the side hustle going on or something. But yeah, that
was how it all started. And you know, a year later,
here I am in Seattle, you know, and I didn't
expect that to happen. It's kind of like, this was
the start of something that I was interested in. And
I remember at the time thinking to myself because I
had been, you know, as I said, working in art
galleries and I was curating art exhibitions and managing just
the day to day operations at those and I just
kind of disenchanted with the whole thing and decided, well,
I really want to have a job, you know, a
career that combines my love of pop culture, art and film,
and just you know, threw it out there and I
didn't know what that looked like. And here I am
thirty years later plus and doing exactly that. So I'm
just so grateful.
Speaker 3: That was one of the Well, that was something we
were going to ask, is how it all started? So
so something weird had been going? How long is something
we'd been going? Then when you first met Mike? When
did they start?
Speaker 4: There's always okay, there's the different chapters of something Weird,
And you know, a lot of people are familiar with
the fact that Mike was a like I'll just come
out and say it was a video pirate and a
bootlegger from like around nineteen eighty eight eighty nine, and
you know he was putting out like television shows and
more kind of pop culture classics and you know, cartoons
and Japanese superhero things and you know, basically selling them
met conventions and doing like little fansy mail order stuff like.
I mean, there was so many people involved in that
time period, like selling stuff that they shouldn't have been selling.
Speaker 5: I mean, Howie Pyro was one. Kevin Clement was doing.
Speaker 4: It as well, So I mean things changed around nineteen
ninety that was when the company was incorporated from just
Mike Freeney in an address to Something Weird and he
took the name in the logo from the Herschel Gordon
Lewis movie Something Weird. And he started finding like sixteen
millimeter like film loops like girly and nudie stuff, but
also wrestling loops and some stags and these were just
like out in the wild here in the Pacific Northwest,
and he was like, oh, I think I can, Like
I'm going to transfer these and put them on home
video and see what happens. And so he had some
just janky operation here locally doing the first few volumes
of like nuti Quti shorts, loops and peeves and wrestling
she Babes and Bucky Beaver's loops and put him in
the you know, his little listening that he used to
send out to people, and like they started selling like crazy,
and he decided, well, there's got to be more films
out there. And then he came into a cash of
thirty five millimeter films and you know, put just this
kind of relates to you. One of the first ones
was like The Sins, then to get Zero Girls and
having that one transferred and he found a prino a
smell of honey swallow o'brun career bit.
Speaker 2: This was like all before the movie lab Reid.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this was this was just like films that
he was finding in the Pacific Northwest area. And so
he you know, he didn't know anything about how to
check a copyright registration or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: But he was like, well, I think no, he didn't.
Speaker 4: He knew of these movies because he had a giant
press book collection and we also used to like read
the you know, American Film Institute like catalog, Like it
was our bible. So I mean, like we knew about
all the different films that were out there. It was
just a matter of where are they and do they
exist still? And so he did really really well with that,
just you know, in a very makeshift way. And he
was also starting to put out some exploitation titles that
were on big box VHS's, which was not okay, but
you know, he was like I said.
Speaker 5: Total total pirate at that point.
Speaker 4: And you know, Jimmy Maslin gets in touch with him
and he's like, hey, those are my movies, and they
end up working out a deal.
Speaker 5: But it was Friedman that contacted him. And you know,
so he hears from David F.
Speaker 4: Friedman and he called the office and somebody, you know,
the Secretary's like, you know, there's a guy named Dave
Freeman on the phone, and Mike didn't believe it at first,
and then he started talking to him, and you know,
Dave said to him, oh, I say that you're selling
my Ryballtales Robin Hood and Mike's.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, people love it.
Speaker 4: And that was always a response time anybody like would
be you know, concerned, like yourself my movie and you
don't have permission.
Speaker 5: He'd be like, yeah, but everyone loves it.
Speaker 4: And a lot of times these guys like didn't think
anybody cared about that material anymore. So Friedman was like, well,
you know, let's let's keep in touch, kid, and like, well,
we'll see what happened.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, like we'll work out something.
Speaker 4: So Mike meets him in Las Vegas like a few
months later, and his grandmother was still alive back then,
and she lived in Vegas. She was like a retired jeweler.
She lived in some like mid fancy pants kind of
Liberaci style house. She drove a gold plated Cadillac. So
he shows up pickup Dave and a gold plated Cadillac,
and Friedman was totally.
Speaker 5: Impressed with that.
Speaker 4: So he already had him on the hook from that
point on, and you know, they hung out and then
they ended up driving to La and you know, Friedman
shows him the Cordova Street film vault and that was
the beginning of everything, I mean as far as something
Weird becoming a legitimate like video company that was working
from original film elements and doing skins and re releasing
this material.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Dave kind of legitimized it the business for
you guys.
Speaker 4: In a way, absolutely, especially when he started introducing like
so he was, you know, I was still not quite
too sure about this because like Mike was excited about
titles that he was not the like he's like, really, no, no, no,
you want this one, you know. I mean, Dave had
his favorites, like she Freak and you know, The Defilers
was his first movie, so he's very proud of that one.
And you know, Rodic Zoro had a big budget and whatever.
And there's Mike in the film Bulk going what's this?
Dusty Can says space thing, and Dave's like, you don't
want that, and he's like, yeah, I do.
Speaker 5: It's a science fiction movie. He's like yeah, and he goes, yeah,
I definitely want that. Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 4: When Freeman got his first royalty check, he was he
was shocked. I mean, he didn't expect that much money
to come out of there, and you know, with this material,
and you know, like he and Dan Sunny used to
always say, you know, a film is like a bag
of flower shake it and a little bit more keep
coming out meeting money. So after that, Dave was like,
I'm going to introduce you to everybody. And you know,
we started with Harry Novak, Yeah, Arthur Morowitz and you know,
all of the big names in this business. And you know,
by that time, Bob Cressey was retired, but you know,
we got in touch with him and had found some
of his movies out in the wild. So Dave became
Mike became friends with like all of these people, and
I used to call him the old man whisper because
he just had a way of being able to, I
don't know, get these like stories that no one else
had heard out of them, a lot of confessions, a
lot of like you know, dark areas of their lives that.
Speaker 5: They had never exposed before.
Speaker 4: And but also just had fun with them, you know,
going out to dinners and taking Dave on film tours
and everything. So yeah, I mean I look back now
and that was just like such an incredible time to
be in this business with all of these people still alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dave was with you guys when he went over
to Scandinavia.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So in nineteen ninety eight, just Mike and
I had gone to Scandinavia and it was Rickord Grahm
Firs from Club Super eight had contacted us and he
was like, you know, would you guys be interested in
doing something weird like film festival like in Sweden in
a couple of different cities. And so we went over
there and we had a blast, and you know, obviously
it was very well received by everybody over there, and
we became really close friends with Rickard right away. And
he calls us a few months later and he's like,
do you want to come back and bring Dave Friedman
with you? And we're like sure, and we're like, but
it's going to be a Scandinavian tour, Like we're not
just going to do Sweden, We're going to do den Mark,
We're going to do Finland, and we'll do a bunch
of locations.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh, that's exactly what it was.
Speaker 4: So and I also had curated an art exhibition of
like women lowbrow artists, so I was because I'm still
doing my art back then, and so we had this
dual thing happening, and you know, first of all, Mike
and I were thinking, what's it going to be like spending.
Speaker 5: A month with Dave? I mean, because we already were
family by a month is like when.
Speaker 4: You're in each other's faces for that much amount of time,
it could get interesting, and you know, he was a blast.
We had a lot of good stories came out of
that weekend. But that definitely like inspired Club Super eight
to model itself on something weird and they basically became
like the Scandinavian something weird from that point and have
you know, created their own empire.
Speaker 3: So now, was that the trip when the pickup was
found or was that a separate trip?
Speaker 4: No, that was that was the trip that was found,
So it was actually found ahead of time. But we
had this whole plan that you know, because record had
come across a collection that had a lot of the
Kressy movies and Olympic International titles that some distributor from
I think they were from Denmark. Yeah, a Danish distributor
had so he just bought everything and he goes, I
have this idea, it'd be really funny. I'm going to
just like put this box with the pickup in it,
and when Dave comes to Club Super eight headquarters, like
I'm gonna tell him, I'll just go go poke around
in the vault and he would just like stumble upon it.
So we got quite a chuckle out of that, because
he's like, you have the pick up and there was
a whole plan to show it, you know, in a
theater that evening.
Speaker 5: So yeah, we like played our joke on him and stuff.
Speaker 4: But it was really fun that night because you know,
none of us had seen that movie, and Dave hadn't
seen it since it came out theatrically. So I'm sitting
in the theater right next to him and he's doing
like the whole commentary the whole time. But when his
love scene came on, it was so crazy. I mean
I'm sitting there.
Speaker 5: Like I'm like right next to him, like, no, I
don't like uncle Dave.
Speaker 4: I don't want to look at uncle Dave, you know,
doing the naughty stuff with some beautiful woman.
Speaker 5: And and did Carol ever see this? He's like, oh no, no, no, no, no,
she didn't know. But he was like very a word
he would use braggadoccio about his love scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's not a short scene either, It's no, yeah,
it's not short.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, an may he must have had he must have
enjoyed her company for a little bit.
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe I didn't ask.
Speaker 3: About that, Yeah, I know, yeah, how do you. Yeah, right,
exactly right.
Speaker 4: N you know, you give him a few few extra
scotches and he might tell us all kinds of stories
about that.
Speaker 5: So in that case he didn't other people, that'll go
in a book someday. I thought you were never coming back.
I want to talk to you about that new at
the Palace we.
Speaker 1: Got All the Time in the World, baby, all the time.
Speaker 4: In the world.
Speaker 2: Well, that pick Up release, I mean, on that note,
the recent seven Blu ray that you guys did for that,
we never thought we would get a version of that
without those burnt in sub Swedish nor what are THEYSH Danish.
Speaker 5: Subtitles, so we talk about obscure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was such a I mean a surprise release
when that was announced and I just rewatched it again
and yeah, it really does look amazing, it does.
Speaker 5: I mean, I was so.
Speaker 4: I mean, they did a great job of tracking down
you know, the pick up and also better elements for.
Speaker 5: Spur and Scavengers.
Speaker 4: So I'm thrilled that Severn is, you know, handling all
of those Olympic International films for the most part. And yeah,
I mean to have brand new like upgrades and restorations
is really incredible, and.
Speaker 2: The other dream release would be The Animal. Do you
know anything about subtitles?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, put a pin in that. Yeah, But I
will say I'm also the crazy completest that I am
still holding onto my DVDR of the Danish subtitled one,
because that's the one that I watched for years and
I and I remember when Something Weird did a series
in anthology here in New York, the actual print screened
at the theater and so I got to sit there
and see it with the subtitles, and so like, I
love that release, but my DVDR, there's too much sentiment
of value.
Speaker 5: So I have to keep it. No, it's like any
of your favorite movies. I do this same thing.
Speaker 4: It's like you got it from VHS to DVD, now
the Blu ray, and who knows what the next thing
is going to be?
Speaker 3: So right, right?
Speaker 2: Was that Frank Hennon Lauder behind you during that screening, Casey?
Was that the story you told me?
