Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Paperback Odyssey, Part Five by Greg Dziawer

The elusive T.K. Peters, sometimes misidentified as Ed Wood.

Encyclopedia of Sex ad

As I prepared to write this week's Ed Wood Wednesdays article, I decided to do a quick search of eBay, to see if the old myth of Dr. T.K. Peters being a pseudonym of Ed Wood still persists. You guessed it (merely one example, sadly). Apart from inflating prices, it continues to muddy the waters of Woodology, this muddying now its own niche within the larger spectrum. Dr. T.K. Peters was real, and we'll refute some counter-claims that his esteemed name was "borrowed" from the real "Kim" in future Ed Wood Wednesdays.

In the past, Pendulum Publishers, Inc. and its myriad offshoot imprints (covered ad nauseam in previous posts) published two series of photo-illustrated sexual paperbacks in the early 1970s, sourced from the comprehensive sexual study by Dr. T.K. Peters that he sold to Pendulum boss Bernie Bloom (itself rooted in his work as a marriage counselor in Atlanta from 1950 through 1965, following his retirement from Oglethorpe University...but that's another story that WILL be told). 

Fully three-fourths of the Peters' titles constituted SECS Press' (an unincorporated Pendulum imprint) Encyclopedia of Sex, the rest being the Sexual Enlightenment Series published under the Calga imprint, unleashed just on the cusp of legal, accessible and affordable hardcore sexual imagery via multi-media. For some alchemical reason, the censorship damn bursting encouraged a propensity toward the weird, the extreme and the just plain fucking nuts. In all, between Ed's own resume and an additional few titles in his collection with title-page inscriptions by him, Ed wrote or co-wrote roughly 25% of the Peters paperbacks. That index, too, is another story. Suffice to say that Ed's cohort on West Pico in the Pendulum mag office played a large role in the Pendulum Peters canon. Ed collaborated with fellow staffers Charles D. Anderson and Leo Eaton. William D. "Bill" Jones produced Peters, and so did Robin "Redbreast" Eagle. They did this under a slew of pseudonyms, one of them, Norman Bates, still falsely claimed a pseudonym of Ed. It's impossible to talk about T.K. Peters without running into these clumsy mis-Ed-tributions. That's a charitable statement and I'll leave it at that.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Lost Greg Javer/Keith Crocker Commentaries [PART TWO]

Yes, it's already time for a sequel.

I can still remember a few years back when Greg Javer aka Greg Dizawer excitedly emailed me about an Ed Wood project he was working on for Severin Films. To be honest, I didn't quite understand what the project was. I knew that it had something to do with a company restoring and rereleasing some of Ed's adult movies from the 1960s and 1970s, but beyond that, I was in the dark. Eventually, what resulted from all this was a three-disc collection called Hard Wood: The Adult Features of Ed Wood (2024).

It gives me some consolation to know that Greg was still alive when Hard Wood was released on Blu-ray. It's also nice to know that Greg lived to see Ed Wood receive an official New York State historical marker in his hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY. Greg's time on this planet was far too brief, but he managed to have a lasting impact on the field of Woodology.

And we still haven't heard the last of Greg, a year and change after his death! Recently, reader Brendon Sibley sent me some commentary tracks that Greg recorded with film archivist Keith Crocker that were intended for Hard Wood but did not make it into the released version of that set. Drawing on their vast knowledge of vintage erotica, Greg and Keith recorded their reactions to six of the Swedish Erotica loops that Eddie allegedly made in the early 1970s. What was the full extent of Ed's involvement in these silent movies? That's been a subject of debate for decades, and these commentary tracks hopefully provide some insight.

Last week, we presented Greg and Keith's thoughts on The Virgin Next Door (parts 1 and 2) and Western Lust. This week, let's enjoy their commentary tracks for Girl on a Bike, 15" Commercial, and Devil Cult. Again, I had to distort the visuals just a bit to appease the YouTube and Blogger censors, neither of whom would have allowed me to post these films as they originally appeared. You'll just have to imagine actor Keith Erickson's skin tag, among other things.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Lost Greg Javer/Keith Crocker Commentaries [PART ONE]

Keith and Greg talk Ed. (Header image by Brendon Sibley.)

