Before Blue Was Blue

I find that period right before pornography became commonplace of incredible interest. I remember sitting in high school home room in 1973 when a somewhat plain girl pulled out the novelization of 'Deep Throat. Amazingly, she became very popular with the guys immediately. But it wasn't an easy transition, America still uncomfortable with the erotic, and it really isn't over yet.

Two movies particularly interest me, 'The First Nudie Musical' and 'Flesh Gordon'. They both were very popular at the drive-in down the road from where I worked as a short order cook back in the mid 1970s. Like clockwork, we would have a sunset rush, couples stocking up on cheesesteak subs before hitting whatever crap was playing. After feeding the projectionist nightly for months, we became friends. I had a free unlimited pass to watch whatever exploitation or sexploitation was showing under the night sky.

'The First Nudie Musical', despite an amazing amount of frontal nudity, manages to be completely non-offensive. Largely that is due to an intelligent script, decent songs, and the work of a group of actors who were currently appearing regularly on anything from 'The Partridge Family' to 'Marcus Welby M.D.'. Bruce Kimmel, a regular on 'Happy Days' and 'Donnie & Marie', wrote the script and the music, even co-directing it. A veteran of college and community theatrics, he had been writing musicals for years by the time this project came around.

The idea must have come from some of the Broadway plays that were making big money at the time. 'Hair' in 1967 featured an ending where the cast stripped naked on stage. 'Oh! Calcutta' was a review organized by Kenneth Tynan, contributions from Samuel Beckett to John Lennon. Both of these did huge business, gaining significant press coverage. Even as late as 1974, 'Let My People Come' was yet another sex musical with a successful run on Broadway.

Kimmel had a ton of songs combined with a burning desire to get something done. He took the notion one step further, imagining a sexploitation company on its last legs. Using plot devices as old as '42nd Street', he comes up with the absurd notion to rescue the studio with a 'nudie' musical, just like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland used to do at MGM. This allows for the insertion of a number of clever parodies of both the emerging porn world as well as the dying musical genre.

For this to work he needed the right actors. Through his connection in sitcom television, he was a able to get them. His old college friend was Cindy Williams. fresh off 'American Graffiti' , about to hit stardom with 'Laverne & Shirley'. Stephen Nathan had the lead role on Broadway in 'Godspell', one of many attempts to meld the hipness of 'Hair' with a biblical theme. With Kimmel in the third major role as well as other sitcom regulars such as Diana Canova in other important parts, the picture is well acted.

There are enough characters running through the picture, from grubby lecherous backers to jaded stage hands to wacky cast members, to keep the plot zipping along. It was a low budget affair, finished for less than $150,000. Paramount liked it, buying it, demanding that Kimmel chop out the worse ten minutes, giving him another $75,000 to punch up the gags. It worked; the biggest belly laugh in the film, the 'Dancing Dildos' scene, was added at the last minute, adding some true slapstick to the picture.

The real secret weapon was Cindy Williams, who gives the entire proceedings a slightly feminist slant. Everyone else plays it straight while she mugs, doing double takes while cracking wise. Watching her keep repeating the phrase 'stunt cock' is juvenile but hilarious. She has a wholesome appeal that helps ground the picture.

Kimmel gets to do the broadest comedy, channeling Jerry Lewis in a way similar to early Chevy Chase. He plays the fool well enough without overdoing it too much, ruthlessly editing himself in the process. It works; as the director who never gets to direct until the very end, he keeps things absurd, adding a refreshing naivety. His handling of the physical aspect of the comedy, especially done at such a low cost, is impressive.

While there is a ton of full frontal nudity and an endless series of sexual situations, none of the major players actually gets naked. The word 'nudie' in the tile should clue you in to the peekaboo nature of the plot. Any time someone refers to adult entertainment as 'nudie' or 'porno', they are outside looking in. Amazingly, the end result in this case almost approaches family entertainment despite the full frontal nudity and R rating.

It did very well at the box office, in the top five grossing movies for a while, until Paramount realized that Cindy Williams was about to replace Lucy as America's best-loved female comedian. Then the studio did everything they could to kill it. By that time, I had seen it at the drive-in, as had everybody else I knew. It was widely popular because it was exactly like a typical sitcom, except with lots of simulated sex. Genuinely funny and touching, there was even a decent parody soundtrack.

Eventually Bruce Kimmel was able to get the movie rights back, releasing it on DVD, where it became a huge cult favorite. A bit of an anomaly, representing a time before the adult industry became organized, it represent a simpler time. Yet it also ruthlessly lampoons Hollywood musicals, especial the Stanley Donen ones, with cranes shots and dramatic final close-ups. 'The First Nudie Musical' manages to have its cake and eat it too, a neat trick.