Speaker 3: He was either at the pickup or smell of Honey,
And it was a situation where we were talking back
and forth with each other like, oh my god, can
you believe this? Oh look, this is extra footage in
this print. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 3: I felt like I was back in the sixties and
we were at some flophouse watching some movie and just
like excitedly being excited. I can't believe we're seeing this
like that. Yeah I was. That was fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I definitely have to say that, Like, you know,
as much as these new digital restorations are gorgeous and
you know they're getting shown theatrically, when we get to
see the actual prints of these movies, you know shown,
I mean, we said a few years ago we did
Teenage Gang DIBs at the New Beverly Cinema. It was
from my friend Howie's memorial celebration that we were doing
as one of his favorite movie. And just like that
brings me so much joy just seeing the Prince and
in that case, like the print is still in really
really nice shape.
Speaker 5: I mean, it doesn't have very much wear and tear.
And the fact that we have these to be able
to experience in that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But at the same time, I'm also thrilled when, like,
you know, I did a screening with Defilers and Smell
of Honey Swallow O'Brien last year at a local microcinema
and it just looks so like it was sparkling on
the screen because it was all the brand new restoration.
So yeah, I mean I can't go either way, but
it is something about having the films shown makes it special.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that in that series was all prints, I think,
but I think I think, I think Smella honey. One
of the prints was actually sent for that too, So
I was just like, this is one of the only
prints that still existing, and I was I was over
the moon that I sat there. I don't think I
blinked because I was just like, I'm seeing this rare
print of one of like two that exists, so I'm
not going to miss a second. Yeah, there is something
special about that for sure.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on that topic of like film prints, I always wondered,
and I don't know if I've ever heard you talk
about it, Lisa, is like the process early on for
you guys to get I mean, you guys had so
much stuff. How were you scanning and like duplicating all
this material with I mean you guys had a small team.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So when Mike realized that there were so many
thirty and like the sixty millimeter films, it was a
little bit easier because you could do that locally. But
like once we were getting into thirty five millimeter film
scanning and Mike had already formed a partnership with Jimmy Maslin.
He had a transfer house down in North Hollywood. It
was called QC Film and Video. So the Something Weird
archive was stored there and Jimmy was doing all of
the scanning. But it was tele Asini back in those days,
so everything was going to one inch masters. I mean,
I'll tell you I got a garage full of one
inch masters that.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 4: I mean, when we've done brand new restorations of films,
they get tossed. They just do unless, like you know,
if I've sold some films to or you know, have
licensed films to different partners, like whether it be Severn
or let's say Alternative Cinema or something like, I will
give them them.
Speaker 5: I'm like, here, this is a gift, like I don't
want to get rid of it.
Speaker 4: But literally, like you're dealing with like a you know,
a twelve inch square that weighs ten pounds for every film.
And it's so much different now. I mean, so like
back in those days, you know, Mike would either find
films out in the wild or go to you know,
let's say Box Office International and grab a bunch of
prints or negatives if the negatives were there, and bring
them over to QC and then do our transferring, and
then he would do all of his mastering from super VHS.
So basically it would be like film one inch master
super VHS and then you know hit at the had
the little tag at the front, tag at the back,
you know, and do whatever or at all the little
extras that would be at the end as well.
Speaker 5: So because I mean, people.
Speaker 4: Don't realize this, but all of those I mean there
were over three thousand videos came out through something Weird
Video in the thirty years that we were doing this,
and Mike like manually edited every single one of those,
even like the ones up into the two thousands. He
never touched a computer. He's sitting there at his editing
decks like hard d it's doing everything, which you know
is not the way that most people do it at
all anymore.
Speaker 5: But he was definitely a technophobe.
Speaker 4: So once he would have the super VHS, let's say
VHS Master, SUPERVHS Master, that would go to the shop.
Speaker 5: And in the let's say, the.
Speaker 4: Early nineteen nineties till about I don't know, ninety seven,
ninety eight ish, Well, I don't know the whole Let's
just say, like the whole nineties, we probably had like
forty duplicating decks up there, and we had twenty four
hours shifts, so there was always like one person per
shift who just loaded all the tapes.
Speaker 5: And I mean there were different aspects of it.
Speaker 4: We I mean, at that point we probably had about
ten employees working for us, all doing different things and so,
and they were being recorded in real time. It wasn't
like you know, the super fast duplicating or anything. So
every two hours, you know, you put in another round
of tapes and did that for years and years and years,
and you know, besides just regular like customer mail order
that was coming in through the printed catalogs. And then
by like the mid to now, around the mid nineties,
we started having a website. We were still working with
Movies Unlimited and that was like our biggest, you know,
outlet for stuff. So I mean, you know, the Movie
Unlimited orders would come in and you'd just be duplicating
those for like days on end.
Speaker 5: And stuff.
Speaker 3: So and then I was mining. The introduction to something
weird was the Movies Unlimited catalog, the whole pages and pages,
and I was just like, what is this And that
was the beginning of it.
Speaker 2: Movie.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's that's interesting. Well, I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 4: I thought maybe it was like Kim's video or one
of those kinds of things. But I guess you weren't
any right.
Speaker 3: You know, I was. I was living in I was
living over seas at the time, and my parents got
me this catalog and they didn't know there was an
adult section at the back, and that's where all the
something weird stuff was, including the space thing art and
all this stuff. And I was like, I must know
more about this stuff at ten years old, think like.
Speaker 5: Okay, Casey likes movies. Let's see it's given him this catalog.
Speaker 3: That's what it was because they had because you know,
they had categories for classics, but they didn't think I'd
go to the back of the catalog. And so, yeah,
that's so something weird, corrupting, corrupting the minds.
Speaker 4: Oh, there's a credit moview I've heard about when you
were like Inger, I mean, I remember hearing from Alex
he wasn't even eighteen, and I'm like, get back in
touch from me when you're eighteen. Yeah, I didn't even.
Speaker 3: Be talking to you exactly.
Speaker 4: Yes, And he was telling me his mom and dad
used to buy him videos when he was a team
like you know, a young teenager. I'm like, oh, great,
you know, but you had good taste even then. So yeah,
that was pretty much like how the day to day
operations went. And we had like you know, there would
be people who did the packaging, you know, we literally
with every cover there. I mean, so my job, I'll
just I'll kind of like plug myself into this narrative.
So I was an artist and graphic designer. So Mike's like, well,
you know, why don't you help out with catalogs and
the video covers, And like we had gone through a
lot of different artists at that point because like people
were either like moving away or they were just temporary
or whatever. So we were cutting and pasting, like the
VHS box art. So take a let's say a press
book for any title, I would go in either if
a beautiful color cover, would make a color copy of that,
but otherwise, if it was just a black and white
ad Matt I would photocopy that, you know, blow it
up to the size of the case, and then on
different colored astro bright like copier paper print, like let's say,
five colors of the same ad mat and then literally
cut out all the little pieces and then stick them
down with blue stick and you know, to make them
have that garish, colorful lwerid look that we had. So
did that for a long time until like I learned
how to do photoshop and illustrator and whatnot. So yeah,
but they would take those covers that were like you know,
paste ups and just stick them on a color copy
or make over many we needed because everything was made
to order. I mean people don't also realize that, like
there wasn't warehouses full of product.
Speaker 5: It was literally an order came in. You only made
what was on that order.
Speaker 3: I remember sending those in snail mail to before the website.
I write in the catalog number and send it in
with like my check and then and I knew that
they were going to be fresh when I got them.
Speaker 4: So yeah, well I remember like that we used to have,
you know, in the back of the catalog where that
order form was.
Speaker 5: It would say four to six weeks for delivery. I
think you imagine now.
Speaker 4: Day is saying that to something that's gonna take four
to six weeks to get your smut.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, no, I knew it was worth it.
I was like, as long as I can order these
and I'll just eagerly anticipate it. And then when they arrived,
you couldn't move me away from my room. I was like,
I need to watch all of these right now.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, I was just looking at the
Lust than the flesh Phs box art from our friend
Slipcase Alex. He sent it to us, and I was wondering, like,
who made that? And so you probably put that together
using press materials?
Speaker 5: Yeah, can I tell you exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: So that was a black and white press book cover,
and like it had already had like the way that
the lettering and everything's laid out was already there. So
basically I just made a nice black and white copy
of it, but then like did the same thing like
put put the lettering on colored paper and then cut
it out, struck them on there and that, but left
all of the black and white imagery the way that
it was on the press book, So, I mean it
was really kind of I mean, one of the things
that Mike and I really felt strongly about was just
keeping the original ad materials because you know, those guys
were masters of that, and you know, sell the sizzle,
not the steak is part of the.
Speaker 2: Presentation that you know that was originally there, so why
change that. Yeah, That's always how I think about it
as well. It's like this is the marketing is part
of the movie, you know, especially for exploitations.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's the whole movie. Sometimes it's all the mark
that's the entire movie. Is the market I.
Speaker 5: Certainly get me sucked into them.
Speaker 4: I'll be like, I mean, I have all these press
books for movies that I mean, that's a whole other
podcast we can have is about all the lost movies
that we all want to see.
Speaker 2: We did that podcast, we did too, and they were
like three hours apiece.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we spent like a whole work day, eight hours
talking about lossuits.
Speaker 4: Yes, like staring at them. I must see this someday,
just because the art is so cool and or it's
just so weird. Like some of these press books are
incredibly primitive and like I don't know who they were
trying to sell that to but it's something really appealing
about it.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why we had to limit our episode. We
were like, Okay, we're just going to focus on the
lost films that actually have a trailer, because if we
focused on lost films that have the best press book
press books, then that's a whole nother discussion, which we
might actually do one of these days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we might.
Speaker 5: Doing the doc Lord's work, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, And so I guess related to the design,
I feel like you've talked about this somewhere else, but
I always am reminded of it because you know, I
have my my rose of something weird DVDs and DVD,
and there's something that seems very intentional about like the
choice of color and the choice of fonts and how
they all kind of really go together uniformly. And so
I wondered, what the what was your process like in
terms of determining what the color of like a sleeve
was going to be and what the font was going
to be because they're not all the same font and so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pop art Lisa coming through there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was so subjective.
Speaker 4: So the earliest like you know, we'll call them classics,
something weird video VHS releases like they basically the color
palette was very black dominated with like red, yellow, cyan,
and magenta. And in my kind of like his philosophy
was no blank space, no white, you know, fill up
every inch of the you know, if there's any space
at all, like you put something in there. So and
I kind of come from that. I mean, look at
my look at you could see this is space I
live in, like one of my art things that I do.
So as far as the fonts and stuff goes, so
I'm very partial to futura as far as text, so
I wanted to, like, you know, if you see something
weird catalog, they're almost always all in futura, either condensed
or regular. That it usually with the let's say the spines.
I try to find something close to like if we
had original art, you know, because or I mean ideally
I would just take the logo from an ad mat
and fit it on there. But sometimes you can't do
that because it just doesn't fit that narrow shape. So
just trying to get something close. I mean, I would say,
like the other something weird font is one. I mean,
it's probably called a lot of different things, but it's
called ad lib and it's kind of like the font
that they use on the Brady.
Speaker 5: Bunch title card and stuff. So we use that.
Speaker 4: And there was a type font called Psychatronic, which you know,
go figure that worked out really well. But mostly it
really just depended on the release. I mean, if you
have like a boor like I shouldn't say this because
I know there's people that love them, but like Sword
and Sandal movies or something, if you just feel like
a very like Times Roman, you know, keep it simple
or or something that had a little bit of a
flare to it.
Speaker 5: But m hmm, it was it was case by case
for the most part.
Speaker 3: Well like you, because I think even the artwork for
All American Honeymoon makes that look like incredible. You know,
I thought it was. I thought it was a well done.