Not long before he died, Greg Javer (aka Greg Dziawer) contributed some commentary tracks to the deluxe three-disc collection Hard Wood: The Adult Features of Ed Wood (2024) from Severin Films. Looking back, this was one of the last major Wood-related projects of Greg's too-brief life. If you purchase that set, you can hear him give his thoughts on Necromania (1971), The Only House in Town (1971), and The Young Marrieds (1972). If you're missing Greg, and I know many of you are, these tracks allow you to spend some time with him.

But these were not the only recordings Greg made for Hard Wood. He and I, for example, recorded a jovial and hopefully informative commentary for the rowdy, rural comedy Shotgun Wedding (1963), which Eddie scripted for director Boris Petroff. Unfortunately, that track got lost in the shuffle and never made it into the finished set. If you're interested in hearing it, I have made it available in a previous blog entry.

Meanwhile, teaming up with film historian Keith Crocker, Greg recorded commentary tracks for six (!) of the adult loops that Ed Wood made as part of the Swedish Erotica series in the early 1970s. These, too, were unfortunately lost in the shuffle and did not make it into Hard Wood. But fear not! Recently, reader Brendon Sibley forwarded these tracks to me and asked for me to present them on my blog. How could I resist an offer like that? 

In fact, I will devote this week and next to the lost Javer/Crocker commentaries. Three this week, three next week. Does that sound like a plan? For obvious reasons, I cannot present the loops without some visual distortion. YouTube has very little sense of humor about these things.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 239: The return of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast

Straighten that tie, mister! We've got a show to do!

When my late colleague Greg Javer (1968-2024) started The Ed Wood Summit Podcast back in January 2021, I'll admit that I didn't immediately see the full potential of the project. After all, what could he accomplish through videos that we weren't already accomplishing through our weekly articles about the life and career of Edward D. Wood, Jr.? I was more than happy to participate in the series, but I couldn't yet envision where Greg was going with this thing.

Well, I soon learned what made The Ed Wood Podcast so special. It became the ideal place to discuss Ed Wood and his work, both as a writer and a filmmaker. I was proud to be a guest on the show numerous times, usually reviewing Ed's books and stories. Other guests included such dedicated Wood experts as James Pontolillo, Milton Knight, W. Paul Apel, Rob Huffman, Mike H, and Robert Monell. In a very special episode from April 2023, the show even welcomed actress Casey Larrain, who'd worked with Ed on such films as Love Feast (1969) and Nympho Cycler (1971). 

At the center of it all was Greg himself, the Zen master of Woodology. He had all the qualities of a good host and moderator: curiosity, humor, patience, empathy, etc. The world could use a few million more of him. Greg is gone now, but it would be a shame for The Ed Wood Podcast to disappear with him. In that spirit, a few veterans of the podcast have reconvened to record the long-delayed 34th episode. The topic of discussion is an extremely obscure pulp novel from 1966 entitled Wild Nympho. It's credited to a mysterious one-and-done author named Matt Ronson, but could it really be the work of Ed Wood? That's what we're here to find out.

Our moderator, Rob Huffman, has also uploaded the episode to his own, excellent YouTube channel.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 233: Let's endure Ed Wood's 'Devil Cult' (1973)

This young lady is either having a great time or a terrible one in Ed Wood's Devil Cult.

I don't know sometimes, you guys.

Since my colleague Greg Javer died last December, I've occasionally found myself wondering what kind of articles he would have written for this series if he had lived. It's impossible to say, since Greg's interests went in so many different directions. There was no aspect of Ed Wood's life or career that escaped his attention. At any given time, Greg might have been pursuing a dozen different threads simultaneously. Occasionally, I'd nag him into turning something he was exploring into an article that I could actually publish on my blog. And he would.

Quite a few of Greg's articles dealt with the loops, i.e. the short, usually silent 8mm pornographic films (both gay and straight), that Ed Wood made in the 1970s. Eddie wrote and/or directed many of these films himself, and especially "hot" scenes from his features like The Young Marrieds (1972) and The Only House in Town (1970) were also marketed separately as loops. These short films were generally sold through mail-order—and none too cheaply, either—so that viewers with their own projectors and screens could watch them in privacy at home. Hey, this was life before the internet, folks.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 207: (Yet) Another Deep Dive into the Huffman Files

Emails! I get emails! I get stacks and stacks of emails!

