Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Loop Odyssey, part 27 by Greg Dziawer

A lad and lass get to know each other in Nightclub Rendezvous.

Just prior to the launch of the Swedish Erotica loops in the early 1970s, adult movie honcho Noel Bloom produced a number of X-rated loops under the Danish International Films imprint. These short erotic films were among the first of their kind to be subtitled. This is significant, since I believe that Edward D. Wood, Jr. penned some or all of these subtitles and provided similar services for other loop series. 

Although Swedish Erotica would ultimately become his company's primary loop series, Noel Bloom continued to push the Danish angle throughout the decade. In 1975, just a few years after Danish International Films, Bloom et al. launched the Danish Films series. An early title in this franchise, Nightclub Rendezvous, was not only subtitled, but was also featured in issue two of Danish Films magazine. (There seems to have only been two issues of this publication.) The Danish films loops are strikingly similar to the Swedish Erotica loops—running concurrently and seemingly made by the same creative principles.

Interestingly, Nightclub Rendezvous—labeled #1006 and designated the sixth entry in the Danish Films franchise—opens with the same "logo" as some of the earlier Danish International Films: a young lady licking a large swirled lollipop as she enticingly looks back over her shoulder at us.

From the text in the magazine, we learn that the male and female protagonists are named Larry and Billie. In the loop itself, the only other character, a bartender, is referred to as Duffy.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Loop Orbit, Part Six by Greg Dziawer

This lady from Danish International Films enjoys a lollipop.

Wood in Bloom: Little Flowers

Late last week, I was sitting around watching porn loops, if you can believe it. Specifically, 8mm loops from the early '70s, by inference part of the larger orbit of short pornographic films that are somehow connected to Edward D. Wood, Jr.

A massive swirled lollipop in Petite Fleur.

For me, it was revelatory to spot another massive swirled lollipop, just like the one from the Danish International logo. Danish International Films was a silent 8mm home-market loop series produced by Noel Bloom, son of Ed's boss Bernie Bloom at a variety of adult magazine imprints from the late 1960's through 1978, the year of Ed's passing. The series initiated circa 1972, by my estimation, running through 1976. Some films were subtitled, some also appearing on the imprints of other related loop series, like Sex & the Gun, which began as a Cinema Classics loop. The bedspreads and furniture and set decorations link up with the first 19 loops produced in the Boom-produced Swedish Erotica series. Those loops are commonly attributed to Ed Wood. The set decorations and associated bric a brac also link up with Necromania and The Young Marrieds, as far as we know the final two feature films Ed directed (though I increasingly doubt this). 

I digress. As I was transcribing the subtitles to the silent loop Petite Fleur, I received a message from a writer named Flash, asking me a few questions about the loops. He is studying those first 19 Swedish Erotica loops generally credited to Ed, and writing a review of Cinefear's pioneering pair of discs collecting them, and we messaged briefly about related matters.

Flash first asked me if I thought Ed padded his resume. Although Ed was, per Kathy Wood and I'm equally guilty as charged here, a bullshit artist—his ballyhoo is there, among other places, in the loop box cover summaries—I don't think he padded his list of accomplishments. I have not seen the full document, but enough has been shared to arrive at this conclusion. 

A skinny, affectless hippie in Petite Fleur.

If anything, Ed's CV was probably too modest. There are likely dozens of paperbacks unaccounted for on the resume, for instance. There are certainly magazine short stories and articles unaccounted for. And there is a whole world of miscellaneous writing and other work, including but not limited to: loop box cover summaries, which also became insert cards/catalogs for chunks of entire series, packaged with the loops; captions for magazine photo features and illustrated sociosex paperbacks; and a seeming multitude of loops falling outside of the resume's listing of 716 "short picture subjects" from 1971 through 1973. Ed's Orbit is staggering, perhaps even across the endless reaches of time. 

Flash asked me if I thought Ed "made" (read: directed) those 716 loops. I don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out. Make smart inferences. Keep emotions in check and override with reason. 2 + 2 does always equal 4, it turns out. A FACT!