I thought it was well don considering that it was
never released and so you really kind of had to
start from scratch with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean the other thing too, I always have
to remind myself of this because I will look at
some of the older like especially for films that we
didn't have any art for, and you know, we did
have a resource of friends and who also collected press books,
so if I couldn't find something, I would ask them.
But then you have a film like All American Honeymoon,
where like there's no ad materials. Basically, what we decided was,
all right, we're just going to do a template with
like you know, some kind of font, a square with
a grab and you know, a square on the back.
I mean, it was just party simple for the most part.
But the other thing was just that Mike was putting
out so much material at one point. I mean, like
you remember the days when there'd be like four catalog
supplements in a year, and in those four catalog supplements,
they'd be like fifty to one hundred titles.
Speaker 5: I had to make a cover for every single one
of those.
Speaker 4: So depending on like the significance of it or if
we thought it was going to be a better seller,
I mean good. Another good example of a crappy movie
that like I just threw together was Mister Angel.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, don't remind me of mister I was
so excited about that though. You you did a good
job without art because it made me want to see it.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, Angel Lord, it's like a you
don't want.
Speaker 3: To a fake spy man from uncle kind of thing.
But the guy looks like an Aryan dream. He's like
bleached blondes bluem with a wig. Yes, yeah, it's yeah.
I mean, I'm glad I saw it. And I think
Stormterber's USA was around the same time. And so that's
something else that you had to start to do work
from nothing with that, because that was tough, and.
Speaker 5: It was also a time crunch.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, all right, I just got it, like
do it really quick, and I'm not really put much
thought into it.
Speaker 5: And but but it was also it kind of fit
what we were already doing with that.
Speaker 4: So people want to watch the movie, They're not going
to sit there and like gaze. Well, you guys are
gazing at the cover.
Speaker 5: The average person isn't.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if I've ever heard this story
behind the Little the little Man, the little Something Weird.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask about that, him and Buddy Beaver,
the two and the two mascots of something Weird.
Speaker 5: All right, So little something weird dude, that's what I
call him. That was before my time.
Speaker 4: So I know that Mike found him in a men's magazine,
like a vintage one and there was an ad and
it was like, you know, for Newdy loops and he
was kind of like, you know, it was Tightened Films.
I think that was the name of the company, and
they you could get mail order super not super but
eight milimeter gurly loops and.
Speaker 5: He's standing there like those.
Speaker 4: I think Mike thought that was like kind of cool.
I mean, he grab some other pleased to be a
guy that he had a hat and people thought it
was him. It was like an older dude, kind of
pudgy with like glasses, and he had an ad that
would say buy my shorts, and he was on stuff
for a long time.
Speaker 5: I'll probably resurrect him in some way, I think. But yeah,
a little something weird guy. What's funny is there?
Speaker 4: I've been through magazines and found like the original little
ads and like it's in so much nicer quality than
the one that we use because it's just been xerox
so many times over and over and over again. So
but yeah, he's our mascot. He'll always be our mascot
even oh fun fact, and I can't think of the
artist's name, and I should, this should just I mean,
as I.
Speaker 5: Got older, hard time remembering is.
Speaker 4: But the guy, the guy did that art, his daughter
was somehow contact and was just like, oh, my dad
did that art, which I thought was really She wasn't like, oh,
and don't use it or whatever. She was so excited
that it was being used, which kind of reminds me
of me because my my own father is a commercial
artist and I would see some of his stuff out
in the wild being used and it's like exciting, like, oh,
it has a second life, so you know, especially little
something Weird guy. I mean, people just recognize that is
that's that's something weird. And the same with the Siddale
hell Raiser song.
Speaker 3: I mean that is the something Weird theme.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people call it that's something yeah exactly, and it's like, no,
it's actually hell Raisers.
Speaker 3: But we'll take that, so right exactly, Siddale getting a
second life. I'm sure that it's good for everybody all
around because that such a great piece of music.
Speaker 5: So well as far as Bucky Beaver, so in the earliest.
Speaker 4: Bucky Beaver Loops VHS tapes, like there was kind of
a set looking Bucky Beaver. He was. He was very
close card to me, but didn't have much personality, and
he was just like a beaver smoking a cigarette, like
in profile. And when we started working on the Blue Book,
we were working with an artist called Eric Eye at
that time. And this was another situation where like, one
day somebody just sent us in the mail this really
cool piece of art saying, hey, I'm a illustrator and
I would love to do some work for you. And
he's now become like part of the Something Weird family
as well. So when we started working on the blue Books,
Mike asked him, could you come up with a new
Bucky Beaver? Like he has to look like a.
Speaker 5: Degenerate and he's like depraved and all those kinds of things.
And Eric nailed it. So he and he did hundreds
of drawings of Bucky, as you can see in the
Blue Book.
Speaker 3: Every it's like every other page is him in some scenario,
and there there's a comic in there too. I think
he did well.
Speaker 4: What's interesting is that a real life comic book artists
kind of ran with.
Speaker 5: Our Bucky Beaver.
Speaker 4: So it was Kat Moriarty and Jim Blanchard, you know
from fanographics, did a story and inked it and that
appeared and I think it was the second Blue Book
that one's in there. So yeah, I mean he's in Bucky.
I feel sad because I mean, Bucky is in retirement now.
He does occasionally go visit some other video companies and
have some things come out. But I mean as far
as something weird, like we're letting him just you know,
be happy in the gutter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's earned it, He's earned some time to us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, I've noticed he doesn't. I
mean that kind of speaks to just the releases that
are getting put out, doesn't it.
Speaker 5: It does.
Speaker 4: And but also so I mean, and a lot of
people don't realize this with us companies that are like
releasing vintaj Erotica and Golden Age hardcore movies, that there
are issues with having them on your websites and with
e commerce and stuff. And you know, I think I've
discussed this at different times over the years, but it
makes it really problematic to like run a business and
have like adult material. And you I know a lot
of my other colleagues experiences as well. So you know,
with the changes in the last you know, since Mike's
passing in twenty fourteen, I kept the you know, the
hardcore catalog available up until the end of last year
twenty twenty four, and I just decided it was costing
me too much money first of all, to have a
high risk merchant credit card account to be able to
even do the e commerce. Also, there's censorship. You can't
have certain I mean, you probably noticed over the years,
like things disappearing off of something weird website in you know,
I'm not going to sit there and like let people
know every single time that happens. I just figure like
they'll just you know, fade away or whatever that it
was because of like the banks literally contacting us annually
and being like.
Speaker 5: We have a problem with this or we have a
problem with that. There's certain words, I mean, and.
Speaker 4: I left, so I get the list of words, and
two of the ones that I I mean, one of them,
I just didn't understand hypnosis hypnotists anything to do with that.
And basically what they claim is that that implies you know, coercion, Yeah,
and you know, not.
Speaker 5: Non consent. So I know, I mean, who would have
thought the other one? Yeah, I don't know what this was.
Speaker 4: I had to like ask one of my gay friends,
was you cann't use the word twink. What we could
not use the word twink, And I'm like, what's what's
a twink?
Speaker 3: And you know, yeah, it's like twinks should be illegal,
but the word itself, that's very cool.
Speaker 4: Don't use the word like don't you can't have and
like we didn't even have that words I would have liked.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it was usually in like plot descriptions
or somebody, yeah, describing a character in one of the
like the the Bucky Beaver, like male loops or whatever.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, so anyway, which meant going through the website
and either removing and also images. Yeah, I know, I'm like,
so he was usually in the Bucky Bee re section
that I had any issues and you know the fact
that you're paying you're paying more to be a high
risk merchant. You have to pay annual fees, you have
to jump through all these hoops, and it's like, you know,
this isn't worth it because what I'm really want to
focus on is like exploitation and exploitation and and not
have to deal with all the nonsense because it's really stressful.
I mean, you know, you're just like getting the random
email your website's been you know, shut down, because of
content or whatever from a bank.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: So I remember when the I remember when The Adolescent
was pulled from the website because oh, you're gonna sell
a movie called The Adolescent.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: Well what was interesting was in the nineteen nineties, this
is like the first time we had any issues and
this wasn't even when we had a website, so early nineties, and.
Speaker 5: There was a thing going on with.
Speaker 4: The post office where you couldn't send anything that had
the word young or teenage.
Speaker 5: Or there was a whole list of those words. So
we pulled.
Speaker 4: That was when all that stuff got pulled from the catalog,
like very early on, and you know, or Mike retitled them.
That's why a lot of films would be like, why
is it Renee Bond's sex Fantasies?
Speaker 3: That's the big one, Yeah, because you can't take that
out of print, that's a masterpiece and just retitle it
right exactly.
Speaker 4: So that happened with a lot of things, or we
just you know, Mike loved he actually just liked retitling
things if he thought.
Speaker 5: The title was boring. You know, So that's do you
it's okay at your company?
Speaker 2: Well, igards over at Coultpics just had problems with like
the child Bride that old thirties move.
Speaker 5: Oh I'm I'm not surprised to hear that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, well the content is iffy too, still, that's all.
The content itself is also iffy in that, but Kino
put it out, so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and then we did it with them, So yeah,
I mean I've thought about that. I've also do things
like I'll if I if I think there's a word
that might be probably problematic, you know, potentially problematic, I'll
just use an asterisk in it, like in a couple
of places.
Speaker 5: That way, it's kind of a little hidden, I don't know, right.
Speaker 2: So right, well, Casey and I have had this conversation
before where it's like censorship isn't it's not It's it's
not as obvious these days. It's more like behind the scenes,
like you're dealing with where they just like make it
hard for you to do business. You know, they're not
outright like censoring things, but they're just like making it difficult,
which is sounds really frustrating. And I mean as a
sexploitation podcast as well, like sometimes we have to think
about it, but other times they're just like, screw it.
It's like we're just going to do what we're going
to do, right.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean you don't want I mean, but I
totally understand it.
Speaker 4: And the thing is, I mean what I find a
little like I don't want to be doing self censor
or a second guessing. Yeah, I just remember how things were,
let's say in the nineties and it was the wild West.
I mean, you could be so abrasive and like, I
mean I was reading some of our old, you know,
descriptions for some movies, like working on a project right now.
Speaker 5: And I'm looking at what you know. Mike Akamando, who.
Speaker 4: Was for Gentle Pure, Oh, he was just I wish
he was still writing and contributing, but I see him
out in the water, Like so you met Chiller still
around so okay, but he wrote something which was hilarious,
but you literally could not reprint that the way he
wrote it.
Speaker 5: He would have to change some words because.
Speaker 4: Things have changed so much, and just being aware of that,
I don't like self censoring, but I also don't want
to go out of business, and I don't want to
cause any problems for any of my partners or other publications.
Speaker 5: Or you know podcast any of that kind of stuff.
So just it's just different times.
Speaker 2: Well, what the Big Snatch, that issue with Image, that
was early two thousands.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, so there were a couple of titles that
Image wasn't going to touch with a ten foot poll
and Big Snatch and Love Camp seven were the two.
So and unfortunately it's like, you know, Mike had done
a commentary with Dave Friedman for Love Camp seven and
I mean I ended up giving that to David at
sever and I said, do something with this, you know,
put it on one of your releases, because you know,
we never did anything with it. But yeah, they definitely
drew a line. And a lot of people know the
story about Borders books and how you know, basically, you know,
the extra Weird sampler came out and they were giving
them away with anyone who bought us something Weird DVD.
Speaker 5: And some people were kind of offended because I mean
that there.
Speaker 4: Was scenes from like Adult Jekyll and Hide and Erotics
or I mean things that were definitely if you bought
your kid Wonderful World.