In these strange, sad weeks following the death of my friend Greg Javer, I've found some comfort in the knowledge that Woodology—the study of Ed Wood's life and career—will carry on without him. It'll carry on without me someday, too. Greg was the most prominent contributor of material to this series, but he was far from the only one. Over the years, people like Bob Blackburn, James Pontolillo, Keith Crocker, W. Paul Apel, and Philip R. Frey have sent films, texts, photos and more my way. I'm grateful to all of you.

One of my more persistent emailers is a true zealot named Rob Huffman. He regularly supplies me with press clippings and other oddities that he's found in his research. Sometimes, I feel a little guilty that I can't always respond to his emails in a timely fashion. There are only so many hours in a day, you know? But I thought that you and I could go through some of Rob's recent finds together. How does that sound?

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 206: Greg Javer (1968-2024)

"The bell has rung on his great career."

"Where's Greg?"

That is the question I've gotten most frequently over the last year and a half from readers of this blog. The remarkable Greg Javer, a soft-spoken Pennsylvanian who often wrote under the name Greg Dziawer, contributed a great deal of material to this series from 2015 to 2023. He started out with numerous Ed Wood Wednesdays articles before eventually launching his own series of YouTube videos called The Ed Wood Summit Podcast. His interests were wide-ranging, even within the seemingly limited field of Woodology. He was just as likely to cover Eddie's childhood in Poughkeepsie as he was to discuss Ed's pornographic loops of the 1970s.

He was, in short, a major player in the world of Wood research and a significant presence on this blog for eight years. He was also my friend, someone I just loved talking to and working with on various projects. Then, about midway through last year, he vanished. The articles stopped. The videos stopped. Even the emails (for the most part) stopped. Where had he gone, people wondered? I am not one to pry, so I didn't. I'd occasionally hear rumors that he had other matters—perhaps personal, perhaps professional—to attend to. I trusted that he'd eventually find his way back into this strange, little world and would contact me when he was ready to start anew. It just never happened.

On Sunday, December 1, 2024, we finally received a definitive answer about what had happened to Greg, and the news could not have been worse. Not long after receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis, he died at the far-too-young age of 56, leaving behind a daughter, Elyse Rosario, and his partner of 18 years, Jennifer "Kitten" Rosario. I can't help but think how he only outlived Ed Wood by two years (Eddie died at 54 in 1978) and that both men were claimed in the month of December. I wonder if those same thoughts occurred to Greg in his final days.

I asked Jennifer to say a few words in remembrance of Greg, and here is how she responded:

A passionate admirer of Ed Wood Jr., he combined his love of film with his dedication to research and writing, leaving his mark as a contributing author. He found joy in life’s simple pleasures—reading, spending time with family, and delving into thought-provoking documentaries. One thing I want to note is that he considered all of you real friends. I could log into his Gmail right now and find numerous emails of people checking in on him, along with text messages. I can't make every name, but everyone he has worked with since the start of this Ed Wood Jr. journey would fall under this umbrella, at least 10 years or more.  He would tell me a story or something that was found, and it always started with "my buddy ____" or "my friend ___." And I know he cherished each and every friendship made along the way.

Rob Huffman has started a GoFundMe to cover some of Greg's final expenses. The proceeds will go directly to Jennifer and Elyse. Please consider donating. Every little bit helps, as they say. And, if you can't afford it, please forward the link to others on social media so that they can donate. It's the least we can do, considering all Greg did for us.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 205: 'Ed Wood, Secret Agent' (2013)

You can almost hear the theme song, can't you?

NOTE: We lost someone very special this week. On Sunday, December 1, 2024, Greg Javer, aka Greg Dziawer, died unexpectedly of cancer. I'd known of his illness but not that he was terminal, so this news came as a great and horrible shock. Greg wrote many articles for this blog, and we also recorded numerous episodes of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast together. I considered Greg a good friend, and he was extremely generous with his research. A proper tribute to him will appear on this blog once I have all the facts assembled. 

