Speaker 1: We're all owned by the Syndicate, body and soul.
Speaker 2: Or should I just say body?
Speaker 3: Hello, filthy movie lovers, something weirdos, and anti-criterion bros, to
Speaker 3: the 45th episode of The Sin Syndicate, which can always
Speaker 3: be found on a border's end cap, and will always
Speaker 3: go to bat for the big snatch. My name is
Speaker 3: Gentry Austin, writer and researcher, and I'm here with my co-host,
Speaker 3: adult film historian Casey Scott. And in this week's episode,
Speaker 3: we will be returning to the early aughts for a
Speaker 3: look at the DVD era, specifically the legendary partnership between
Speaker 3: Image Entertainment and Something Weird Video. a collaboration which brought
Speaker 3: many of our sexploitation faves to disc for the very
Speaker 3: first time, jam-packed with extras and carefully programmed with thematic
Speaker 3: double and triple features. We're going to be talking with
Speaker 3: someone who was there, Nathaniel Thompson. Someone who has been
Speaker 3: in the trenches fighting for B and Z grade movies
Speaker 3: since the earliest days. He's a frequent contributor to home
Speaker 3: video releases and is the webmaster and editor in charge
Speaker 3: of our favorite website, Mondo Digital. We are super excited
Speaker 3: to chat with Nat. But before we travel back in time,
Speaker 3: we've got another guest lined up. Eli Oldsberg from our
Speaker 3: podcast network partner, Punk Vacation, has graciously agreed to spend
Speaker 3: half an hour of his very busy Sunday with us
Speaker 3: to recap a special sexploitation screening he attended at the
Speaker 3: New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles. We will let the
Speaker 3: conversation speak for itself.
Speaker 1: Enjoy.
Speaker 3: Hollywood california.
Speaker 4: Yeah i uh i'm recording from the new beverly bathroom coming.
Speaker 3: To you you never leave.
Speaker 2: You live in the walls it's a crawl space situation
Speaker 2: you're class kinsky and then yeah you're bad ronald you're
Speaker 2: bad ronald you that's right beverly is yeah right Yeah,
Speaker 2: so a little background.
Speaker 3: We wanted to bring Eli on to talk about a
Speaker 3: double feature that he saw at the new Beverly Theater.
Speaker 3: I don't have the date off the top of my head.
Speaker 3: It was a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 4: August 17th, literally six days ago.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Less than a week ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this was a 60s movie. uh sexploitation double
Speaker 3: feature of the thrill killers ray dennis steckler and psychedelic
Speaker 3: sexualis or on her bed of roses are two titles
Speaker 3: it goes by yeah i.
Speaker 2: Don't know where the psychedelic sexualis came from because i
Speaker 2: feel like it's a made-up title it's psychedelia it's it's
Speaker 2: psychopathia sexualis right that's the title on the poster Right.
Speaker 4: But on the print, it says psychedelic sexualist.
Speaker 5: That's the funny part.
Speaker 3: I wonder if that was a way to distance themselves
Speaker 3: a bit from like getting sued for mentioning the book.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh, possibly. Totally. Who knows?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Zuck Smith. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, just tell us about your experience. I'm always
Speaker 3: curious about the crowd at these things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this one was about– now, I don't remember how
Speaker 4: much we talked about this when we had a– I
Speaker 4: know when you guys were on Punk Vacation, we talked
Speaker 4: a bit about Eros like here and there. And Casey
Speaker 4: and I are talking about like doing something later in
Speaker 4: regards to this, not just Eros but like repertory programming
Speaker 4: with not just adult films but roughies. I actually think
Speaker 4: like this particular brand of sexploitation is harder to sell
Speaker 4: than if you were just showing hardcore. Because, I mean,
Speaker 4: the example I think of is when they did the
Speaker 4: double that Agfa put out as the Blu-ray. They had
Speaker 4: the Prince of the Defilers and Smell of Honey Swallow Brine.
Speaker 4: That was the lightest of the bunch that time. And
Speaker 4: it shocked me. But I forgot it was like a
Speaker 4: holiday weekend. It was raining. It had all the elements
Speaker 4: you could think of that worked against it. So without hyperbole,
Speaker 4: I think 20 to 25 people topped. So in some ways,
Speaker 4: it did recreate.
Speaker 2: That room, not great.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: Because that's about a 230 cap room or 225. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was like a 20% turnout if that.
Speaker 5: And so 10%.
Speaker 4: But it.
Speaker 2: Was one night only, right? So I guess that's kind
Speaker 2: of worse, actually.
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: And this one was a one night only. So I
Speaker 4: use that as a metric of– and this one has
Speaker 4: a little bit more, I would argue– Putting Ray Dennis
Speaker 4: Steckler's name is the closest thing you can get to
Speaker 4: a marquee title in this double. Because I think even
Speaker 4: amongst the devout of cult cinema, even this is– Steckler
Speaker 4: and Milligan, those can be pulls for people. And I
Speaker 4: feel like Steckler is an even harder sell than Andy
Speaker 4: Milligan actually.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Honor of Red and Rose is a pretty
Speaker 3: deep cut for sure.
Speaker 5: On top of that, yeah.
Speaker 2: How are you going to sell that? Nobody cares about
Speaker 2: Zucksmith unless you're doing Touch of Evil, which was this
Speaker 2: big thing that he lived on for a long time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, let me back up real quick because you mentioned
Speaker 3: hardcore is more or less like an easier sell. I
Speaker 3: wonder if part of that is because it's easy to
Speaker 3: understand for an audience. Like, look, I'm going to go
Speaker 3: to see a hardcore movie with people fucking, like, you're
Speaker 3: going to be able to see everything. With these movies,
Speaker 3: I think it's still not completely understood by a more
Speaker 3: general audience that, yeah, like, why are these people having
Speaker 3: sex with their clothes on? Like, what's going on, you know,
Speaker 3: at this period in time?
Speaker 5: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 4: And I think also, I don't know how many people
Speaker 4: who go to repertory theaters in general. And here's the
Speaker 4: other thing I'll say is, the new Bev is, if
Speaker 4: you're going to do this, this is the only place
Speaker 4: I think it can really even stand a chance. I
Speaker 4: think if you do this at any other theater here,
Speaker 4: unless you have like some kind of celebrity presenter, like
Speaker 4: if John Waters is presenting something or, you know, something
Speaker 4: like that, um, you'll, yeah, it's already dead in the
Speaker 4: water in my opinion. So I think the new Beverly, obviously,
Speaker 4: cause they have grindhouse Mondays. They have, And, you know,
Speaker 4: they obviously have a lot of cachet with that for
Speaker 4: a variety of reasons from the programmers and obviously from
Speaker 4: the owner.
Speaker 3: So I mean, these didn't get an intro, did they?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they do. So they always get intros from either.
Speaker 4: Oftentimes it's not special guests. If they have someone who
Speaker 4: like worked on the movie that happens to be there,
Speaker 4: they'll they'll bring them up. But for the most part,
Speaker 4: it's usually whoever's working the box office that night, which
Speaker 4: it was Jeff, I believe, was the person who introduced it.
Speaker 5: But yeah.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's Michael Torgan or the other, I'm forgetting the
Speaker 4: third person.
Speaker 5: Beck, I believe.
Speaker 4: So they'll have a list of notes. And depending on
Speaker 4: who does the intros, they're usually, they'll have a lot
Speaker 4: of notes about them. Most often the print quality, because
Speaker 4: that's what a lot of people who go to the
Speaker 4: theater care about. So they'll let you know like where
Speaker 4: the print quality is. And with these being mostly black
Speaker 4: and white, I think, you know, Thrill Killers is what,
Speaker 4: like three minutes of color. Obviously that was- That was
Speaker 4: a nice reddish hue. But otherwise, you know, with black
Speaker 4: and white, it's just more some wear and tear. And
Speaker 4: I would say the print quality for both of these
Speaker 4: were actually really good relative to they certainly weren't struck
Speaker 4: anytime recently.
Speaker 5: And by recently, I mean 30 years. So, yeah.
Speaker 4: And so I guess to answer your question, Gentry, just
Speaker 4: to go back for a second in terms of turnout,
Speaker 4: I would say this was about half full.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 5: So it wasn't a bad turnout at all. No, not
Speaker 5: at all.
Speaker 4: And if you spread that and because, you know, obviously
Speaker 4: not everyone's not sitting together, they're spread out. It actually
Speaker 4: does feel like you're in a more full house than
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So and as far as the audience, I do wonder,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know how they see. the value
Speaker 4: in a program like this, other than like, it's something
Speaker 4: fun or it's, you know, I don't know how much
Speaker 4: of their context. And, and I guess to, to talk
Speaker 4: more about the intro, sometimes there isn't context about like
Speaker 4: how these films performed or what that, you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: there is for the most part there is though. I, I, I,
Speaker 4: I'm just not remembering now if this intro had much
Speaker 4: about beyond saying who Zug Smith was obviously working with
Speaker 4: Orson Welles and obviously Ray Dennis Steckler and what they're
Speaker 4: known for. And then they obviously provide like a great
Speaker 4: trailer pack with both of these. It was some Zugsmith
Speaker 4: trailers like Confessions of an Opium Eater.
Speaker 1: Oh, Lord.
Speaker 3: And what was the other trailer? Well, that at least
Speaker 3: provides some context.
Speaker 5: It does. No, it does.
Speaker 4: I think most people going once they have that, they
Speaker 4: should know what they're in for. And obviously, I still
Speaker 4: think some people don't. There were– and the Thrill Killers
Speaker 4: at 70 minutes, nobody– Nobody left for that one. But,
Speaker 4: you know, given that Honor Bed of Roses or Psychedelic
Speaker 4: Sexualis is longer. Yeah, that's that's had a full, you know,
Speaker 4: this cut, though, felt and maybe you guys can answer
Speaker 4: this because I actually I've had the DVD.
Speaker 5: I've had it for years. It's still sealed.
Speaker 4: And it was really great to not have to pop
Speaker 4: it open, to be honest, because.
Speaker 5: I never got around to it.
Speaker 4: It's like it's such a battle to even get to
Speaker 4: my DVDs now from the V.S.
Speaker 1: Side.
Speaker 4: I don't upgrade them very often, but like if something
Speaker 4: screens here and it's obviously an excuse to not have
Speaker 4: to crack it open, that's great.
Speaker 2: Is it Incredible Sex Revolution? Yes, actually, I believe you're right.
Speaker 2: Which is also terrible. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It is paired with that one.
Speaker 4: And the reason I didn't, I will usually try to
Speaker 4: watch the second movie on my own. And the only
Speaker 4: reason I didn't is I saw it's actually on like
Speaker 4: Fossum or one of the Tubi or something. So I'll
Speaker 4: just watch it there. So as far as this cut goes,
Speaker 4: it did feel about five minutes shorter. And I don't
Speaker 4: think that was because of splices.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 4: Um, and I know on the back of the case,
Speaker 4: there's something about it being like a hot version.
Speaker 1: Um, yes.
Speaker 2: And he did that first. I think he also did
Speaker 2: that for incredible sex revolution as well. And I feel
Speaker 2: like there was another one. He did a four too.
Speaker 2: I think it was to get more, I think it
Speaker 2: was to get more play in other areas that would
Speaker 2: be more accepting of that type of material. And then
Speaker 2: that way he could, he had a, it's kind of like, um, Oh, gosh. Like,
Speaker 2: Saturday Night Fever was prepared in a PG version.
Speaker 5: Oh, God, yeah.
Speaker 2: For, like, TV and stuff and for reissue so they
Speaker 2: could get more play. And for this situation, it's kind
Speaker 2: of similar, where it's just like, well, we can have
Speaker 2: a hot version that we know can play in, like,
Speaker 2: larger metro areas, but then in, like, more conservative areas,
Speaker 2: we can just have this basically an R-rated version rather than, like,
Speaker 2: a soft X.
Speaker 3: Version, essentially. Right.
Speaker 5: That makes sense.
Speaker 2: So I wonder what version you had then. I guess
Speaker 2: you probably had an R-rated version, potentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely was the cooler version because if it
Speaker 4: was shorter– it's just funny what hot and cool means
Speaker 4: when you're talking about hardcore versus like in this context.
Speaker 2: When you're talking about Zugsmith, like how much hotter can
Speaker 2: it be? Those movies are not that.
Speaker 1: 100%.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're not that hot in any version.
Speaker 2: They're– They're not that great. Yeah. So I think it
Speaker 2: really is just, it really is just kind of like, well,
Speaker 2: this is hotter and it's, I don't know, some extra tits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to think what it would have been. Well,
Speaker 3: that release has, it has the soft scene outtakes as
Speaker 3: like a separate. a special feature you could look at.
Speaker 3: So you could see what the soft version is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, you do have a curious now that disc.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got, I know it.
Speaker 2: Is a long time ago. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I hate both movies on that. Well, not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Most people, when I went to this double who had
Speaker 4: seen it were like, when, with thrill killers, everyone was like,
Speaker 4: you know, the people who like, like it, like it.
Speaker 5: And I, I did enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I had a great time with it. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: often considered, steckler's most polished uh i put that in
Speaker 4: quotation marks but it is considered as like most polished
Speaker 4: and the closest he got to making something that looks
Speaker 4: like anything you would find in any other you know
Speaker 4: uh where was i going with that with like like
Speaker 4: if you did a um uh like if you wanted
Speaker 4: to screen this for someone who's never seen something by
Speaker 4: steckler obviously i guess that's and that's yeah that's.
Speaker 2: A good entry point yes absolutely because that's even more
Speaker 2: accessible than like incredibly strange creatures is something that i
Speaker 2: think people know from MSC3K. I think Flue Killers is
Speaker 2: kind of like reminds me of like the sadist or
Speaker 2: it's something that you could probably show someone. but then
Speaker 2: they see our tall junior and anything else. And they're like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck is this?
Speaker 1: Right. Right.
Speaker 5: No, totally.
Speaker 4: Like if you watch why I, um, I actually have
Speaker 4: never seen wild guitar.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I've never seen it in its entirety.
Speaker 4: I actually, I have the, Oh, it's just off kind
Speaker 4: of a camera here, but I have the Steckler box set. And, um, I,
Speaker 4: I remember I tried watching it. I was just too tired.
Speaker 4: So that's why I stopped it. And the transfer is magnificent.
Speaker 2: Um, It was good when Something Weird put it out.
Speaker 2: I think they had the negative to that. I think
Speaker 2: they had OCN or the original negative. So when that
Speaker 2: came out with the choppers, the choppers looked bad, but
Speaker 2: Wild Guitar was stunning. And you really get a good
Speaker 2: idea of what a good photographer Steckler was. I'm not
Speaker 2: someone to give Steckler a lot of credit for anything.
Speaker 2: But he also photographed Day of the Nightmare, which is
Speaker 2: very well photographed. Or maybe it was Scream of the Butterfly.
Speaker 2: I think it was Day of the Nightmare. But he
Speaker 2: was a very good photographer in black and white. His
Speaker 2: stuff is really crisp and clear and very well lit. So, yeah.
Speaker 2: And you see that here, by the way, his movies
Speaker 2: go on, they get progressively less well photographed.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The values and other things for sure. I don't, I
Speaker 4: don't disagree with that at all.
Speaker 1: Right. Right.
Speaker 4: You know, here, like, and, and this is part, thankfully
Speaker 4: because it's far enough in the movie that the, the print,
Speaker 4: you know, where as usual with these kinds of prints,
Speaker 4: the beginning and the end is where you see the
Speaker 4: most wear and tear outside of the real changes. And yeah,
Speaker 4: You know, that scene in the in the when he
Speaker 4: goes back with the woman to her apartment and there's
Speaker 4: like the the the flashing lights outside that are making
Speaker 4: it flash inside. You really get a great idea of
Speaker 4: how skillful Steckler is with a camera and those kinds
Speaker 4: of things. That's like beautiful stuff. And, you know, we
Speaker 4: were talking about how much this moves even in the last.
Speaker 4: 10 minutes where you kind of start feeling the padding,
Speaker 4: which is also where he becomes the Marlboro man. Like
Speaker 4: he gets on a fucking horse with a cowboy hat.
Speaker 2: Another one. He cannot avoid showing up in his own movies.
Speaker 2: He just can't. You're never going to have him not
Speaker 2: show up in one of his movies in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And, and boy, does he really like, like milk that,
Speaker 4: that horse budget or riding the horse and, and, But
Speaker 4: I have to say, it's even his padding in this movie,
Speaker 4: like what I wrote in my Letterboxd review is that
Speaker 4: it's an artistic accomplishment how Steckler pads this out.
Speaker 5: Like, it really is.
Speaker 4: Like, even his padding is an art form in this movie.
Speaker 5: And that's not even hyperbole. I mean, it really is.
Speaker 4: Like, you even see, like, the last 10 minutes where
Speaker 4: he's kind of drawing it out. You are like, all right, well,
Speaker 4: let's kind of start wrapping it up. There's still, like,
Speaker 4: some worthwhile stuff you're looking at because, you know, he's
Speaker 4: out in, like, some Valley out in, uh, probably near
Speaker 4: Lancaster or, uh, or like, you know, Santa Clarita or something. And, uh, uh, yeah,
Speaker 4: it just looks fantastic. Even when he's doing, you know,
Speaker 4: what's essentially becomes like a stage play in the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's the best part.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's well, it's interesting because the, because he eventually would
Speaker 2: become terrible with padding. Like, yeah, It was interesting how he, yeah,
Speaker 2: he kind of goes downhill, I think, once he realizes
Speaker 2: that he can still make a profit with that, with
Speaker 2: making less effort. It's kind of like he degraded as
Speaker 2: a filmmaker, because he was just like, well, whatever, I'll
Speaker 2: make the same amount of money without having to do
Speaker 2: anything of quality, which is a bummer, because you see
Speaker 2: the early stuff, and you're like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: happened there, and that's probably what happened. He was just like, well,
Speaker 2: the budget's low, I have a little amount of time,
Speaker 2: I don't need to waste time on niceties in my stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a, that's a pretty, uh, I would say
Speaker 4: that's 1000% right. Because like what you're constantly surrounded by
Speaker 4: people who can only give you so much money and they,
Speaker 4: and they have a, they obviously, even at that level,
Speaker 4: even though they're not a corporation, they're still going to
Speaker 4: think like one in terms of profit.
Speaker 5: So it's like, what are you going to, what are
Speaker 5: you going to do?
Speaker 4: You're just going to, if you hang around those people
Speaker 4: long enough, you're going to turn into those people, whether you,
Speaker 4: you know, you even know it or not.
Speaker 5: So That's a really good point.
Speaker 4: I didn't think of it that way because some people
Speaker 4: like Andy– I guess that's the difference with.
Speaker 5: Andy Milligan too, right?
Speaker 4: Where like he constantly– it was always like from the
Speaker 4: bottom pit of his soul that he was like plumbing
Speaker 4: the depths to get out whatever histrionic or no matter
Speaker 4: what– say what you will, whether it works for you
Speaker 4: or not. But it is coming from a very, very
Speaker 4: personal place and at a certain point with Steckler as
Speaker 4: much as he obviously loves movies and making movies. He
Speaker 4: probably was just like, all right, well, this is the
Speaker 4: money I got, and these are the people I'm with.
Speaker 3: This was like his gore.
Speaker 6: Film, sort of.
Speaker 3: He wasn't invested in this kind of movie. He just
Speaker 3: knew that it would sell, and he could take it
Speaker 3: on the road. I mean, he roadshowed this thing for
Speaker 3: a while. That just kind of shows sold little masks
Speaker 3: and stuff of the Mad Dog.
Speaker 1: Oh, right.
Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: Very old school style, yeah.
Speaker 5: That's right. That's right.
Speaker 4: Well, also he, you know, putting in like the hypnosis
Speaker 4: stuff that that killed with the crowd.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to say that, you know.
Speaker 2: With the with the little swirling, which is incredibly strange creatures.
Speaker 2: He already had that. I guess he was like, well,
Speaker 2: I guess I'll use it again.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love Incredibly Strange Creatures. Actually, I would like to
Speaker 2: see that with an audience. I like all the musical. Yeah. Sorry.
Speaker 5: Oh, I think I think it's super fun.
Speaker 4: And I think MST3K kind of put a like like
Speaker 4: I'm glad we're getting to the point now that if
Speaker 4: there's enough distance between that where certain movies can now
Speaker 4: get there, though, I'll say some stuff I watched. Like
Speaker 4: I remember the the Sumeru one that. blue underground put
Speaker 4: out the 4k of i'm forgetting i think it's million
Speaker 4: eyes of.
Speaker 7: Sumaru million eyes of sumaru oh no i i that
Speaker 7: i was like you know what and it's that's 10
Speaker 7: minutes longer that cut and i in my head was
Speaker 7: like i could have gone with the original cut and
Speaker 7: the mst3k fellas talking over this and even though even
Speaker 7: though i think that might have been from the rebooted
Speaker 7: show for netflix but still i was like it was
Speaker 7: yeah oh okay yeah but I disagree.
Speaker 3: Do not talk over Klaus Kinski as President Boing or
Speaker 3: whatever his name is. Just let him do his thing.
Speaker 3: I don't want to watch.
Speaker 2: I mean, I like the MSC3K of Incredibly Strange Creatures,
Speaker 2: but then I saw the... And then I picked up
Speaker 2: the Media Blasters DVD of it, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: it still works on its own. I mean, it's just...
Speaker 2: It throws everything into it. And it kind of lives
Speaker 2: up to this poster that promises you the moon. And
Speaker 2: it's like, well, there really is a little... There is
Speaker 2: everything in this movie. It's really... Oh, I agree. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: I didn't get to see it when it screened here
Speaker 4: i it screened a couple years ago um and i
Speaker 4: forget why i missed it but uh but i know
Speaker 4: that what the one flaw with the print that's available
Speaker 4: and my understanding this is the only print that anyone
Speaker 4: knows that exists that is can at least be theatrically
Speaker 4: played is it's missing a reel a whole reel wow
Speaker 4: so it's it's it makes it makes a short movie
Speaker 4: a lot shorter yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah right at that point yeah just play the dcp
Speaker 3: yeah just play the like nice dcp for that that's
Speaker 3: fine right i.
Speaker 2: Don't want like if it's if that rail is missing
Speaker 2: shook out of shape then it's a wrap like i
Speaker 2: needed i need shook out of shape if i'm going
Speaker 2: to see it in theater so i i love that Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know which one it's missing. If it does
Speaker 4: screen again, you better believe I'll be there. It was
Speaker 4: recently enough, though, so I suspect it'll be a little while. But, yeah,
Speaker 4: any Steckler that screens, I'll be there, even if it's digital,
Speaker 4: to be honest. Just because, like, how often do you
Speaker 4: get to see that in a dark setting with strangers?
Speaker 5: You know, it's, like, the ideal.
Speaker 3: Well, tell us more about what you thought about On
Speaker 3: Her Bed of Roses.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: That's right. that is a longer film and it is
Speaker 3: very leisurely paced for sure.
Speaker 2: Yes. Being nice.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes. I, so I, I gave it, I, I couldn't
Speaker 4: find them. I ultimately settled on just again to, I
Speaker 4: hate to do it this way, but just to make
Speaker 4: it easier to explain it in letterbox terms. I didn't
Speaker 4: give it any stars because it was kind of halfway
Speaker 4: between a two and a half and three to me.
Speaker 4: I just threw it a heart because I did have
Speaker 4: a good time with an audience. If I watch this
Speaker 4: at home, absolutely would have been like a two star affair.
Speaker 5: Do you know what I mean? Like I did make it.
Speaker 2: I think that's my rating now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at it right here. You got got two stars.
Speaker 3: Not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: My friends that I was with, they they didn't they weren't.
Speaker 4: They were both– they gave it two and a half
Speaker 4: from what I see here. And they kind of felt
Speaker 4: the same way I did. But what pushed it over
Speaker 4: for me was just watching it with an audience and
Speaker 4: having to be locked in. Surprisingly, when I got up
Speaker 4: to use the restroom to check the time, I was
Speaker 4: actually an hour and 20 minutes into the movie.
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that made me think– I forget how long that
Speaker 2: movie is. And I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: No, I know.
Speaker 4: Once you pass– I was talking to Phil, the programmer
Speaker 4: about this. I said, you know, when you pass 70 minutes,
Speaker 4: you really have to kind of earn it. But when
Speaker 4: you pass 80, you truly not every minute, every second counts.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: In this genre. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You can see the scenes that in your head as
Speaker 3: you're watching. You're like, this could have been five. Every
Speaker 3: scene could have been five minutes shorter. this would have
Speaker 3: been like an amazing 70 minute movie, but 100%.
Speaker 2: I watched too. I watched with an editor's eye way
Speaker 2: too often. I'm just like, wait, this could have been sliced.
Speaker 2: This pacing could have been. Yeah. It's yeah. Which it
Speaker 2: was crazy because I haven't been an editor in a
Speaker 2: long time, but it's just like, yeah, I'm just like, okay,
Speaker 2: this could have been tight in the pace. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just, you know, like there's that pool scene where
Speaker 3: they're like, the two girls are fighting with her dad.
Speaker 3: And it's just like, they're slapping each other for like,
Speaker 3: what seems like an eternity. It's like, It just trimmed this.
Speaker 4: It actually got– see, and that's an example of why
Speaker 4: that played well with the crowd because you could feel
Speaker 4: the– the audience actually laughed at the moment where you
Speaker 4: could feel it going too long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And if I did watch it at home, I'd be
Speaker 4: like– I'd be the same way. I'd be like, can
Speaker 4: we wrap this the fuck up? Like what is going on?
Speaker 4: But there we all kind of laughed at how we
Speaker 4: were being held hostage by it.
Speaker 6: Yes. That's kind of fun.
Speaker 4: But every time I still to this day, when I
Speaker 4: see something like that, I get fucking locked in. I'm like,
Speaker 4: all right, you know what? I think people I think
Speaker 4: people are being too hard on this. Let's fucking party.
Speaker 4: But then naturally, 30, 40 minutes in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right.
Speaker 6: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the crazy thing is, though, like this is
Speaker 2: the guy who was giving notes to Well saying Touch
Speaker 2: of Viva was too long.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then his self-indulgent stuff. He's like, oh, no. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's let it be as long as we need. Good God.