Speaker 5: Of Oz and that was.
Speaker 4: Right right, So, yes, those all got pulled, but you know,
I ended up with them and I would just put
them in. If somebody had a big order, I'd throw
one in. And we also had it on the catalog
available as a catalog item for years too. So but
who know, you know, I mean, I think part of
it is the more of the stuff you watch, and
especially when you're take a deep dive into it.
Speaker 5: Ye, I kind of jaded. I I don't like, oh
that's offensive.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, very I cast myself sometimes on this podcast.
I'll listen back and I'll be like, oh lord, I
really just I really was not very a diplomatic when
I'm discussing some of these movies. Yeah, just yeah, it's like, wow,
maybe I shouldn't have discussed this woman's anatomy or you know,
all these other things.
Speaker 5: You know, that's what editing is for.
Speaker 3: Yes, I know, I think loves when I go on
my tangents. I know John't loves my tangents about like
breast and plants and things on s Exploitation Starlet's.
Speaker 2: Well, to be fair, sometimes I think I instigate that
as well.
Speaker 3: So you do, yeah, well on that topic.
Speaker 2: It's like you guys have done some theatrical as well,
so I think that's always an interesting venue because you
get to play like she Mob, which played of an audience.
Yeah that's not really familiar with them.
Speaker 5: Well I'll tell you about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we had the I mean, I have to
say so, I had always been wanting to go to
the Mahoning drive in because I keep seeing all the
excellent programming happening. And you know, it was a couple
of years ago. I had bumped into Mark and Virgil
and they were like, you have to come out here
and do something, and I'm like, okay, just you know,
let me know. So AGFA does a thing every fourth
of July weekend, so we decided last year that something
weird would also get involved and do one of the nights.
Speaker 5: Like, well, what do you want a program?
Speaker 4: Because it has to be on thirty five, I said, well,
Teenage Gang Debs and She Mob. You know that sounds
perfect to me because I always want to do the
female centric anything anyway, So and not realizing that like
we're in a drive in and for the most part, like, yeah,
the program was advertised as adults only, but.
Speaker 5: Teenage Gang Debs we showed that no problem.
Speaker 4: You know, I always get a little like, I mean,
the scenes that I usually get kind of concerned about
our like anything where there's sexual assault or you know,
so at the beginning of teenage game demes, you've got
you know, Janet bands that being sexually assaulted, and but
you know they don't really just implied, but yeah, but
still it's like, I mean, I've literally had people at
screenings be like, you know, you should have done a
trigger warning and blah blah blah about something.
Speaker 5: So I usually do do that ahead of time, but
at the drive.
Speaker 4: In, I was like, the movie just goes on, but
she mob starts and like the first you know, first
part of it's like the splish Flashy, a lot of
cars left.
Speaker 5: I mean like probably twenty cars left within the first minutes. Yeah,
but I don't think they missed out.
Speaker 3: So they didn't get to either. They didn't even get
see Big Shim except for the little bit in the credits.
They didn't even get to her.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And well also, I mean the other favor is between
the Splishy Flashy and then the masturbation scene with the
bait with a huge torpedo silicon boobies like up here somewhere,
and that went on that that lingered for quite a
while and I'm sitting there myself going, maybe this wasn't
a good choice. But no, everyone loved it, except for
those people who left, right, maybe they were tired.
Speaker 5: It was it was after midnight.
Speaker 3: Myself that, yeah, teenage gang dots can be exhausting. You
go on a journey with that because they're like, oh
my gosh, rough and tumble ladies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, especially if you're doing the karate dance move. Yeah,
that'll tire you out. You might need to go home there, true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going the black Belt.
Speaker 5: Chili at night.
Speaker 4: So maybe they just wanted to be in bed. I'm
going to tell myself that, and that it wasn't my movie.
Speaker 3: It wasn't an equivalent of a walkout, right exactly, yeah,
right right.
Speaker 2: Don't make me mad.
Speaker 1: Don't make me mad.
Speaker 2: You into Bay, your particular bob bad thing can be
mean boy, but don't get me wroud. Don't make me angry.
Speaker 1: Don't make me mad.
Speaker 4: But you know, for instance, I just you know, I said,
I showed locally to filers in Samella, Honey Swaller, Brian
and I maybe had a dozen people come and which
I'm like, okay, well, and also it was like you know,
I did my disclaimer at the beginning, like there's you
know this is you know, I understand the time period
these movies were made, this is a roughie and blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: I mean, at least that crowd got it, but it
was like a lot of people just didn't.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was surprised that we have a bigger audience,
and I guess that this is not for everybody, and
not just because we love those movies doesn't mean everyone
else does.
Speaker 3: That's true, Yeah, well, I mean they just I think
that everyone I just automatically assume everyone would love Stacy
Walker and just ignore the content around her. Just just
focus on Stacy and you know it's it's it goes
down real easy that movie.
Speaker 5: So yes, let her eat up the scenery.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, she would make a meal of that movie.
Speaker 2: It's such a good segue, Casey, because smell honey defilers,
those have been put out. But now you're putting a
new David Friedman collection. How do you want to how
are you presenting.
Speaker 4: These films so so basically out of all so when
it up happening after Mike passed, you know, in his
mind he didn't care if this thing continued. But obviously
I am personally invested in it, you know, professionally, and
you know, is my source of income. So I really
just had to figure out what was going to be next.
And there's something weird catalog. There's you know, thousands of
titles and some of them are they you know, anything
from like you know, kid children's film, Mattine films, to
hardcore pornography, and that is not something that one company
is going to want to take on. And also the
logistics of that much film. I mean, there were five
warehouses full of film at the time of Mike's death,
and they were all over the place. And you know,
fortunately when you Stephen Morrowits came out the first year
to take possession of the movie lab materials that you know,
we had gotten from you know, in the late nineties
that Arthur and Mike were partners in that kind of
chipped away at it a little bit, but there was
still so much. So basically like cutting up the pie,
giving you and curating it in such a way that like,
I think this company would be a good fit with this.
I think this one would be good for you know,
and hope for the best, because I you know, I
know these people, but I don't some of them.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that. Well, well, I think.
Speaker 2: You've been doing a good job. Let me just say, like,
I think you've been finding the right partners for the
right material.
Speaker 5: I appreciate that. Thanks.
Speaker 4: But the Freeman films I sat on and because I
really just I knew that that was kind of like
the jewel in our crown and just waiting for just
the right opportunity also to be able to give the
time that I thought that they needed. So initially, when
I was just you know, getting film elements to either
film marquis or video companies, like I did, send all
of the Freedman film elements down to AGFA and with
the understanding that we would probably release them together. And
you know, after talking to those guys for a while,
I realized they're not interested really in releasing the like
soft X titles. It doesn't fit in with their mission.
And not that they have anything against them, it's just
that like there's be a better fit for those. However,
titles like you know, she Freak and you know to
file a Smell of Honey, those are a good fit
with AGFA. There's also one more AGFA release coming out
in early twenty twenty six. That's a Freedman thing, so
it'll be like kind of like we do a trilogy
with AGFA.
Speaker 5: So they're true. Yeah, like I said, I haven't an
NDA thing. I can't talk about it.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like sexploitation. We love the teas. It's fine,
just that. Yeah, the tea's is great. We have something
to look forward to exciting exactly.
Speaker 4: So so we will be having just one other AGFA
Friedman double feature coming out, and it's good. It's a
good one. It's already all the you know, all the
things are in the soup. It's simmering right now.
Speaker 5: But everything else, you know.
Speaker 4: I talked with Joe Rubin and I said, you know,
would you guys be interested in doing this, because, like
I mean obviously that that's just a good home for them,
and you know, with Stephen now having launched Malausine and
all of the Distripicks titles starting to come out as well,
it's just a good fit. And also there's enthusiasm there
because I you know, one of the main things for
me is like I want to work with people who
are just as excited about the material as I am
because otherwise nothing going to get done, and you know,
also being able to plug in experts like you guys
and all this other stuff, like I want to I
just want to be able to like have these be
the best possible releases they can be, like almost thinking
that this is like the last time, because you know,
I'm in my early sixties now and I just don't
know how much longer. I'm like, you know, I don't
want to be doing this till I'm eighty, So let's
get these out the door. But like we're going to
do them super deluxe. I mean, Casey, I saw your
thing this morning. You were talking about the latest District picks,
you know, super deluxe.
Speaker 3: Case In Stephen, I was like, I was misty eyed
this morning. I was like, this is insane because I
hadn't I had These are the first time I've seen them.
I hadn't seen any of them, so these are the
first ones that I got my hands on. And when
you have them in your hands, You're like, this is
a big deal, Like this is this is really special?
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, I mean it's there.
Speaker 4: I mean the amount of time and effort that's going
into every release, and you know, being able to like
making sure that we try to think of everything. I mean,
obviously you're going to miss some things here and there.
But so with these new like out the gate, like
you know, Joe was immediately well Adult Jekyll and Hyde.
He was dying to get that out. So I'm like, Okay,
well let's put it on double feature with Zoro and I.
You know, that's a really big splash to make for
your first release as far as this goes, and for me,
it's it was just really a joy because I got
to work with Dave's personal archival materials and which I
have boxes and boxes and filing cabinets of and like
you know, I've been slowly organizing them over the years,
but with the thought that like I am going to
be doing these Blu Ray releases plus publishing some books
and some other things in the future, but to actually
like get all of the materials for a movie together,
and which means not just like a still set.
Speaker 5: It's like all of the production stills, you.
Speaker 4: Know, because Dave kept the negative you know, the box
with the negatives and the print sheets, and they're also
going through my own adult movie mag slicks and trying
to find whatever pictorials relate to those movies because obviously
they know that was their advertising. You know, they all
had their finger in there and trying to scan all
of that and any just ephemera related to it and
present them in such a way like, you know, don't
create new art, just use what's exists. I mean, when
you've got Rudy Escalera doing the one sheets for any
of these films, it's like they're gorgeous.
Speaker 5: So it's just a matter of like do you have
so much material, what do you want to use? Because
it's all good.
Speaker 4: So I'm really happy with how this first you know,
release of adult Jekyline Hyde and Erotic Adventures or how
it came out, everybody involved with it and just knowing that,
like we've got to do this many many more times
now and keep the bar high.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well yeah, no shade to the other releases.
But I do think, you know, Dave's stuff was kind
of made for these special packages. I think that the
presentation is amazing. Yeah, and I can't wait to see
how the rest of them look, because Jekyl and Hyde
and Zoro is Yeah, like you said, it's a good
splash to start it out with. And you know you
got Renee Bond and Zoro. So it's like, yeah, like
you said, yeah, I was going to ask about you
were talking about materials, Like what's what's the deal with
this second volume of the Youth in Babylon Dave's book?
Speaker 5: Okay, it's a sad story.
Speaker 4: So when Dave was still alive, you know, he had
sent Mike and I the first two and a half
chapters of the book after his book had been rejected
by the publisher. Because it is called Kings of Babylon,
it's the second volume of his story, so it basically
picks up where he in Herschel part ways and he
starts working for Sunny Amusement Enterprises. So he's like, hey, kids,
like I need you to read this and let us know,
like you know, like is this too wordy? They're telling
me it's too long, and like I don't want.
Speaker 5: To edit it.
Speaker 4: I'm like, we don't want you to edit it either.
Let us look at it, and I'm like this is
perfect the way it is. It's like, I mean, day
we all are familiar with, you know, from Youth and Babylon.
