Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Loop Odyssey, Part 13 by Greg Dziawer

Ed Wood hoped to clean up in the adult film business.

Over the last few years, Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s involvement in the porn industry has been increasingly well documented, and more of his adults-only material has come to light. Outside of his pornographic features, such as Necromania (1971) and The Young Marrieds (1972), Ed is most closely associated with the original Swedish Erotica loops that were first released circa 1973. But even Ed's dedicated fans may not know that he continued to work on silent X-rated loops throughout the 1970s, well after that first wave of Swedish Erotica titles.

These short erotic films still intrigue me. They were produced by Noel Bloom, son of Bernie Bloom, Ed Wood's boss at Pendulum Publishing. Eddie wrote a wide array of magazine texts for Pendulum during the '60s and '70s, and this led directly to him working on Noel's X-rated films.

It's likely that, by the mid-1970s, the erratic, hard-drinking Ed was no longer working on set. However, as I've surmised over and over in previous articles, he continued writing box cover summaries and subtitles for Noel Bloom's loops right up until his passing in 1978. These summaries and subtitles contain textual elements that are highly consistent with Ed's overall writing style. I'm constantly experiencing déjà vu while watching these loops. (And writing these articles, for that matter.)

As an example of what I've been discussing, I transcribed the subtitles from Swedish Erotica loop #92, "Bubble Bath." Did Ed Wood write these lines? I say yes, but draw your own conclusions.

BUBBLE BATH 

John: WHAT'S KEEPING HER? 

John: SHE LOOKS GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT 

Girl: CUM HERE 

John: THERE 

John: LET'S DRY OFF 

John: COME ON LET'S GO 

John: OHHH!!!! 

John: COME HERE COME HERE 

Girl: OHHH!!!! 

Girl: AHHH!!!! 

Girl: OHHH!!!! 

Girl: AHHH!!!!! 

Girl: KEEP PUMPING FEELS SO GOOD 

Girl: OH, JOHN DEEPER, DEEPER 

Girl: OH THAT FEELS SO GOOD 

John: TURN OVER 

Girl: AHHH!!!!! 

John: AHHH!!!!!

"Long John" Holmes.

As you might have guessed, "Bubble Bath," stars porn legend John Holmes, the leading man of the Swedish Erotica franchise, alongside series regular Virginia Winter. Exact years of production for the SE loops are hard to pin down, but we can confidently state that this particular film was made around 1975 or '76. By then, most of Bloom's numerous other series had faded away, leaving Swedish Erotica as his flagship title. Noel's filmmaking operation, which started humbly as Cinema Classics in the late 1960s, had morphed into the porn behemoth Caballero Control Corp. by the late '70s.

Caballero continued recycling the Swedish Erotica loops on VHS in the '80s. "Bubble Bath," for instance, appears on Vidco Entertainment's John Holmes, Vol. 6: Young & Hung. This tape contains a dozen of Holmes' Swedish Erotica loops, half of which are subtitled. It's remained in print ever since and is available both on disc and streaming.

Ed Wood's cult fame grew during the VHS era as his films became more easily available, but few knew that his porn work had been circulating right under our noses all the while. And this material remains available today. With its spare subtitles favoring grunts and groans over language, "Bubble Bath" is decidedly one of the least wordy of these captioned loops. For the record, it contains a mere 18 lines and 46 words. At an average of 2.6 words per line, given Ed's prodigious speed as a writer, the subtitles for "Bubble Bath" could not have taken him more than a few minutes to whip up. I'd estimate around eight minutes. That's the approximate length of an 8mm loop, assuming Ed even watched it at all.

Conversely, Wood's box cover summary is florid and overheated:

In the privacy of her bathroom a voluptuous and fabulously built young girl undresses to take a luxurious bubble bath. Her boyfriend, superstud Long John Holmes lies on the bed waiting for her to return, but the sounds of her splashing playfully in the tub, and the thought of that fantastic body, make him go to her. Once in the water his hands creek underneath to the waiting flesh and when his touch sends tingles of illicite [sic] pleasure that make her shudder with delight, they leave the tub for more complete action in the bedroom. Here it's John and the girl at their best, and the explosive climax is as tremendous as the rest of this fantastic film.

You can watch Young & Hung in its entirety here. "Bubble Bath" is the fourth loop, but the tape includes a variety of subtitled films. Keep your eyes peeled for one of the earliest Swedish Erotica loops, #7 "Park Lovers" with Eve Orlon, as well as one of the very last of the subtitled SE films, #132 "Rectum Hell," which also boasts one of the most sublime titles of all time. In addition to the summaries and subtitles, could Ed have also written loop titles? That's something I hadn't considered much before.

EXTRA: Here is an index of the subtitled loops contained in John Holmes, Vol. 6: Young & Hung.

• 3.   "Rectum Hell." Loop #132. Featuring John Holmes and Eileen Welles.
• 4.   "Bubble Bath." Loop #92. Featuring Holmes and Victoria Winter.
• 5.   "Park Lovers." Loop #7. Featuring Holmes and Eve Orlon.
• 6.   "Black Is Bigger?" Loop #56. A Danish loop featuring Holmes and acquired as part of Bloom's international distribution deal with Color Climax.
• 7.   "Rear Attitude." Loop #123. Featuring Holmes and Eileen Welles.
• 9.   "Anatomy Lesson." Loop #72. Another Danish loop featuring Holmes, this time with Brigit.