Speaker 5: That is, I didn't even know that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's over a touch of evil.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like memos back and forth. Yeah. Like, yeah, not great.
Speaker 2: So that's where the, that's where the restoration was such
Speaker 2: a big deal when it happened. Cause it was all
Speaker 2: this stuff that Zugsmith is like, cut it out, cut
Speaker 2: it out, you know? Well, yeah.
Speaker 5: I counted.
Speaker 4: So I was sitting in a I have a specific
Speaker 4: area that I sit in, so I can only see
Speaker 4: about half the theater at best. And I counted about
Speaker 4: from my side, I counted, I think, about five walkouts
Speaker 4: for this one. But here's the thing. It's a Monday
Speaker 4: approaching 11 o'clock.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 4: When people are there for something like that, unless it's
Speaker 4: absolutely pulling them in in a way that they are like,
Speaker 4: I must stay for this.
Speaker 5: I don't blame them. I totally get it.
Speaker 3: They're like, I saw Pat Barrington do her belly dance.
Speaker 3: I can leave.
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
Speaker 5: They're like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Wait, I forgot stuff. I forgot what happened.
Speaker 5: That sequence is fantastic. I love that party sequence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that whole party sequence with Pat and everybody else.
Speaker 3: That's the best part of the movie. And then it
Speaker 3: just kind of.
Speaker 4: Absolutely yeah yeah it's right up there with the opening
Speaker 4: for me and that's kind of where i got after
Speaker 4: that it definitely becomes more of an endurance because of
Speaker 4: how that movie is you know also the opening sells
Speaker 4: a movie that you're going to follow a socially awkward
Speaker 4: guy that you don't meet again for the most part
Speaker 4: yeah and the last 15 minutes yeah which in some
Speaker 4: ways could be a feature in the right hands but
Speaker 4: it obviously is sure more of a bug here.
Speaker 2: Yes i feel like i feel like lee frost could
Speaker 2: pull that off because he did some he ran he
Speaker 2: did like zero and then scream which is similar in
Speaker 2: several ways. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And if you guys want, if you guys want the
Speaker 4: first and only thing I bought an advanced ticket for,
Speaker 4: for the new Beverly in September is that Lee Frost double.
Speaker 4: So I'm happy to come back and talk about those
Speaker 4: because I've, I've not actually seen either.
Speaker 5: No pressure, but these are first.
Speaker 2: Time watches about the all American girl, which you have
Speaker 2: to see.
Speaker 5: I will be going to.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: So I'm actually going to, I, so I wanted to
Speaker 4: go see cuddly toys to just support Kansas. Cause I
Speaker 4: really did enjoy that movie, but, Unfortunately, I forgot I
Speaker 4: had bought tickets and made plans to go see Assault
Speaker 4: of the Killer Bimbos on 35, which I have not seen.
Speaker 2: That's fun. Yes, that's good. Okay, great, great.
Speaker 4: So it's early enough that I can actually see that,
Speaker 4: be out of there, and drive to New Bev and
Speaker 4: still make it in time for All-American Girl.
Speaker 5: So that's my double feature.
Speaker 3: For that night. Yeah, that's a good plan.
Speaker 2: Because that one, seeing that on a big screen would
Speaker 2: really blow my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's such a good movie. We need all the
Speaker 3: notes on that screening.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: About the prints, about how many walkouts there are during
Speaker 3: the snowballing scene.
Speaker 2: I know, the walkouts, I'm worried.
Speaker 4: So that's before the Lee Frost double, I believe a
Speaker 4: week or two before. So like I said, if you
Speaker 4: guys do want, I'm happy to come back and talk
Speaker 4: about all four. We can even throw in bimbos if
Speaker 4: you want to do a longer chat at some point.
Speaker 5: And like I said, no big deal.
Speaker 4: If you don't, I can just send it in writing
Speaker 4: if you guys want to just chat about it either or.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to put that out there because I
Speaker 4: feel like those are... I, I, I didn't realize I'm
Speaker 4: becoming a Lee Frost completionist, but it's happening.
Speaker 3: It does happen to a lot of us. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah. He's very consistent, which is nice. Like
Speaker 2: there are very few hiccups across that career, honestly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's very, very underrated.
Speaker 5: So far. So good for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's been a great ride watching Lee stuff.
Speaker 2: Even like thing, but two heads.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: Love it.
Speaker 5: Can't wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I'm so stoked for that, too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. The only one I really don't like, I think,
Speaker 2: is Chang Gang Women.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: And even that has enough points of interest that I
Speaker 2: wouldn't tell people not to watch it.
Speaker 4: You know, I just told a friend to watch a
Speaker 4: climax of Blue Power.
Speaker 5: Two people, actually, I know.
Speaker 4: So I can't wait to hear what they have to
Speaker 4: say about it, because one I know is going to
Speaker 4: love it.
Speaker 5: The other one.
Speaker 3: That's, that's one that I would be careful about recommending.
Speaker 5: For sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Well, I want to see the original
Speaker 2: version because of course it was shot soft. And then
Speaker 2: all the inserts were, I don't know if they were
Speaker 2: him or there was somebody else. That whole thing is,
Speaker 2: I don't know who would know what happened with.
Speaker 6: That, but.
Speaker 2: That's a good one. It's a really good one. Good
Speaker 2: stolen music from the Together Brothers soundtrack.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: On that.
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, we love good stolen music. Refer back to
Speaker 2: our conversation last episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that idea, though, Eli. We will be
Speaker 3: in touch. We absolutely want to hear about how those go.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys again for having me. This was so fun.
Speaker 6: I could.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, we love you.
Speaker 5: As we always say, we could have, this is what
Speaker 5: we did.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a miracle that we got to half
Speaker 4: an hour, just about like, I feel like it's truly
Speaker 4: could have been two plus hours.
Speaker 5: Just talking about Zugg Smith.
Speaker 2: Well, hi. Hello. How are you? Very good.
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm good.
Speaker 2: We've actually never met. Isn't that wild?
Speaker 6: That's crazy.
Speaker 3: This is a reoccurring theme with these podcasts. He runs
Speaker 3: into people again. He's like, you know what? I realize
Speaker 3: that we've never actually met, but we've known each other
Speaker 3: for like 20 years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Mobius home video days. Yeah, well, that's like John Charles.
Speaker 2: We have an ongoing chat with John Charles. And I'm like, John,
Speaker 2: I've known you for a quarter of a century. Isn't
Speaker 2: that crazy?
Speaker 6: Now, John, I have met.
Speaker 2: That's good. Okay. Yeah, most of them, none of the
Speaker 2: Mobius people I've met, not even Bruce. And I lived
Speaker 2: very close to Bruce. But yeah, we never met.
Speaker 8: And i'm bruce i've met many times i know yes
Speaker 8: exactly bruce is great but uh thank.
Speaker 2: You for joining us thank you for thank you gentry
Speaker 2: for coordinating this yeah oh well first of all I
Speaker 2: know I've talked to you about one of your former coworkers,
Speaker 2: Diana Flaherty. We actually just, she just retired several, a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago. And the last conversation we had was
Speaker 2: about you actually.
Speaker 6: I miss her so much.
Speaker 2: I know she was like, well, I remember, I remember when,
Speaker 2: you know, he left, he left image and I was
Speaker 2: like crying as we all left him, saw him walk,
Speaker 2: walk to his car. It was, she was like, it
Speaker 2: was like, I left, it was, she said it was
Speaker 2: like she lost a family member. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can see him having that effect on
Speaker 2: people for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I guess the impetus for bringing you on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Was specifically to talk about sort of your work with
Speaker 3: image entertainment. Jeez. How long ago was this now? A
Speaker 3: couple of decades ago. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I roughly, it's like around like late 2000 till 20,
Speaker 6: like late 2010, I think about 10 years. Yeah, no,
Speaker 6: I just thought you had like an intro thing about
Speaker 6: some of those exploitation announcements. I don't know if you
Speaker 6: were doing that first or how that was going to work.
Speaker 2: Oh, actually, let's do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 2: That's a good icebreaker.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't know if you saw the sexorcist that you
Speaker 6: had down. It's not that sexorcist. It's the other one.
Speaker 6: It's the Italian one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Sexorcist Devil, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: The Eerie Midnight Horror Show, Torment, whatever you want to
Speaker 6: call it. Yeah, it's the other one. Because in the UK,
Speaker 6: it's called sexorcist. Everybody got confused and they're like, But
Speaker 6: they already did the Cedricist, the Stegler one.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're doing Iriman and Horus, so I can get
Speaker 2: rid of my code red Blu-ray, is what you're saying.
Speaker 6: Okay, good.
Speaker 2: Because that code red Blu-ray was rough.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was rough, yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, good.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: I like the movie. Ivan Razumov is great in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a fun one. I'm glad they're doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I hope it'll be the longer cut, too. We'll see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I hope so.
Speaker 3: That clarifies things. Yeah, I was wondering about that as well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, everybody was like, why are they doing the Stuckler
Speaker 6: one again? They're like, no, no, no. In the UK,
Speaker 6: that one's called Sexorcist, and there's two Sexorcists that came
Speaker 6: out the same year, and people are like, what? It's
Speaker 6: really confusing.
Speaker 3: It's a hot title. I mean, you put that out,
Speaker 3: people are going to go see it. You call something
Speaker 3: the Sexorcist, right?
Speaker 2: One would hope, right? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we were saying how– you know we're always
Speaker 3: talking about severin is seems to do well with their
Speaker 3: sex and horror hybrid films and so that seems like
Speaker 3: kind of a no-brainer so yeah so i.
Speaker 2: Wish they would go back to the novaks like we
Speaker 2: talk about that a lot like i'm i want mantis
Speaker 2: and lace i want kiss me quick i mean.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about him later it's kind of.
Speaker 2: The mad butcher is right there i'm not sure why
Speaker 2: mad butcher and castle castle of freaks too i mean
Speaker 2: i don't want it but i'm surprised it hasn't been
Speaker 2: Taking it.
Speaker 3: I'm taking it.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of biggies that are just sitting there.
Speaker 6: It's like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we have a lot of, we have a lot
Speaker 2: of no back to talk to you.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Someone who sat in a room with him multiple times.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I certainly did.
Speaker 3: Well, we, um, I talked with Casey a little bit
Speaker 3: offline about this cause I already know how he feels
Speaker 3: about it, but, uh, Cherry, Harry and Raquel is getting
Speaker 3: the next Severn Russmeyer treatment, uh, I mean, I'm just, look,
Speaker 3: I'm happy that they're continuing this partnership and it didn't
Speaker 3: fall apart. So that's good news. Is this my favorite
Speaker 3: Russ Meyer? No, but some people love it. What are
Speaker 3: your thoughts?
Speaker 2: You don't know.
Speaker 3: You know my thoughts. Well, I guess, but we haven't
Speaker 3: heard them publicly, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my thoughts are, like, yes, I will echo.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that the partnership is going. But, like, I
Speaker 2: would have even rather seen Mondo topless than this. Like,
Speaker 2: and that's barely a movie. It should be. I think
Speaker 2: the story behind this one is... I mean, it becomes
Speaker 2: vividly clear when you find out why this movie is
Speaker 2: such a hodgepodge and so... all over the place because
Speaker 2: it was barely a movie that had to be saved
Speaker 2: in post it had to be saved in the editing
Speaker 2: room um and it's too as i've said it in
Speaker 2: my letterboxd museum on here a sexploitation focus on a
Speaker 2: man is always going to lose my interest and this
Speaker 2: is cherry and raquel are barely in this this is
Speaker 2: just the hairy show and.
Speaker 3: We get to see cherry walked off set which.
Speaker 2: Is fine Yes, because she thought that he was shooting
Speaker 2: secret footage of her nether regions, and so she walked
Speaker 2: off the set. Which is weird, because she was in
Speaker 2: the blue hour, which is, I think, much more graphic.
Speaker 3: I've heard other stories, too, that she had a dog
Speaker 3: on set that was shitting everywhere, and she was getting
Speaker 3: yelled at and upset about it.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised Russ even let it get to that point, actually.
Speaker 2: That he was like, yeah, sure, bring your dog to
Speaker 2: the set. That does not sound like... Yeah. Unless it
Speaker 2: was some kind of contraband pet that was brought on set.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I just wish it was something else. I'm
Speaker 2: glad that the partnership is still going. I'm glad that
Speaker 2: they're still able to work with Janice and the estate.
Speaker 2: I just wish it was not this movie. I wish
Speaker 2: it was something else. I would have even taken Finders, Keepers, Lovers,
Speaker 2: Weepers over this. Because at least that has Ravel Roby
Speaker 2: and she's amazing. And she'll do an interview because she's around.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to have Ushi on this release though,
Speaker 2: because David Gregory posted a picture of him with Ushi,
Speaker 2: which a mind blower. So at the very least, I
Speaker 2: guess I have to pick it up because we get
Speaker 2: Ushi on camera potentially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I know that she's not a central player in this movie,
Speaker 3: but she has a heavy presence in it. So I
Speaker 3: can see why she's the only good thing about it.
Speaker 3: I can see why they want to have her on
Speaker 3: this release. If, if that's what's happening.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: Cause they didn't get it for super vixens.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It's, it's going to be an amazing looking disc though.
Speaker 6: Cause I mean, I, I, I, it's an important movie.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's a huge mess of a movie, but
Speaker 6: it is an important one. So it makes sense for
Speaker 6: them to do it. But I mean, I think they
Speaker 6: were going to be shocked at how nice it looks.
Speaker 6: Cause I, my, my, this memory of this movie is
Speaker 6: back in the late 90 at 99 at the Egyptian
Speaker 6: here in LA, they did that huge Russ Meyer retrospective.
Speaker 6: They showed almost everything. And, um, but the, the print
Speaker 6: that rang was just gorgeous. So this should look stunning.
Speaker 6: And I always have a soft spot because, um, Charles
Speaker 6: Napier was there with Russ for the Q and a,
Speaker 6: and afterwards, I just remember walking out of the lobby
Speaker 6: and Charles Napier was standing next to me. All of
Speaker 6: a sudden kitten runs up and she's, and she's like, hi,
Speaker 6: full frontal scene, Chucky. And like, and, um, and then
Speaker 6: she made me take a picture of me putting my
Speaker 6: hand on her boobs for some reason. So, um, yeah,
Speaker 6: she loves that.
Speaker 2: She loves past tense.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, I, you know, I can't I can't hate
Speaker 6: the movie just because of that. It's, you know, it's
Speaker 6: a it's a sentimental favorite just for that reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would make me want to own a nice
Speaker 2: cleaned up version of that just for that memory alone.
Speaker 3: Just so you can freeze frame the Charles Napier naked
Speaker 3: nude frontal nudity scene.
Speaker 2: He's not Foreman Shane. He's not, yeah, he's not Foreman Shane.
Speaker 2: He's not Bill Ratzler. Like, whatever. I came up with
Speaker 2: my own Juliet on 4K so I can get my
Speaker 2: Ratzler nudity in 4K and I'll be, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of, have they said if this is going
Speaker 3: to be UHD or if this is Blu-ray?
Speaker 6: All of them are UHD.
Speaker 3: They're all going to be UHD.
Speaker 6: Really?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 6: Every Myers title is going to be UHD as far
Speaker 6: as I know. And, you know, they do them in pairs,
Speaker 6: so you'll have another one.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know what I want. I want common law cabin.
Speaker 2: That is my favorite.
Speaker 6: Would you call this, maybe is this Russ Meyer's like
Speaker 6: night to dismember sort of?
Speaker 2: Yes, I would actually. Yes, I would.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 2: That actually makes, that's, that's a good comparison, except I
Speaker 2: much prefer night to dismember. There is something much more
Speaker 2: charming about the insanity of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the fact that the story behind that is that
Speaker 2: basically like that, Samantha Fox had a swoop in and
Speaker 2: actually paid to be in the movie. And then it
Speaker 2: was her money that was financing all the reshoots. I'm
Speaker 2: just like, that's really crazy. Yeah, really bad on Blu-ray.
Speaker 2: That's kind of being held up for some reason.
Speaker 6: That makes no sense. I want both versions of that
Speaker 6: on Blu-ray so bad.
Speaker 2: I do too. The original version's great. I was very
Speaker 2: surprised when that started making the rounds again. It works.
Speaker 2: It's really a lot of fun too.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, it's coherent.
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh wow, their story beats. It's point A,
Speaker 2: point B, point C and it meets them. It is
Speaker 2: very much like a Chesty Morgan. They're like the Chesty
Speaker 2: Morgans or something. I feel like she became more coherent
Speaker 2: in the 70s maybe after a certain point. I wonder
Speaker 2: what the second one would be then. I would love
Speaker 2: Black Snake too, but they really want to bury that.
Speaker 2: They want to bury Black Snake. I love Black Snake.
Speaker 2: I'm maybe the one from person who loves it.
Speaker 6: So it's possible. I don't, I don't think it's off
Speaker 6: the table.
Speaker 3: No, I wouldn't say so. Yeah. Like you said, Nate,
Speaker 3: I think it'll look, I think this movie will look great.
Speaker 3: And I like a lot of the Russ Myers past
Speaker 3: couple of decades. They haven't been, I mean, you had to,
Speaker 3: you haven't been able to easily get them through a
Speaker 3: boutique label or anything like this. You had to kind
Speaker 3: of find them on eBay or through the, I mean,
Speaker 3: is that Russ Meyer? Can you even still purchase them
Speaker 3: straight from, The Russ Meyer estate?
Speaker 6: I think so.
Speaker 3: I mean, but there's those crazy overpriced DVDs. Yeah, those
Speaker 3: crazy overpriced DVDs are like $ 50.
Speaker 2: And those are old, old, old. Yeah, like the ones
Speaker 2: you would want would be the Arrow ones, which David
Speaker 2: Gregory worked on. So it's like, it's a nice through
Speaker 2: line of... Those are out of print though, aren't they?
Speaker 2: They're all out of print. Yeah, so what I'm saying
Speaker 2: is if you're going to buy them from the RM estate,
Speaker 2: they're going to be the same gross transfers they put
Speaker 2: out before the Arrow transfers. At least Arrow tried to
Speaker 2: clean those up as best they could without having access
Speaker 2: to like the materials that severance does now yeah yeah i.
Speaker 6: Can't imagine anyone would actually go through the trouble but
Speaker 6: and until the uhds the servant is um is doing
Speaker 6: you know until those are complete but the best options
Speaker 6: out there are probably the image laser discs that they
Speaker 6: did of the russ meyers because those were actually better
Speaker 6: quality than the dvds but believe it or not they're
Speaker 6: actually better because the dvds are like super compressed and
Speaker 6: really cheaply done in the arrows are fine but they're
Speaker 6: they're pal and they have like a lot of like
Speaker 6: blurring problems so like the laser discs are kind of
Speaker 6: the best game in town you can find them so
Speaker 6: you seem to have been it's a record shop yeah oh.
Speaker 2: And i guess i should note well something else i
Speaker 2: don't know gentry i don't know if the listeners also
Speaker 2: nathaniel is like one of my go-to people for soundtracks
Speaker 2: his taste is like chef's kiss peerless so like the
Speaker 2: soundtrack on this the toys of our time is yeah
Speaker 2: the best original song for a Russ Meyer movie that
Speaker 2: is not beyond the belly of the dogs. Like that
Speaker 2: is a great song. Well, yeah, that, that soundtrack is
Speaker 2: really good. Um, so that's worth it.
Speaker 3: Do you have the soundtrack? Is there a soundtrack single?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's out. It was on vinyl and CD.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think it's streaming too, actually. I think you
Speaker 2: can stream the soundtrack to this. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. Well, actually, I say the best, and
Speaker 2: I'm completely forgetting Faster Pussycat by the Boss Weeds, so
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm talking about. But it's definitely
Speaker 2: up there. Toys of Our Time is like, so when
Speaker 2: I had the DVD, I wouldn't watch the rest of
Speaker 2: the movie. I would just play the opening credits over
Speaker 2: and over, which I did a lot. DVD, I just
Speaker 2: leave the menu on and then just have a song
Speaker 2: on repeat.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the other film that we wanted to quickly
Speaker 3: discuss is The rock nights of the living dead is.
Speaker 6: Uh, well, code red did a blu-ray like for like
Speaker 6: a second.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, they did. Yes. It was really, I remember that.
Speaker 2: I think that review, that was one of George Eastman,
Speaker 2: rest in peace. One of his most scathing interviews, I believe.
Speaker 3: They're all scathing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You catch him on it. One day he'll talk shit
Speaker 2: about Lombardo Bava. And then on a good day, he'll
Speaker 2: say nice shit about Lombardo Bava. And then the same
Speaker 2: about like Mark Shannon and all the people who did
Speaker 2: the porn stuff. Um, yeah interesting guy those interviews are
Speaker 2: very documentary just those interviews put together i'd watch that
Speaker 2: oh yeah.
Speaker 3: I totally forgot about that code red yeah from 2018
Speaker 3: that wasn't too long ago that's and mark shannon's interviewed
Speaker 3: on that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's a two-part because they put out that in
Speaker 2: porno holocaust.
Speaker 3: So that begs the question then is this going to
Speaker 3: be uhd i mean do you think that they would
Speaker 3: upgrade that they would.
Speaker 2: That was shot on very cheap 60mm short ends. I
Speaker 2: think all of his stuff in the Caribbean was. I
Speaker 2: don't know how good that could look. I prefer Seso Nero,
Speaker 2: which is where Mark Shannon is given a terminal cancer
Speaker 2: diagnosis and decides to fuck his way through the island
Speaker 2: and then castrate himself.
Speaker 3: Or he dies, yeah.
Speaker 2: I do prefer that one.
Speaker 6: That whole Santo Domingo cycle is a lot of fun, though.
Speaker 6: It's weird, like just the target audience for those movies.
Speaker 6: You sit there and you're just like, where did these play?
Speaker 6: And like, what, how did audiences sit through these? Like what's,
Speaker 6: I think you're getting like a porn movie. And then,
Speaker 6: I mean, technically you get some of that, but like,
Speaker 6: I can't imagine it being aroused watching some of those.
Speaker 2: No, this one in particular, rock nights, the living dead
Speaker 2: is not erotic. You're just showing up. Cause she's like, well, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: I'll just, I'll just hang out with Aristide in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2: yeah that's what it was all about taking his pants
Speaker 2: off in a sex scene yeah george eastman refusing to
Speaker 2: do nudity in this film for some reason yeah.
Speaker 3: Well this begs the question too yeah i wonder if
Speaker 3: they're going to be doing more of the joe caribbean films.
Speaker 2: Listen if the disco at the italian disco stuff can
Speaker 2: get a box.
Speaker 3: Set then joe in the caribbean.
Speaker 2: Commentary then i feel like we can get a joe
Speaker 2: d'amato dominican movies yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'd be a hard sell for people. Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: Sex and Black Magic and Exotic Malice and all those.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like, it's D'Amato, which they already have a
Speaker 2: lot of his stuff. It's Laura Jemzer, who they already
Speaker 2: really promote. George Eastman, who they did Anthropophagus and Absurd.
Speaker 2: I think it's a slam dunk. I think that whole
Speaker 2: collection would, that's a no-brainer for them, I would think.
Speaker 2: But maybe we'll be getting that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, let's jump back into image entertainment. You can
Speaker 3: reminisce about the good old days, Nate.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I'm glad we're going to talk about this
Speaker 6: because I think the home video side of sexploitation is
Speaker 6: something that gets glossed over a lot, especially kind of
Speaker 6: the early days. I mean, now that the Blu-rays obviously
Speaker 6: get covered a lot, but I think in the early
Speaker 6: Wild West days of DVDs, especially, it's kind of like
Speaker 6: a big black hole of information because... even when they
Speaker 6: got covered online, a lot of those sites have since
Speaker 6: long gone, you know, on the way back machine, they're gone.
Speaker 6: So there's just, there's huge gaps in the history. So I, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm glad we can sort of go on the record
Speaker 6: and sort of let people know where the, you know,
Speaker 6: where some of the things that they're buying now came from.
Speaker 6: But yeah, image was, I don't know how detailed you
Speaker 6: want me to go, but image entertainment was originally one
Speaker 6: of the big players on the laser disc scene. Cause
Speaker 6: they'd been around in the eighties and they put out
Speaker 6: these magazines every month, like your catalogs of announcements. And
Speaker 6: they have a letter from a guy named Garrett Lee,
Speaker 6: who was kind of the head of marketing. And so
Speaker 6: when you walk into a laser shop, if you're in
Speaker 6: any major city, you would see these image, you know,
Speaker 6: monthly magazines that were out there. And the company was
Speaker 6: founded by a guy named Marty Greenwald, who was the
Speaker 6: CEO for basically the entire time that it existed under its,
Speaker 6: before it got bought, which was a whole tumultuous process.
Speaker 6: But he actually was a sort of a movie. He
Speaker 6: was kind of a backend movie producer. He wasn't credited
Speaker 6: on most of the stuff that he worked on. If
Speaker 6: you go to IMDb and you look him up, you
Speaker 6: only see like a tiny handful of credits. That's kind
Speaker 6: of misleading, but he worked on tons of stuff. but
Speaker 6: a lot of it was hardcore porn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And the funny thing is that the image office, which
Speaker 6: was in Chatsworth. And if you know what Chatsworth that's, it's,
Speaker 6: that's sort of known as the porn capital of the
Speaker 6: U S or at least it used to be for
Speaker 6: Vegas kind of siphoned off a lot of it with
Speaker 6: the condom laws. But the Chatsworth is a weird place
Speaker 6: because it's kind of half crazy Bacchanalia. And the other
Speaker 6: half is like super right-wing orange County, Christian conservative. And
Speaker 6: I think that kind of plays a part in the
Speaker 6: history of image and why it worked the way that
Speaker 6: it did, which we'll go into is kind of a,
Speaker 6: It was a little schizophrenic, but it was a great
Speaker 6: place to work. I mean, I loved it. It was
Speaker 6: really fun. But Marty was a really cool guy. But
Speaker 6: the one legit credit that he always talked about was
Speaker 6: Driving Massacre. Even though he doesn't have a credit, he
Speaker 6: was really the guy who got it going. And a
Speaker 6: lot of his buddies worked on it. Like he was
Speaker 6: good friends with John Tull, who he was in touch
Speaker 6: with Harry Novak movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we love John Tull.
