Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Young Marrieds Odyssey, Part 8 by Greg Dziawer

Let's revisit Ed Wood's final feature, The Young Marrieds.

The XX Series.

I was scanning through screen captures of 1970s adult loops over the weekend when the thumbnails from one particular movie caught my eye. Although they were in black & white—8mm shorts were commonly sold in either color or black & white—I immediately recognized them as being from Ed Wood's final known feature as a director, The Young Marrieds (1972). Specifically, these images came from a sex scene early in the film in which protagonist Ben, an unsatisfied husband, picks up a strange woman outside of a strip club.

There was a time when The Young Marrieds was essentially unknown. In Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992), author Rudolph Grey briefly mentions the title but seems unsure if it's a distinct film. On page 192, he writes:

The Only House appears to be the plot of Wood's 1971 film Necromania. At the same time, Wood also made the film The Young Marrieds, which may also be known as The Only House.

Today, we know that The Only House in Town (1971), Necromania (1971), and The Young Marrieds are three separate films.

 

Decades after Grey's book, two different versions of The Young Marrieds would turn up on disc. And then came the realization that it had been released in the UK on tape way back in 1981 and that an 8mm short of this very scene was sold in the UK via mail order around the same time. What other iterations derived from The Young Marrieds may still be out there, waiting to be discovered?

For the record, the loop I mentioned at the beginning of the article turned up with the title Nymphomaniac on The XX Series label, a lengthy series of shorts connected to producer Noel Bloom and carrying a 1972 copyright. We discussed one loop in the series previously here, and you can learn more at the indispensable Adult Loop Database here and here.

In many of these articles, I merely speculate that Ed Wood may have the directed the loop discussed. In this case, however, it's s a sure thing!