This week, I'd simply like to share a story by author Colin Schmidt that appeared in, of all places, an Australian Dr. Who newsletter in 2013. It imagines Ed Wood as a Mission: Impossible-type secret agent, with Criswell, Tor Johnson, and Bela Lugosi as his teammates. This story was sent to my email account by someone who was looking for Greg! I dutifully forwarded it on to Greg, but he never rendered an opinion on it. I'm pretty sure he would have enjoyed it, though, and I'm pretty sure you will, too.  J.B.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 157: I Watched Football Early the Day I Died (2023)

An unproduced Ed Wood script from the 1970s has now seen the light of day.

Francis William "Frank" Leahy. Now, where did I first run across that hallowed name from sports history? Probably in issue #11 of  Cult Movies magazine, which reported that Ed Wood wrote an unproduced film about him circa 1975 called The Frank Leahy Legend. After a tiny bit of digging, I soon learned that Ed's script was based on a book by Bernard J. Williams and that the unmade screenplay still existed and was languishing in an archive in Los Angeles somewhere. Not being a football fan myself, I probably never would have heard of Leahy, who died in 1973, otherwise. He just wasn't on my radar.

A new book from Bear Manor.

I could have pursued this case further, but I simply never got around to it. What can I say? Ed Wood wrote a lot of things in his 54 years, and a script about a 1940s Notre Dame football coach somehow didn't seem as exciting as a novel about a cross-dressing hitman or a movie about wife-swapping suburbanites. Life is short, as both Ed Wood and Frank Leahy knew all too well. So I let The Frank Leahy Legend stay on the shelf. 

But a couple of dedicated Woodologists, W. Paul Apel and Greg Javer, decided to hunt down the Leahy script, and now their findings have been published in a new book from Bear Manor Media called I Watched Football Early the Day I Died. In addition to the complete screenplay, rescued from the Loyola Marymount University archives, this volume contains a foreword by Bob Blackburn, friend to Ed's widow Kathy, and introductory notes by Greg and Paul. Best of all, Paul provides explanatory notes throughout the entire screenplay; it's like a commentary track for a movie that was never made.

While reading the screenplay, I kept thinking of a quote from the notorious John Andrews in Nightmare of Ecstasy: "Eddie wrote a horror script that would have been fine for 1934 but not 1974." Yeah, even during his booziest, porn-iest, most debauched years, Eddie could get mired in the past sometimes. What's most amazing about The Frank Leahy Legend is that Ed Wood (or anyone) considered it to be marketable to jaded movie audiences who'd already seen The Godfather (1972) and The Exorcist (1973). Even nostalgic movies from the 1970s like Paper Moon (1973) and The Summer of '42 (1971) looked at the past through a modern lens.

Meanwhile, apart from a smattering of profanity, The Frank Leahy Legend is the type of creaky, old-fashioned, highly sanitized biopic you might have seen in the 1930s or '40s, the kind that basically acts as a feature-length commercial for its subject. If you watch enough TCM during the off-peak hours, you'll see these flattering films about politicians, songwriters, war heroes, entertainers, inventors, and athletes. Try sitting through something like Swanee River (1939) or The Babe Ruth Story (1948), and you'll know what I mean. This type of cornball biopic was already old hat when Steve Allen starred in The Benny Goodman Story in 1956, and Eddie was trying to get away with an even cornier script two decades later! Actual line spoken (without irony) by an actual character in this movie: "You know Frank Leahy, you're truly an amazingly, great man..."

Leahy: Neither hero nor villain.

But was Leahy amazing? Or great? Or amazingly great? Eh, I don't know. He certainly won a lot of football games in his day, but he did it by bending the rules just a bit. He got married. He had kids. He yelled at his players occasionally. He sold rubber or something on the side. He really liked Notre Dame. Does that count as a personality?

Leahy's life doesn't really fit any of the standard biopic templates, and in this unproduced screenplay, the reader can sense Ed Wood struggling to turn this material into something resembling a movie. I wouldn't call Leahy a hero or a role model, necessarily, and his life is not exactly inspiring. Then again, he's not a villain or a cautionary tale either. We can't learn anything from his story, because Frank doesn't learn anything from his own story. Even that scoundrel Charles Foster Kane has an epiphany in the last few seconds of his life.