Speaker 2: I'm saying we have to contact Marty to see if
Speaker 2: he's in touch with John Tull.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've always wanted to talk to John. I begged
Speaker 6: to get him to come in to talk about some
Speaker 6: of his movies, but we could never get him to
Speaker 6: come in, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: You could have gotten him on a– wait, we could
Speaker 2: have gotten a Midnight Plowboy soundtrack if they'd been able
Speaker 2: to convince him.
Speaker 3: A commentary, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
Speaker 3: So people were in contact with him, but he declined?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, yeah, he was in contact, but yeah,
Speaker 6: he just doesn't– he couldn't convince him to talk about
Speaker 6: his acting. I don't know why. I don't know the
Speaker 6: whole story about it. Interesting. But yeah, they were good buddies.
Speaker 6: Because John was an AD on Dragon Massacre. And he
Speaker 6: did lots of behind-the-scenes stuff on the movies. I mean,
Speaker 6: we know him as being starring in all the Hillbilly,
Speaker 6: Harry Novak movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but after that, yeah, he did behind-the-scenes stuff.
Speaker 2: And then he worked in hardcore, too. I mean, he
Speaker 2: shows up in non-sex roles in certain things. And I
Speaker 2: imagine he probably worked on some of those behind-the-scenes, too.
Speaker 2: We just don't know. Because, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: OK, I have my I have my mission. If you
Speaker 2: guys couldn't get him, then I don't stand a chance.
Speaker 6: But, you know, you could try. Maybe he's softened up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been so many years now since. So, you know,
Speaker 3: people change their mind. And I mean, are we assuming
Speaker 3: he's still alive?
Speaker 6: I hope so. Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 3: He was kind of young when he did those.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So, yeah.
Speaker 6: So so that's where image came from. Basically got founded
Speaker 6: with with porn money, essentially, and horror money, driving money.
Speaker 6: um and so marty had all those connections he was
Speaker 6: connected a lot of sort of indie producers and and
Speaker 6: guys who sort of were connected to the adult scene
Speaker 6: in some way or another and so um you know
Speaker 6: i i i know you've sort of mentioned but the
Speaker 6: rule with home video is whichever format goes with goes
Speaker 6: with porn that's the one that wins so that's why
Speaker 6: vhs beta etc and so image to start off doing
Speaker 6: adult laser discs as well you know cafe flash all
Speaker 6: the biggies um all those big sort of flagship titles
Speaker 6: but they also had a deal with playboy and penthouse
Speaker 6: to do all their softcore stuff and so like on
Speaker 6: vhs all of that came through image and the laser
Speaker 6: discs of all those which just the idea of those
Speaker 6: those hour-long playboy videos being a laser disc is i
Speaker 6: still just think is hilarious but you know whatever it
Speaker 6: had a market so people bought that stuff um but
Speaker 6: he was very i mean the company is very receptive
Speaker 6: to doing exploitation and softcore but it wasn't really something
Speaker 6: that People didn't really know about these movies for a
Speaker 6: long time because we're talking like pre-something weird. And so
Speaker 6: there was kind of a void for about 15 years
Speaker 6: where these movies just didn't really exist. And from my perspective,
Speaker 6: I didn't even really know about them when I was
Speaker 6: a kid until I think it was 1986, I think,
Speaker 6: whenever Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 came out. But Film Comment
Speaker 6: did an issue. I don't know if you guys have
Speaker 6: seen that one, but we had Texas Chainsaw 2 on
Speaker 6: the cover. But they did this long spread inside all
Speaker 6: about sexploitation. And like they went in depth on the
Speaker 6: David Freedman's and they had all the posters, like these
Speaker 6: gorgeous color reproductions. And then they talked about like there
Speaker 6: was like the raw ones was in there and all
Speaker 6: these things. And I was like, what are these movies?
Speaker 6: You know, and I'm just like, I was like 13
Speaker 6: or something. I was like, what is this stuff? This
Speaker 6: wasn't in Psychotronic. It wasn't any of that stuff. And
Speaker 6: but those movies, you just couldn't see most of them,
Speaker 6: as you know, as you know. And so I think that,
Speaker 6: um you know when something weird came along that was
Speaker 6: um that was a huge game changer of course and
Speaker 6: and being a you know crazy cult movie kid you
Speaker 6: know i'd scour every video store to find them because
Speaker 6: you couldn't pay 20 bucks a pop to see every
Speaker 6: single one of those because yeah no high school kid
Speaker 6: can afford that um your allowance isn't that big but
Speaker 6: um no And of course, Tim Lucas covering in Video Watchdog, etc.
Speaker 6: So the ground was really primed, I think, for those.
Speaker 6: I think Mike Rainey came along at the right time
Speaker 6: because people were starting to go, what is this stuff?
Speaker 6: We want something different. And Image jumped in right when
Speaker 6: there was that transition from Laserdisc to DVD. So that's
Speaker 6: right when they jumped in with companies like Redemption and
Speaker 6: they started doing stuff like Devil's Nightmare and Cold Eyes
Speaker 6: of Fear and all that stuff. And Mike Rainey, obviously,
Speaker 6: the movies that he owned, because Something Weird was kind
Speaker 6: of a great market company when it started off, but
Speaker 6: the Friedman thing really Legitimize him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I think and I think that's when Harry Novak
Speaker 6: kind of noticed. And there was a whole like I
Speaker 6: think there's a little bit of a rivalry thing going
Speaker 6: on there through the whole something weird period kind of escalated,
Speaker 6: which we'll go into.
Speaker 3: Harry's like, I see I see my old my old nemesis, Dave,
Speaker 3: making money off this. How do I get in on it?
Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think Harry was like, why is he
Speaker 6: loving Dave Friedman so much? What about me?
Speaker 2: That seems like that paid off, though. I feel like
Speaker 2: there were more Novaks than Friedmans at the end of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because his library was, I think, bigger. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah. Not that I'm not Friedman.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Novak built up that library, yeah.
Speaker 6: And it's funny, I mean, because again, obviously you pair
Speaker 6: something up. You've got, you know, Kiss Me Quick and
Speaker 6: House on Bear Mountain. You know, you have like, it's
Speaker 6: funny how there's a synchronicity between the two that I
Speaker 6: don't think they would have. Because, again, they were sort
Speaker 6: of rivals. But it's funny how their tomographies kind of
Speaker 6: line up with what they own. It's funny that, again,
Speaker 6: it was just really good synchronicity.
Speaker 3: Well, who would decide on those pairings?
Speaker 6: So, yeah. So, Image did a deal with Mike. So,
Speaker 6: they would do like 20 titles to 25 titles at
Speaker 6: a time. They would keep doing new contracts for these things.
Speaker 6: And so, yeah. So, let me back up. So, Image,
Speaker 6: of course, jumped into DVDs pretty early on. And they
Speaker 6: did it. Mike was one of the earliest deals they did,
Speaker 6: I believe. Because they ported over the Redemptions. But they
Speaker 6: were like, yeah, let's do some of the horror and exploitation.
Speaker 6: And stuff like Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red,
Speaker 6: those were the obvious ones. Because people knew those because
Speaker 6: those had been on tape. And Basket Case, which Frank
Speaker 6: let them do as something weird for a while. But
Speaker 6: those were standalones. But Mike had all this stuff to
Speaker 6: do bonus features. And he would do his own commentaries
Speaker 6: with Dave Friedman. But the problem is a lot of
Speaker 6: these folks were in LA. And Mike was in Seattle.
Speaker 6: And he couldn't always come down. So luckily, Image was
Speaker 6: kind of its own self-sufficient thing. Like it was a big,
Speaker 6: a big. kind of double building thing in Chatsworth. And
Speaker 6: they had their own production wing, their own production department,
Speaker 6: which had about maybe 12 employees, I think. They had
Speaker 6: their own art department, which was about seven employees. Basically,
Speaker 6: they did everything in-house except for printing, the actual manufacturing,
Speaker 6: replicating of the discs, that all got done outside. But
Speaker 6: aside from that, everything was inside. They had their own
Speaker 6: QC people, which is a lost art, unfortunately. Nobody QCs
Speaker 6: discs anymore. That's why you have recalls all the time
Speaker 6: on stuff.
Speaker 2: Um, I know it's, it seems like way more than
Speaker 2: ever these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It's far more. We don't need to pay QC people.
Speaker 6: It's like, it saves so much money. Like, I'm sorry
Speaker 6: you got to pay regular paycheck, but you know, these
Speaker 6: recalls cost a ton of money. Um, cause I mean,
Speaker 6: we QC people at every, not just image, but like,
Speaker 6: you know, Blunderground and Anchor Bay. Like, I mean, every,
Speaker 6: all these companies, like they used to just QC everything,
Speaker 6: every company would like, you would QC every audio track,
Speaker 6: you'd QC on multiple players, you'd make sure everything worked.
Speaker 6: You know, they don't do it anymore. Um, which is
Speaker 6: a shame. Um, So Mike would actually, so there are three,
Speaker 6: really three people involved. There's Mike Rainey and Lisa, his wife,
Speaker 6: and then Frank Hennenlotter. So they would kind of come
Speaker 6: up with what eventually became the double features because these
Speaker 6: were singles at first in those snapper cases. And they started,
Speaker 6: they were like, well, these movies are short and we
Speaker 6: can have all these extras. So let's start pairing them up. And, um,
Speaker 6: cause originally you'd have stuff like erotic adventures of Zorro
Speaker 6: just came out by itself, you know, just, you know,
Speaker 6: not much on it, you know, it was kind of,
Speaker 6: kind of sparse. And so he thought it'd be fun
Speaker 6: to start pairing these up because you had all the
Speaker 6: space on the disc. This isn't like a VHS tape
Speaker 6: you've only got two hours to work with. You could
Speaker 6: kind of go nuts.
Speaker 3: He was careful about he wanted to give them as
Speaker 3: much content as he could with the space on the disc.
Speaker 6: They would actually do the math because they would figure, okay,
Speaker 6: we have this space. How much can we fit on
Speaker 6: there before we have to start knocking the compression down,
Speaker 6: before it starts looking like crap? Those discs still look good.
Speaker 6: Those DVDs look really nice. Those were beautiful scans, but
Speaker 6: almost all off the negatives for the most part. And
Speaker 6: it was really funny because I would actually see they
Speaker 6: would send, once they figure out double feature, Mike would
Speaker 6: figure out like, okay, how much can we get on there?
Speaker 6: Like down to the minute, like what, how many, how
Speaker 6: much can we cram onto these discs? I think the
Speaker 6: funniest one was monster's crust, the pajama party. Cause that
Speaker 6: disc was like, I mean, it was literally down to
Speaker 6: like no room left on that disc. I was like,
Speaker 6: how much can we just shove in there?
Speaker 2: But it was such a masterpiece. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2: I remember that I, went through that thing and actually
Speaker 2: wrote down myself a little roadmap. So I have it
Speaker 2: in there with the chat, with the chapter listing insert.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a booklet that with the interviews
Speaker 2: with some spook show people. And yeah, I have, I
Speaker 2: have my map in there. Cause I'm like, I need
Speaker 2: to be able to find certain things. That was like,
Speaker 2: that was, I think the, the crowning achievement of, of
Speaker 2: that programming, because let's go to the drive-in already. Um,
Speaker 2: like a game changer. Like that was incredible. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the monsters crossed the pajama party was such a wonderful experience.
Speaker 2: Just that whole disc was like, you could tell the
Speaker 2: joy that went into making that.
Speaker 6: Oh, so that was a real labor of love.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I'll never forget. We had, we had multiple meetings about
Speaker 6: that one.
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, because we had our own menu artists, um, we
Speaker 6: had our own menu designers. And so like Mike would
Speaker 6: actually get on the phone with our menu guy who was,
Speaker 6: cause he would assign many people to these movies and
Speaker 6: they were actually like There were two menu artists and
Speaker 6: there were two cover designers who loved something with weird titles.
Speaker 6: They would ask for them and they loved working on them.
Speaker 6: So these were really inside images. These were really beloved movies.
Speaker 6: But yeah, just having Mike on the phone laying out, okay,
Speaker 6: I want to do this. I want you to go
Speaker 6: in here and go to the hall. Laying it out
Speaker 6: in the menu artist. We have to sit there and
Speaker 6: just figure out how can I make this happen? What
Speaker 6: kind of madness is this? I'm building a house in
Speaker 6: the menu and hiding all the stuff in it. How
Speaker 6: is this going to work? But they did it somehow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It really is like there there's no other release like
Speaker 2: it and i don't think you could do it like
Speaker 2: that i don't think you could try to replicate something
Speaker 2: like that now yeah i don't think the technology has
Speaker 2: improved in so many ways but i feel like it's
Speaker 2: gone in the reverse as far as menus i feel
Speaker 2: like the menus do not have that fun interactive way
Speaker 2: like there's a dvd of a movie called girls would
Speaker 2: be girls that dvd that mgm put out of this
Speaker 2: drag queen comedy Where, like, the characters are on the
Speaker 2: menu and they have, like, comic business while they're telling
Speaker 2: you to, like, press chapter or special features. And it's
Speaker 2: just like, that's gone. I don't know why that.
Speaker 3: Isn't done now. It's a lost art, for sure.
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 3: It's a lost art.
Speaker 2: The DVD menu is a lost art.
Speaker 3: We don't know how to do it anymore. It's like
Speaker 3: that joke.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like Easter eggs. Easter eggs used to
Speaker 2: be much more prevalent. It's not that they've gone away completely, but...
Speaker 2: they used to be much more fun to try to
Speaker 2: find them. And actually, you, sir, were always really good
Speaker 2: about letting people know, click around, you're going to be
Speaker 2: able to find something fun. So I was like, okay, good,
Speaker 2: Nathaniel knows.
Speaker 3: But not telling exactly where to find it either. Exactly.
Speaker 6: At least you knew to look, though. That's something that
Speaker 6: just triggers people to punch around your menus. As long
Speaker 6: as you know something's there, then you can go and
Speaker 6: start messing around with it.
Speaker 2: Yes and that was why it was yeah that's why
Speaker 2: that i think that well home video i like that
Speaker 2: it's still going and boutique labels which are going but
Speaker 2: i feel like there's that level of creativity that is
Speaker 2: just not there for some reason and i don't know
Speaker 2: i don't know why that is but i would love
Speaker 2: it to come back in that way um but yeah.
Speaker 6: I would too i think because everything's so far out
Speaker 6: now i think is when you have people like when
Speaker 6: someone is sitting at their desk right from you who's
Speaker 6: doing the menus i think it there's much more spontaneous
Speaker 6: i think you kind of you know, you're more willing
Speaker 6: to have like fun with it. And you're all sitting
Speaker 6: in the same meetings together. I just think it's a
Speaker 6: different thing. I mean, I think grindhouse is still keeping
Speaker 6: it alive as far as like the menu craziness. Like
Speaker 6: I still look forward to it.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true.
Speaker 2: They do. Yeah. Well, and, but also they're also, they've
Speaker 2: been doing it for so long that they, yeah, they
Speaker 2: have mastered that. We're doing that in the DVD era.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's like, we're just going to keep doing it.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's been the same people that entire time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know. Gosh, I get very wistful
Speaker 2: thinking about that.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about who's doing good maze today. I think Reinhardt.
Speaker 2: They're really good. They know what they're doing. Sorry, everyone else.
Speaker 2: Go look at MonsterCrest the Pajama Party and try to
Speaker 2: make something like that happen. it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: exactly that, but something fun, you know, like something that it,
Speaker 2: cause it is that it's an extra level of engagement
Speaker 2: with the, with the person who bought it, where it's like,
Speaker 2: it's now become like a treasured part of their collection
Speaker 2: and they can still go back.
Speaker 3: And find fun stuff potentially.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It almost feels like Mike's mindset was, this is it.
Speaker 3: This is like the last time this is ever going
Speaker 3: to be released on home video. Let's do it big.
Speaker 3: and like put as much as we can on here
Speaker 3: make it look as good as possible because i think
Speaker 3: he did have that mindset of like he wasn't interested
Speaker 3: in blu-ray when it came around he was like why
Speaker 3: are we doing this so.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah i mean the only time mike and i
Speaker 6: i mean like sort of amicably we butt heads because
Speaker 6: he did not want to go anamorphic widescreen on anything
Speaker 6: like he hated it because he watched everything yeah like
Speaker 6: he watched everything in like an old like two crt
Speaker 6: tv like he wanted everything to look like a beaver
Speaker 6: Cause he watched that, um, which is funny. He loved
Speaker 6: that aesthetic. And like, I had to actually like really
Speaker 6: twist his arm hard to get two titles done that way. Um,
Speaker 6: unfortunately that was one where the replicator screwed up and
Speaker 6: that was Hercules, um, versus the moon man where they
Speaker 6: actually flagged it wrong i mean he's like see i told.
Speaker 2: You i remember when that happened yes i.
Speaker 6: Did um so that's why you have so many flat
Speaker 6: letterbox transfers from them for like the scope luckily like
Speaker 6: almost none of his movies were scoped thank god um
Speaker 6: so you Um, usually he would just transfer, like get
Speaker 6: the next and they would just do open mat or like,
Speaker 6: you know, letterbox in a little bit where it had
Speaker 6: to be when it was hard matted. Um, so for
Speaker 6: the most part, it was fine. It wasn't even really
Speaker 6: a big deal. And thank God they were open max
Speaker 6: and you got extra sleazy stuff at the top and bottom.
Speaker 6: So whatever, everybody wins. So it's all good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There weren't that many scope. I'm trying to think of like, uh, well,
Speaker 2: labyrinth of sex was a scope one and they never
Speaker 2: put out sexy pro a bitissimo except in little clips
Speaker 2: all over different releases. They never put it out on
Speaker 2: its own, but yeah, that was, yeah, it's funny. I
Speaker 2: think that's kind of the nature of that genre. It's like,
Speaker 2: who's shooting in scope? Who has the money for that?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: So it kind of works out, just put out all
Speaker 2: this stuff in full frame.
Speaker 6: Um, so backing up. So the way that I got
Speaker 6: an image was I, after I finished college, I had
Speaker 6: started my website and I was doing the whole Mobius thing, um,
Speaker 6: which we've mentioned. And, um, so I moved to LA
Speaker 6: and I was working at DreamWorks for about a year. Um,
Speaker 6: and I was like, this is fine. I really don't
Speaker 6: want to do a studio thing. Cause it was just
Speaker 6: kind of corporate and you know, whatever. It was fun,
Speaker 6: but whatever. Um, but at image, um, DVD had really
Speaker 6: just kicked off and they had actually started a company
Speaker 6: called DVD planet, which had bought out. There's a chain
Speaker 6: of laser distorsion called Ken cranes, which was also getting
Speaker 6: into DVDs. It's like, well, we want to get on
Speaker 6: the bottom floor of this. So he started this company
Speaker 6: called DVD planet, which was actually on the same property
Speaker 6: as image. Like I said, there was basically two huge
Speaker 6: converted warehouses. So the other warehouse became DVD planet. And so, um,
Speaker 6: They hired me on because the guy who had just
Speaker 6: come over, he had moved to L.A. from Philly, a
Speaker 6: man named Mark Walco. He's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love Mark.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, Mark is awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm the Mobius person, right?
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, it's the Rosetta Stone of everybody in
Speaker 2: this business. I think everybody who's still working in this business,
Speaker 2: they all started at Mobius, honestly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it seems like it, yeah. I mean, it's such
Speaker 6: a tiny pond, really, and it still is.
Speaker 2: Right, yep.
Speaker 6: And so Mark had gone over to image to do PR.
Speaker 6: And so he was the guy who was involved in
Speaker 6: the very first batch of snapper case titles or something weird.
Speaker 6: And I was basically the editor at DVD planet because
Speaker 6: they would do regular weekly update things. And I worked
Speaker 6: a lot with Frank Henenlotter because he was going to
Speaker 6: be the spokesperson for something weird. So Frank and I
Speaker 6: were like, you know, super tight work because he wrote,
Speaker 6: it kills me. This is an archive because they took
Speaker 6: my computer and I don't have, he wrote the most
Speaker 6: amazing columns ever. about all the DVDs that were coming out.
Speaker 6: He did write up some things like for your height
Speaker 6: only and stuff like that. There were just like the
Speaker 6: funniest crap I've ever read in my life. And, um,
Speaker 6: and they're just genius like columns that he wrote for
Speaker 6: DVD planet. And, um, so just working with Frank, you know,
Speaker 6: for that, that was amazing. Um, but so, but I would,
Speaker 6: you know, go back and forth between DVD planet and
Speaker 6: the image offices all the time. We'd all have lunch
Speaker 6: and all that. And, um, so then what happened was,
Speaker 6: and that originally this wasn't common knowledge, but I think
Speaker 6: I can say now, cause they're, you know, it's long gone. Um,
Speaker 6: but they got a blackmail call from some guy in
Speaker 6: Russia who would like hack the site. And, um, he
Speaker 6: was like, you will pay me, you know, $ 600, 000 or
Speaker 6: I will leak all of your customer info or something
Speaker 6: like that. And, um, and they were like, uh, whatever.
Speaker 6: I think they want to pay the guy off, but
Speaker 6: they want to just dumping DVD planet. They essentially just
Speaker 6: closed because of this blackmail guy. Yeah, all because of
Speaker 6: this extortion guy. I wasn't in all the meetings about it,
Speaker 6: but yeah, it's basically because it's blackmailer. And they were
Speaker 6: just like, this is way too much of a hassle.
Speaker 6: It was just such a nightmare dealing with this.
Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Yeah.
Speaker 6: But the timing worked out because at the same time
Speaker 6: this happened. And so they were like, so they cut
Speaker 6: the staff and they wanted to absorb all the DVD
Speaker 6: Planet folks back into Image. At the same time, Mark
Speaker 6: wanted to move to New York to marry his then fiance,
Speaker 6: which he did. So he went off to go work
Speaker 6: for Criterion in New York. And Image was also at
Speaker 6: the time, they were the distributor for Criterion. And were
Speaker 6: for many, many years, which people tend to forget that.
Speaker 6: We had our own dedicated criterion person in-house. And so
Speaker 6: I just sort of leapfrogged over and I took over
Speaker 6: for Mark. So I inherited something weird line, right? As
Speaker 6: it was, you know, like, you know, and it's, as
Speaker 6: it was getting off the ground and like all the,
Speaker 6: the Euro, the Euro shock titles, anything weird, the Ted B.
Speaker 6: Michael stuff, all the, all the British sexploitation stuff, the
Speaker 6: British sex comedies, all that wound up going over to me.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Like the, what was that? Jezebel?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Jezebel was like Redemption's exploitation line was Jezebel. Redemption, Salvation,
Speaker 6: Jezebel thing, it's kind of fuzzy. They sort of rotate around.
Speaker 6: It's a little confusing. But it was really fun. And
Speaker 6: the nice thing was that because Mike, again, was in
Speaker 6: Seattle most of the time, he would come down maybe
Speaker 6: twice a year. He and Lisa would come. But for
Speaker 6: the most part, he was based out of there. But
Speaker 6: they wanted to keep upping their special features. And so
Speaker 6: They were like, well, we want commentaries, but these are
Speaker 6: LA folks. So can I just send them over to you?
Speaker 6: And I was like, yeah, I'll do it. So that's
Speaker 6: kind of how the commentary thing started with me because
Speaker 6: we would do all of our commentaries in house. Um,
Speaker 6: we normally record them on dad tapes, which is what
Speaker 6: Mike did as well. Um, for those who don't remember
Speaker 6: dad tapes for like digital audio tapes or like little
Speaker 6: tiny things, I'm sure. Um, old timers might remember what
Speaker 6: those are, um, because of good sound quality, they were
Speaker 6: good for archiving. And so he'd be like, you know, Oh,
Speaker 6: can I send Larry Buchanan over to you? And you'll,
Speaker 6: you know, for a commentary. I'm like, sure, whatever. So,
Speaker 6: you know, I'll take two hours of my day, just
Speaker 6: block it off. And later I'll come, we'll sit down
Speaker 6: with the mics and just watch the movie and chat
Speaker 6: about it. Um, you know, because I guess he trusted
Speaker 6: me that I knew what the movies were and that
Speaker 6: he knew what a fan I was. Cause again, I
Speaker 6: just sort of cut my teeth on these movies. Um,
Speaker 6: and so it, you know, it worked out. Um, but
Speaker 6: you know, but Mike stayed with like the Friedman stuff was,
Speaker 6: was all his. I mean, he did all those, obviously
Speaker 6: you could hear him on those. And, um, The really
Speaker 6: fun thing is that image would also, um, let me
Speaker 6: go to the chiller convention, which they would, you know,
Speaker 6: they have multiples, but the big one is the Halloween
Speaker 6: one they would have every year in New Jersey. And
Speaker 6: so I would get a dealer pass and I would
Speaker 6: basically go help out at something weird table with them.
Speaker 6: And then we'd all just sort of hang out. And
Speaker 6: like we were saying, cause like Mark Walco would be
Speaker 6: there and like, you know, Mike Felsher, Mike Engel, and
Speaker 6: like all the, all the video guys were there every year.
Speaker 6: So it's kind of, we would all just go out
Speaker 6: and have pizza and drink beers after. And it was,
Speaker 6: it was, people think we're all competitors, but it was
Speaker 6: kind of like more cause we all love the same movie.
Speaker 6: So it was kind of more like a family kind
Speaker 6: of thing. Um, But it was really fun. But Mike
Speaker 6: would bring Dave Friedman a lot to chiller. So you're
Speaker 6: hanging out with Dave Friedman for like a whole weekend.
Speaker 6: You're like, this is heaven. He's just the best. And
Speaker 6: I'm just glad I got to hang out with all
Speaker 6: these guys before they left us. I mean, I know
Speaker 6: because you've talked to Dave too. It really felt like
Speaker 6: the end of an era when they started leaving us because, yeah,
Speaker 6: it was really strange.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it was just, well, when day, and it was funny,
Speaker 2: cause there are still people who are still, who were
Speaker 2: around after date pass, but it still felt like that was,
Speaker 2: it was the end when he passed. Cause it was
Speaker 2: because he really was kind of like, he knew everybody.