He just had such a flowery way of you know,
writing and also just telling a story, and that's part
of it. It's not like that can't be edited. You know,
you're not going to take out words, you know. And
he was like, the king of a literation, leave his
a literation in there, you know that that's just all
part of the story.
Speaker 5: And so we have.
Speaker 4: So we kept these in our possession and like, you know,
this is perfectly fine. You know, just tell them you
don't want to and if not, maybe we'll find another
publisher for you. So a couple of years go by
and we start talking a Dave again, like so any
going on with the book, and he just got really quiet,
and we're like, what's up, and he's like, I can't
find it his manuscript and it was like a word
processed manuscript. It wasn't like on a computer or anything.
And he goes, I think my wife Carol threw it
out when she was cleaning my office.
Speaker 5: Who throws out a thousand I.
Speaker 3: Don't see Carol doing that, although, okay, so.
Speaker 5: You know, can you look, can you look? Whatever?
Speaker 4: So years and years ago, you know, a few more
years ago by Dave passes away and his niece Micah
is going through his materials and he said hey, keep
an eye out for this manuscript. I go. It has
to be there, I said, I can't imagine where else
it would be. I also called the publisher to see
if they kept a copy, and they said no, they
they I guess they just throw that stuff out or
they just send it back or whatever. And I also
called his Oh he wrote a letter to his ghost
writer and who had helped him with it and with
guys in his probably mid nineties now, and he wrote
me a letter back talking about how Dave Freeman was
a crook and he didn't pay him the money was
supposed to do from the books that he sold at
conventions and all this other stuff, and no he didn't
have it.
Speaker 5: But so, I mean, that was all I want to know.
Do you have it or do you not have it?
I didn't need this out, I mean the SOB story,
because they didn't the forty thieves for nothing, right, So
it is gone missing. And except for the two and
a half, Yeah, you've got a.
Speaker 4: I have. I have already typed up and I've transcribed
them myself, so they have them digitally, and I plan
on publishing books of the first chapter is going to
be its own book because it was about the Sunny
family and how a Sunny Amusement and prizes came to be,
and like its whole history. I mean, even though it's
one chapter, there's so much accompanying visual material from Freeman's
own archive and just stuff that Mike and I have
collected over the decades, and whynot that I think it
could be a gorgeous, gorgeous book. Second book would be
The King's of Babylon just two point five or whatever.
So it'll be Dave starting to work for Sonny, him,
you know, being them telling him, hey, make a movie,
makes the Defilers, you know, the Stacy Walker stories in there,
also him making Notorious daughter of Fanny Hill right up
until they made Smell Honeys follow or Brian, and then
he starts to talk about Stacy, like what became of
Stacy Walker? And that's, oh yeah, I could I could
go on and on about that as well. However, that's
kind of where it stops abruptly. And I'm going to
tell you my theory putting this out there. Probably I
think his wife read the book and was reading it
got to i mean, like or start got to that point,
because like we had the other part of it he
is singing the praises of this woman he was obviously
madly in love with. I think she was pissed off.
Speaker 5: I think she threw the book out.
Speaker 4: That's just my you know, my theory. But it's strange
how it just disappeared. And I mean obviously that she
was a very long She's a wonderful Carol was wonderful.
I mean, Mike and I spend a lot of time
with her, very long, suffering to put up.
Speaker 5: With him.
Speaker 3: Through so much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it really did. And I just think the.
Speaker 4: Fact that you know, he was publicly talking about another
woman in such a in such glowing language.
Speaker 5: That that might have that might have been it. But
I could be completely wrong, But that's my that's my theory.
I'm sticking to it. Yea.
Speaker 2: In that sex sex is, there was just one sex
I can't remember now, sex is. Carol's in that and
you know they that Stacey Walker does come up and
it is kind of an awkward scene.
Speaker 4: So you noticed that too, yes, yeah, okay, well anyway,
so so that is what I think happened to the book.
But there, I mean, I promised you that in the
next however many years, that I am going to be
putting that those chapters out there.
Speaker 2: I know you put out ye a little a little
snippet in the Mister Peters Pets release from Keno, Yes,
which waiting my appetite.
Speaker 3: The Defilers too, right? Was there something in the Defilers
liner notes too?
Speaker 4: I think I think I did take a couple of
days quotes from that in there. I can't remember off hand,
but I know with obviously, we've got some upcoming releases
for Freeman in the next year, year two, and I'll
probably be using some parts about notorious daughter Fanny Hill
that were from the book and when we start to
work on that project in the future.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that well, that piece and for the Defilers,
I mean, that was everything us Stacy Walker fanatics wanted.
I mean, we had the last known photograph that you
put that you put in there, and like the most
information that we had ever had, even more than Dave
shared with us and commentaries were in those liner notes.
And I had to ask, have there been any updates
in the Stacy Well story.
Speaker 5: I'm working with Sean Langrick on that and good.
Speaker 4: It's a sensitive topic, so I'm sure just kind of
tippy toeing my way through it. But we have some
leads on some things, and okay, yeah, I'll just I'll
leave it at that.
Speaker 3: Sure, I hope she's still with us. I hope she's
doing well me too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, fabulous icon.
Speaker 4: Yep, you sit right here and talk to me while
I take my bed.
Speaker 1: I'll stand here.
Speaker 2: Shit, did you be a good boy and sit down?
Speaker 3: I wondered, so you so we have a bunch of
exciting Freeman releases to look forward to. I wondered if
you had a personal favorite or like it, or one
that really spoke to you that you're really excited to
get restored, and if and on the other hand, did
you have one that you think deserves more attention that
has kind of overlooked h in his in the Freeman catalog.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, I mean I put up my favorite ones already,
so obviously she freaked the filers Melhet And it was
funny because, like I mean, I'm gonna be this is
probably sacrileged for me to say this, but I'm not
a huge fan of Uncle Dave's movies.
Speaker 5: You know that's okay.
Speaker 4: Those historical bodice ripper drama costume dramas are a hard watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he loved them. He really did.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I loved doing the costume pictures.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well he was bringing some class to smut.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I have to say I think I'm probably
excited about like maybe Brick Dollhouse and Sweet Sickness just
because I like those movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are my choices as well. Yeah, because I
actually rewatched Sweet Sickness both of them recently, and because
I was like, are these as bad as I remembered?
And they were not. I loved both of them. I
don't know what I was thinking when I first saw them,
and I was like, you know, these aren't that great.
I love them both, and I really want nice restorations
of those. They're so yeah, very different movies.
Speaker 2: Well, in a Brick Dollhouse, just the colors in that
movie are crazy. I would love to see.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, supersaturated, It's really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also Starlet, I mean because that never got an Image
Entertainment release. I think it was slated to be a
double feature with Varshy Blows and there was some issues
with the film elements. I'm hoping there's still there won't
be issues with the film elements when and if the
time comes we start.
Speaker 5: To work on those.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think that that's a really important one
because I mean, basically, I love how Dave just inserts
his own like personal you know things like with Sheefreak,
obviously he was a Cartney so that means in there.
And then you know with Starlett, you're basically writing the
story of like exploitation film producer and you know behind
the scenes stuff that.
Speaker 5: Goes along with that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean I think all of those aspects
of the films that are coming out are going to
be interesting to people as well.
Speaker 3: Well, there's one one. There's one that we did discuss
on our Lost Pictures Lost Movies lists, which might be
the I think it is it the only EVI movie
that's still missing, which is Love Thy Neighbor and His Wife.
And I don't know, is there I don't know if
Dave getting any reason why that one is missing. Was
it because it was like a pickup from Byron? Maybe?
Speaker 5: I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I think that maybe it's missing some film elements. That
might be because I I have some film elements for it,
it's just maybe not all there.
Speaker 3: Well, that was on Gentry's top ten lists. Nice to
see it.
Speaker 5: It'll be a Christmas Miracle.
Speaker 3: That would be great. I mean even if there even
if those are included as as like a bonus on
one of the one of the Freedman packages, just I
mean it's ushi and it's Byron May.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we're gonna use as much material like I mean, basically,
so when I started to say when when all of
the films were deposited at AGFA, when I made the
decision to have Melasine, you know, take it over, so
all of the all of the Freedman stuff got sent
up to Connecticut. So it's all there now. So basically
it's just a matter of like Oscar going through and
inspecting what films we have. I mean, there's a couple
of things that are mislabeled where it looked as though
there were some elements missing from a few films. However,
oddly enough, they were somewhere in Jimmy Maslin's garage.
Speaker 5: I don't know how that happened, but it did.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like big giant jigsaw puzzles, like
trying to get all these things back and together, because
I mean, we had so many warehouses at one point,
like in the nineties and early two thousands, we had
after Jimmy stopped doing QC video. There was a warehouse
under the sixth Street Bridge in LA that was just
you know, where everything got dumped after it got transfer
because our transfer house after that was up in Reseda
and there was that stuff had to all come back
to Seattle at one point, and I think just some
things kind of got lost in the shuffle. They might
have ended up at Jimmy's home and whatever. So yeah,
we're just we're still finding things. I find things in
my garage every once in a while, like, oh that's
where that went.
Speaker 5: Cool, Okay.
Speaker 3: So it seems like that's kind of the nature of
trying to document and save the history of the genre
in general. It's like bits and pieces here and there,
and it's just like trying to put it all together.
It is kind of like a big puzzle.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, well, I just appreciate all the kind
of work that you guys are doing because I mean,
I'll be honest, I mean, like my interest in like
I'm not doing the deep dive in research unless it's
a project that I'm specifically working on at that moment,
because like I spent so many years like trying to
find all the information before there was an internet or
when it was the early days of the Internet. And
you know, we always laugh at like if you look
at the descriptions on this, like we now call it
the something weir at archive dot com, which is the
old something weird website. I mean, I kept it just
because I sometimes kind of need to look something up
and or even like with a NUDI, like what's on
NUDI QTS two seventy one.
Speaker 5: I know that way I can just go on there.
Speaker 4: But there's so much information that's incorrect now and mistakes
and just because we didn't know and like people who
were using pseudonyms back in the nineties, we didn't know
who those people were. And I mean, I am so
grateful for people like you who are doing the hard
work now and like making all of this makes sense,
because a lot of time we would just be like
this looks like so and so's work, but the name
on it is this, and like do you think and
we're like, well, there's no nothing to back that up,
and then you find out, oh, okay, that makes we.
Speaker 3: Still do that.
Speaker 6: Sometimes I'll read the back of those VHS boxes and
be like, I'm surprised they even knew this much like
some of the stuff you wrote, and I'm like, yeah,
it's it's.
Speaker 5: Well, even in a press book, there were so many
pseudonyms for people. Yes, and even go by that, right,
I mean in my case, like as.
Speaker 4: Far as identifying people, like I one of my only superprised,
like I have a pretty good visual memory of like
with faces, so like even if somebody has got a
totally different like wig or what, I'm like, hey, that's
so and so, even though she doesn't really look like
so and so. But and that was part of the
way of identifying people as well, Like once I once
I knew who somebody was, if I saw them again
and they weren't listed in something, I was like, okay, yeah,
so let's put her in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because she is there. Especially, you can sell by
like location too, like if there if this same person
that looks similar is working in another New York film,
it's like, yeah, that's probably her.
Speaker 3: But then you have examples like Maria Lease where she's
on both coasts and you're like, wow, yes, possibly be
you forget the airplanes exist. But it's also just kind
of like, well, wait a minute, how can she be
in vibrations? One month and the next month she's in
Love Camp seven. It's just like twins. But yeah, it's no,
it is yeah, No, I.