Furthermore, Leahy doesn't seem to have had a quirky, outsized personality, the kind that would make him a good movie character. His coach and mentor Knute Rockne did, though, and Ed's screenplay makes Knute a colorful supporting character. Our protagonist, however, remains opaque. Either Frank Leahy is unknowable or there is just nothing to know about him beyond the surface details.

Either way, W. Paul Apel makes a splendid companion on this journey through the screenplay, jumping in whenever he has something to add or explain. (His commentary definitely helped me understand a few murky plot points along the way.) Unlike me, Paul's actually read the book upon which this script is based, so he can better explain how Ed Wood adapted this material. My guess is that Eddie was merely a hired gun on this movie and banged out this script strictly for the paycheck, but he manages to work some of his obsessions into The Frank Leahy Legend anyway. There are numerous funeral scenes, for instance, and even a prominent reference to Eddie's beloved angora.

For the most part, it seems like Eddie went out of his way to avoid showing any football in this supposedly football-centric movie. We know Wood was no sports fan, so when he wrote The Frank Leahy Legend, he tended to skip over all those pesky games and practices. Instead, we get a lot of scenes of Leahy talking to people in various offices. Glen or Glenda (1953) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) are similarly chatty in nature, as is Wood's later film The Young Marrieds (1972). While the lack of action in this script could have been a budgetary concern, the stiflingly static nature of The Frank Leahy Legend makes it feel like something from Ed Wood's 1950s heyday.

Overall, The Frank Leahy Legend is an intriguing "what if?" from Ed Wood's strange career. It's a relatively wholesome piece of work from a time when Eddie's own life was anything but. Perhaps that's why he wanted to work on this project. It was a chance to do something with no connection whatsoever to pornography or even horror. This biopic may have been stodgy and old-fashioned, but it was respectable. This was one he could write home to Mother about.

You can purchase your own copy of I Watched Football Early the Day I Died directly from Bear Manor or from online retailers like Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #33 by Greg Dziawer

This week, we review a novel with an alarming title!

While there are a number of reasonably well-known Ed Wood books published during the last decade and half of his life—Killer in Drag (1963) and Death of a Transvestite (1967) jump immediately to mind—there also exist dozens of little-known titles.

In this edition of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, I'm joined by Joe Blevins, James Pontolillo and W. Paul Apel to review one of the latter, perhaps the first review of an obscure 1971 paperback.

Check it out to find out which book it is:

A special thanks to my guests for providing their expert insights into a tome that, in today's world, will likely offend some as outmoded in its viewpoints. It's also at times incredibly graphic, and in candidly estimating it, the language in the podcast is likewise explicit.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #32 by Greg Dziawer

This week, we're tackling one of Ed Wood's more obscure adult paperbacks.

By 1969, Ed Wood had spent the better part of the previous decade writing adult paperbacks. He was then transitioning into an incredibly prolific stint writing short stories and articles for various Pendulum/Calga magazines, published by Bernie Bloom. Pendulum would ultimately publish many of Ed Wood's full-length books as well, including both novels and nonfiction works.

But Eddie was writing for other publishers during this busy time in his career, too, including a mostly-forgotten company called Private Editions. This was a relatively obscure imprint even in its heyday, connected to the publisher Columbia (per Ed's own resume). Private Editions released Ed's salacious paperback Night Time Lez (1968) as well as the novel that is our focus this week: the truly remarkable and politically-charged Toni: Black Tigress (1969). Interestingly, the publisher's address listed in Toni—7805 Deering Ave in Canoga Park, CA—is the same as that of adult magazine publisher Press Arts, Inc. Today, it's the home of Ferguson Plumbing Supplies.

These days, Toni: Black Tigress remains one of Ed Wood's rarer books, infrequently turning up at online auctions (and at times for exorbitant prices) and perhaps, until now, never reviewed. We aim to change that with the latest edition of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast. Expert Woodologists Joe Blevins, James Pontolillo and Rob Huffman graciously join me for the task.

FAIR WARNING: Please note that this book covers racial and sexual matters in a highly insensitive, in fact offensive, manner.

Special thanks must go to Rob Huffman for painstakingly scanning his rare, valuable copy of Toni: Black Tigress so that we could read it for this podcast.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #31 by Greg Dziawer

Casey Larrain's back... and Greg Dziawer's got her!