Speaker 2: And cause he really reached the top of the industry
Speaker 2: as far as the AFAA goes. So he knew literally everybody.
Speaker 2: So when he went, it really was kind of like, okay,
Speaker 2: there are some people left, but it felt like there
Speaker 2: were like, they were, they were scattered. It wasn't, there
Speaker 2: wasn't like a central figure that you could go to.
Speaker 2: it's going to give you like the best version of
Speaker 2: the history of the industry. So, yeah, that was, and
Speaker 2: he wasn't even that old really. I mean, he was old, obviously,
Speaker 2: but like, I know people that are still alive now
Speaker 2: that I just found out that Ray Anthony's still alive
Speaker 2: and maybe the endurance still alive. So not, not as
Speaker 2: old as them when he passed away, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, what were some of your favorite commentaries to do?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh.
Speaker 6: Well, getting to do Larry Buchanan was really fun. That was,
Speaker 6: that was really cool. And, Let me think. Which one
Speaker 6: was that?
Speaker 2: Was that for Naked Witch or was that for Common
Speaker 2: Law Wife?
Speaker 6: Or did you do both?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember now.
Speaker 6: That, I think, wasn't that, no, it was for, I
Speaker 6: think it was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 2: Oh, Lee Harvey Oswald. Oh, right.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's right. I keep forgetting that came out.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I wish it was Naked Witch. Naked Witch would
Speaker 6: have been really fun. But yeah, I mean, yeah, but
Speaker 6: it was a blast. And I mean, it also, getting
Speaker 6: to the tracks, so it gave me a little bit of,
Speaker 6: I guess leverage where I could actually sort of like
Speaker 6: for some titles through that I wanted done that they
Speaker 6: weren't kind of resistant to. Cause like then, Oh, so
Speaker 6: I should back up just a second. So image, like
Speaker 6: I said, was doing porn on Laserdisc, but when DVD
Speaker 6: came along, um, they had actually changed a bit because, um,
Speaker 6: during the Laserdisc thing, they were image and pioneer were
Speaker 6: the two biggies and image wanted to work more with
Speaker 6: the studios. And they've somehow been able to wait to
Speaker 6: becoming Disney's Laserdisc replicator and distributor. And so suddenly they
Speaker 6: were doing Bambi and Pinocchio, but Disney was like, you're
Speaker 6: not doing the porn. Like, Like you can stick with
Speaker 6: the Playboy in the penthouse. That's fine. The soft core
Speaker 6: is fine. But the hard core is out. And so
Speaker 6: they immediately had to stop doing the hard core Laserdiscs.
Speaker 6: And so when DVD came on, they were doing deals
Speaker 6: with Universal and people like that. And so still hard
Speaker 6: core was a no-no.
Speaker 3: Well, just because they had a deal with Disney. But
Speaker 3: I mean Disney didn't own any stock in the company.
Speaker 3: It's just like Disney didn't want it to be anywhere
Speaker 3: near their stuff.
Speaker 5: Is that the idea?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like if you want to carry your stuff,
Speaker 6: you're not– we don't want to be associated with it.
Speaker 6: It makes sense.
Speaker 2: Vendor syndrome is going through the same thing. Exactly.
Speaker 6: That's why Melia's scene exists, is because they're doing Paramount,
Speaker 6: they're doing MGM, they're doing Warner Brothers. It's like, you
Speaker 6: can't have that butting up against, you know, Tobolino movies.
Speaker 6: It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: It's bad enough that their logo is still a sexy woman.
Speaker 2: That's bad enough. Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't changed that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm surprised they haven't changed it either. I'm surprised that
Speaker 2: wasn't any kind of discussion. Yeah, I think it was that.
Speaker 2: It was a combo with that and credit card processors,
Speaker 2: where they didn't want to process porn. But it's the
Speaker 2: same thing. It's like the people with the money are
Speaker 2: going to make those decisions, and you have to go
Speaker 2: with what they want to make sure that you still
Speaker 2: keep getting their money. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: Makes sense. And also another concern, this isn't really something
Speaker 6: people talk about now because the internet is taking over,
Speaker 6: but also there was a thing about crossing state lines
Speaker 6: with certain products. If it was just normal porn, that
Speaker 6: was okay, but if it was something that was kind
Speaker 6: of a little dicey, we'll talk about this later. It
Speaker 6: was one of the something weird titles where I think
Speaker 6: this was probably a factor. I can't say for sure,
Speaker 6: but I think it was.
Speaker 2: Oh, God.
Speaker 6: But Mike had run into trouble with two titles, which
Speaker 6: were Sex Psycho, which is actually Widow Blue. Um, but
Speaker 6: he carried that for a little while, but that, that
Speaker 6: actually got flagged. Um, I think it was in Alabama.
Speaker 6: Somebody flagged that one and they got in trouble with
Speaker 6: that one. And there was a gay porn called hold
Speaker 6: your peace, which they only sold.
Speaker 2: For that thing. Oh my God.
Speaker 6: Which also, yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, I know the scene probably that was flagged.
Speaker 1: Oh, I bet you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: One scene never forgotten.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Let's just say, do not use a knife as
Speaker 2: a dildo.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And don't try to make it sexy either. Because
Speaker 2: there's no way that can be sexy.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, Widow Blue, doesn't Widow Blue have some violent,
Speaker 3: really violent sexual content in that too?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's the problem. Anything that has like, anything that's, yeah,
Speaker 6: because any movie where you have like hardcore sex with
Speaker 6: people covered in blood, it's like.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't combine. It's very, it's actually very BBFC actually.
Speaker 2: It's very like, yeah, it's very unusual that that still,
Speaker 2: that remained a thing for so long. And then I
Speaker 2: guess people stopped caring somehow. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Like I said, I think the internet just kind of
Speaker 6: wrecked it all. Cause now it's just like, whatever you
Speaker 6: can't like, who cares if you're shipping discs over to
Speaker 6: state lines anymore. It doesn't matter. Like nobody cares.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's how, that's how vinegar son was
Speaker 2: putting out like pretty peaches on cut and baby face
Speaker 2: on cut and releasing a widow blue on DVD.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Or both ways. I was surprised they put that
Speaker 6: on cut. Cause the whole thing was like, and through
Speaker 6: the looking glass too, cause they had the whole thing.
Speaker 6: It's like, well, you can't have a kid. And even
Speaker 6: if the kid has nothing, you can remotely sexual in
Speaker 6: the movie. Like having a child actor in these movies was,
Speaker 6: you know, they would start cutting them out.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Well, that happened with Dr. Sex. I have that
Speaker 2: noted to bring that up. There was a digital zoom.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Yeah, I'm pretty
Speaker 6: sure that was, I think that actually came to us
Speaker 6: like pre-zoomed.
Speaker 9: Oh, really?
Speaker 2: So they knew it was going to be a problem.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that that zoom was
Speaker 6: because of what they had gone through with those two titles.
Speaker 6: I think they were just like, screw it. We're just
Speaker 6: not going to mess with this anymore. So I think
Speaker 6: that was already pre-zoomed when we got it. Because the
Speaker 6: thing at Image was we did not want to cut
Speaker 6: movies at all. Like it was like if we had
Speaker 6: to cut it, we were just going to like let
Speaker 6: somebody else do it. Um, the only exception, um, because
Speaker 6: we really, I really wanted to do it was female vampire, um,
Speaker 6: where we actually had to wind up because there's a
Speaker 6: couple of seconds of like unsimulated, like oral sex in it.
Speaker 6: And we wound up having to loop other footage because
Speaker 6: it was such a huge title. And I was just like,
Speaker 6: I hate doing it, but like, I really want to
Speaker 6: put this out. So that was the only work run
Speaker 6: we could do. But other than that, like we did
Speaker 6: not want to cut anything. I'm not counting stuff like that,
Speaker 6: like the cut down hardcore feature as stuff like the
Speaker 6: geek that Mike put on his extras. That doesn't count.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: Um, But as far as like full movies go, it's like,
Speaker 6: we really did our best not to cut anything. Cause
Speaker 6: I did not want to censor anything if possible.
Speaker 2: Well, Dr. Sex, that, that should have been zoomed. That zoom,
Speaker 2: that zoom was justified. Like I don't need to see
Speaker 2: a naked little girl. I don't care if it's just
Speaker 2: like fun or like, it's supposed to be like a joke.
Speaker 2: Cause it's, yeah. The segment in that is like, it's
Speaker 2: a girl who was a woman who was an infomaniac.
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, even as a little girl, like
Speaker 2: she was like running around naked. And so it's this
Speaker 2: little girl running around naked. And it's like, I didn't
Speaker 2: need to see that to know that she, I'm fine
Speaker 2: zooming in on that. And I'm, and I don't need
Speaker 2: to start thinking about like, well, whose little girl was this?
Speaker 2: Like it, it really makes you think about different levels
Speaker 2: of that. And it's very discomforting, but yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, yeah.
Speaker 6: So that's my theory about why that was zoomed in.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm pretty sure cause the timing matches up.
Speaker 6: Like I don't think we ever really talked about it,
Speaker 6: but I was just like, yeah, I can see why.
Speaker 6: Cause yeah, you just don't want to go down that road.
Speaker 6: Especially when at the time that came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that was also when they, I remember they
Speaker 2: had to, they discontinued a lot of titles with teen
Speaker 2: in title. And then they reissued them. Like I remember
Speaker 2: Teenage Fantasies, they had to reissue as Renee Bond's Fantasies.
Speaker 2: And because that's such a big seller, you have to
Speaker 2: have that.
Speaker 3: In your collection.
Speaker 2: If you're a Renee Bond person, that's like her, one
Speaker 2: of her key films. So they had to reissue that.
Speaker 2: But I remember when Hold Your Peace went out. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know what? You sent me Hold Your Peace, I think.
Speaker 2: You send me that and heavy equipment.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think you sent me some other burn stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was like, cause we did a trade or
Speaker 2: something and I still have it with your handwriting on it.
Speaker 2: I think it's and finger licking good and then heavy equipment.
Speaker 2: And then I think you sent me, I a woman too,
Speaker 2: something else. Yeah. Cause you had all the good, you
Speaker 2: had all the good, all the rare, something weird stuff.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I need it. This is before
Speaker 2: we had Alex slip case. Who was one of our
Speaker 2: regular guys who now collects these things and rips it
Speaker 2: for us. But yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Don't watch it. Don't watch that gentry. You don't need
Speaker 2: to watch, uh, you don't need to watch, hold your peace.
Speaker 6: It's not, it's not, it's not a pleasant experience. It's like,
Speaker 6: it's the threads of gay porn. Just don't do it.
Speaker 3: It's so bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's not good.
Speaker 3: So was this the same time? What, where's like big
Speaker 3: snatch that controversy and like love?
Speaker 6: That was early. That was actually a really early one. So, okay. So,
Speaker 6: So like I said earlier, the thing about Chatsworth, like
Speaker 6: I said, is that it's very porny but really prudish
Speaker 6: at the same time. And that's true at Image because,
Speaker 6: like I said, we had our own departments. And in
Speaker 6: our production department, we had two particularly conservative people working
Speaker 6: in the production department. I won't say their names. And
Speaker 6: they're very nice people. I mean, we got along fine.
Speaker 6: But I had to sort of be very political and
Speaker 6: work around them a lot and sort of tap dance
Speaker 6: because I knew there were certain lines we couldn't go past. Um,
Speaker 6: and as I found with big snatch was one of
Speaker 6: the first movies that triggered that as was love camp seven.
Speaker 6: So anything that got like, even if it was soft core,
Speaker 6: if it was like super, super rapey, then it would
Speaker 6: start setting off some flags. If it was like one
Speaker 6: rape scene in a movie, like they would let it slide.
Speaker 6: But if that was the whole focus of the movie
Speaker 6: and there was just people just screaming and getting raped
Speaker 6: for the whole thing, it's just like, no, we're not
Speaker 6: doing this.
Speaker 3: Well, sorry. Are these people watching the movies?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3: So they're watching it front to back.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: They're not just like looking at the campaign or anything
Speaker 3: like that. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 6: And unfortunately there were the two people who were, it
Speaker 6: was like the number one and two person in the,
Speaker 6: in the department. This wasn't like just, these weren't just
Speaker 6: the normal production grunts. These were the two in charge.
Speaker 6: And I mean, and like I said, they let stuff
Speaker 6: go that I was kind of shocked by. Things slipped through.
Speaker 6: But I would have some really surreal days at work
Speaker 6: where it's like the weirdest one ever, I think was
Speaker 6: when screaming the streets came in. And, and so, and they,
Speaker 6: they had pulled it up and they were like, can
Speaker 6: you come back here? And I was like, okay, sure.
Speaker 6: And it's like, so we just got this here. It was,
Speaker 6: you know, we just got this movie, Scream in the Streets.
Speaker 6: We want you to look at it because we think
Speaker 6: it's hardcore. And I was like, okay.
Speaker 3: It's close.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And so I'm sitting there. I mean, we're sitting there
Speaker 6: for like an hour, like going frame by frame.
Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Where the guy's, you know, inserting forward.
Speaker 6: But you don't see anything. The angle is just enough
Speaker 6: where you don't actually see anything go in. I'm like, no,
Speaker 6: it's not. Like, show me actual penetration. You're not going
Speaker 6: to see it. And they're like, he's clearly doing it.
Speaker 6: I'm like, well, maybe, but you can't prove it.
Speaker 1: Right. Right.
Speaker 6: And it finally got through uncut. And again, I think,
Speaker 6: please don't get my mother, it was actually pre-cut when
Speaker 6: we got it, I believe. Interesting. It's missing the one
Speaker 6: shot in there. But the other funny thing is that
Speaker 6: I think that, I don't know what the ordering process was,
Speaker 6: but I think when Mike would have the scans commissioned,
Speaker 6: they would just pull the negs and scan them and
Speaker 6: send them over. And I'm not sure whether he actually
Speaker 6: saw them after they were done because there were a
Speaker 6: lot of cases where The Novaks would come to us,
Speaker 6: especially the Southern ones would come to us and they
Speaker 6: would have extra stuff tacked at the end, like extra
Speaker 6: hardcore stuff. Oh, right. So like, but with different actors,
Speaker 6: that's the weird thing. It wasn't even the main cast.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Like he would just get these random people to like,
Speaker 6: just sit in a barn on top of some hay
Speaker 6: and just go at it for like five minutes. So
Speaker 6: they could, if somebody wanted to sell it as adult film,
Speaker 6: they could just splice that at any point in the
Speaker 6: movie and it wouldn't matter. Right.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: With his fake r rating on the poster right which
Speaker 2: he loved to do yeah.
Speaker 6: And like i would have loved to put those on
Speaker 6: his extras but we couldn't because again they were just
Speaker 6: they were full-on um.
Speaker 2: Yeah we couldn't they wouldn't even let you have done
Speaker 2: that as an easter egg right you.
Speaker 6: Couldn't yeah yeah there's no way it's not really censorship
Speaker 6: because they were never part of the movie it was
Speaker 6: just sort of like an optional thing where it's like
Speaker 6: you know hey if you if you can get away
Speaker 6: with it feel free to drop the scene in somewhere
Speaker 6: with these other people you know um but it wasn't
Speaker 6: like Renee Bond or like John or any of those folks,
Speaker 6: you know, Sandy or any of those, none of the
Speaker 6: Novak players. So that's so interesting though.
Speaker 2: Because they're on this, we were like, we talked about
Speaker 2: sassy Sue and I think there were only two people
Speaker 2: in a movie who weren't doing hardcore at the time
Speaker 2: that was being made. And so you would think that, yeah,
Speaker 2: Sandy Carey would do something hardcore on the set. Cause
Speaker 2: she was there and they were going to pay her
Speaker 2: a little extra to do something hardcore, but that's really wild.
Speaker 2: They would just get like some random people to just
Speaker 2: do whatever. Or even like for the, what is it,
Speaker 2: Southern Comfort. So like Judy Angel, huge, huge in porn.
Speaker 2: Tons of porn.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, again, it just makes it easier if you
Speaker 3: can't see them, if they can't see their faces, they
Speaker 3: can just splice it in wherever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If it's just a body.
Speaker 2: That is true. That is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, Sassy Sue, I was revisiting that for our episode,
Speaker 2: and I was shocked that I was like, oh, right,
Speaker 2: Tali Cochran is basically giving Jontel a blowjob. She's slapping
Speaker 2: her face.
Speaker 3: Her head is right next to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just like, I can't believe that this didn't
Speaker 2: raise any flags. It probably did, but they were like, well,
Speaker 2: it's technically not hardcore. It's just a lot of manual manipulation,
Speaker 2: I guess. You have to use the censor terms.
Speaker 6: That scene is hilarious to me, though. Remember the first
Speaker 6: time I saw it when the tape came out, and
Speaker 6: I was just like, does she just not know how
Speaker 6: to do this? Like, what's going on.
Speaker 2: In this scene?
Speaker 3: She's just being silly.
Speaker 6: I was like, I don't know either of them are
Speaker 6: getting much out of this, but okay.
Speaker 1: No, no.
Speaker 2: It's just for the audience to kind of be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I saw something extra dirty tonight at the drive-in.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, that is so funny that you, you like had
Speaker 3: those conversations with co-workers like frame by frame it was.
Speaker 6: So bizarre yeah so you come back from lunch all
Speaker 6: of a sudden you're looking at screaming the streets like
Speaker 6: yeah i framed sexy yeah it was bizarre well.
Speaker 3: I mean i was surprised when that got the uh
Speaker 3: veneer or cyber entreatment of all.
Speaker 2: The random choice random choice.
Speaker 3: Yeah what are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, at least that, that's all the mystery
Speaker 6: of like where that mystery junkie scene came from. That's
Speaker 6: in the trailer, you know, cause that wasn't, that was
Speaker 6: a short that he had cut out separately, um, along
Speaker 6: with the other, the, the buck short. Um, cause again,
Speaker 6: that was the same case. I think it was kind
Speaker 6: of like with the, the hardcore stuff. I think he
Speaker 6: just shot some extra segments, you.
Speaker 3: Know, something that was at the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I can spice your stuff. And if it didn't use,
Speaker 6: you could just, you know, tear it off and make
Speaker 6: a short film out of it. They could slot in
Speaker 6: between movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, so I was actually really glad that came out
Speaker 6: cause it kind of like, I was like, okay, so that's,
Speaker 6: that's the connection. Cause I couldn't figure it out from
Speaker 6: the trailer. I was like, what, what's going on? Cause
Speaker 6: like half the stuff in the trailer isn't in the movie.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: It's just baffling.
Speaker 2: Well, then that makes me wonder then, cause you know, the, the, the,
Speaker 2: the mindset is that like when he, when Novak reissued
Speaker 2: booby trap as love explosions, and then he did behind
Speaker 2: the green doors as then came ecstasy, that those were
Speaker 2: like 70, I think 76 and 78 respectively, maybe. And
Speaker 2: I always thought those were inserts, but from the sounds
Speaker 2: of it, they might not have been inserts that were
Speaker 2: shot later. They could have just been like, yeah, these
Speaker 2: were shot at the time and we're just going to
Speaker 2: shove them in and finally put them out now that
Speaker 2: it's legal. And that's why I'm kind of like, even
Speaker 2: if it's a movie that I don't like in the
Speaker 2: Novak library, this kind of, this information confirms that like,
Speaker 2: I kind of want to see all of them out
Speaker 2: just because I want to go back to those vaults
Speaker 2: and have everything available that has like, the name of
Speaker 2: the movie on it. Like what, what, what extra footage
Speaker 2: is there?
Speaker 3: Um, those vaults, Casey, those vaults are like what Harry's closet,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know what's still, they.
Speaker 2: Look like a, they look like a degenerates like shed
Speaker 2: in the back that they hold hostages. And like, when
Speaker 2: you see the videos on, there's something weird. It's of,
Speaker 2: of no, of, of rainy going to visit. It's like this,
Speaker 2: it has like a decrepit falling apart shed in the,
Speaker 2: in his backyard. And it's just like, or in the,
Speaker 2: in the back of his building. And it's just like this,
Speaker 2: they're not temperature controlled.
Speaker 3: So, well, even on the ax, that ax and kidnapped, uh,
Speaker 3: that release too, they show, um, I can't remember who's
Speaker 3: all there, but they, uh, go digging around, uh, for
Speaker 3: Frederick's negative.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And it's the same deal. It's just like, just, you know,
Speaker 3: shoulder height, like just full of canisters.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They just have dig through and find his, find his negative.
Speaker 2: Well, actually that reminds me, that makes me think of something.
Speaker 2: Do you know? So like, for example, the Friedel film.
Speaker 2: So we know now about the issue with Friedel and
Speaker 2: how Novak really basically was like, I don't owe you
Speaker 2: any money. You owe me money. Cause I went out
Speaker 2: of business or whatever, whatever. What did image of it
Speaker 2: get contacted by any of these filmmakers for these movies
Speaker 2: who were kind of like, no. Oh, okay. Cause something
Speaker 2: weird kind of didn't either. So I don't, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 6: Um, Yeah, it's kind of amazing, actually. I mean, the
Speaker 6: only time we ran into trouble was with actually the
Speaker 6: movie The Dead One, which is technically PD. Yeah, we
Speaker 6: announced it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the zombie one. It was supposed to come out
Speaker 2: with the atomic brain as monstrosity. It was announced, and
Speaker 2: there was cover art and everything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we announced that one. So Sam Sherman kind of
Speaker 6: pulled a fast one. He suddenly changed his title card
Speaker 6: because he owned he found an egg. And so he
Speaker 6: was like, Oh, I own it. It's my movie. It's like, well,
Speaker 6: that's not really how it works, but okay, whatever. And
Speaker 6: he started throwing a fit and we had a deal
Speaker 6: with Sam and we're just like, Oh, whatever. Cause like,
Speaker 6: cause we had to keep doing Sam stuff and it
Speaker 6: was like, fine, just whatever, just something else, Mike, you know? Um,
Speaker 6: and then Sam totally screwed that DVD up anyway. It
Speaker 6: was unwatchable. So, um, but luckily began serving, came back
Speaker 6: into the Blu-ray and fixed it. Cause the DVD was
Speaker 6: all like squashed and it looked like crap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. It was. Cause that was media blasters, right?
Speaker 2: They finally put that out.
Speaker 6: I was so angry when that came out. He changed
Speaker 6: that digital title card replacement.
Speaker 3: I was like, come on, man.
Speaker 2: What are you doing? Rest in peace, Sam, but some
Speaker 2: questionable stuff there. As with everyone in this business. Even Dave,
Speaker 2: there's some stuff there.
Speaker 6: Sam and Alfredo Leone took it to a new level.
Speaker 6: I would be sitting down at lunch with them and
Speaker 6: they would give me a list of titles they were
Speaker 6: pitching and I was just like, you don't own any
Speaker 6: of these movies. Like I know who owns these. You
Speaker 6: don't own a single one of these. Like there's no way.
Speaker 2: Nope. Well, Novak did that too. Like there's a ton
Speaker 2: of stuff that came out in the Something Weird catalog
Speaker 2: that said like from the vaults of Harry Novak. And
Speaker 2: it just was like a print that he had.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason. And he may have handled regional distribution
Speaker 2: or he might not at all. Like you, I know
Speaker 2: you're a genre law person. Like the fact that he
Speaker 2: put out, he gave them a print of like the
Speaker 2: Shiver of the Vampires. It's like, I don't think there's
Speaker 2: any evidence he ever distributed that. Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 2: where that came from. You know, it's just like, it's
Speaker 2: really weird. And now we'll never know what he really,
Speaker 2: I don't know what he didn't. Cause I, yeah, I don't,
Speaker 2: I don't know what the situation was with that.
Speaker 6: We know, we know Cage Virgins was legit. That's about it.
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That one, that one you can't refute, but everything.
Speaker 3: Else, it's got the artwork. That one at least has
Speaker 3: the Novak like cover artwork that we can point back to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right. If there's a paper trail, that's kind of like
Speaker 2: Toys R Us for Children. That was released first by what,
Speaker 2: Maren Films put that out, I think. And then he bought,
Speaker 2: and then he sold it to Novak because the company
Speaker 2: went out of business. You can trace it eventually, but
Speaker 2: there's so much stuff that the Devil's Garden does. He
Speaker 2: never had that. So I'm like, he never released this.
Speaker 2: You liar.
Speaker 3: How did you get along with him, Nate?
Speaker 6: Like, fine. I mean, he's... I mean, he was sort
Speaker 6: of like kind of endearing in a weird way because
Speaker 6: he was such just an utter businessman. I mean, because
Speaker 6: David Friedman cared about his movies. I mean, he was
Speaker 6: there on the set. He was like very hands-on. I mean,
Speaker 6: he was– I don't want to say he was a
Speaker 6: cinephile necessarily, but he really put the effort into the
Speaker 6: stuff that he put– even the movies that he wasn't
Speaker 6: really that involved in, but he cared about them. I mean,
Speaker 6: Novak was never on the sets really except just occasionally
Speaker 6: when the actors get naked. But I mean, he really
Speaker 6: didn't– the nuts and bolts part of putting the movies together,
Speaker 6: he didn't really know about. But he was a funny guy.
Speaker 6: He was sort of very much like a huckster. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, but he was fine. But so, you know,
Speaker 6: then of course Mike calls me up and he's like, Hey,
Speaker 6: Harry wants to do some tracks like, like Dave, you know,
Speaker 6: he wants to be on the tracks. And I was like, okay.
Speaker 6: Don't know what he's going to say. Cause all he
Speaker 6: did was release them. He wasn't really there. I don't
Speaker 6: think he was going up to, you know, Porter ranch
Speaker 6: or whatever, where they were on the set too much.
Speaker 6: I don't think he was hanging out there, but okay. Sure.
Speaker 6: So as a test run, we did a couple of
Speaker 6: the country ones. And I was just like, I cannot
Speaker 6: do this myself. So we brought in a squad of
Speaker 6: Archie Galentine.