Speaker 5: Mean that's one of the things. I mean, like, I
know you you all have a love of the New
York starletts like myself. I mean, we do love our
June Roberts and.
Speaker 4: Judy Adler and Darlene Bennett and Gigi Darlene and all
of them. And just I could watch any movie that
they're in. I don't even care what it is, you know,
just just seeing there, it's like seeing family or something like.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We talked about that last week actually, or the last
time we talked about Hot Nights on the Campus, and
we were like, this is just a comfort movie because
it's Gigi Darlene and Darlene Bennett and Judy Adler and
Joanna Mills and the Sarno stuff. It's like, no, this
is just like a comfort movie for us because it's
New York, it's Chuck Smith and it's all these ladies
we love. It's just you know, goes down.
Speaker 2: Really, I was revisiting Barry Mayhon Sin in the city
and I had that same feeling too.
Speaker 4: It's just like which is kind of an odd one
for you know, because I don't think he worked with
I mean, he did work with Darling Quid, but I
mean like that actually had like a very sleazy sixties
exploitation feel like some of his other ones didn't really have.
I mean they're more nud acuties or whatever. But and
it's always weird seeing any of those women in color.
I don't know how you guys feel about that, but
I'll be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, like this has said that. Alex said that
he was like, I love Judy Adler in black and white,
and he wished Confessions of a Bad Girl was in
black and white. He's like, it's fine to see her
in color, but it's also jarring, you know. It's kind
of like Uda Ericson, who we know from black and white,
from the Findleys, and then she's in Love Toy in color.
For Doris Wishman, it's like, oh jarring, you know, Yeah,
it is jar when you're used to seeing them in monochrome.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So what was your first Gateway film for Something Weird?
Speaker 3: My first one was boring. It was Axe. It was
the Harry Novaka That was my first Something Weird VHS.
But then it was the Findleys, the Next Touch of
Her Flash, Curse of Her Flesh, and then Kiss wasn't
out yet, and so I remember when Kiss came out,
and that was a big deal because it was just
like we finally get to see the end of the trilogy.
You know, that was a big deal.
Speaker 2: I think I think She Devil's on Wheels might have
been mine, which is a great first one, isn't it.
Speaker 5: I think, so, yeah, that's a really good way.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, and then all the Herschel's and then
I just kind of went from there. Herschel's.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people, Herschel was kind
of the gateway in as well.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: I mean he definitely as far as like the early
days of home video. I mean, so many of his
movies came out like on those big box format and
Joe Bob Briggs, you know, Sleaziest Movie, these series and
all of that kind of stuff. So people definitely got
like and you know, I think, you know, when I
talk about like how people get into these kind of films,
it's like I remember getting like the Incredibly Strange Films book,
you know, in the eighties, and.
Speaker 5: Even though like I may not have seen all them.
Speaker 4: It's like I got familiarized with all of them, the
same with the Psychotronic Encyclopedia. And fortunately I lived in
New York, you know, in the in the eighties and
early nineties, so having Kim's video, all of those were
right at your fingertips at that point. So but definitely,
I think those those big box videos introduced people. I mean,
like I remember like basket Case being one of my
first VHSS I ever saw, you know, because it was
like I.
Speaker 3: Saw that when I was like eleven, way too young
to be seeing that, and that was my little brothers
and sisters. Still remember me showing them that and being traumatized,
like you really, like you ruined us. I was like,
I'm sorry, but it's ann and later I'm sorry, I'm
not that sorry about it. No, No, but I had video,
so you had Kim's Video. I had Video Vault, which
I'm sure you and Alexandria. So that's where I would go.
And they had a max of nine movies at a time,
so I would just rent nine movies, go watch them,
take them back in like two days, and I just
made my way through the catalog before I started actually
purchasing them. But yeah, each new one was just like
it was building on the next. It was yeah, it was,
it was. It just it made me ask so many
questions and want to see every movie by every filmmaker
I loved.
Speaker 2: Did you know they were something weird as you were
checking them out? Casey?
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, Yeah. I specifically looked for something weird artwork
because I was like, Okay, I'm gonna keep going, We're
gonna do to something weird.
Speaker 5: And yeah that's what I did too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the touch of Refleshed. The first version I
saw was the was the pre negative version, so I
remember that there was like a real change I think
in the telesiny and I was like, it made it
feel sleazier. It was like I shouldn't be watching this.
I shouldn't I really shouldn't be watching this but dirty. Yeah, yeah,
it's very.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what's funny? I mean?
Speaker 4: And I'm sure you have heard this story before, I mean,
or if you have it, I'm going about to tell it.
The earliest thirty five millimeter films that Mike put on,
like home video, were him shooting them from his you know,
his projectionist job at the Apple Theater from the audience.
So like the first versions of like since in Tok
Career Bed Smell Honey's Fellow, they are literally from like
just a cam couarder you see people like walking by them,
so even more slazy than those that first you know,
real release of touch of her flush.
Speaker 3: So I would love to see one of those. I'm
sure I did, and it's just lost a time because
all the video Vault stuff is gone because they never
really replenished or updated their VHS if there was a
new version reissue, they were just like, no, we're just
going to keep renting this into the ground.
Speaker 4: The masters for those I might like, you know how
we do with AGFA the super VHS parties.
Speaker 5: Maybe there'll be an Apple Theater super VHS party. I
love that.
Speaker 3: I would be like, basically you could advertise is like
put yourself in Mike Rainy shoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's not, it's like Mike Brainy in the audience mode.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think actually I think that that is brilliant.
I think you should definitely.
Speaker 5: Do that well down the road.
Speaker 4: But funny, speaking of Herschel and I don't know if
you guys have discussed this yet on your but some
of the movies that hadn't come out on the Arrow
box set are being restored next year for and it's
AGFA plus something weird with a license from Jimmy Maslin
doing like all brand new restorations. I mean I even
thought to myself like, Okay, how many times could Blood
Feast be restored?
Speaker 5: But it hasn't been restored in new HD?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, And what is what is it that Dave said?
Did David David?
Speaker 2: David Dan saying, ok, the funny thing is about that
announcement is like, yeah, you know, I know that the
jewel of it is, you know, getting those up those
four K updates of the Blood trilogy. But I want
to see miss Nympha Zappan Like I want that.
Speaker 4: I think the vinegar syndrome version of that might be
better than what we had. A really our print is
really rough of that.
Speaker 3: I mean watching it, Yeah, I still have a DVD R.
And I was just I was just glad that it existed.
So I took me. I didn't. Yeah, I was just like,
I'm glad it's here.
Speaker 5: I am.
Speaker 3: I am probably the only person that is excited about
Jimmy the Boy Wonder.
Speaker 5: No, you're not.
Speaker 4: That is the first ever that literally I get asked that, like, oh,
you're restoring Jimmy, right, I mean like that they don't
care about any the other ones.
Speaker 5: Jimmy, the Boy wonder imagine, I need, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I need, I need the I'm Mister fig song in
re Store Please to Blue. That movie is crazy and wonderful. Yeah,
that's that's definitely a favorite of mine.
Speaker 5: So it's going to be a really really busy next
couple of years.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I feel like I was thinking before,
like wow, you know, it's been pretty steady with all
of the Blu Ray releases, so like, you know, I
have to keep track of about six partners, yeah, and
like which ones, like which.
Speaker 5: Projects to work on.
Speaker 4: And I mean obviously I have my my favorite projects,
which I devote most of my time too, but then
I also do I got a baby the other ones
as well. So this coming year, there's just so much
good stuff coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Casey, it's not just yeah yeah talking about that.
Twenty twenty six seems like it's going to be a
big year for I mean, yeah, we got the Herschel's,
the Herschel and Dave, like two of the biggest names
and exploitation have collections coming out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: It's not I mean, it hasn't been announced or anything yet,
but people have boso been wondering, like we're the Barry
Mayhon films and those.
Speaker 3: Are entries specifically, Yes, Jener specifically wants a Berry may
On collection or two or three.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have been getting slowly restored, but it's it's
basically it's a process. So those are going to be
coming out from a completely different kind of I'll let
them make the announcement and do all of this stuff
related to that, but it's happening. So that's also a
fun thing. And Keno Larber and Keno Cult are doing
a couple of titles that we're getting out of U
c l A Archives from the Sunny Collection. There'll be
some like road show titles, but there's also some sexploitation.
There's one exploitation title that's we've only found part of
it before and now that we're going to release the
whole thing, so that'll be a big deal as well.
Speaker 5: But just keeping on keeping on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, so the Maeons I love the shorts, are
those being restored by any chance. I'm a big fan
of the shorts.
Speaker 5: Okay, adding them to.
Speaker 4: Whatever the release is so will be like you know,
if it's more if it's the newest oriented release, probably
newest related shorts will be on there.
Speaker 5: If it's more like you know, sexploitation, there'll be those ones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so great, right, it's all good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, those those would show up at the end
of like the tapes all the time, like that, what's
that Double What the two with the Bennett's sisters that
was on like.
Speaker 3: Double Double Trouble, And I also love Naked Moonshine, which
was on a lot of those at the end of
the movies and yeah, like yeah those those like you said, like,
it's like seeing family, even though it's just you know,
these models taking their clothes off for beer Mayhon, but
it's like, oh I get to see Darlene and Dawn,
and yeah, I get to hear them talk, which is
great because you really don't get to hear their real
voices and a lot of stuff, so love to hear that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it's gonna be.
Speaker 4: I mean, I have a lot to do with a
lot of scanning involved with like these archives and stuff,
but also assigning writing and doing my own writing and
you know, and which I should say, like, I'm basically
just trying to focus on like the something weird history
aspect when I do a contribution now to these releases,
unless it's something like I mean, this has been a
few releases that came out in the last year, in particular,
like with Teenage Gang, DIBs and Love Goddesses of Blood Island,
Undertaker and His Pals are all those ones from AGFA.
I mean, like I just I wanted to have myself
all over those because those are some of my favorite movies.
Like so, but for the most part, I I see
myself as being like the historian for my own company,
because you know, when you're doing this stuff, you're not
realizing that it's going to even matter, and if like
you're just doing your job or like what you enjoy,
like you know, being involved with and then you look
back in retrospect and it's like, oh, I guess this
did matter, you know, I mean, because if you've got
people talking about it on a podcast, I mean, you
know how many decades later.
Speaker 5: It's it has its own history now.
Speaker 4: So it's up to me to document that as much
as I can, because I mean, there's so many questions
I have that Like I occasionally I'll be working on
something and I'm like, oh, I wish i'd ask Dave
or I wish i'd ask Mike that stuff. And unless
I get out of Ouiji board, you know, I don't
know the answers to some of the questions. So I'm
trying to put everything out there that I know now
before I lose my mind.
Speaker 3: Well, we were happy you're doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm glad you have so much more time
now that you're not just like sitting at your CD replicator.
You can actually like write.
Speaker 3: Every time I sent in an order, I felt so
bad because I was just like, Lisa knows I need these,
and I but I hate asking her to send me
these things. And I remember that I was kind of like, well,
maybe to make it easier, just send me the discs
in the art. I don't need the Amory cases. So
I was just like, just send me the the you
don't have to do any more packing. And so I
still have a lot of stuff that's still in those
little slip sleeves. I haven't bought the Amory cases, so
I have myself thing weird stuff that's just here.
Speaker 5: Well, we've got it. Well.
Speaker 4: The other thing that people don't realize is, you know,
it wasn't just like oh, I don't want to do
this anymore.
Speaker 5: I mean after like during and.