Actress Casey Larrain is an important figure in the saga of Edward D. Wood, Jr. After all, she and Eddie worked together on three movies—Love Feast (1969), Take It Out in Trade (1970), and Nympho Cycler (1971). And the total is four if you count Love Making USA (1971), which reuses some footage of Eddie and Casey from Love Feast. But Casey has kept herself out of the limelight for decades. She's not interviewed in Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), nor does she appear in any of the Wood documentaries. This week, though, she's the guest of honor on The Ed Wood Summit Podcast. Give a listen!

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Promo Odyssey, Part 10 by Greg Dziawer with Rob Huffman

Ed Wood in 1954.

The fun never ends. My good pal, Robert G. Huffman, recently sent me some old newspaper clippings that I had never seen before. Regarding Ed Wood, of course!

As a teaser for what's to come, let's briefly consider this one from the September 11, 1954 edition of the Pittsburgh Courier:

Note the poster for Jail Bait (1954) in the background.

While Devila remains a figure needing further research, the story of LaTanya is well-told here.

It's curious, isn't it? She thought she designed gowns for "two dozen" films, by Ed's own production company?!?

This is a mere glimpse into just one of many snapshots in time we'll soon be delving into here at Ed Wood Wednesdays and at The Ed Wood Summit Podcast.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #29 by Greg Dziawer

This week, we discuss one of Ed Wood's rarest and strangest books.

One of the more obscure (and arguably least-read) among Ed Wood's paperbacks must be the 1971 sociosex title Black Myth. Copies turn up so rarely that you could likely count its numbers of readers in recent decades on one hand—your free hand, of course.

James Pontolillo, author of The Unknown War of Edward D. Wood, Jr. 1942-1946 (2017), is one of the few people to own a copy of Black Myth, and he graciously afforded Joe Blevins and me the opportunity to read it as well. This week on The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, I sit down with James and Joe for an epic dive into this very strange, racially-charged text. We invite you to join us, but beware: this one is not for the faint of heart.

And now that you've seen the podcast, learn more about just one of the many real-life figures who turn up in Black Myth.

While I hope you enjoy the podcast, I know that all serious Wood obsessives will at very least find it, shall we say, Ed-ifying...

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Collaborator Odyssey, Part 25 by Greg Dziawer

(from left) Rob Huffman, Greg Dziawer, Jean Marie Stine.

This week on their podcast, Sin & Sci-Fi in the '60s, Rob Huffman and Greg Dziawer talk with Jean Marie Stine, the author of Ed Wood: The Early Years (2001) and a colleague of Ed's when he was writing adult paperbacks in the 1970s. Join them for this interesting and far-ranging discussion!

You can find more Sin & Sci-Fi content right here.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #28 by Greg Dziawer

Two ladies enjoy each other's company in Caine Richmond's "Les Pad."

Dick Trent and Ann Gora are names known to any true Ed Wood superfan, since Eddie wrote books, articles, and scripts under these monikers for years, but have we discovered yet another of his many professional pseudonyms?

The sheer volume of texts written by Edward D. Wood, Jr. in the 1960s and '70s is unquestionably, well, voluminous. At some point in the early 1960s, Ed began writing for the adult entertainment industry—paperbacks and screenplays at first, followed by magazine articles and 8mm porno loops. By the end of the decade, he was writing all of these and then some, often concurrently!

In the midst of this writing frenzy, an obscure adult publishing company called Bernel and Associates—likely a predecessor to the Pendulum/Calga powerhouse that employed Eddie for years—briefly published a small number of adult mags. No one knows for sure how many, but one was Tailgate from 1968, which seemingly ran for just one issue. In that lone edition, there are three texts. One of them, an article called "Sappho" credited to Caine Richmond, appeared here last year. I suggested, gently, that it might be the work of Edward D.Wood, Jr.

But "Sappho" was not the only text in that issue credited to the mysterious Caine Richmond. The other was an intriguing short story called "Les Pad." This week on The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, Joe Blevins joined me to break it down, and we implicitly asked the question: could it, too, have been written by Ed Wood?

All episodes of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast can be found here.