Speaker 3: Surrounded him with people.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 6: So everybody came to the image office, and we all
Speaker 6: jammed into a room, and we got the mics hooked
Speaker 6: up and everything. And thank God, at least, because if
Speaker 6: you hear the tracks, we're still flailing through a lot
Speaker 6: of those. Because all Harry's sitting there, we're just asking questions,
Speaker 6: and he's just like, hey, look at that bush.
Speaker 2: That's all he can say.
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 6: How do I work with this? So we're all bringing
Speaker 6: what we know about the actors and the production into
Speaker 6: this as much as we can. But yeah. Again, Mike
Speaker 6: was trying to make him happy and let him do
Speaker 6: his commentaries. So it is what it is. I've had
Speaker 6: more uncomfortable commentaries than that. I had worse ones there
Speaker 6: than him. So it could happen.
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 6: that's not great.
Speaker 2: Cause I feel like Novak, those are very tough. I
Speaker 2: was just, I felt so bad listening to those. I
Speaker 2: was just like, ah, I know that they, they're, I
Speaker 2: know they want to make these good and Novak is
Speaker 2: not going to make it easy for them. It's just not, no.
Speaker 6: No, I, but he's not a malicious person. I mean,
Speaker 6: he wasn't like a jerk. I mean, I've definitely had
Speaker 6: more unpleasant people I've been in the room with, but
Speaker 6: it was just, it was just nothing to work with.
Speaker 6: I mean, at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, he, um, I think, I think Brainy got an
Speaker 2: idea of that. Cause he did like two, I think
Speaker 2: he did two or three comments. Here's the Novak first.
Speaker 2: I guess he did. Please don't meet my mother.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you do kiss me quick?
Speaker 9: He did do kiss me quick.
Speaker 2: And then I think it was like, it probably was
Speaker 2: a situation of like, I don't need to fly down
Speaker 2: to LA to do.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure.
Speaker 2: He pushed him into your hands. He's like, these guys
Speaker 2: are knowledgeable. They can, they can work with Harry and
Speaker 2: figure it out. Cause I've, I've tried and these guys will.
Speaker 6: Figure it out. In our defense, I think we did
Speaker 6: as good a job as Mike could have done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Because Mike, those commentaries are interesting
Speaker 2: because he really tries to keep Harry focused. And he
Speaker 2: doesn't really, Harry doesn't know how to stay focused. Because
Speaker 2: he wasn't, like you said, he wasn't there. Kiss me quick.
Speaker 2: I remember on that commentary, he misidentifies Althea Currier three times.
Speaker 2: He says, this woman's her, and then that woman's her,
Speaker 2: and then that one's her. I'm like, well, no, no.
Speaker 2: That's why I wish Pete Perry hadn't clammed up. I
Speaker 2: would have loved Pete Perry to do these commentaries.
Speaker 3: That would have been amazing.
Speaker 2: It wasn't happening.
Speaker 6: There's so many of those guys from that period that
Speaker 6: I would love to hear do commentaries. It's nuts what
Speaker 6: he missed out on.
Speaker 2: It's a shame. I know. Watzler died just before the
Speaker 2: DVD started, which is so devastating.
Speaker 3: Those would have been incredible. Because, yeah, he was such
Speaker 3: a talker. He was a raconteur.
Speaker 2: Big storyteller. The Orson Welles of sexploitation. Sort of.
Speaker 1: Sort of.
Speaker 2: Not age-wise and not talent-wise, looks-wise and rock contour-wise. Yes,
Speaker 2: very much the Wilson Wells.
Speaker 3: Did you have any interactions with the, um, Harry's widow?
Speaker 3: That's kind of taken over his, um, estate.
Speaker 6: Not really. Like once, once Harry and Mike split, that
Speaker 6: was kind of it. Like I didn't see Harry after that. Um,
Speaker 6: cause I really wouldn't have been able to, I mean,
Speaker 6: I would have had his office, you know, in LA,
Speaker 6: but yeah, that was pretty much it. which is unfortunate.
Speaker 6: I mean, it really kind of bums me out that
Speaker 6: it happened the way it did, you know, because luckily
Speaker 6: Mike had the, has the Freedman's, you know, in perpetuity,
Speaker 6: but I wish that library kind of stuck together and
Speaker 6: now it's been kind of diced up and scattered to
Speaker 6: the winds. And, you know, we've got a few titles,
Speaker 6: but I just don't know if some of those other
Speaker 6: ones will ever come out. I mean, but then again,
Speaker 6: that's true. Most of something weird. Cause I thought when,
Speaker 6: you know, I thought when, when Mike died and when
Speaker 6: image went under, like, I was like, is that it? Like,
Speaker 6: are these just never going to come out ever again?
Speaker 6: Is that the end of the road for all this stuff?
Speaker 6: And thank God that's not the case. We've had this,
Speaker 6: you know, amazing resurgence that's happened, which delights me.
Speaker 3: I've never been more happy to be wrong in my life.
Speaker 3: Partnerships with so many different companies now, yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I really wish that, like, Novak's Widow would, like,
Speaker 6: just deal with somebody for everything, you know, just, like,
Speaker 6: just sell it off and let somebody do it right,
Speaker 6: you know, leak it out like it's nice. UHDs of
Speaker 6: the whole Novak line, that'd be great. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: I would love it.
Speaker 3: You know, I know Severn did a few, but I
Speaker 3: don't know if Severn was the best home for them, because,
Speaker 3: like you said, there might be hardcore stuff at the
Speaker 3: end of the reel, at the end of the print
Speaker 3: that you might want to include.
Speaker 2: Perseverant will. I mean, they've included hardcore stuff on a
Speaker 2: few releases.
Speaker 6: They've done Malibu, but they've done... Very, yes.
Speaker 2: They've also run the Black Emanuel box set.
Speaker 3: So how do they get around doing that and not
Speaker 3: having to separate it into a separate company?
Speaker 2: They're an independent company.
Speaker 6: I don't think they care.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 6: Um, which I think that's how you, that's how you
Speaker 6: want it with the drop dead fried situation. So, um, um,
Speaker 6: cause I think, you know, cause then universal was like,
Speaker 6: Oh wait, hold on guys. Uh, but yeah, they kind
Speaker 6: of do their own thing, which I love. I mean,
Speaker 6: they just, it's kind of like whatever. I mean, you
Speaker 6: could tell with some of the slip cases that the
Speaker 6: limited slip cases they do, they're just like, how far
Speaker 6: can we go with this?
Speaker 3: Oh, sure.
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 6: Um, they push the envelope harder than anybody does with
Speaker 6: that stuff. I mean, God bless them. I'm glad they do.
Speaker 6: So I don't, Yeah, I don't think they care that much.
Speaker 6: And Ragnarok Nights of the Living Dead is hardcore too,
Speaker 6: which they just announced.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they're– I don't think that they're–
Speaker 2: I don't think they're as concerned about that because they
Speaker 2: know that it's not– well, also, they're not doing something
Speaker 2: that's fully hardcore. Like, I don't see them doing, like,
Speaker 2: Night Dreams. I don't even see Mondo Macabre doing Night Dreams, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: because I think it's not– Cafe Flush, they can market
Speaker 2: to a non-porno crowd. Night Dreams is the better movie,
Speaker 2: but it's way harder to market. because it's much more
Speaker 2: sexually graphic and more of a porno movie.
Speaker 6: It's not socially relevant.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, exactly. It's socially relevant to porno people. It's
Speaker 2: not socially relevant to the midnight movie crowd who know
Speaker 2: Cafe Flesh for decades. Yeah, Night Dreams never got that midnight.
Speaker 2: I would have loved it to get some midnight longevity,
Speaker 2: but it's also just too graphic. Yeah. Michelle Bauer in it.
Speaker 2: It should have gotten actually Michelle Bauer being in it.
Speaker 2: So it would be marketable. I just don't think. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. She's in both movies. She's in Cafe
Speaker 2: Flash too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I'm sure somebody will do it at some point, but yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a thin line, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they care as much. Well, also,
Speaker 2: they put out... No, that was Mondo Macabre, too. See,
Speaker 2: Mondo Macabre doesn't care either. Because they put out Ava Man,
Speaker 2: and they put out something with Hardcore. Oh, Apocalypse is Sexual,
Speaker 2: that thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Apocalypse is Sexual is the hardest one. That one is... Whoa.
Speaker 6: Holy crap.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They don't see that's a thing. They know that they
Speaker 2: can put it out, and they'll be like, people will
Speaker 2: buy this because it's us, and this is our brand. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They don't need to separate it into a separate thing.
Speaker 6: But I mean, Severin did do the hard, they did
Speaker 6: put a simple dwarf out with the hard stuff in it. So,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 2: Yes. Which I think that, wasn't that another one that
Speaker 2: Image would never have done? I don't think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think that one was too rapey too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes. Very much so.
Speaker 6: There's a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: Well, even talking about that, it's like, yeah, like you said,
Speaker 2: there's some stuff that came out where it's like, well,
Speaker 2: then how did the Flesh trilogy come out? And how
Speaker 2: did like the Olga films come out? It's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: for a while there, we'd be getting all the really
Speaker 2: good roughies.
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It's weird. Like the black and white roughies, we never
Speaker 6: had any problems with those. And I think because they
Speaker 6: kind of feel like horror movies. So I think that's
Speaker 6: why they got away with it. They don't feel like,
Speaker 6: Once it goes into color and it starts lingering on,
Speaker 6: I don't know, the tone's a little different. But I
Speaker 6: think with the black and white exploitation, I don't think
Speaker 6: any of those ever caused any problems at all that
Speaker 6: I can think of.
Speaker 2: And that may be why Love Toy was never going
Speaker 2: to come out. As far as Doris Wishman's, that Love
Speaker 2: Toy was not going to come out. I don't remember
Speaker 2: that one being on the list for some reason.
Speaker 6: I don't know why. I don't think that ever even
Speaker 6: got pitched.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason interesting okay because i love that one
Speaker 2: but yeah that one seems that negative didn't maybe that
Speaker 2: negative didn't appear to fill recently more recently i don't
Speaker 2: know the story behind that one no i think it
Speaker 2: was there i think it was i think the dvdr
Speaker 2: i had said transferred from the 35 millimeter negative yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean there were certain titles that i really wanted
Speaker 6: to do that i kept begging mike for that they're
Speaker 6: just the elements couldn't be done like i kept asking
Speaker 6: him to do roseland and like he's like there's nothing
Speaker 6: to transfer.
Speaker 2: It's just it's gone oh god you're kidding.
Speaker 6: Yeah Because what they took the tape from, it just
Speaker 6: fell apart after they scanned it.
Speaker 3: That's happened numerous times, yeah.
Speaker 2: That sucks. Because I know that Stephen Thorough probably wanted
Speaker 2: someone to put that out, too. I imagine, actually, because
Speaker 2: I think he's the one who convinced Arrow to do
Speaker 2: Toys Not For Children. And I'm sure that Roseland was
Speaker 2: on that list, too. Because that's another one from Nightmare
Speaker 2: USA that he would have wanted to be reissued because
Speaker 2: of the Hobbs connection. That's a bummer. I love Roseland.
Speaker 6: I do, too. It broke my heart when he told
Speaker 6: me that. I'm like, oh, come on. I keep hoping
Speaker 6: a really nice print or maybe an IP will pop
Speaker 6: up somewhere that got stuck in some other lab somewhere.
Speaker 2: It has that good loading zone footage too, which is
Speaker 2: like you don't really have footage of the loading zone
Speaker 2: with that singer who's so great. That's such a bummer.
Speaker 1: I know what's on your mind. Escape. Escape.
Speaker 2: Forget it, ladies.
Speaker 1: I planned this too well to have one of you
Speaker 1: run off and mess things up. You'll all be fed
Speaker 1: the best I can. You'll have a place to sleep.
Speaker 1: If any of you have inhibitions, I'll help you lose them.
Speaker 1: I'll call you pigs and you call me master.
Speaker 3: Well, so Big Snatch got flagged because of the title, though,
Speaker 3: more than the content. Is that how I'm understanding it?
Speaker 6: I think it's both. I think, I think that one
Speaker 6: was a pretty quick, you know, that love camp seven,
Speaker 6: I think got, got next really fast. Yeah. But then,
Speaker 6: and sometimes I just think they weren't looking carefully because
Speaker 6: sometimes stuff would slip through. I was like, really? Like,
Speaker 6: I mean, early on, like they let a recommendation of
Speaker 6: Zorro go through with the one, that one shot, you know,
Speaker 6: just kind of distant, but still there's that shot in there.
Speaker 6: And I'm like, okay, I guess nobody noticed, but.
Speaker 3: That one's easy not to notice.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you're not just like going frame by frame.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Big snatch. A lot of those interesting. Cause I thought
Speaker 2: that after like the guy Richie movie came out, that
Speaker 2: like snatch was okay to have in a title now.
Speaker 2: I thought that's what I would think, but you're right.
Speaker 2: The content is really, the whole movie is just women being, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, just held captive and raped and, peggy church
Speaker 2: on the roof of a car getting her clam steamed
Speaker 2: open or whatever he says yeah yeah which is wild
Speaker 2: if it was if it was more competently made it
Speaker 2: would actually be offensive but because it's not it's just
Speaker 2: kind of like well this is so this is so
Speaker 2: stupid like you know that's made by some lapd douchebag
Speaker 2: to make a sex movie yeah i mean yeah there's
Speaker 2: some good women in that though tracy hanfush is very
Speaker 2: good in that Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I kind of, I wish at some point he'd put
Speaker 6: us down to do Tanya. Cause I would be curious
Speaker 6: to see if that got through, but I don't think
Speaker 6: they ever got submitted as far.
Speaker 1: As I know.
Speaker 2: Oh, Tanya did go through. Tanya did come out.
Speaker 6: Oh, did it?
Speaker 2: With Roblox and the baby factory.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's right. It did.
Speaker 1: It did. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Which was a surprise. Yeah. Tanya was very graphic.
Speaker 2: I remember I reviewed that and I raved about it.
Speaker 2: I was like, everyone buys it.
Speaker 6: That was the co-feature.
Speaker 2: That's right. Very strange co-feature, but it's Novak. It was
Speaker 2: a Novak connection, I think.
Speaker 3: Well, they're both like semi-political. They have like a political
Speaker 3: overtone to them.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: Very polar ends of the decade. One is very early 60s,
Speaker 2: late 60s. One is very late 70s.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, that was something else that I wondered about, because
Speaker 2: I know... Did you do the Jeffery C. Hogue commentaries, too?
Speaker 2: Was he LA based?
Speaker 6: He came in. I wasn't on them, but he came
Speaker 6: in the office for those.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Cause I remember that deal was brief and they, I
Speaker 2: think there was the asylum of Satan was through him.
Speaker 2: I think psych by the 40, which was through him. Right.
Speaker 3: And there was something else.
Speaker 2: He did a commentary. Oh, Dr. Gore, the body shop,
Speaker 2: I think was him.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't as many as I thought it was, but, um,
Speaker 2: I feel like that was one of their last libraries
Speaker 2: that they actually got from an outside party. And some
Speaker 2: of them never came out. Like, I had that deal
Speaker 2: with Steve Apostoloff's library, and that never translated to Image,
Speaker 2: which I thought was very interesting. And then I think
Speaker 2: there was only one Distropix double feature, which we've bemoaned,
Speaker 2: because now that we all love the Grand Place movies,
Speaker 2: we're kind of like, why weren't the Grand Place movies
Speaker 2: put out? We could have gotten The Procurer and Roman Broad,
Speaker 2: but we got Scare Their Pants Off and for some
Speaker 2: reason yeah well i'm sure those are the those are
Speaker 2: the tamest ones i think that might be why those
Speaker 2: are probably easier to pitch it was.
Speaker 6: A title scare their pants off as a might bring
Speaker 6: you title i'm sure that just the title alone he
Speaker 6: was like.
Speaker 8: Yeah you know that tracks i guarantee it that's a
Speaker 8: title you can sell you know because anything that's like
Speaker 8: you know spooky sexy like done The movie sucks.
Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: Spooky sexy or sci-fi sexy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Like, man, man, thank you, Spaceman. That thing.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I forget if there was another Novak commentary on that.
Speaker 2: I don't think there was.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 3: I don't think there was.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 6: Can you imagine?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, we got enough.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, that was something else. That's the only thing that
Speaker 2: I kind of That was the only thing that I
Speaker 2: think I commented on when I was reviewing these for
Speaker 2: DVD drive-in. And because I was trying to actually, when
Speaker 2: I saw these movies that I liked, I would try
Speaker 2: to contact like cast and crew. And then I would
Speaker 2: find out that they were still around. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: why didn't we get a commentary by them? And then
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I started talking to Mike and Lisa more.
Speaker 2: And it was like, well, you know, they're going to
Speaker 2: claim they own these movies, but they might not own
Speaker 2: the movie. So we're just opening a can of worms.
Speaker 2: If we contact everyone that we want to talk to.
Speaker 2: So eventually it kind of dawned on me. It's like,
Speaker 2: and then as I went on back, Novak's, mo in
Speaker 2: terms of his business then it was like well yeah
Speaker 2: you can't really call directors back to talk about their
Speaker 2: work with novak because they don't want to talk about
Speaker 2: dealing with novak i think people did that with the
Speaker 2: crown internationals too there were people that didn't want to
Speaker 2: do extras for crown international releases because they didn't want
Speaker 2: to talk about uh the tensors and how they were
Speaker 2: treated with the tensors yeah.
Speaker 6: Well yeah because you think they're making money off of
Speaker 6: their track if they if they contribute to it'll sell
Speaker 6: and they won't see a time of it again so
Speaker 6: yeah they just want to get screwed over so yeah
Speaker 6: Which is fair enough. But then the– I don't know.
Speaker 6: I really wish that– and I also wish there was
Speaker 6: a budget to give for commentaries because usually– that's the
Speaker 6: other thing is that back then, you didn't get paid
Speaker 6: to do these. It was just out of the love
Speaker 6: of your heart because you wanted to come in and
Speaker 6: do it. And then Schwarzenegger had to screw it all
Speaker 6: up and he demanded whatever for total recall.
Speaker 2: And then after that, it was like– What was it? $ 25, 000
Speaker 2: or something? I don't remember.
Speaker 6: No more than that. Oh, it was way more than that.
Speaker 3: Oh, was it? Oh, God.
Speaker 6: Way more, yeah.
Speaker 2: Um demanding that much money for audio only.
Speaker 6: Yeah and it wasn't even a good track i mean
Speaker 6: it sucked no.
Speaker 2: No that was bad i remember that yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah and at image also we had um you know
Speaker 6: because we kept the dad copies of all the commentaries
Speaker 6: even the ones that never came out which was kind
Speaker 6: of heartbreaker because like we had the original first track
Speaker 6: that friedkin did for the exorcist which has never been
Speaker 6: heard um which is way better than the one that
Speaker 6: we got damn but he Yeah. But he changed his mind.
Speaker 6: He's like, I want to redo it. And he did
Speaker 6: it again. He just sits there and just narrates the movie.
Speaker 6: And he was like, oh, this is awful. What are
Speaker 6: you doing?
Speaker 3: I hate that.
Speaker 2: But yeah.
Speaker 6: And they have dads with all these isolated music tracks
Speaker 6: from Masters that never came out. Like all the Corman
Speaker 6: Poe movies. Stuff like that. I really hope it's all
Speaker 6: sitting over in the RLJ office still. Like if they've
Speaker 6: got it archived somewhere. Because AMC owns them now. Right.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: But I hope all that stuff is still preserved. Because
Speaker 6: there's things in there that will never, ever cross anyone's
Speaker 6: path again. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is there any other commentaries you can think of that
Speaker 3: got recorded that didn't get released for some reason or another.
Speaker 6: Yeah there was a new line one that we did
Speaker 6: called man of the century um which we did with
Speaker 6: the producer and then the director like for some reason
Speaker 6: threw a fit and told them not to use it
Speaker 6: and so he went back into this gag one where
Speaker 6: it's he just he's like he starts it and he
Speaker 6: has a sound but director stopping him like a minute
Speaker 6: into it it's stupid yeah but like that one never
Speaker 6: saw the light of day um which is too bad
Speaker 6: i'd other than that I mean obviously Acid Eaters at
Speaker 6: the time that wasn't ours though that was one that
Speaker 6: Mike had done with Dave and I guess I think
Speaker 6: his dad had like gone missing or something and so
Speaker 6: when it came up to do the DVD they couldn't
Speaker 6: find it or whatever so thank god they found it
Speaker 6: later now it's on the Blu-ray which god that was
Speaker 6: a gorgeous release like I could not believe those transfers
Speaker 6: on Acid Eaters and Space.
Speaker 9: Thing oh I'm excited to see it I'm excited because
Speaker 9: that's the thing I don't love either of those but
Speaker 9: I'm not well Space Thing I mean Kara Peters is
Speaker 9: like a drag queen in that.
Speaker 2: So like, I like, I want the high camp. I
Speaker 2: want to see that nice look, short, gorgeous, but also
Speaker 2: acid is considering how not great it is. Like it's
Speaker 2: photographed so beautifully. The color are so gorgeous in that.
Speaker 2: And the DVD looks great already. So I know that
Speaker 2: that Blu-ray is going to look good. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Both of like acid eaters. I didn't realize looked the
Speaker 6: way that it does now. It's stupefying how beautiful it
Speaker 6: is now. Both of those movies. It's just insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You're always, I'm so excited. yeah excited yeah it's shocking
Speaker 3: which is.
Speaker 2: Funny because i never thought i'd ever get excited about
Speaker 2: either of those movies ever again but but i saw
Speaker 2: the screenshots and i was like okay this might be
Speaker 2: time for me to reevaluate these.
Speaker 3: Have you done the comparison screenshots yet nate.
Speaker 6: I haven't done it yet i'm working on it'll be
Speaker 6: up sometime this.
Speaker 3: Week yeah okay yeah nice yeah those are always helpful
Speaker 3: those are always very helpful.
Speaker 6: I try, yeah. And I think I'm the only one
Speaker 6: who does screenshots with something weird DVDs because most people
Speaker 6: don't have those handy. So I think it's important to
Speaker 6: have the comparisons so people know what the differences are.
Speaker 6: It's pretty radical on some of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and that reminds me, I mean, you mentioned that
Speaker 2: you started Modo Digital, like you said, out of college?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was still in college. I think I was
Speaker 6: like my last year in college. It was like 98,
Speaker 6: I think, when I started it. Which was kind of
Speaker 6: like for fun because I was so frustrated because there
Speaker 6: were all these review sites that they either did only
Speaker 6: horror or only mainstream studio stuff. And I was like,
Speaker 6: but there's all this in between, like what I want
Speaker 6: to do is like, let's do art films and just
Speaker 6: kind of the weird, unclassifiable stuff and the horror and
Speaker 6: just the exploitation, the stuff that nobody was really covering.
Speaker 6: So that was the whole point. Um, and some other stuff. And,
Speaker 6: you know, and then, then thank God you were ready
Speaker 6: for DVD drive in. Cause your reviews were amazing. I mean,
Speaker 6: you were coming up with stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I had no idea. I was like, oh my God,
Speaker 6: how is he putting these dots together? I had no idea.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's kind of the crazy thing because I
Speaker 2: think you are the, you're like the longest running site
Speaker 2: in this sphere that's still around. So you can, we
Speaker 2: can access, like what did I just read? I read
Speaker 2: an early article I was watching I, a woman for
Speaker 2: the first time. And I was like, Oh yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 2: I have this DVD from, so I'll watch it. And
Speaker 2: then I was like, did he review it? And he,
Speaker 2: and your review is on there and you're like the
Speaker 2: only surviving review of that DVD anywhere on the internet.
Speaker 2: And so like, cause DVD arriving is gone. Like a
Speaker 2: lot of the DVD talk stuff is gone. AV maniacs
Speaker 2: is gone. I'm trying to remember who I also digital
Speaker 2: bits is hit or miss. I don't see them that
Speaker 2: much anymore, but like it's, Yeah, you're like a go-to place. Like,
Speaker 2: if I know I need to know what a release
Speaker 2: looked like, or also if all the extras have been
Speaker 2: ported over from one release to another, that's very important
Speaker 2: to me. Because then I'm like, I said on here
Speaker 2: in an earlier episode, yeah, I have the Montemar Cabra 4K,
Speaker 2: or Blood Rose. But there's that behind-the-scenes footage on the
Speaker 2: less-shocky Foo version, which I still need, and Nathaniel's review
Speaker 2: reminded me of that. So I'm like, okay, I guess
Speaker 2: I have to have two 4Ks of this.
Speaker 6: Just because.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of the nature of the beast. We
Speaker 2: have to own multiple versions of these things in a
Speaker 2: lot of cases, just because it's the way it is.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I go to your site for
Speaker 3: a lot, Nathan? is to hear which audio track you
Speaker 3: think is best to like start with.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Watching that for the first time.
Speaker 3: I always go to your Sam. Okay, wait, I got
Speaker 3: these options. Which one should I listen to first?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 6: So like the one, but the area where a lot
Speaker 6: of companies are like, unfortunately not really paying attention, I
Speaker 6: think our audio and subtitles, like they don't really seem
Speaker 6: to be checking those very carefully, which drives me nuts
Speaker 6: as great as a lot of boutique labels are. Um,
Speaker 6: And God is, I love inner syndrome, but they've dropped
Speaker 6: the ball on the audio on some things and the
Speaker 6: subs where it's like, like primal fear is the one that, um,
Speaker 6: or primal rage, sorry, primal rage. Um, you know, cause
Speaker 6: it has like the wrong, the wrong English track on there.
Speaker 6: It's like, ah, come on. Um, yeah, it's this really
Speaker 6: crappy mono track. It just sounds like garbage. And I'm
Speaker 6: just like, ah, why you do this nice 4k. And it's, ah,
Speaker 6: how'd that happen?
Speaker 3: How can, how can you tell that it's the wrong track?
Speaker 6: Because every other release, I mean, the VHS, the DVD,
Speaker 6: the earlier Blu-ray, like, they're all stereo. It had a
Speaker 6: Dolby Stereo mix. It sounds amazing. It's a great mix.
Speaker 6: And I popped in the 4K, and I was like,
Speaker 6: this sounds like it's in a tin can. Like, what happened? Like,
Speaker 6: this is not the way this is supposed to sound. Like, immediately,
Speaker 6: it's like, this is wrong.