'Flesh Gordon', by contrast, was a complete mess from start to finish, taking over three years to complete, a tale of woe way beyond the scope of this blog. The biggest problem was that it originated from a couple of porn industry veterans who had no real film experience. As the project grew, the problems and challenges of creating a special effects movies kept multiplying. Add to that double dealings between business partners and a trigger happy vice squad, and it's a miracle the picture ever saw the light of day.

Bill Osco and Howard Ziehm were two low rent pornographers with no real film background, slowing expanding into longer adult movies while buying storefronts to show product. Ziehm had the notion to go upscale, to produce a parody of Flash Gordon, the ultra low budget science fiction serial that ran from 1936 until 1940. I remember this turkey playing on television all the time as a little kid. It had wretched production values; without that key notion, the rest of this story makes no sense.

What Osco and Ziehm lacked in talent or skill, they made up for in cash flow. With the help of another porn director, Michael Benveniste, they set about making their film in every wrong way possible. It took three years to complete, broke up the partnership, causing many arrests and court dates. They lucked out in finding a huge pool of talent in the Los Angeles area who loved monster movies, wanting to get into the business.

What they didn't realize was that in renting studio space, announcing in the trade press their production, that they were running afoul of the law. Contrary to popular myth, porn in the 1970s was not made in Los Angeles, at least not legally. 80% came from the Mafia controlled productions in and around New York City, the rest coming from groups like the Mitchell Brothers in San Francisco. Orange County was conservative, a company town, the kind of place that gave birth to the political careers of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. It wasn't until the 1980s when laws changed, giving rise to Porn Valley.

Osco and Ziehm fully intended to make a porn movie, straight and gay sex, full insertion shown. They were raided frequently, the vice cops seizing the raw footage. Lawyers would manage, after much money was spent, to get it back, minus all the naughty bits. They didn't know it at the time, but it was the best stroke of luck they would have.

Meanwhile, Ziehm lined up half a dozen special effects crews, all young guys hungry for work. Some walked because they weren't paid on time, some walked because of the content of the movie. All wanted their names taken off the finished product. Enough stuck it out for the two years of production to assemble a complete movie. They even got a write up in Penthouse discussing the production in progress, something completely new in an adult film up to then.

The production stumbled painfully ahead. Entire scenes were out of focus. The editor was fired, then the co-director. Various special effects teams screwed up their amateurish efforts, only to be taken over by better technicians. Howard Ziehm discovered that Bill Osco was skimming huge money from their partnership, letting him starve, dangling him unable to pay bills, while Osco bought expensive cars and Beverly Hills homes. Ziehm sued, winding up with the movie.

The cast was terrible except the lead actor playing Flesh, Jason Williams, who looked the part and was certainly no worse that Buster Crabbe in the original serial. He alone managed a career after this film. The finished movie was lumpy, uneven, the script juvenile in the worse way, the jokes mostly stupid. What saved it were the special effects, some of which were actually quite good, reflecting more in the technicians' fascination with Ray Harryhausen than in the original 'Flash Gordon'.

They were so good that there was talk of a nomination for an Oscar in Best Special Effects for 1974, even going so far as to rent a theater in the middle of the night to show the film, qualifying it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts. The Oscars wisely chose not to issue an award in that category that year. Finding a distributor was a problem, as was getting a musical score. At one point Frank Zappa was interested, but backed out after screening the movie.

It eventually made it into a theater in New York City, where porn was playing everywhere, and found distribution. Ziehm did a recut, tightening up scenes, adding a few optical effects to try and disguise out-of-focus shots. The finished movie was still a mess but did great business, playing in various cuts, all rated 'R', blanketing the nation, raking in cash. My projectionist friend had screened at least four variations, including a long-rumored 'X' cut. He was a friend, not a beacon of truth. That cut never existed except in the vice vault at the L.A. Sheriff's office.

Dino de Laurentiis finally did a terrible version of the REAL 'Flash Gordon' in 1980 that managed the rare trick of being worse than the porn parody, which could boast having four Oscar winners working on the special effects, even if their names aren't in the credits. Despite Max von Sydow and some decent if bombastic Queen music in the soundtrack, it is entirely too campy, displaying the worse green screen effects in any movie, ever. Then again, Dino had nearly killed the Kong franchise, so no one should have been surprised.

Two movies, both big box office, the good one being pulled by the studio, the bad one playing forever, neither really knowing what they were doing but making it to the finish line. That counts for something, at least. Cindy Williams at least owns up to her venture into sexploitation, even if Ron Howard won't. They don't make 'em like that anymore. The jury is still out on whether it's a good thing or bad.