Speaker 4: After COVID getting supplies for MANUF, like DVD are manufacturing
in particular, like I couldn't find blank discs anymore, or
they were so expensive. It's like, yeah, because it's dead stock.
And you know, my duplicators are old. I actually went
and I bought a couple of new ones and they
didn't work with the old masters. So I'm like, all right,
well that's not helpful either. So and you know also
even you know, getting the cases, and it was it
was really just a logistics thing as well as the
fact that this is taking up an awful lot of
of my time going up and down the basement steps,
you know, making a DVD R one at a time,
because I only had one duplicator by the end that
was still working, right, and this.
Speaker 3: Was after and this was after Tim had stopped right,
because I know Tim Tim Lewis had been had been
involved too, because I remember emailing Tim a few times
and then you were like, Okay, Tim's going it's just me.
Speaker 4: So I did have one other dude helping out after
Tim loved just to do manufacturing and he was part
time so and it was good because like he would
just command whenever he felt like it, and h'd have
orders waiting for him, and you know, and I do
the shipping and the customer service and all of that
other stuff. But then eventually there just wasn't enough orders
to and also like I wasn't making enough money to
have an employee and you know. So and by the way,
Tim Lewis is a train conductor at Amtrak now living
his best life playing guitar for him.
Speaker 3: I know, I love tis. Wow, Oh that's amazing that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that. So I mean there is life
after Something Weird if if you choose.
Speaker 4: But right, so, I mean, just as far as like
the day to day operations stuff is so much more manageable,
Like I mean, I the only like this year, the
focus was getting this Something Weird channel launched, which we did.
Speaker 5: That was in June.
Speaker 4: And then I mean I went eight months without having
a retail point of purchase for Something Weird, which is
you know, because the old website was I wasn't about
to try to tackle that.
Speaker 5: I wanted to do something different, and I ended up
just asking, like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, all of my colleagues, like what do you guys
use And seems like everybody uses Shopify. So yeah, had
a little learning curve there, but it's now, you know,
it's up there, and we've got all the latest Blu
rays and soundtrack albums, whatever image DVDs I still have
left in stock. I mean surprisingly, I have a lot
of the herschel titles. I still have stacks of so interesting.
Speaker 3: Okay, but this is the next chapter something that I
did want to do. I know we talked before recording,
we didn't want to keep you for that long, and
now we've been going for ninety minutes. But because this
is our last episode of the year and you're the
Christmas gift to everyone that we get to spend some
time with you and we get to learn from you,
I wonder if we could maybe We've talked about a
lot of filmmakers in the past year, and I know
that you had some experiences with some of these filmmakers
during your time with Something Weird, So I wonder if
we could throw some names at you to see if
you remember any interactions with them.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll see get my senior brain going.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I mean speaking of the man Barry Mayhon,
who we said we've had talked about a bunch.
Speaker 4: So Mike and I met him in person at his
house in he was kind of in the valley in California,
and he was lovely man. He did not remember anything
about any of the movies. Like I would ask him
specific questions, and it was right after the north Ridge quake,
and all he wanted to talk about was seismic activity
and like every all this factual stuff about earthquakes.
Speaker 5: Like you know, like scientific.
Speaker 4: When we're like, all right, let's get back, let's talk
about you know, like we're asking about different actresses that
were in multiple movies of his, and he didn't remember
anybody or anything. It did end up at some point
that Frank Henon Lawter did a phone interview with him
for Cult Movies magazine and at least got a little
bit of background, you know, as far as like he remembered.
Speaker 5: Some things and stuff went up.
Speaker 4: But he was really nice and he didn't He actually
died not long after we oh we'd seen him, so
but yeah, I'm glad we did it. To me, know,
I got a nice photo of Mike with him.
Speaker 2: So that makes sense because I always think of Barry
as kind of he's a bit he was a businessman.
He was probably more interested in like the money side
of the of the of these movies. He wasn't so
interested as like what was happening in front of the camera.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he might be right.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, did he talk about airplanes at all? I
know he loved his airplanes.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, we did talk about that, I remember, yeah.
I mean it was just more like personal stuff, and
it was like, okay, it's a funny example. So one
of my favorite sexploitation actors is Sam Stewart. Yes, yes,
I have a little crush on him, and which is
kind of creepy because he.
Speaker 5: Looks like my dad a little bit. We don't go
there anyway.
Speaker 4: I finally had a phone conversation with him, and he
didn't remember much of anything either, and he just wanted
to talk about when he was in the Navy and
they he got to be in Seattle. He was asking
me about Seattle, Seattle stuff, and I'm just like, let's
get back.
Speaker 5: Full circle.
Speaker 4: But then he passed and I didn't get to get
any more stories out of him after that tell us.
Speaker 2: About Sheila Britt your wife.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: I wasn't like it was our first phone conversation, so
I didn't like want to get into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I didn't get to do that with him,
but kind of. So I have a good Doris story.
Speaker 4: And Doris wasbody who I you know, I spoke to
her on the phone occasionally, but for the most part,
I hadn't met her in person until she was doing
a screening of Bad Girls Go to Hell in Boston
and I was I went back there because I'm from
that area anyway.
Speaker 5: Originally I was visiting some family.
Speaker 4: It just happened to be the same weekend, so you know,
I was hanging out with her there, sitting at her table,
and you know, she was like this with her glasses on,
and there was a blizzard outside. I should preface it
by saying that there was like a huge snowstorm, like
the snow is piling up everywhere.
Speaker 5: I made a good turnout for the thing.
Speaker 4: But so she's there in her little like green jacket
with the leopard collar and open toed mule.
Speaker 5: Heels in the snowstorm. She was like, so Dorius.
Speaker 4: You know, she's she was in Florida and she's signing
things and you know, bantering with her adoring public. And
for one second she took her glasses off, like her
sunglasses to like probably so she could see, and some
guy snapped a photo and she went mental.
Speaker 5: I mean, she was like, oh, you monster her, and
she's like, you better not show that picture to anybody.
Speaker 4: She just she just went off on the guy. It
was it was actually really funny. But then then she
put him back on.
Speaker 5: She was back to being Dorris.
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, that was my That's so funny. That's
like she even she considered that like part of her persona.
Speaker 4: In the vanity aspect, because I mean, you know, when
you get a little older, you getting crinkly around your eyes,
and like, you know, you always look glamorous in a
pair of sunglasses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned Bob Krussey. Did you ever
meet Bob?
Speaker 5: I never met him in person.
Speaker 4: I did speak to him on the phone quite often
because he called the house constantly, but he irritated me
so much.
Speaker 5: I would just hand the phone to Mike highly so
I'm sorry to bother you. And I was like one
always is opening line, but.
Speaker 4: Having a very nice relationship with Tim Lewis. I mean
they were buddies, and Tim Lewis is the best Bob
Cressey impersonation of anybody. Although his impersonation of Bucky Beaver
is exactly the same as Bob Cressey's voice.
Speaker 3: That tracks, I think I could see them being the
same person actually, And you know, I can see Bucky
Beaver maybe being just an animated version of Bob Kressey's
Bucky Beeves have a two way mirror.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did get to know Don Davison really well,
and because yes, and I really enjoyed talking he was
he was really great. But he and I both shared
a love of carnivals and circus memorabilia, and so if
we didn't just talk about movie stuff, and we'd talk
about just collectibles, and I just think he liked to
talk to a woman.
Speaker 5: At that point in his life, so he just caught
like chit chat.
Speaker 4: And I have a lot of his stuff, you know,
when he passed, he ended up giving Mike and I
a whole lot of just not just his exploitation exploitation memorabilia,
but like his circus stuff and his duncan yo yo stuff,
and he was just an incredible guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, maybe a Don Davis collection. Maybe I would
love Honey Britches to get restored.
Speaker 5: I love that movie Stay tuned, well I see that
happening in the future.
Speaker 3: I would love it. Yeah, I think Gentry just watched it.
That the Amazon woman in that movie. I'm obsessed with
such a character, such a character. And actually Alex found
some ad where she did personal appearances of the movie.
And I would have fainted if I was at the
theater and this giant woman came out that I just
saw on the screen, I would faint because she was
just too fabulous.
Speaker 2: As she was alive nowadays, like she could make so
much money at like cons, like men would like pay
to like have her step on them or something weird.
Speaker 3: Something weird rost opportunity.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: Well, actually, speaking of actresses, that was something else I wondered, because,
as I know, I think you've talked about how the
arquettes order their mom's movies from something weird. Brenda did.
Brenda did not like all of me, but she's actually
really good in Did you ever have any actresses who
made these movies reach out to you? And and and
ask for copies without you know, just to see their work.
Speaker 5: Not I mean, what's that is? I wish?
Speaker 4: I mean I do, like I have a good story recently,
like that happened that was totally bizarre, but no, I
mean like for years and like you know, I obviously
we sent stuff to Audrey Campbell because we knew we
got to know her. I mean, she she did surface,
but like, I mean, I would have loved to, you know,
get a phone call from June Roberts or Darlene Bennett
like hey, can you send me my movies or whatever?
Speaker 5: Uh, what's her name?
Speaker 4: Okay, she was one of Friedman's Okay, Fryman oherry Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah she's resurfaced.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, So she's somebody who did reach out as well.
So I hooked her up. But so right before we.
Speaker 4: Started doing the Teenage Gang, DIBs release this, you know,
I heard the story and it was like, this is
a weird coincidence that this elderly woman shows up at
AGFA one day and she's with her granddaughter and her
daughter and she's k not going on.
Speaker 5: She goes, hi, is this a Teenage Gang? Debs Museum.
Speaker 4: And Tnan are there and they're like, no, but we
do have that movie, and so they invited her in
and whatever, and she said, oh, well, I was in
that movie. I guess that it had you know, they
had heard that it had shown. I guess that link
Letter had done a screening at Anthology down in Texas.
The other not not at Alamo or but like one
of those other venues and that. So they had seen
something on the internet which led to AGFA, which led
to her showing up and you know, them getting her information. Well,
let us get to your information because we are going
to do something with this in the future and would
love to talk to you, or like, you know, one
of us would. So when we started working on Teenage
Gang Debs, I called her, Oh no, actually sent her
an email first, just like you know, hi am Lisa,
blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: The phone rings immediately. I'm was like, oh, Sandra Cain.
Speaker 4: So Sandra Caine played Annie in Teenage Gang Debs called.
We were on the phone for three hours just because
this woman she's I mean, I was actually texting with
her last night, yeah, and she just was telling me
all about her life and she was just so fascinating
and interesting. And then like she had a you know mind, like.
Speaker 5: A steel trap.
Speaker 4: She remembered so much about being on set on Teenage
Gang Debs and all this other stuff. So, I mean,
in that case, it was really one was like, I
know this new friend. I love talking to her, you know,
here from her at least once a month.
Speaker 2: So did Sandy Johnson at all.
Speaker 3: The Sandy Johnson, Yeah, well she did.
Speaker 4: She she said that he was he was really like
she liked, she liked working with him. I guess some
of the girls had crush on him, like that.
Speaker 5: Good looking, like so and so was good.
Speaker 2: You wanted to be Brando. He was the next Marlon Brando.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was an actor. He was a stage actor. Yeah,
he definitely. Yeah. He had that name Stan Stunning on
Hot Nights on the Campus for a reason.
Speaker 5: Johnson, Yeah, yeah, she was. She was a joy. And
I'm really glad.
Speaker 4: It's like she's eighty four now, and like we're trying
to get a screening in New York that she can
go to at some point, you know, a teenage Kingdom.