Speaker 2: It makes you wonder where that mix went. It's like,
Speaker 2: did they not have that original mix? Well, another stiff
Speaker 2: competition was that. Because stiff competition, they put out in 4K,
Speaker 2: and that was one of, that was an early... Well, actually,
Speaker 2: I think it was one of the last adult movies
Speaker 2: that was shown in theaters with stereo. And it came
Speaker 2: out on the 4K with mono. And I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I would have loved to have had this looking and
Speaker 2: sounding state-of-the-art top quality, but I don't think they had
Speaker 2: access to the original Dolby Stereo tracks of that. Caballero
Speaker 2: threw away so much stuff. But for something like Parable Rage,
Speaker 2: that's very surprising with the home video track record of
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's too bad. And that's something that Mike was
Speaker 6: actually good about, because whenever they would transfer, like, especially
Speaker 6: the Novaks and the Freedmans, because they had access to
Speaker 6: all the Knicks, but they would always go to the
Speaker 6: original Magtracks for those. That's why those DVDs still sound good, too,
Speaker 6: because the sound of those is just pristine, which I
Speaker 6: don't think people, because, you know, with exploitation, if you're watching, like,
Speaker 6: some banged-up print, you don't realize, like, just how really
Speaker 6: well-recorded some of those were.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: Especially with music. I mean, they really paid more attention
Speaker 6: to the sound mix on those than a lot of
Speaker 6: people tend to give them credit for, I think.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Well, what is it? There are some, oh, well, A
Speaker 2: Hot-Blooded Woman. The soundtrack on that, the sound on that
Speaker 2: is crazy. It's like I'm listening to a CD recording
Speaker 2: of those library tracks. I'm like, why does it sound
Speaker 2: so good? This is from a beaten up print. And
Speaker 2: I was like, I know it's not from a CD
Speaker 2: because no one knows what those tracks are. They don't
Speaker 2: exist right now as far as we know. So, yeah
Speaker 2: it always is very impressive to me when i'm like
Speaker 2: oh actually this is why does it sound so good
Speaker 2: like it's this cheap shot in texas thing that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's something that I don't, I don't think enough people
Speaker 2: really cover is, are the audio and the subtitle options.
Speaker 2: And also you make a very good point of noting
Speaker 2: when it's dubbed titles, which I cannot stand. I don't,
Speaker 2: I want those because there are so many differences between
Speaker 2: languages that, yeah, you can't go by what the dub says, like,
Speaker 2: especially because it's been put on record, like from what's
Speaker 2: his face. Um, nick alexander where he's like oh yeah
Speaker 2: sometimes we just make stuff up i'm like oh so
Speaker 2: that doesn't match the italian dub that with the original
Speaker 2: script okay so yeah i want the options of both
Speaker 2: i think it's just a case of like i don't
Speaker 2: know what the budget is for that i don't know
Speaker 2: how much more budget it would cost to just translate
Speaker 2: it but it's.
Speaker 6: Not that much more i mean and i think that
Speaker 6: now people it's sort of obligatory you have to put
Speaker 6: sgh subs on your movies anyway now like if you
Speaker 6: don't kind of get dragged to the mug for it
Speaker 6: so it's like well forgetting that i might as well
Speaker 6: just do the translation same And I mean, even cause
Speaker 6: like there were some holdouts, like sovereign didn't do it
Speaker 6: for some stuff like beyond the darkness. And there were
Speaker 6: a couple other titles where they didn't, they only put
Speaker 6: dub titles on. And I was like, that's the titles
Speaker 6: for beyond the darkness are useless. Cause like, there's a
Speaker 6: completely different dialogue. I mean, like in different places, different
Speaker 6: offscreen dialogue. I mean, it's, it's wildly different. Like you can't,
Speaker 6: it was, it was used to thank God during the
Speaker 6: 4k and they'll have that fixed. Um, or like the other,
Speaker 6: the other hell was one that did that. But, um,
Speaker 6: you know, but yeah, like on something we were like,
Speaker 6: we never, back then we never captioned any of those.
Speaker 1: Um, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: For, for what, whatever.
Speaker 2: Um, That's why I'm glad we're getting some of those
Speaker 2: now with subtitles now. Some of it is hard.
Speaker 3: To hear the dialogue.
Speaker 6: Some of the subtitles should do those because there's some
Speaker 6: of those for some of the dialogue. If you say
Speaker 6: that's what they're saying, I'll take your word for it
Speaker 6: because I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's something else that I... Oh, that was something that
Speaker 2: irritated me. It was on the Disco Italia release where
Speaker 2: The name, the St. Peckinpah, the name was misspelled.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was like, how do you misspell Peckinpah? And
Speaker 2: I think some of the lyrics were off, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, Lord. These are popular songs. You should
Speaker 2: be able to at least Google the lyrics. But then
Speaker 2: I wonder, did they make the mistake because it's a
Speaker 2: legal thing about reprinting lyrics of things? I don't think
Speaker 2: they think of that.
Speaker 6: I doubt it. Well, another problem is that sometimes you'll
Speaker 6: have subtitles who are obviously... like in their twenties or something.
Speaker 6: And they have no reference for all of this stuff.
Speaker 6: Cause I, Oh yeah. I've noticed on some of your,
Speaker 6: so there was one video where it was like, obviously
Speaker 6: the subtitler must've been like 21 or something. Cause there
Speaker 6: was a movie with, I can't remember what movie it was,
Speaker 6: but there was like constant pop culture from this, like
Speaker 6: Ursula Anderson stuff. And they were just making up subtitles.
Speaker 6: It was like just gibberish. And I was like, I
Speaker 6: don't know what you're typing here, but I don't know
Speaker 6: what that is.
Speaker 1: Oh no.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my, so that was it for Face
Speaker 2: With Two Left Feet. It was the Kwando, Kwando, Kwando.
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, this is a standard. Like,
Speaker 2: you can look up the lyrics to this. And instead,
Speaker 2: they were just doing whatever. I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: At least I know the lyrics to this great song.
Speaker 2: It's fine. But, you know. Yoruba songs are tougher, though,
Speaker 2: because you have those heavy accents in some of their songs. So, like,
Speaker 2: if you're going to do, like, well, I don't have
Speaker 2: a Night Train Murders release, but if you're going to subtitle, like,
Speaker 2: Demise Rousseau's theme song to that. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I could subtitle that. I don't know what he's singing
Speaker 2: half the time. Very thick Greek accent. But, you know,
Speaker 2: it's tough.
Speaker 6: Take a flower in your hand. That's all I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a flower's all you need. That's kind of all
Speaker 2: I know from that. I know Gentry... Something else, Gentry,
Speaker 2: and I definitely want to ask about this, too, because
Speaker 2: I remember this. I lived through this, was the Borders
Speaker 2: extra weird DVD situation. Well, first of all, the Borders
Speaker 2: deal with image and something weird stuff. That was like genius.
Speaker 2: And I think that really amplified a lot of people's
Speaker 2: access to the stuff because it was like, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: this is on sale. Yeah, we'll buy it, you know.
Speaker 2: And I know that it opened a lot of, a
Speaker 2: lot of eyes to, to these movies that otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 2: have accessed them.
Speaker 3: It wasn't hidden anywhere. It was like prominently placed, you know.
Speaker 2: End cap. Yes. I would run in. I'd be like, Ooh, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: And they sold, I mean, they really sold. I don't,
Speaker 6: I don't think people realize like the difference in sales
Speaker 6: numbers between, like I said, sort of the heyday of
Speaker 6: when DVDs were at their peak versus what it is now.
Speaker 6: But I mean, it was nuts, like a really high
Speaker 6: selling title. I mean like blood fees would sell like
Speaker 6: in the first year, he'd sell like 150,000 units, you know,
Speaker 6: which is, For a title like that, it's pretty nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: You know, which is now, I mean, we think of
Speaker 6: it as a huge title, but like, you know, if
Speaker 6: you put out a 4K Blood Feast, it's not going
Speaker 6: to sell near that much. Like remotely close. Like Black
Speaker 6: Sunday sold like 300,000, you know, which is crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: But the Something Weird was like sold really well at boarders.
Speaker 6: I was kind of shocked. Like it was kind of,
Speaker 6: it was almost like if something, if people saw the
Speaker 6: Something Weird banner on it, they would just buy it
Speaker 6: after a certain point. Like it didn't matter what it was.
Speaker 6: But those were really just flying off the shelves because
Speaker 6: Best Buy didn't really go in for it that much,
Speaker 6: which is probably– and Barnes & Noble. Like, they were
Speaker 6: a little more prudish about it. But Borders, yeah, they
Speaker 6: were all in with it, and they stocked them pretty heavily. And, yeah,
Speaker 6: it worked really, really well. And so, for those who
Speaker 6: don't remember, Borders was kind of like the other Barnes
Speaker 6: & Noble. They were kind of like a slightly hepper
Speaker 6: version of Barnes & Noble, I guess.
Speaker 3: You might say.
Speaker 6: But they were in, like, all the major cities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I really miss Borders.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's where I got both copies, both Psychotronic books.
Speaker 2: I got my first copy of Pink Flamingos, and it
Speaker 2: was actually 17. It was under 17, and I was
Speaker 2: afraid they were going to card me and I was
Speaker 2: going to get busted when I bought it. So I
Speaker 2: have all these memories tied to Borders and my discovery
Speaker 2: of a lot of these films. And now that it's gone,
Speaker 2: it really is like, oh, God. Wistful for something that
Speaker 2: I probably shouldn't miss that much. But, you know, yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, there's something in that for a bit. That's also
Speaker 6: one reason why I love the, the something weird stuff
Speaker 6: is because when I was on my radar and it
Speaker 6: was coming out again, I was way under 21, way,
Speaker 6: way under. And, um, but there was a video store, um,
Speaker 6: and I was going to school is in Florida, but they,
Speaker 6: they were pretty heavy with the something weird types, but they,
Speaker 6: they weren't in the porn section. Cause they would have
Speaker 6: like the adult room, you know, where you had to
Speaker 6: like have a driver's license or whatever, but it's something
Speaker 6: weird stuff. It had its own like back wall area
Speaker 6: because it wasn't really porn. And so even though I'm like,
Speaker 6: you know, like, you know, 18, 19, whatever. I could
Speaker 6: rent whatever I wanted. Like I could just grab all
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 3: Um, you know, they didn't care.
Speaker 6: So whatever, cause didn't classify as adult, even the stuff
Speaker 6: that had technically hardcore in it, but it wasn't really
Speaker 6: sold as porn. So yeah. So you feel, if we
Speaker 6: feel you're getting away with something, I think it makes
Speaker 6: it extra special, which I think that that thrill is
Speaker 6: probably gone now. Cause you know, you're going to admit
Speaker 6: no matter what your age is to see whatever you want, which,
Speaker 6: you know, yay. But yeah, it's, it's not as delicious anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, there was a thrill about going up with like,
Speaker 2: a collection of cassettes and trying to make sure that
Speaker 2: the naughty one is hidden in between like the normal
Speaker 2: ones and so it's just a quick scan and they
Speaker 2: won't notice what the naughty one is like that is
Speaker 2: something that that's a generational thing i think that's probably
Speaker 2: lost you know you don't need to be worrying about
Speaker 2: trying to slip in some something forbidden into like normal
Speaker 2: purchases yeah.
Speaker 6: Or the charge when you walk into a movie gallery
Speaker 6: and you see they have accidentally put the uncut Caligula
Speaker 6: or Aphrodite inside the case for the R-rated one. You're like, ooh.
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, that was me with Last House on the Left.
Speaker 2: I would kind of be like, okay, this one's the
Speaker 2: Vestron one, but which Vestron one? Let me rent this
Speaker 2: and see if this is the first run or the
Speaker 2: second run of this.
Speaker 6: Well, they had the same running time, so you were screwed.
Speaker 6: You couldn't tell.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly so i just like yeah i just had to
Speaker 2: be like does this look like it's uncut i don't
Speaker 2: know i i can hear music jump so probably not
Speaker 2: right yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah well we should we should finish the border story.
Speaker 2: Real quick yeah the borders yeah so this yeah so
Speaker 2: this was like a special thing that came if you
Speaker 2: bought a something weird dvd you got like a combo
Speaker 2: like a like a like a it was like a
Speaker 2: grab bag dvd of like clips and trailers and.
Speaker 3: Stuff yeah Yeah.
Speaker 6: So this is called extra weird. And this was Mike's idea.
Speaker 6: Cause he was like, well, border has been so good
Speaker 6: to us. Let's have a little extra, you know, a
Speaker 6: little promotional item that we'll make. It was called extra weird.
Speaker 6: And it was like a trailer sampler. And it's basically
Speaker 6: every single trailer. And some of these were like new
Speaker 6: scans of trailers that were like, you know, old, old
Speaker 6: message on the old DVDs. It was pretty much all
Speaker 6: new scans, I think. And, um, which is a great idea.
Speaker 6: And so the deal was if you bought something weird movie,
Speaker 6: then you would get this thrown in the bag. Um,
Speaker 6: sounds great in theory. The problem is that he insisted
Speaker 6: instead of doing chronologically, they want to do everything alphabetically.
Speaker 6: And the problem with that is the first trailer that
Speaker 6: comes up is the adult version of Jekyll and Hyde.
Speaker 6: And so some executive boarders popped it in. And that's
Speaker 6: the first thing they see is that trailer. They were like, oh,
Speaker 6: hell no.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not great.
Speaker 6: And so they yanked it off the shelves. And that
Speaker 6: pretty much like that really hurt the whole something weird deal.
Speaker 6: Like they really cooled off after that because this one
Speaker 6: guy who got so offended by that trailer.
Speaker 3: Wait, so if it was chronologically, what would have been
Speaker 3: the first trailer on the tape?
Speaker 6: That is a good question.
Speaker 2: Probably like probably marijuana or reefer madness.
Speaker 6: I think something like that.
Speaker 2: Something in the thirties. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I kind of, I wish it had been chronological. I
Speaker 6: think that would have been better.
Speaker 2: Assassin of youth. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of those three, probably. Cause I think those were the,
Speaker 2: I think those are the oldest titles that were ever
Speaker 2: came out on those releases. There were some forties ones too,
Speaker 2: but those were all thirties.
Speaker 3: I think that was the oldest ones.
Speaker 2: Never did child bride either. Probably a good thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he won't start that.
Speaker 2: That one's tougher. That's tougher. I was surprised Kino did it,
Speaker 2: to be honest. I was like, okay, we're going to
Speaker 2: go with this. Okay. All right.
Speaker 3: But they were able to frame it within context. And
Speaker 3: I think there's a commentary by Eric.
Speaker 2: It was Eric Schaefer, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that got us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I was a little surprised that one came out even
Speaker 8: so exactly okay i guess i guess if we can
Speaker 8: still get so you still get copies of pretty.
Speaker 2: Baby and blue lagoon i guess anybody can do anything
Speaker 2: except Maladella Genza and some other things that nobody.
Speaker 6: Yeah. And I think Limerale, Limerale is not going to
Speaker 6: come out over here anytime soon.
Speaker 2: Probably not Emmanuel Queen of Sados. That's probably not going
Speaker 2: to be issued either. Yeah.
Speaker 6: That can't, that sucks.
Speaker 2: Too bad.
Speaker 3: I love that movie, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, at least you can get away with it. Cause
Speaker 6: it has a body double, but yeah, pretty babies.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 6: It's out there. So yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's out there. It's art. It's Louis mall. So it's
Speaker 2: art technically.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, so the deal, so the extra weird DVD, so
Speaker 6: it started going for like stupid money. Cause people immediately,
Speaker 6: as soon as the word got out, like any stores
Speaker 6: still had them, there were people, you know, trying to
Speaker 6: get copies. And so it's, I mean, I remember like
Speaker 6: on eBay copies were going for like absolutely just ridiculous
Speaker 6: amounts of money. Um, so eventually they kind of forced
Speaker 6: our hand and we wound up doing it. Um, I
Speaker 6: think I can't remember if I actually put a retail
Speaker 6: price on it, but we reissued it without the borders
Speaker 6: thing on the cover. So if you have one of
Speaker 6: the borders, like a logo on the, like print on
Speaker 6: the actual cover, that's actually still worth some money, I think.
Speaker 6: But there are versions out there that are standard ones.
Speaker 6: But if you have a borders one, don't ever get
Speaker 6: rid of it, because that's never going to increase. It'll
Speaker 6: never happen again, obviously.
Speaker 3: It's part of the legend, yeah, at this point.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, the other ones that I think are legendary and
Speaker 2: that go for money are the K. Gord Murray ones.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which, the only one I think that came out was
Speaker 2: Doctor of Doom and Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy. And
Speaker 2: it was funny, because George Reese at DVD Drive and
Speaker 2: my editor... he reviewed all the horror adjacent stuff of
Speaker 2: something weird. He gave me the sexy stuff. So he
Speaker 2: got all those copies of those, the screener copies. Right.
Speaker 6: The check desks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 2: The check desks, which I still have all of my
Speaker 2: check desks. So I have all the image entertainment check
Speaker 2: desks with the date and everything on them. But yeah,
Speaker 2: he was, I was excited about that, that, that collection.
Speaker 2: And what was that? Something with the GATT act or
Speaker 2: something with like the copy, they weren't public domain technically anymore.
Speaker 3: It wasn't the GAD Act.
Speaker 6: It was, yeah, somebody else. I think... No, I think
Speaker 6: it was the.
Speaker 6: Somebody sent a cease and desist on those. I can't
Speaker 6: remember who it was. But yeah, it was like immediate. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Because again, several of them in the pipeline. And I
Speaker 6: think like maybe three other ones had actually gone to
Speaker 6: the check disk phase. And all of a sudden it
Speaker 6: was like, bam, horse land. League was like, nope, can't
Speaker 6: do it.
Speaker 2: The artwork on those was gorgeous. And it came with like...
Speaker 2: There was a booklet too because I have my Doctor
Speaker 2: of Doom. I was just like, these are going to
Speaker 2: be great.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 2: We had to wait for Casanegra to release them and
Speaker 2: then go out of business. And then hopefully those will
Speaker 2: be reissued at some point.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, they got indicator did a few, but there's
Speaker 6: still a lot that haven't been done yet.
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know. BCI did a few and then they
Speaker 2: went out of business.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of Mexican horror. Horror is not really
Speaker 2: well represented.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Indicator did.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like Panther woman, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean like, well, something we're doing like curse
Speaker 2: of the doll people. which is Mirror, and that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. All the K. Gordon Murray imports, basically. I
Speaker 2: think Spiritism. All the stuff Beverly Wilshire was putting out
Speaker 2: way back when. And those garbage that you could buy
Speaker 2: at Best Buy.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those terrible things. Well, that's why it was exciting, because
Speaker 2: something there was going to basically revamp these. Obviously, they
Speaker 2: were going to be huge sellers, because there's a big
Speaker 2: cult over those. Um, so I remember when that happened,
Speaker 2: it was like, Oh God, come on. I don't want,
Speaker 2: I don't want legal problems for my, for my, my buddies.
Speaker 2: It's something weird. Yeah. I think that was the big
Speaker 2: one that I was like, I was very nervous about
Speaker 2: what was going to go on moving forward with the company.
Speaker 2: Just cause I was like, this could bankrupt them. I
Speaker 2: hope it doesn't go that way. And it didn't, but
Speaker 2: I was very nervous about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank God there was never a lawsuit. I mean,
Speaker 6: there was nothing financial. It was just like, you can't
Speaker 6: do them. Because when you get the season's disc, you
Speaker 6: just don't put it out. That's all that happens. There's
Speaker 6: no financial damage. So I don't want you wasted on
Speaker 6: making the discs.
Speaker 3: Right, right, right.
Speaker 6: Meanwhile, I'm still sitting here waiting for an Isabel Sarli
Speaker 6: box set that's probably never going to happen.
Speaker 2: I have been begging Manda Macabre for one for literally
Speaker 2: decades at this point. I'm like, guys, you also are
Speaker 2: the only people to interview her. You have a full
Speaker 2: interview with her that you cut up for your TV show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think there's a market potentially for it.
Speaker 6: I think if you market it right, I mean, if
Speaker 6: you say it's like, this is like pre-John Waters, because
Speaker 6: they have that feel for it. If you're into just
Speaker 6: super high melodrama, sexploitation, I mean, they're so fun.
Speaker 3: They're so great.
Speaker 2: Fuego is nuts. Cindy Sherman programmed a series at MoMA
Speaker 2: one year, and she programmed Fuego, and they showed it
Speaker 2: on 35mm, and I went with a teacher of mine
Speaker 2: who was from Columbia, And we both loved it. It
Speaker 2: was high camp. There were so many walkouts in that
Speaker 2: movie because people showed up. And there was a Cindy
Speaker 2: Sherman thing. They're like, oh, this is going to be art.
Speaker 2: And it's Isabel Sarli being an infomaniac running around in snow,
Speaker 2: naked under a fur coat. And I'm just like, this
Speaker 2: is art. And you'll never see this on the big
Speaker 2: screen again on a print. Like, this is crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a great experience. Yeah, yeah. See Fuego, if
Speaker 2: you have not already, Gentry. Fuego is.
Speaker 3: They've got a few up on cultpics.com. I remember seeing...
Speaker 3: I think they've got Fuego.
Speaker 2: I think they're on to something weird.
Speaker 6: It's also in the VHS masters. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they put out Heat, Naked Temptation, which is incomplete.
Speaker 2: And then Female 70x7, which has American inserts on that.
Speaker 2: But there's so many more. I mean, she did one
Speaker 2: movie after another for her husband, Armando Bo. So there
Speaker 2: are so many you could put out. what's the one
Speaker 2: where she tries wants to fuck a horse carne.
Speaker 6: Or fiebre thanks for every i think.
Speaker 2: I for yeah i forget basically a lot of them
Speaker 2: are her being an infomaniac so they're kind of interchangeable
Speaker 2: but there's so much fun and i've been begging for
Speaker 2: them on the macabre box set.
Speaker 3: Yeah they would be a good home for that yeah
Speaker 3: for sure yeah yeah maybe maybe seven two.
Speaker 6: I was about to say, yeah, come on, Severin, where's
Speaker 6: our box set of those?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they love the boxes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. And they could do a pin.
Speaker 2: I know they like doing the pins of Severin ladies.
Speaker 2: She could be a Severin lady. I would want an
Speaker 2: Isabelle Sarli pin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like her a lot.
Speaker 6: I want an action figure.
Speaker 2: Oh, my God. Can you imagine with the fur coat?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you pull a string on the back and she
Speaker 6: starts heaving heavily.
Speaker 2: That would be amazing. Yes, I think that's a good idea. Yes,
Speaker 2: let's do that. See, that would be something that I
Speaker 2: could see old Scream Factory doing. You know, they love
Speaker 2: their action figures, or they're used to anyway. But yeah, no,
Speaker 2: these are ideas we could be bringing to these companies.
Speaker 2: They wanted to do more sexploitation.
Speaker 3: They write themselves, right? They do, yes.
Speaker 2: She is very John Waters-coded. She's very, yes, she's very over-the-top.
Speaker 2: She's very Russ Meyer-coded. Yeah, like she is so Erica
Speaker 2: Gavin in Vixen, except not a racist. She's so over
Speaker 2: the top. She's great. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3: That's a good one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, her movie is more comfortable to sit through than
Speaker 6: Vixen these days.
Speaker 2: Way more comfortable, yes. Fuego is great because you're rooting
Speaker 2: for her the whole time, and she's so captivating. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's such a good one. I'm glad that that came
Speaker 2: out through Image. That was one of my favorite double
Speaker 2: features was that release.
Speaker 6: Oh, I was giddy when that came out. I was
Speaker 6: so happy when I saw it on the list. I
Speaker 6: was like, oh, here we go.
Speaker 3: What was the second film on that? The Female. The Female, okay.
Speaker 2: 70 times 7. And then there were extras. I think
Speaker 2: there were inserts or something. There was extra footage as
Speaker 2: a bonus on that. And I think it was from
Speaker 2: the American Negative. I don't remember now. Yeah, so much
Speaker 2: good stuff. Well, that's something we talk about a lot
Speaker 2: on this. Or I talk about because I won't shut
Speaker 2: up about it. is that we were really spoiled with
Speaker 2: this deal because we were getting like two to three
Speaker 2: releases a month.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like it was a huge output deal.
Speaker 3: And so now, but now we can kind of understand why,
Speaker 3: because we heard Nate talk about like the production line
Speaker 3: that you guys had down there at image. Like it wasn't,
Speaker 3: it sounds like it was a pretty well-oiled operation.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And again, again, I, I liked, again, I keep calling
Speaker 6: it the wild West year, which is what it really
Speaker 6: was like, because there were no rules. There wasn't like
Speaker 6: protocols that you followed. So it's like, you know, our, our,
Speaker 6: our artists just kind of pretty much the ones who
Speaker 6: like working on these, they print out free range, whatever
Speaker 6: they want, as long as Mike was okay with it.
Speaker 6: I mean, he would just laugh at some of the
Speaker 6: stuff we came up with. Cause like I would sit
Speaker 6: down and be like, Oh, we're doing the black cat,
Speaker 6: the fat black pussy cat. Let's just go nuts with
Speaker 6: the cover.
Speaker 3: So you can have the.
Speaker 6: Big, I love that cover so much. And the hitchhike
Speaker 6: to hell DVD cover. I love that one. The way
Speaker 6: they merge those together, kidnap coed. I love that cover. Um,
Speaker 6: but yeah, we just had a blast putting all the
Speaker 6: artwork together and the marketing material could put together one
Speaker 6: sheets that we, you know, that we used to sell
Speaker 6: the titles and all that. That's the thing. Again, my
Speaker 6: title is brand manager, but it was kind of like
Speaker 6: I was the guy who babysat the movie from the
Speaker 6: minute that the contract came in to when it got released.