The subtitles to Petite Fleur correspond to same across hundreds of other loops in evidently related series. Petite Fleur shows a coupling between a skinny, affectless hippie with a goatee and a hard dick, and a pretty young free-spirit—over-dramatic and rolling her eyes wildly—with a topknot. 

Below, I have transcribed the subtitles exactly as they appear onscreen, along with my interpretation of who is the intended "speaker" of each line.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Loop Orbit, Part One by Greg Dziawer

Only the finest in home entertainment from Danish International Films.

The title screen from Prudish Secretary.

In a recent Wood Magazine Odyssey here at Ed Wood Wednesdays, we took a look at the text accompanying a photo feature in an issue of Danish Films magazine, ultimately surmising that it may have been written by Ed. The photos were taken from a Danish Films 8mm loop released to the home market under the Danish Films label as #1010 Young and Proper, starring the now-legendary pair John Holmes and Annette Haven. The Danish Films label was closely related to Swedish Erotica. The girls wear the tell-tale colored chiffon neck scarves, and the box covers even display the tell-tale "triple-dot" ellipsis. The Danish Films loops, seemingly a brief series, hailed from 1976.

The aforementioned Young and Proper was also released as Prudish Secretary under a different imprint, this time silent with subtitles. The logo opening the loop is that of Danish Films International, a series of 30+ loops made under the aegis of Bernie and Noel Bloom—one of literally dozens before they finally landed on and stuck to their epic Swedish Erotica series—stretching back to 1973. The font style of the credits is the same as in Swedish Erotica loops issues from approximately 1976 through 1978. Credits don't appear in earlier Bloom-related loops going back at least until 1970, and much Swedish Erotica material was undated. Prudish Secretary runs, depending on projection speed, roughly 15 minutes. The Danish Films cut runs at least a few minutes shorter and carries the year 1976 on the back of the box. 

The credit sequence with the characteristic font.

We know that Ed was captioning loops, but as always, the full extent of his involvement is yet unknown. Hence, we're including the subtitles that appear in Prudish Secretary as part of our new Wood Orbit, an endeavor that will merely highlight work in which Ed may have been involved in some capacity, sensitive to making any false claims of authorship via reckless mis-Ed-tributions of the sort you'll find on eBay. 

The subtitles are characteristically brief:

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Magazine Odyssey, Part Twelve by Greg Dziawer

Annette Haven (left) and John Holmes worked for Danish Films. Did Ed Wood?

Prudish & Proper

Even Seka wore the scarf.

While we like to debunk false claims of Ed Wood's authorship around here, every now and then something comes up compelling us to go against the grain and make a claim of authorship of our own. In this week's Ed Wood Wednesdays, we're going the latter route, looking at an uncredited text from a now-obscure magazine.

The Danish Films loop series, a brief series running for roughly 20 (currently known) titles, was related to Swedish Erotica. These loops are clearly the forerunners of the next wave of Swedish Erotica loops: cast members, aesthetic, even the de rigueur candy-colored chiffon scarves the girls wear tied around their necks. Often all they are wearing, and done for branding purposes, those trademark scarves appear sporadically through SE loop #132 in 1978 and remain standard from that point forward right into the videotape era. It all carries over. Even an expert would be forgiven for mistaking a Danish Films loop for a Swedish Erotica loop. And there were corresponding magazines that featured images and on-set stills from the loops accompanied by anonymous text, just like the Swedish Erotica film review magazines.

Of course, the majority of these loops were neither Danish or Swedish, but rather shot in '70s SoCal and often featuring the biggest stars of Golden Age hardcore. The Swedish Erotica loop series, as is now generally agreed, kicked off with Ed Wood making the first 19 loops circa 1973. I could go into far greater detail, and will in future articles, but for now it's only necessary to sketch these highlights for context. 

What we're really interested in is answering this question: Did Ed Wood write the following text?