Speaker 5: So hey, Casey makes that happen. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, right here, let's let's start to
make this happen.
Speaker 2: You need to get her up there like pre show show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's she lives in she lives in Queens, Queens
right now.
Speaker 4: I heard it's snowing. Mary, we might want to check out.
I'm worried about her. Said she was going out to
get some groceries this morning. I'm like like imagining this
little you know, she uses her her little grocery hand
card as her walker.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, I know those people well in these streets.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, well, well they're going to give her your
phone number next time she needs groceries.
Speaker 5: I can go.
Speaker 3: I can help a teenage gang deb shop. I'll do it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, she is still a hot ticket. I mean, yeah,
she's cool.
Speaker 4: But anyway, yeah, well that's on your honeydeo list is
if you don't have enough stuff to do for me, Casey,
I know, I know I need to.
Speaker 5: Tell you that.
Speaker 3: Well, it also makes me wonder about like Diane Kanti
because I tried finding her for years, and I remember
I met Eileen Deets at Cinema Wasteland and she was
talking about making that movie and then she did The
Games People the Game People Play, which was Sandy's lost expectation.
Speaker 4: Moving okay, because we were trying to figure out thank you,
because that just solved a mystery because Sandra was telling
me that she was asked to be in another movie
and she could remembered the title, but that Eileen ended
up being an and and I'm like, you know, I
was giving her the names of the titles and she
just so you just answered, Okay, thank you, that's it.
Speaker 3: And and that's that was one of our picks for
most wanted. Lost movie was one of those because the
trailer is so good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I still need to find the Twisted Sucks too,
I know.
Speaker 3: Well, and that was something else we wanted to ask. Actually,
on our list, did you and Mike have like a
top list of stuff like this is top priority that
we need.
Speaker 5: To find this, I mean in our heads? Okay, so
I have.
Speaker 4: We did make a list and was based on the
AFI catalog and I went through like basically fine toothcomb
went over everything, wrote down every title. As we would
find stuff, we'd cross it off. So there, I mean,
I still have that list somewhere. In fact, I think
I filled it out for the Lost Films documentary that
they you know, Vinegar Syndrome did and I held it
up even I think may not even be on them there,
but but me, he we definitely like the Okay, Satan's Mistress.
You know, there's the press book alone and the poster
and all of that stuff like that. I know that
was on the top of Mike's list. You know, he
just was obsessed with that movie. And you know, I
was obsessed with you know, Sadistic Lover Burn maybe Burn
and like, I mean anything you know that exploitation stuff.
Speaker 5: I just want you as much as we can. So, yeah,
there was a list, and I.
Speaker 4: Mean fortunately a lot of things have been found, but
there's still you may there's hundreds of movies out there
that are still you know not I mean, who knows.
I mean from what Freeman told us, you know, when
when he was downsizing eb I and you know, before
he moved back east to Alabama, like they were they like,
you know, they'd have all their prints, and he told
me they would take trucks to the peers and throw
films into the ocean.
Speaker 2: Oh god, the Worst series.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, but this was like multiple prints of
whatever you know, their movies were, and they kept obviously
they kept the Negatives and a couple of prints of things,
so you can imagine that, like how many other film distributors,
you know, because film is it takes up a lot
of space in real estate. So if if somebody was
going out of business and they didn't care anymore, they
didn't you know, they didn't foresee there was ever going
to be a.
Speaker 5: Market for exploitation in particular.
Speaker 4: I mean, because you know, how many times have we
heard people from those days who you know, got involved
with hardcore lator just say like, oh, yeah, that's nobody, yeah,
book them with those movies exactly. So I think a
lot of stuff did just end up in a landfill.
But hopefully there's somebody who, like you know, has the
my tam movies and all of those, well.
Speaker 3: We were lucky, you guys at least found tortured females
and for least that. But that, and that kind of
gives everyone hope that all of the movies are going
to be like that, even though we know they couldn't
possibly be. But you still want to see them.
Speaker 5: You know, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: So it's I mean, I'm always surprised when somebody finds
something and you know, I'm thrilled, you know, I mean definitely,
like in the last few years, was The Last Vegas Strangler.
Speaker 5: I mean that one.
Speaker 4: Oh, that just blew my mind to see that come out,
because I mean only heard about it for so long
and then it's like wow and it delivered.
Speaker 3: So yes, well that's like The Bushwhacker when you guys
finally found a print of The Bushwhacker after years of like,
we need to find this movie with this press book
where where this woman is getting her breast caught off,
and it's like, could this live possibly live up to
this crazy press book? It did not, It almost does,
but I think I still enjoy it quite a bit.
But I could see I could see why it wasn't
why it's hard to get because how do you market
that after its initial theatrical run? How do you resell it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was like, I mean I know
that at the time it was made. I have a
couple of those adult movie mags that have it on
the cover or like have pictorials about it. So I
mean they definitely were trying to push it out there.
But it had Mercy Mantello in it, and like she
was a big deal, so somebody was going to bring
people in just to look at her. But so the
funny story about Bushwhacker was that. So one of the
places Mike would find films was eBay. And you know,
for guy who didn't use the computer, there were only
two places he went to on the computer. One was
eBay and one was Craigslist.
Speaker 3: So every day that's where you get this stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, so two prints of The Bushwhacker
were up on eBay at the same time, and one
had the scene with the you know, the breast being
cut off, and the other one didn't. He didn't know,
I mean, so we got our version, our first version
is edited, and when we re released it on Blu
Ray with MONDA. Maccabro, they were able to like kind
of import some of the other missing footage into our version.
Speaker 5: So at least now it's complete.
Speaker 3: But you know, I remember, yeah, I do remember that
when that happened, well, because eBay was also you know
who else did that? The Code Red Boys used to
do that. They would haunt eBay and get that and actually,
I have to tell you this story real quick where
the Code Red Boys had you know, egos obviously, but
like I said, everyone wants to be something weird because
they see the cottage industry and they're like well, I
want to do sexploitation too. So they found the camera
negative to this movie called The Velvet Trap and it's
a black and white Las Vegas thing, and they were like,
I don't know if we want to do this. Well
I told a little fib and told them this is
one of Mike Vrainy's top five most wanted last movies.
And they said, oh, really, well, we're gonna We're gonna show,
We're gonna show Rainy. We're gonna get this movie. So
they got the camera negative, they restored it and they
put it out, but they weren't going to put it
out initially because they didn't like it. And I tell them,
I keep telling them, Mike really wants this. Mike really
wants this.
Speaker 5: Like if any movie that wasn't you know, that time period.
Speaker 3: It wasn't exactly a lie, but I definitely greased the
wheels there. I was kind of I had to get
the competitive egos going because I was like, listen, and
then I was like, and then Mike can't see it
because it'll be out.
Speaker 5: So you know, I don't think we ever got it
on like he would not.
Speaker 4: Okay, So things are a lot different nowadays than they
were in those cutthroat days when there was like a
handful of video companies trying to do the exploitation thing,
and you know, everybody was constantly seasoned assisting each other
and like you're stepping on my toes, and it was
just it was a it was a really kind of
angry atmosphere. And I don't know what one of my
goals with you know, taking over something weird and was
to try to smooth out a lot of things. You know.
Definitely in the beginning, right after Mike died, I mean
it was a little scary because like I wasn't sure
what the heck I was going to be doing, and
vultures did come out of the woodwork, and I'm just like, ah,
just leave me alone right now, Like I just I
need to process and assess the situation and what I found,
like especially like in the last decade in particular just
working with the new like these other boutique labels and
other companies that have been around a little bit longer
and stuff like just really stressing the whole collaboration aspect
of it. And also don't look at everybody else's like
your competition and your y it's like this is about
like we're all in this to preserve these films, and
if there's any way that we can help each other
do that, like, more power to all of us. And
it's just been really like for me, it makes it
a much more like pleasant experience, and you know, I
feel like, you know, when i'm.
Speaker 5: Defense here or there, like Okay, I'm trying to like.
Speaker 4: You know, make the world a better place, because there's
already enough, you know, just distractions and you know, all
of that kind of stuff nowadays.
Speaker 3: So yeah, right, but at least we're getting the Freedman's
I'm so excited, and I can't wait for Trader Horney
as well. I love Trading Oh good god, I know
I legitimate that. And also I love that all the
leads are redheads. I love the I love the red
I do like I think, Yes, that's my favorite of those,
probably because it's less of a costume picture and more
of like a parody of old Hollywood, and I think
that's why I like it more. But I think Starlet
is I mean, Starlett is fantastic. You know, that's the
redhead we love.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well, like I said, I mean both, I
mean they're this stuff coming out the gate. Obviously, we
just had our first bake one and we've got something
in production right now, which Casey's all about he can
tell you off camera, and that's.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But it's funny about Trader Horney because Dave he was
really proud of that one, and he even put it
up like for consideration for an Academy Award.
Speaker 5: I kid you not, he like sent in the paperwork
and everything.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he didn't mention that in the commentary.
This is brain new information.
Speaker 5: Yeah, wow, I have the paperwork.
Speaker 2: Because he didn't win. So he's not going to bring
it up.
Speaker 3: Oh that's why he's not going to bring nothing to
brag about because he didn't dominated. That's interesting.
Speaker 4: I wonder what the Academy Award winner was that year.
I can't remember what year that would have been.
Speaker 3: So category homework like production design, cinematography, not can't cut,
can't you cost some design? Because what are people wearing?
But I don't know. I mean Dave, Dave reached some
shooting for the.
Speaker 4: Star or it's like a screenplay, because you know, he
came out the streamplay, so he might have.
Speaker 3: You know, he wants that. He wants that Oscar and
that's ultimate bragging rights in around with the rest of
the thieves in that industry that I won an oscar.
Speaker 4: So much, you know, wild Yeah, for twenty six, twenty seven,
we're going to be very busy.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, thank you Lisa for coming on in, Chatt
and Dave with us.
Speaker 4: And finally, well, I appreciate you having me and I mean,
I'm so pleased with what you're doing and keep at it.
I mean, like I totally had forgotten about like ownA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's another one of my favorites. There's a lot
of good seventies.
Speaker 5: Ones or Marina or whatever ones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jennifer, I love I love Mattine Wives. Like, there's
so much good stuff. The catalog is so much good
stuff in it and a lot of stuff that wasn't
put out through Image And so that's why it canntinues
to be since a rewarding dive into the catalog because
there's all this stuff that is just like all kinds
of different movies. It really is so diverse.
Speaker 4: Well, basically cult picks will be the source for like
the majority of movies that may not be getting to
Blu Ray very like you know, I mean, you've probably
already noticed, like on the Something Weird channel that it's
not like the most recent restorations. We're just keeping the
old standard definition content there because I mean, obviously we
want people to buy the Blu rays, and but I'm
hoping that just by having like all of these kind
of you know, underrated titles that really you know, I said,
they got buried in the catalog because there was just
so much stuff that people are discovering them by streaming.
Speaker 2: So they just put up love Me Please the Christmas.
Speaker 3: And that's and we just talked about that because because
he had asked, is there like a s exploitation Christmas
movie beside Seeds? And I said, well, Linda Boyce does
go window shopping on Fifth Avenue for Christmas and love
Me Please, so that counts, you know with ud Erickson. Yeah,
Linda boy Scott love her. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely gonna have to clip that and post it
at some point closer to Christmas here.
Speaker 5: Look forward to get posted.
Speaker 3: Yes, I know, exactly make sure due to those tags.
Speaker 4: Yes, right. Thank you for listening to hear more shows
from the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
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