Speaker 6: It was kind of like I was the guy who
Speaker 6: sort of shepherded it through all the way through promoting
Speaker 6: it and getting it out there. It was just kind
Speaker 6: of a real joy to watch the evolution of each
Speaker 6: title kind of trickle through the pipeline and working with everybody,
Speaker 6: making sure that it got treated correctly. I mean, and
Speaker 6: we did some really nutty ideas for the covers. Cause like,
Speaker 6: it's just a joke to Mike, you know, we got
Speaker 6: God monster, but in class and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 6: let's do a wanted poster and see if you've seen
Speaker 6: the sheep, put a picture of the sheep on it.
Speaker 6: He was like, okay. I was like, all right, I
Speaker 6: guess we'll do that.
Speaker 2: Like that to the Agfa cover. It's like night and day.
Speaker 2: I still kept my something weird one. Cause it has
Speaker 2: that extra feature on it, which is not available. Isn't girl.
Speaker 2: Is it passion in the sun? Girl and the Geek,
Speaker 2: I think, is the extra feature on that.
Speaker 6: I think so, yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it is, which is that's a masterpiece that's
Speaker 2: insane but yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah there's so many of those titles though that were
Speaker 6: like chopped up as extras that i wish would come
Speaker 6: out fully well it's kind of like in the one
Speaker 6: we just got i really had you know driving miss
Speaker 6: daisy crazy i'm like well that's nice but can we
Speaker 6: get after the ball's over.
Speaker 2: Now the ball was over exactly well and that's one
Speaker 2: i'm trying to i was trying to like Because that
Speaker 2: was something when we were doing the extras for Degenerate
Speaker 2: and Pleasures, I was like, well, this could be an
Speaker 2: opportunity for me to try to find Susan Landau. Or
Speaker 2: I can try to beg them to put out After
Speaker 2: the Ball Was Over and they have talent releases. I
Speaker 2: could try to actually find her and be like, let
Speaker 2: me find Miss Daisy or, you know, this After the
Speaker 2: Ball Was Over star. Yeah, I like that one. I
Speaker 2: like that one.
Speaker 3: It's fun.
Speaker 2: You know, Alex doesn't like it. Alex describes it as
Speaker 2: bottom feeder. I'm like, it's not that bad. It's not
Speaker 2: a Leonard Kirkman movie. It's, you know, it's not that bad. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now that it's come out, like in that sort of
Speaker 3: truncated version though, I wonder if it ever will through
Speaker 3: district picks or anything, because it's like, well, they already just,
Speaker 3: they just released a piece of it. It's like, eh,
Speaker 3: we'll probably never, it's probably not high on their priority list.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That's what I'm afraid of. But yeah, it's a shame
Speaker 6: that a lot of those ones that got diced up,
Speaker 6: I'm just, I, it kind of, it's kind of heartbreaking
Speaker 6: that it might never get the full versions of those.
Speaker 2: Cause right.
Speaker 6: There are a few that are real gems.
Speaker 2: Sex Witches of the Occult is another one. And I
Speaker 2: just re-watched that and I was like, oh, there's substantial
Speaker 2: hardcore in this. So they could never have released this
Speaker 2: on Image, including the gay scene on the bench. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is actual hardcore. Can't put this out. But I
Speaker 2: think they have the negative to that. That's something I
Speaker 2: can see Distropix putting out, but you have to put
Speaker 2: it with something. You couldn't put it on its own. But, yeah, so,
Speaker 2: I mean, the.
Speaker 1: the.
Speaker 2: Process of putting it all out and the creative aspects
Speaker 2: and everything. But the fact that there is this deadline
Speaker 2: and it's an output deal where you're putting out a
Speaker 2: number of releases a month. I mean, I think it's very,
Speaker 2: I think it spoiled us as exploitation fans. Cause it
Speaker 2: was like, okay, we're going to be getting really nice
Speaker 2: special editions with like trailers and the gallery and bonus features.
Speaker 2: And for me, it was like discovering, it was like getting,
Speaker 2: a gift of brand new movies that I didn't know
Speaker 2: existed every month. And I knew they were going to
Speaker 2: like blow my mind nine.
Speaker 3: Out of 10 times.
Speaker 2: And so now I feel like that isn't there. I
Speaker 2: feel like Blu-ray also changed that because Blu-ray is more
Speaker 2: expensive to replicate and license and everything. But there's so much, there,
Speaker 2: there's so much stuff that's in the vaults at a
Speaker 2: lot of these companies. I'm like, you could be doing
Speaker 2: two to three a month if you were just cranking
Speaker 2: them out.
Speaker 6: It's just tough.
Speaker 2: It's the, yeah, the, the business is not what it
Speaker 2: used to be. And I know you know that because
Speaker 2: it's just, yeah, it's not like it was when you
Speaker 2: were involved, heavily involved with these, which is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It makes me sound like old man
Speaker 2: yells at cloud anytime I bring it up. And I'm
Speaker 2: just like, well, no, I mean, this is how I
Speaker 2: became the passionate weirdo that I am is because I
Speaker 2: was getting these every month. Like I was getting, I was,
Speaker 2: I was having education on a consistent basis, you know?
Speaker 2: And so, we're only getting like two or three a
Speaker 2: year now from, from most companies, uh, combined, you know, like,
Speaker 2: I think we get max, you know, five or six
Speaker 2: a year from everybody combined of these types of titles. Um, well,
Speaker 2: that's the element.
Speaker 6: Of surprise is something that's been lost because I get
Speaker 6: really excited when something comes out. Like when we're going
Speaker 6: to show them, did the last picture show set. Um,
Speaker 6: so I remember like when they first came to me
Speaker 6: and they were like, we're doing this and we're like,
Speaker 6: we're considering these 20 titles and we're going to pare
Speaker 6: it down to 10 or whatever. And I didn't even
Speaker 6: know which 10 they were going to be because I
Speaker 6: didn't decide until late in the game. But I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: this is amazing. Because, like, obviously no one's ever seen these,
Speaker 6: you know. Or like when Severin did the Clasificat S,
Speaker 6: the Spanish S set, you know. Because, again, most of
Speaker 6: those movies nobody had seen. So I love stuff like
Speaker 6: that where you're just like, this is a totally unknown
Speaker 6: quantity to me. Like, I don't know what I'm going
Speaker 6: to be getting into when I open this box up.
Speaker 6: So I think that was something you had with the
Speaker 6: Something Weird titles. Because even if you knew one movie
Speaker 6: on there, chances were, if it was a triple feature,
Speaker 6: you're like, I don't know what I'm going to be
Speaker 6: like by the time I'm done with this thing, because
Speaker 6: who knows?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: If you're watching something like Vibrations, Fluctuation, and Submission, who
Speaker 2: knows how you end up with an ultimate degenerate in
Speaker 2: hot blood and lusting hours? I don't know what your
Speaker 2: mind is after that. Right. But that's fun, you know?
Speaker 2: What was the other one? Aroused? Rent-A-Girl, Help Wanted Female. Like, incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, but it is one of those things where
Speaker 2: it's like, The goal is to, and I guess that
Speaker 2: ties into your, when you discuss Mike's mindset of like,
Speaker 2: how much can we pack onto this and make it
Speaker 2: a quality product? And it's not that. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's speaking too much out of turn, but like, for example,
Speaker 2: the Mitchell Brothers stuff is all with vinegar syndrome. They
Speaker 2: have so many shorts that the Mitchell Brothers shot and
Speaker 2: short featurettes that were shot. All those could be packed
Speaker 2: onto there and the bit rate wouldn't go down, but
Speaker 2: they're not doing that. And so it just feels kind
Speaker 2: of like I wish there was that Mike Brainy mindset
Speaker 2: of like, how can we package, how can we make
Speaker 2: this package as jam-packed as possible without it affecting the
Speaker 2: visual quality? I think it can be done. I just
Speaker 2: think it's a question of wanting to do it. We
Speaker 2: have a different kind of mindset, I think. And yeah,
Speaker 2: like you said, I think it is the Wild West
Speaker 2: scenario where it's like, we can do whatever we want.
Speaker 2: Let's just do, let's just experiment and have fun with
Speaker 2: as much stuff as we can. but then that's kind
Speaker 2: of lost. I think you, people should be still be
Speaker 2: taking those risks and having fun like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, at least people still care. I mean, you've
Speaker 6: got people in the business who care about these movies,
Speaker 6: you know, which I think that's really the main thing.
Speaker 6: You know, you've got labels like severing the vinegar syndrome
Speaker 6: and all that. And as long as there's like that
Speaker 6: drive that people out there want to put these out,
Speaker 6: I think that's, what's really important. And as long as,
Speaker 6: you know, younger audiences are still finding them out. Cause
Speaker 6: like when someone's like, Oh, I just discovered these. I'm like, great.
Speaker 6: You have an amazing journey ahead of you. Like, don't
Speaker 6: feel like a neophyte, like just go at your own
Speaker 6: pace and just, you know, watch watch season anywhere that
Speaker 6: you want it doesn't matter like just dive in and
Speaker 6: just wallow in the stuff because yeah you're just yeah
Speaker 6: you've got great times ahead of you so yep yeah.
Speaker 2: We have a few people that we talk to who
Speaker 2: are like yeah we have listeners that we talk to
Speaker 2: on the regular who are like in their 20s and
Speaker 2: they're like okay i'm gonna watch this i'm gonna watch
Speaker 2: that i'm just like oh my god to to be
Speaker 2: able to watch this for the first time ever.
Speaker 6: Yeah like wiping your mind and just starting these fresh
Speaker 6: again it would just be incredible like.
Speaker 2: Yes yes who did I just talk to oh well
Speaker 2: Jeffrey who comes on the show he's like I think
Speaker 2: I've only seen two Russ Meyer movies so and I
Speaker 2: think he was like Cherry Hair and Raquel what do
Speaker 2: you think about that and I was like well if
Speaker 2: you haven't seen Faster Pussycat or Motor Psycho or Super
Speaker 2: Vixens or any of that like Prioritize all of those.
Speaker 2: And for directors, there are right and wrong choices in
Speaker 2: that journey. But the genre in general, jump all over
Speaker 2: the place. You can go to a nudie cutie. You
Speaker 2: can go to a roughie. You can go to like
Speaker 2: a 70s thing. Yeah, just jump all over. And that's
Speaker 2: kind of what the image thing was. It was like,
Speaker 2: you didn't know what you were going to get. You
Speaker 2: were getting Wonderful Land of Oz and Jack and the Beanstalk.
Speaker 2: You know, the Starman movies. You know? Or, yeah, there
Speaker 2: was some other kiddie one that I was just like,
Speaker 2: this is truly... I can't believe it. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: it was. Yeah, there's just a lot of variety there.
Speaker 2: And that was what made it so exciting. You just
Speaker 2: never knew what you're going to get.
Speaker 6: I think that's something that took a while for me
Speaker 6: to sort of realize is that especially with the huge,
Speaker 6: the big, really big directors like Russ Meyer and Bradley Massacre,
Speaker 6: like they're actually like at least a couple of generations
Speaker 6: who haven't seen those movies because they are not easily accessible,
Speaker 6: you know. So yeah, so being in like early 20s
Speaker 6: and being able to start with Russ Meyer, like that just,
Speaker 6: that amazed me. I mean, because I found those in
Speaker 6: the 80s on tape and that just like ripped my
Speaker 6: skull open, you know, watching those. So yeah, just sitting
Speaker 6: down and watching Faster Pussycat or like Super Vixens or
Speaker 6: something like that with no warning. Like I can't even
Speaker 6: imagine that. And I can't, I hope probably the Radley
Speaker 6: stuff will like come back out again. I want that
Speaker 6: whole catalog back. I've just been sort of floating around.
Speaker 6: So hopefully they'll sort that out because he was another
Speaker 6: one that just like, like seeing LaCroix and Camille, like,
Speaker 6: you know, within like a week of each other, I
Speaker 6: was just like, what, what is this? Like, how can
Speaker 6: this exist? You know?
Speaker 2: Well, do you deal with– well, because first run was
Speaker 2: Image as well, right? So there was a deal where
Speaker 2: they put out the Libertine, which is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was– and then that came out through Nucleus.
Speaker 2: It hasn't come out here yet. But yeah, like the
Speaker 2: first run stuff, that kept a lot of those Metzgers
Speaker 2: available for a while in the digital era.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, and I luckily I got to hang with Bradley
Speaker 6: a lot. Um, cause we were, cause, um, you know,
Speaker 6: cause I knew him stuff really well. And so I
Speaker 6: would do Q and A's with him and, um, there
Speaker 6: was talk of me doing a book about him at
Speaker 6: some point. Um, which sadly, um, hasn't happened. I wish
Speaker 6: I'd sort of like maybe hit the gas a little
Speaker 6: bit harder before he died. Um, cause, um, you know,
Speaker 6: but the problem isn't that they started doing the commentaries
Speaker 6: for his movies and I was like, well, that just
Speaker 6: kind of like covered everything I wanted to do. So, um,
Speaker 6: I have to find a new angle on that. But, um,
Speaker 6: but yeah, Bradley was amazing. Just like getting to hang
Speaker 6: with him. I mean, what a guy he was, just
Speaker 6: the stories were phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the one I want is Therese and Isabel.
Speaker 3: That's my absolute favorite.
Speaker 2: I love that movie. Because I saw that at Lincoln Center,
Speaker 2: and that was one where, like, it was great seeing
Speaker 2: it on the big screen, but actually the audience was
Speaker 2: so receptive to it.
Speaker 1: Oh, good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then, apparently, it showed at the New Beverly a
Speaker 2: couple months ago, and during the Arrow schedule, and people
Speaker 2: were apparently being really restless about it. And I was
Speaker 2: just like, well... When they paired it with Liquorice Quartet,
Speaker 2: which those are my two favorites of his, but I
Speaker 2: can imagine if you're watching them back to back, it's
Speaker 2: probably a lot. Like I saw those, I saw those theatrically,
Speaker 2: but individually, like separately. That was quite a double feature.
Speaker 2: His stuff is tough to double feature, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a lot to take in.
Speaker 6: It depends on the crowd.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, I've seen a lot of his stuff theatrically
Speaker 6: multiple times and yeah, it is interesting. The crowd, I
Speaker 6: can see how Trish Isabel could like really misfire with
Speaker 6: the wrong group at the wrong time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: I suppose.
Speaker 6: I mean, like, like score always kills with the crowd.
Speaker 6: Like you said, it never fails. I mean, it always,
Speaker 6: I mean, it just brings the house down, like, like
Speaker 6: start to finish. Um, Camille works really well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: You know, we'll see. But yeah, I really hope they,
Speaker 6: now they're starting restoring them. I know Tristan Isabel has been,
Speaker 6: done a beautiful restoration on that. So hopefully they'll get
Speaker 6: them back out there and people can start, you know,
Speaker 6: seeing more widely.
Speaker 2: I hope so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Score.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Well, I know that basically all the hardcores are eventually
Speaker 2: coming from, from Melusine. Cause I think they still have
Speaker 2: all of those, but I think score is going to be,
Speaker 2: they haven't put it out before, but I think they
Speaker 2: are going to, I think. I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that one.
Speaker 2: I wish Jared Douglas was still around to do a commentary.
Speaker 2: Cause he was kind of the co-director of that. He
Speaker 2: directed the actors and everything. Cause it was a play.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that is there. there were other like sexploitation
Speaker 2: things that came out through image. Were you involved with
Speaker 2: those either as well? Or was it just the, the
Speaker 2: image stuff? Like I'm thinking of like the, the Ted V.
Speaker 2: Michaels with like girl in gold boots, which.
Speaker 3: Is kind of sexploitation.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah. I worked with Ted a lot. Um, actually
Speaker 6: I had to teach, I had to teach Ted how
Speaker 6: to do an audio commentary.
Speaker 2: God. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I bet you did. Cause I remember some of those
Speaker 2: early comments.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Cause he turned in his first couple of ones when
Speaker 6: he was just like, And now he's opening the door.
Speaker 6: And now he's walking in the other room. And I
Speaker 6: was like, Ted, Ted, come on. People don't want to
Speaker 6: hear this.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Poor guy.
Speaker 6: I love Ted, though.
Speaker 3: He was a nice guy.
Speaker 6: He's such a sweetheart.
Speaker 3: He was a nice guy.
Speaker 2: I love Girl in Blue. That was the one he
Speaker 2: always told me to watch. That and Black Klansman. Anytime
Speaker 2: I'd have a question about a movie that he knew
Speaker 2: was garbage, he'd be like, yeah, not one of my
Speaker 2: better movies. Make sure you watch black Klansman and girl
Speaker 2: in gold boots. I was like, I've seen them. I
Speaker 2: love them. I agree. I don't have any questions about those.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Anything that was under the, the, um, basically any, any
Speaker 6: of the cult movie stuff pretty much like went through me. Um,
Speaker 6: all of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, any other stuff, even some of the later stuff,
Speaker 6: you know, like there's nothing out there, even like the eighties, nineties,
Speaker 6: whatever that I usually handled anyway, because people were like,
Speaker 6: it's weird. Give it to Daniel. Um, And they tried
Speaker 6: to change things up for a while because they started
Speaker 6: shifting stuff around. They're like, oh, now you can handle
Speaker 6: all the music concert titles. I was like, really? Why? Like, no,
Speaker 6: thank you.
Speaker 3: What was your timeline at Image?
Speaker 6: It was around late 2000, I think is when I started. Well,
Speaker 6: it's when I started DVD Planet. And so that ran
Speaker 6: about a year. And so then I jumped over to Image.
Speaker 6: And then it went till around, I think it was
Speaker 6: late 2010, I think.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: Because this was right when we were in... Because there was... Okay,
Speaker 6: so Image decided in its infinite wisdom, this is a
Speaker 6: mistake other companies have done, that they wanted to be
Speaker 6: a big player. They wanted to go theatrical. They wanted
Speaker 6: to put out their own movies. And they spent a
Speaker 6: ton of money on this movie called Management, which Jennifer
Speaker 6: Aniston and Steve Zahn.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 10: Who is it? Management.
Speaker 2: Champagne.
Speaker 1: Why? Why?
Speaker 3: Would you like me to open it for you? Here's
Speaker 3: to people being happy. You have a great butt.
Speaker 2: Do you do this a lot, Mike?
Speaker 6: Very rarely. Does it ever work?
Speaker 1: Never.
Speaker 6: I don't know why. I don't know why I thought
Speaker 6: it would be a big hit. Oh, she's on Friends.
Speaker 6: You were going to come see this.
Speaker 2: Was it Sidney Kimmel or something? I forget the producer.
Speaker 2: I work with his company. We represent that for airlines
Speaker 2: at our company.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Weirdly.
Speaker 6: So that happened. Didn't make a dime. And then they decided, oh, well,
Speaker 6: Walmart was really huge at the time because Walmart would
Speaker 6: buy huge quantities and they would spend a lot of
Speaker 6: money and they would dump and they would buy stuff
Speaker 6: for their $ 5 bin, which was like, if you got
Speaker 6: a $ 5 bin, you were, you know, you're great. But
Speaker 6: they didn't take into account, a lot of labels got
Speaker 6: screwed over the entertainment account. If it doesn't sell, it's
Speaker 6: coming back and you're going to take a hit on
Speaker 6: that stuff. And so they sold... They went out selling, oh,
Speaker 6: we'll sell 300,000 copies of Short Circuit to Walmart. It's like,
Speaker 6: are you insane? Why are you doing that? Because it's
Speaker 6: all going to come back. So decisions like that were ill-advised.
Speaker 6: And in the meantime, there was a very aggressive hostile
Speaker 6: takeover attempt by Lionsgate. They really wanted to buy Image out,
Speaker 6: and they were going to the shareholders, and they were
Speaker 6: really trying to do it. And Image just barely managed
Speaker 6: to fend them off. It was grim. It was grim.
Speaker 6: like a few months when that was going on. Um,
Speaker 6: cause they really just wanted to like suck up the
Speaker 6: library and just dissolve the whole company. And that was
Speaker 6: going to be it. Uh, and eventually they realized, well,
Speaker 6: you know, after we've, after all this stuff had gone down,
Speaker 6: they're like, well, we've got to do something with this company.
Speaker 6: We got to find somebody to buy it out. Cause
Speaker 6: you know, otherwise we're going to be in hot water.
Speaker 6: And so they wound up getting bought by a company
Speaker 6: called RLJ entertainment, which was run by the guy who
Speaker 6: owned BET. And he, um, also bought, um, acorns. And
Speaker 6: since then, they've been bought out by AMC. And so
Speaker 6: that's why Image is involved in stuff by Shudder. And
Speaker 6: it's all just a big conglomerate of things. The Image
Speaker 6: Entertainment name still exists on some things, but it's just
Speaker 6: a filing cabinet. It's not really a company anymore. So
Speaker 6: when RLJ first bought them out, there was one round
Speaker 6: of layoffs where they laid off maybe a couple of
Speaker 6: QC people, a couple of artists, a little bit of
Speaker 6: trimming off the top. And we knew there was going
Speaker 6: to be more than that. But that was one round.
Speaker 6: We were like, oh, here it comes. And that was
Speaker 6: going down. But I'm just chugging ahead doing my thing.
Speaker 6: And I also had worked on a lot of TV
Speaker 6: stuff at the time because one of my real babies,
Speaker 6: my real babies later on in the image was one
Speaker 6: was getting the Sylvester Stump Caligula done, which I spent
Speaker 6: like a year on.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 6: Because that was just like.
Speaker 2: What a labor of love. What an incredible release. Good grief.
Speaker 2: So comprehensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Because I pushed hard because I was like, you guys
Speaker 6: have the penthouse thing. Why has no one done a
Speaker 6: special edition? They were like, well, what could you do?
Speaker 6: And I'm like, it is the most amazing behind the
Speaker 6: scenes story of any movie ever. Like you can't. It's
Speaker 6: the craziest thing. I mean, like the movie has flaws,
Speaker 6: but like just, you could do the most amazing addition
Speaker 6: for this. So they were like, fine, we'll, we'll just,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of check the penthouse and they're, you know, they'll,
Speaker 6: they'll fund the special edition. So I got everybody involved
Speaker 6: with it. Um, and the other one that I really
Speaker 6: want to do, cause we had to deal with NBC
Speaker 6: universal and I was like, I really want to do thriller,
Speaker 6: the TV series, the Boris Karloff one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 6: Um, that was like a real baby of mine that
Speaker 6: I wanted done. And so I brought in, um, Steve Mitchell,
Speaker 6: who I still do tracks with sometimes I brought him
Speaker 6: in to, um, he basically kind of lived in our
Speaker 6: office for a while, um, helping out doing all the
Speaker 6: commentaries and interviews and stuff like that. Cause I just
Speaker 6: didn't have time. Cause it was, if you, if you
Speaker 6: have the set, you know, there's like, there's like commentaries
Speaker 6: on every single episode on that.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I can't do that.
Speaker 6: Um, it was stacked. So we did the first season
Speaker 6: of thriller and I was just starting season two. And
Speaker 6: that's when the next round of layoffs hit. And, uh,
Speaker 6: So the guy who was heading marketing at the time,
Speaker 6: this guy named Steve DeMille, they were doing all the
Speaker 6: layoffs that morning, and they thought they were done. I
Speaker 6: was about to go to lunch with our Criterion person
Speaker 6: named Julianne. I was about to walk out the door,
Speaker 6: and they were like, oh, Nathaniel, come here for a second.
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, shit. So I went in his office,
Speaker 6: and sure enough, got the layoff papers. It was like
Speaker 6: a total, I mean, I think like half the staff
Speaker 6: was gone that day. It was really bad. But then
Speaker 6: it's like a week later, they realized it was like
Speaker 6: I was working on like 30 projects that they had
Speaker 6: a lot of money sunk into, including Thriller Season 2.
Speaker 6: And they were like, uh, we have no idea how
Speaker 6: to do this. Like, we don't know at what stage
Speaker 6: these are in. Like what? Cause you know, it's all
Speaker 6: on my computer and they'd shut it down. And I
Speaker 6: was like, okay. So they had to bring me back
Speaker 6: to work for like another eight months, a freelance and
Speaker 6: basically pay me twice as much to work and finish
Speaker 6: all the stuff I was doing.
Speaker 3: Oh my God.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 6: So it wasn't like an unfriendly split. I mean, I
Speaker 6: know why it happened. You could tell that things were
Speaker 6: sort of winding down, you know, obviously. Um, and like,
Speaker 6: as soon as I was done with that, I mean, I,
Speaker 6: like a year after that, I think hardly anybody was
Speaker 6: left from the original gang. They got sort of sucked
Speaker 6: up in RLJ. They kept like maybe two of the
Speaker 6: art people and maybe one or two other, like the
Speaker 6: legal person.
Speaker 3: I think it kind of worked out well for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Oh, it was totally fine.
Speaker 2: Cause yeah.
Speaker 6: Once I finished, then I went to work for the
Speaker 6: Oscars and I was like, woo. So, um, it all
Speaker 6: worked out, but I mean, I do miss it because
Speaker 6: like I said, it was a dream gig. It was
Speaker 6: just fun. Cause like you never knew week to week
Speaker 6: who you were going to be talking to. Um, you know,
Speaker 6: it's like, Oh, you want to, tomorrow, you want to
Speaker 6: go talk to Johnny legend for a commentary? I'm like, okay, fine. Sure.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 6: Um, or like, you know, or Hey, Mike and Lisa
Speaker 6: are coming into town, you know, let's, let's plot out
Speaker 6: the next 20 titles. I was like, great. Um, so,
Speaker 6: you know, there, that aspect is gone, um, which I
Speaker 6: don't think any job would ever get that bad.
Speaker 3: Cause that time, that's what I was going to say.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't exist.
Speaker 6: But I mean, just that the amount of like sex
Speaker 6: exploitation stuff that, that we managed to get out in
Speaker 6: front of the public, it just still kind of like
Speaker 6: freaks me out that we got away with murder. I
Speaker 6: think against some of those things, like, There's the last
Speaker 6: trilogy on DVD, you know, sitting there in borders. What
Speaker 6: kind of world is this?
Speaker 2: Just corrupting one mind after another.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I just like to think that like.
