Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "Bedroom Scene" (1971)

In the 1970s, you could rent a lovely bedroom like this to make a pornographic movie!

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).

The article: "Bedroom Scene." Originally published in Swap (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 5, no. 4, October/November 1971. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Excerpt: "There are many tricks to the trade and the quickie, cheapie, girlie, nudie, skin flickers are quick to learn them. And that which can't be learned are invented then passed on. There is always something new under the sun and there had better be or we would all become stagnant."

Masking tape: An editor's best friend.

Reflections: His mainstream (or at least semi-mainstream) film career far behind him, Edward D. Wood, Jr. became a prolific director of pornographic movies in the 1970s. Exactly how prolific, we may never know, but we can be certain that he made a handful of adult features, including Necromania (1971) and The Young Marrieds (1972), and dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of short films or loops.

What makes the 1971 article "Bedroom Scene" so interesting is that it offers us Eddie's first-hand account of what it was like to make X-rated movies during this turbulent era, just as censorship laws were weakening and films were becoming bolder in their depiction of sex. This is the view from the trenches, so to speak. I doubt if the readers of Swap, a magazine about the swinging lifestyle, really cared to hear Ed Wood complain about lab costs and limited shooting schedules. But that's what they got.

Actually, Ed does tailor this article to fit the specific theme of this magazine. He talks about the specific challenges of filming orgy scenes:

The larger of the swap parties are about the hardest of the scenes to film because there is so much more of an area needed for filming. That's when the small stages become useless and other settings must be arranged. It can't be the larger studios because they are much too expensive. The small studios run from fifty to seventy-five dollars a day depending upon the equipment and/or sets available.

Okay, maybe that's not terribly sexy, but it is interesting from a historical perspective. Eddie also lets us know that the budget for a typical pornographic movie does not allow for such niceties as fades and dissolves, both of which add to those aforementioned lab costs. Fortunately, editors have figured out how to create crude fade-ins using ordinary black masking tape. "It's not the best way of doing things," Ed explains, "especially if the editor's knife is dull or he has a hang over and can't cut a straight line. But it is still more effective than if there was nothing."

Problems like these were not specific to the porn industry. On the DVD commentary track for his horror film Two-Thousand Maniacs (1964), Herschell Gordon Lewis explains how he did as many effects in-camera as possible, thereby avoiding extra expense at the processing lab. 

For the most part, "Bedroom Scene" is a litany of complaints about how difficult it is to make a dirty movie. The budgets are so low that a director may have to serve as his own cameraman and editor. Sometimes, there isn't even enough time to change the scenery, forcing quick rewrites of the script. A scene that was supposed to take place in a bedroom might take place in an office or vice versa. And that's when there's even a screenplay to start with! These, too, are a luxury. Ed is keenly aware that low-budget porno movies are "lacking in just about everything," leading to "tremendous gripes by some patrons." Fortunately, these movies deliver the sex and nudity the audience demands.

My favorite part of "Bedroom Scene" is this little tragicomic anecdote:

Recently one producer of former "B" pictures was asked to do a skin flick for a new producer. The former producer's pictures were budgeted at between forty and sixty thousand dollars each. Thus when he asked what his budget would be the new, young producer said five thousand dollars and the older man dropped dead on the spot. 

The part about the budgets is likely accurate, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the "producer" Ed Wood is describing is really himself. And we know he didn't drop dead when he started making porno films. That wouldn't happen for a few more years.

P.S. Incidentally, this is the third time this exact issue of Swap has been mentioned on this blog. Back in November 2014, I reviewed "Taking Off," a short story from this same issue. And just a few months ago, Greg Dziawer shared with us an editorial from the contents page. It looks like the October/November 1971 edition of Swap was a veritable goldmine for Ed Wood fans!

Next: "The Documentary" (1971)