Speaker 2: Under the corporate umbrella. She's so crazy. Yeah, it really
Speaker 2: is crazy when you think about it. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 2: of corruption going on. One mind at a time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, some crazy 15-year-old kid out in the boonies of
Speaker 6: Illinois or something might have gotten that disc and changed
Speaker 6: their life. Who knows?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly. They could be listening right now. I keep forgetting
Speaker 2: that people actually listen to this thing and people are like,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, yeah, actually Johnny legend. I wanted to ask about,
Speaker 2: because those two commentaries I love on the Mondo mod
Speaker 2: can't be revolt because it really is just like them
Speaker 2: talking about what LA used to be like at that time.
Speaker 2: And then they also cover San Francisco. And it really
Speaker 2: is like a great look at counterculture and like, movie
Speaker 2: culture and stuff like that in.
Speaker 3: The town those dudes were like actually on those streets
Speaker 3: like they know them so well yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes those are great commentaries and uh that's yeah i
Speaker 2: that's the thing that's those are those are two others
Speaker 2: or at least i know mondo mods with novak i'm
Speaker 2: just like i would love those to get reissued just
Speaker 2: because those commentaries are so great there's just as exciting
Speaker 2: and interesting as the movies Yeah.
Speaker 6: I remember like wrestling 211 USA was a fun one
Speaker 6: to do too. The track we did on that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I forgot about that one. It's just jumping
Speaker 2: all over the place. You never knew.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like a disc all it's all about wrestling. See,
Speaker 2: and that's the funny thing. When it was reissued by Kino,
Speaker 2: it was paired with something else. And I was like, well,
Speaker 2: it's not a disc packed with nonstop wrestling. All over
Speaker 2: the disc. Yeah, that's wrestling content.
Speaker 3: Start to finish that whole disc.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, I love the keynote call. They're doing, they're putting out,
Speaker 6: but yeah, it doesn't have the whole sort of like
Speaker 6: just free for all like buffet pack to the gills
Speaker 6: feeling you got on those DVDs.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: No, it's a little more.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's a little more like Eric Schaefer. It's a little
Speaker 2: more historical. It's a little more, not respectful, but it's
Speaker 2: a little more like, it's like, it's like institutional care.
Speaker 2: Whereas it imaged in something weird feels like, well, this
Speaker 2: is a free for all. It's wrestling. Here's wrestling. Right.
Speaker 3: You know, Brett Wood has a perspective on these films
Speaker 3: that is different. You know, he's coming from, like, a
Speaker 3: restorationist's perspective.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 3: Like, a historian of, like, early exploitation. That's, like, his mindset,
Speaker 3: sort of.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3: And Shakespeare's the same way.
Speaker 2: Because Shakespeare literally wrote the book on that genre.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But, like, the Sexploiter's raw love, like, that release feels
Speaker 3: like kind of a throwback to the Image days. Because,
Speaker 3: you know, raw love, nobody expected that.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, they do get the vibe back, like the
Speaker 6: 3D nudie cutie disc, I think, kind of gets that
Speaker 6: vibe back as well.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm going to hit you back to Monster Across the
Speaker 2: Pajama Party. That's the first place you could see the
Speaker 2: Asylum of the Insane footage.
Speaker 1: 3D!
Speaker 2: Like, do we get, I don't know, I guess you
Speaker 2: get Blu-ray releases with 3D glasses in them, but it
Speaker 2: feels like something that I really only remember getting with DVDs.
Speaker 2: And like, Monster Across the Pajama Party... Well, when the
Speaker 2: monsters crossed the pajama party, it was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 2: why do I need 3D glasses for this? Because the
Speaker 2: movie's not in 3D, right? And it's like, well, you'll
Speaker 2: find out why. You know, in the back it says
Speaker 2: there's stuff in 3D, so you're going to see stuff
Speaker 2: in 3D.
Speaker 3: Well, before we let you go, maybe we could run
Speaker 3: through the most wanted image. Something that was released on ImageDVD,
Speaker 3: but that hasn't been upgraded yet.
Speaker 6: There's so many.
Speaker 2: 90% of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, give us, Nate, one or two that you can
Speaker 3: think of off the top of your head.
Speaker 6: Oh, gosh. Well, there's plenty of Novaks. I would say Toybox.
Speaker 6: Toybox and Wilbur are way up on my list.
Speaker 2: Toybox is so high on my list.
Speaker 5: Good picks, yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I really want those badly. Obviously, Fuego is a
Speaker 6: huge one for me. I would kill to get Fuego
Speaker 6: on Blu-ray or whatever. Love of God, make it happen. Somebody, please. God,
Speaker 6: what else? Oh my God, there's so many of those things. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean... They're not great movies, but I really would
Speaker 6: love just a box of all the Novak Southern nudie movies.
Speaker 2: We both do as well. Yes, we both do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, I think I just discovered Bethel
Speaker 2: Buckler only died like three years ago. He'd been around
Speaker 2: this whole time. He died at like, I think he
Speaker 2: was like 99 or something. I was like, damn it.
Speaker 2: I would have loved to call him to know more
Speaker 2: about this stuff. But his son Mark is still around
Speaker 2: and Mark is in Which one is he in? I
Speaker 2: think it's he's in Country Cousins because he's molested by
Speaker 2: Renee Vaughn in that movie. And I'm just like, your
Speaker 2: dad was directing you getting jumped on by Renee Vaughn.
Speaker 2: So I know he has good stories if we'll talk.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 2: I would love those. I just don't know what the
Speaker 2: marketability is with those. Did those do well for image? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think if people, if people looked at the sales spectrum,
Speaker 6: some of these, it would be really shocked at what
Speaker 6: sold and what didn't. Cause I think, I think the
Speaker 6: certain directors, people assume they do better than they do.
Speaker 6: And some people think things sell worse than they do.
Speaker 6: The Harry Novak's pretty much across the board sold really well.
Speaker 6: Anything freedom sold well, um, any, any freedom titles pretty
Speaker 6: much because they had the, you know, they had the
Speaker 6: catchy titles, they had the marketing, they just, they had
Speaker 6: the oomph behind them. Um, the worst ones by a
Speaker 6: long shot were the Joe Sarno's like not even close,
Speaker 6: like absolute bottom. Like, I mean, and we, I mean,
Speaker 6: and Mike loved them and I loved them. I mean,
Speaker 6: we kept putting them out, but like we knew it
Speaker 6: was like, it's going to be the very bottom. Like
Speaker 6: if it sells a thousand, great, but it's yeah. Nobody
Speaker 6: bought those, which I think, I think Sarno just has
Speaker 6: that cachet as a name that he's sort of a
Speaker 6: respectable exploitation guy. And I think they found out with
Speaker 6: the Blu-ray story coming on, they're like, you know, why
Speaker 6: is nobody buying these? Like, well, they never did. Like, yeah. Um,
Speaker 6: which is a shame. And you know, I love them,
Speaker 6: but it's like, they don't, they're almost like too respectable.
Speaker 6: They're a little too arty. I think, um, people just
Speaker 6: don't really know how to process it. Cause they don't
Speaker 6: really give you the goods. I think, um, even though
Speaker 6: they're very well made movies.
Speaker 3: Right. Like a Harry Novak, you get the goods.
Speaker 6: You do. You know, like Doris, Doris Wishman sold like hotcakes.
Speaker 6: I mean, Doris sold like crazy, no matter what it was.
Speaker 3: But the Sarnels give you a different kind of goods,
Speaker 3: you know, depends on what you're in it for, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 6: But it's, it's much harder to sell.
Speaker 2: Very much so. And I think that's probably why he
Speaker 2: jumped from producer to producer because people were like, well,
Speaker 2: we like the work you do and you do it
Speaker 2: quick and we like the movies, but they're not making money.
Speaker 2: So like, we can't keep doing business with you because
Speaker 2: we're not making money from you. And yeah, that's, and
Speaker 2: that is kind of, I thank you for confirming that.
Speaker 2: Cause I have been saying that for years. Cause Lisa
Speaker 2: and Mike have been like, yeah, Saunders don't really sell.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, Nathaniel would know. Hallows are sending
Speaker 2: the suburbs sold. And unfortunately, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm cutting this from the podcast so nobody hears this.
Speaker 3: Because we want to put out more Sarnos.
Speaker 2: Well, especially because now the ones that are lost are
Speaker 2: basically found. They just are... in a holding cell waiting
Speaker 2: to come out but if they don't accept it the
Speaker 2: problem is they won't sell so the question is how
Speaker 2: to get them in front of the eyes that's why.
Speaker 3: Yeah you put these out in like budget budget releases
Speaker 3: you know just pack them all on some kind of
Speaker 3: budget release that's you know i i don't see any
Speaker 3: other way to do it.
Speaker 2: I don't know maybe another lost picture show but that's
Speaker 2: how deep inside came out if they put out deep
Speaker 2: inside by itself that would have tanked Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, if you mix it with something else, that's how
Speaker 6: it's going to work. You can't, but if you do
Speaker 6: sort of by themselves, it's like, it just doesn't happen. Like,
Speaker 6: I don't know why it is, but there's just, there's
Speaker 6: a resistance in the public. There always has been. And I,
Speaker 6: I can never figure out how to crack it. It's like,
Speaker 6: how do you make people buy these things? And they
Speaker 6: just would not do it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because I feel like retro seduction was
Speaker 2: able to make those work. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's because they were color and in seventies and they had,
Speaker 2: they had familiar porno people in them, like Jennifer Wells.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also the Swedish stuff, so like Marie Forza and Butterflies,
Speaker 2: and they put those out. They were able to do
Speaker 2: very well with those, and I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was because they're not black and white and they're sexier.
Speaker 2: They kind of deliver more of the goods that you're expecting, maybe.
Speaker 6: Well, I think a title like Adventures of an American Housewife,
Speaker 6: that sells better. Great title. When you hear all the
Speaker 6: Sons of Sodom, like, what?
Speaker 3: I don't like that title.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Red Rose is a passion. Great title though. But yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of them not great. Well, was there ever
Speaker 2: a difference between sales for stuff that was clearly black
Speaker 2: and white versus stuff that was color? Was that ever
Speaker 2: like a big thing that you can think I can notice?
Speaker 6: Not so much as long as it has something exploitable. Um,
Speaker 6: like I said, the rough is also really well, um,
Speaker 6: I mean, even like odd things. I mean, even like
Speaker 6: something like Bwanga Bwanga, which is a ridiculous double feature,
Speaker 6: but it's all fine. Like it actually did pretty well.
Speaker 6: That's a good release.
Speaker 2: I like that one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it is. But like, I thought it was going
Speaker 6: to be a tougher sell than it was. Like I
Speaker 6: like people going, what? But it actually did okay. Like
Speaker 6: it did better than I thought it would. You know,
Speaker 6: but yeah, the black and white stuff, it tended to
Speaker 6: sell pretty well. The JD stuff, maybe not quite as,
Speaker 6: it did okay. Like the.
Speaker 2: How interesting.
Speaker 6: Teenage movies.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: They did fine. Like better than the Sarnas for sure.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Well, like Violent Years at least has the Ed Wood angle,
Speaker 2: but stuff like Lost, Lonely, and Vicious in Jacktown, probably
Speaker 2: a little tougher. Or like High School Big Shot, High
Speaker 2: School Caesar, and Date Bait. I love that triple feature,
Speaker 2: but I can see that being a little tougher. Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, my least favorite was always 50,000 BC and When
Speaker 2: Women Play Ding Dong or When Women Whatever. And I
Speaker 2: think that was the one that I really raked over
Speaker 2: the coals and I thought that I was going to
Speaker 2: get banned from reviewing those. I was like, guys, this
Speaker 2: is garbage. The transfers are garbage. The movies are garbage.
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, they're allowed to have a
Speaker 2: miss every once in a while. It can't all be great.
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it really is just by getting as
Speaker 2: much out as you can. And these were available and
Speaker 2: they thought they could market it, you know?
Speaker 1: No, exactly.
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, there's no way that everyone's going to
Speaker 6: like every title that they put out. I mean, it was,
Speaker 6: it was so all over the map. Like there's, there's
Speaker 6: absolutely impossible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Or like mighty Gorga, 1 million ACDC.
Speaker 6: Oh my Lord.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Like you said, like the, the kitty double features, it's like,
Speaker 6: I mean, there are certain, some of the weird customers
Speaker 6: are going to like, they won't even know how to
Speaker 6: process what's in front of their eyes.
Speaker 2: Like, I was like, Oh, great. Barry Mahon. Great. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Let's see what he can do with a kitty movie,
Speaker 2: you know? Uh, but yeah, I could see how that'd
Speaker 2: be a tougher sell.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what like Agfa has been doing is like
Speaker 3: putting some of that stuff in like those big drive-in
Speaker 3: releases and just like, Hey, just hit play. Just let
Speaker 3: it go.
Speaker 6: And just, Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I like their kitty. Their kitty said actually it was fun.
Speaker 6: Like that's kind of how you have to do it.
Speaker 6: Just make it like a nonstop, like marathon experience.
Speaker 3: It just video party.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It just like turns your brain to mush as you're
Speaker 6: watching it by the end. You're just drooling on your sofa.
Speaker 6: It's fine.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, yeah. I mean, Princess and the Frog is
Speaker 2: the good one on that, I think. I enjoy Princess
Speaker 2: and the Frog. I mean, it's no Jimmy the Boy Wonder,
Speaker 2: but I love that one.
Speaker 3: You love Jimmy's Boy Wonder.
Speaker 2: I do. I'm surprised that actually wasn't put out, but again,
Speaker 2: it's a kiddie thing. Actually, we were talking about these
Speaker 2: cut-down versions that you wish the full versions were released.
Speaker 2: We don't need the full version of Magic Land of
Speaker 2: Mother Goose. The cut-down version is fine. We don't need
Speaker 2: the full version of that. 30 minutes is perfect. I
Speaker 2: don't want the whole thing of that.
Speaker 6: Just like a Bellator movie where it's just like, oh,
Speaker 6: it's abstract.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm surprised that Herschel didn't try to
Speaker 2: make that argument. He was very honest. He was like, no,
Speaker 2: it's just some piece of shit that we were paid
Speaker 2: to make. Like this guy at a stage show and
Speaker 2: paid us to do it.
Speaker 3: Like, okay.
Speaker 2: That's what it looks like. That's what it is.
Speaker 6: It's like, it's like Dogville. It's all the stage. Life
Speaker 6: is a stage.
Speaker 2: Oh my God.
Speaker 3: Actually.
Speaker 2: Yes. It's very, it's a large venture. It's Dogman 95.
Speaker 2: It's a Dogman 95 experience, right? Jesus. Um, well, so,
Speaker 2: but so you're doing a lot of commentaries now for
Speaker 2: like Kino and a few other places, but are you,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember if you've been doing anything on
Speaker 2: like sexploitation or sexploitation adjacent stuff.
Speaker 6: Not a ton i mean i did do apocalypse sexual
Speaker 6: uh sex apocalypse of that from under macabre i've done
Speaker 6: a lot of euro sexploitation um but the thing is
Speaker 6: yeah like a lot of them are with bender syndrome
Speaker 6: rag for whoever it's like they kind of have their
Speaker 6: own stable um and for some reason i've done stuff
Speaker 6: for them in other capacities for some reason they don't
Speaker 6: they have their own sexploitation folks they do which is
Speaker 6: fine um so yeah for whatever reason i've done sexploitation
Speaker 6: in a while um but who knows if the novaks
Speaker 6: ever come around i'd be happy to jump on one
Speaker 6: and doing without Harry around would probably be a lot.
Speaker 2: Oh my God. Exactly. We can get you on a
Speaker 2: commentary with Mark Buckaloo. Get the real deal on what
Speaker 2: it was like to shoot these movies down the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere.
Speaker 3: Those are fun.
Speaker 6: And there's so much more stuff coming out now that,
Speaker 6: I mean, I've done my ton of just Frank goes
Speaker 6: and all that kind of stuff, but I mean, it's,
Speaker 6: it's just a, it's a nonstop pile of stuff. So.
Speaker 3: Well, in your tape, like your knowledge and your tastes
Speaker 3: are so well, broad you know you could cover just
Speaker 3: about anything.
Speaker 6: Yeah i mean it's kind of psychotic like i remember
Speaker 6: in like a one-week period i think i was doing
Speaker 6: like oh today i'm doing super coach where i'm doing
Speaker 6: dead and buried it's like yeah okay sure whatever like.
Speaker 2: Lord i'm sure this could be connected somehow.
Speaker 6: I don't know how probably in some way but.
Speaker 3: In some weird way right Yeah, those Buckaloos, you know,
Speaker 3: that I always look every now and then on eBay
Speaker 3: for that Southern collection that came out on DVD. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 2: The repackaging.
Speaker 3: It's like hundreds of dollars to get that set these days.
Speaker 3: So it's like, just redo that set in Blu-ray. I mean,
Speaker 3: you could basically just like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: It's right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that template is already set.
Speaker 6: It's quite promising, though.
Speaker 2: Actually, if it's going for good money, that's potentially... I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: that's what the Code Red boys did when they were like,
Speaker 2: how much does this VHS sell for on Amazon? Oh,
Speaker 2: like $ 300. We're going to try to re we're going
Speaker 2: to try to license this movie and get it for Blu-ray.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it works. Sometimes it didn't, but sometimes you go
Speaker 2: by that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Exploitation still sells like a lot. I think it would
Speaker 6: actually do really, really well if they did it as
Speaker 6: a set. And I was actually a little surprised because
Speaker 6: it image, but that was kind of later in the game.
Speaker 6: But when we're, you know, cause our sales team was
Speaker 6: talking to Mike and we were like, let's try it.
Speaker 6: Cause they were into doing box sets for a while.
Speaker 6: Cause that's what stores want. Like again, Walmart borders all
Speaker 6: that they wanted, you know, discounted sets and so we're
Speaker 6: like how can we do these and something where mike
Speaker 6: was to plot out how we could box set these
Speaker 6: things and what can we call them you know so
Speaker 6: we did like the storybook set.
Speaker 3: You know the storybook yeah yeah that was a really fun.
Speaker 6: One i love that set um but yeah they're all
Speaker 6: these pre-existing discs that we had out there it's like
Speaker 6: how can we just pack them together and did the
Speaker 6: southern set yeah we did all those and yeah they
Speaker 6: sold great so a lot of people still didn't have
Speaker 6: those and we're like oh okay i'll gamble on getting
Speaker 6: these you know these four or five you know dvds
Speaker 6: because i get like nine movies or whatever you know
Speaker 6: it was a great deal.
Speaker 3: That is a good deal.
Speaker 2: What was the one that Beast that Killed Women and
Speaker 2: Monster Came Sunshine went into? Was it like Beasts and
Speaker 2: Blondes or something? Something like that, yeah.
Speaker 6: Beast and Beauties, I think.
Speaker 2: Beast and Beauties, yeah, because I think Mighty Gorga might
Speaker 2: have been in there. Maybe. I don't remember. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: I just remember Beast that Killed Women was in there
Speaker 2: and I was like, what a great way to fool
Speaker 2: more people into watching this Barry Mahon movie. So, any
Speaker 2: way to trick people into watching Barry Mahon.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's all in the title. I mean,
Speaker 6: that thing sold like crazy. That's all it takes.
Speaker 2: That was something I would... Well, and that was always
Speaker 2: something nice. All the Barry Mahon shorts that would just
Speaker 2: show up randomly on basically every other release would have
Speaker 2: a Barry Mahon short on there. And the Instant Moonshine
Speaker 2: was on... Or Instant Orgy was on most of them,
Speaker 2: I think. That was a go-to. Yeah. Or Naked Moonshine.
Speaker 2: I think that's the other one, but... Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: miss it. I miss the good old days. As a consumer... Ask.
Speaker 3: Brett how the nude camera, nude Las Vegas is doing
Speaker 3: just because of the title. I wonder if it's seen
Speaker 3: a little uptick in sales because it has nude in the,
Speaker 3: in the name or if that hurts it these days.
Speaker 3: I don't know. People are scared.
Speaker 2: The slip cover is good on that. Like, and I
Speaker 2: can't believe the restoration work that went into that. Like,
Speaker 2: cause when we got, we got our comp, we got
Speaker 2: our comp copies on that. And I, I was excited
Speaker 2: to hear Brett did commentary on the outtakes and his
Speaker 2: commentary was essentially like, they had to recreate the movie
Speaker 2: essentially for a lot of it from the 16 millimeter
Speaker 2: originals that they found at the burlesque hall of fame
Speaker 2: and museum. So most of the movie is from that
Speaker 2: 16 millimeter original, and then it cuts to a 35
Speaker 2: print and you can see the difference, but like, that's
Speaker 2: the best looking color Barry Mahon movie that we have
Speaker 2: outside of the dead one on, on Blu-ray. And I,
Speaker 2: that might be the way it is. I don't see
Speaker 2: us getting a nice nudes on tiger reef or beast
Speaker 2: to kill women, actually piece to kill women maybe, but, um, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I want the black and whites. I
Speaker 2: want sex killer. I want prostitutes' protective society. Yes. Hot skin,
Speaker 2: cold cash.
Speaker 3: That'd be another good box set to do.
Speaker 2: The black and white Mahons?
Speaker 3: Put those all together, yep. Kind of like the, yeah,
Speaker 3: the roughy Mahon era. Something like that, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So basically, you and I need, so Nathaniel, you and
Speaker 2: I then need to basically... Do a group work on
Speaker 2: Mondo Macabro to convince them to do the Isabel Sarli.
Speaker 6: I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Speaker 2: I know. Well, the thing was, I was begging Pete
Speaker 2: and Andy for years. Now that Jared is so involved,
Speaker 2: I'm like, Jared, let me reintroduce you to a suggestion
Speaker 2: that I suggested for years. Maybe you'll be more receptive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think he would be. But he also has Neon
Speaker 2: Eagle now, so I don't know. He does a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff for Neon Eagle, which I love, too. But, yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like Surly is a no-brainer. I say no-brainers
Speaker 2: for a lot of stuff, but I'm like, well, I'd
Speaker 2: buy it. But I guess the question is the marketability.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're coming from the perspective of fans as well.
Speaker 3: But we also know that there are other factors going
Speaker 3: into decisions.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of crossover... Yeah. Like I'm thinking
Speaker 2: of like market it to like Latin, Latin, Latin Spanish
Speaker 2: speaking viewers who they potentially know who she is because
Speaker 2: there were like Spanish language prints of her stuff that
Speaker 2: would show in like Spanish only theaters in America. So
Speaker 2: like they would potentially know who she is. I think, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, she's the Argentinian Elizabeth Taylor. Margo is that,
Speaker 2: you know, she's in, she, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, uh, Well, yeah, Gentry knows. Gentry's
Speaker 2: writing the book on Annie Bell. I feel like there
Speaker 2: are so many unsung women that don't really get any attention.
Speaker 2: We can all love Laura Gemser, obviously, but then there's
Speaker 2: people like Isabel Sarli or Dagmar Lissander that don't really
Speaker 2: get enough attention.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no kidding. Where's our Laura Blu-ray, by the way?
Speaker 2: I've gotten, yeah, I am triggered. Yeah.
Speaker 3: David Gregory.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They tried looking for the elements and they kind of disappeared.
Speaker 6: Oh no.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought it was the rights owner. I thought it
Speaker 2: was a rights owner issue.
Speaker 3: The rights owner couldn't find the elements.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I looked back at the correspondence.
Speaker 2: The rights owner problem was for Bluebell, right? Was that
Speaker 2: the problem? Yeah.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's always worth a shot to ask again.
Speaker 3: That's what I say, you know, because they might turn up.
Speaker 3: They might find him in another room, you know. Right.
Speaker 6: Like the Acid Eaters commentary, like, yeah, he's checking in
Speaker 6: fighters later. Like, oh, it's right in front of me
Speaker 6: the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3: Or, you know, that Love Camp 7 audio commentary, that
Speaker 3: piece of that showed up on the Hotspur release. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: these things show up. Well, actually, as Mr.
Speaker 2: Caligula, I do have to ask you before we end.
Speaker 2: What did you think of the ultimate cut of that?
Speaker 6: Interesting.
Speaker 2: I came from it as, I don't know. Well, you
Speaker 2: might know because you were involved with the Blu-ray, which
Speaker 2: is kind of the ultimate edition that's come out in general.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they didn't ask Tinto Brass to
Speaker 2: just recreate what he wanted to do. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's because he's too old. I don't know if
Speaker 2: because he said no, but the fact that he basically
Speaker 2: was vocally publicly saying, don't watch this. I was like,
Speaker 2: I feel like this is a missed opportunity. I would
Speaker 2: have liked to have seen what his was. I don't
Speaker 2: know if Penthouse didn't want that, though.
Speaker 3: That's the thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's still legal things where they're like,
Speaker 2: keep him away from this.
Speaker 6: No, it's not a legal thing. It is a long,
Speaker 6: contentious story, which I can't say on the record.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, maybe it's time to hit the.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 9: I know.
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh girls, we can't just sit here feeling sorry for ourselves.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 4: To hear more shows from the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network,
Speaker 4: please select the link in the description.
Speaker 10: Hey everybody, this is Ryan from the New World Pictures Podcast,
Speaker 10: where we're on a mission to watch every movie ever
Speaker 10: made by New World Pictures. With me as always is Mark.
Speaker 10: Every movie? Every movie! Every movie? From the Roger Corman
Speaker 10: cult classics like Battle Beyond the Stars.
Speaker 3: Help!
Speaker 2: And the super weird stuff you've never even heard of
Speaker 2: like Eat and Run. Makes your tongue want to say, hey,
Speaker 2: it's nice in here.
Speaker 10: Yes, Mark. Every movie.
Speaker 6: And Erica.
Speaker 3: Every movie?
Speaker 10: Yes, Erica, every movie.
Speaker 3: Every movie.
Speaker 10: So we're still talking about Night 2.
Speaker 2: I've seen it.
Speaker 3: And all the bonus stuff too.
Speaker 2: We're talking things we love, things we hated, favorite scenes,
Speaker 2: inside jokes. And I know we're not at final questions,
Speaker 2: but are we still talking about Ryan's research?
Speaker 5: I know I am.
Speaker 10: So check out our website, newworldpicturespodcast.com or subscribe to the
Speaker 10: New World Pictures Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 10: Follow us on the socials. And we'll see you next
Speaker 10: time at the new world pictures podcast. Proud to be
Speaker 10: a part of someone's favorite productions podcast network.