Further reading:

• A review of Ed Wood's novel Nighttime Lez (1968)

• A review of Ed's article "Sappho Revisited" (1973)

Kane Richmond

P.S. Reader Bill Shute has some additional insight into the "Caine Richmond" pseudonym:

Using the name of one of the greats of serials and b-movies, Kane Richmond, spelled creatively, is certainly something Ed Wood would have done.... proudly. This is a man who was excited to get old genre-film pros such as Reed Howes (who he wrote about admiringly in Hollywood Rat Race) and Herbert Rawlinson in his films. Had Kane Richmond still been working in films in the 1950s (he retired from the screen and went into the business world circa 1948-49), there's no question that EW would have tried to get him for a film and would have loved chatting with him about his serials and low-budget action films. It always puts a smile on my face when Ed Wood champions an old-time Hollywood figure, someone who was largely forgotten by the industry.

Thanks for the added info, Bill! 

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Nympho Odyssey by Greg Dziawer

This week, Greg shows us how to have fun on the beach.

As time wears on, mysterious or once-thought-lost film works involving Ed Wood continue to turn up. The 1971 erotic biker film Misty aka Nympho Cycler is a good example. Before it appeared on disc roughly a decade ago, this obscure movie was completely unknown under the latter title and barely known under the former. In Rudolph Grey's 1992 book Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr., it's listed in the "Chronology" section as an "uncompleted" film. The only quote about the film in the main body of the book comes from filmmaker Joe Robertson: "In Misty, [Ed Wood] was in a jacuzzi and all dragged out."

The film's profile stared rising with a DVD release in 2014, which Joe Blevins reviewed here. Back then, he noted that the film had turned up previously on tape in the UK in the early '80s from Dapon, the same company that released The Young Marrieds on tape at the time.

While there's been speculation that the film was directed by Joe Robertson, Casey Larrain told me last year that she recollects Ed Wood himself directing it. For what it's worth, the IMDb page for the film now agrees. Casey also recalled a scene shot at Venice Beach, with Ed directing. He had gathered a group of homeless men for the shoot. "He brought a bottle of jug wine, and we sat in a circle passing it around. Joints were being passed around. Actual marijuana!" She was certainly recollecting the the nighttime beach orgy scene from Nympho Cycler. 

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 Promo Odyssey, Part Nine by Greg Dziawer

They actually do boil; it just takes a while.

The perils of looking for evidence of Ed Wood texts within the vast reaches of 1970s porn are many. I am assuming that there are more texts out there than currently accounted for. As I mentioned here last week, I recently came across two summaries of early '70s adult films that pricked up my ears for a moment and made me wonder if they could have been penned by Eddie. (Check them out here before proceeding, if you haven't already.)

First off, let me say that we have no evidence that Ed wrote box cover summaries for adult videotapes, which is where at least one of these texts comes from. The IMDb credits its summary of The Candy Store (1972) to VCX, an early and prolific purveyor of porn videos. The summary for Million Dollar Mona (1973) is credited only to Anonymous. I'm already surmising—before even getting to the question of Ed's possible authorship—that this synopsis comes from a box cover or perhaps a catalog.

I am confident, though, that Ed did write box cover summaries for the 8mm loops produced and distributed by Noel Bloom. Noel, you will remember, is the son of Bernie Bloom, Ed's boss at Pendulum/Calga Publishers, where he worked as a staff writer for the better part of the last decade of his life. There is a demonstrable correspondence between Noel's loops and Bernie's magazines, with the latter giving generous press coverage to the former.

VHS arrived in my home in 1981. My dad liked being the "first on the block" with new tech and was an early adopter to the new format. It's worth noting that this was three years after Ed Wood's passing, so it seems on the surface that there's no way Eddie could have written the summaries for The Candy Store and Million Dollar Mona.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Promo Odyssey, Part Eight by Greg Dziawer

Wood fans, it's time to put your knowledge to the test!

Ed's type of gal? Candy Samples in fur.

I often opine about this or that chunk of text and wonder aloud if it could have been written by Edward D. Wood, Jr. The endeavor is predicated, of course, upon the notion that there are works by Ed out there yet to be attributed to him. The challenges inherent in this are many, and it is easy to lose my way.

When I make such surmises in articles like this one, I often ask rhetorically, "What do you think?" This week, however, I really do want to know what you think.

A few months back, I was looking through the IMDb page of adult superstar Candy Samples (who had cameos in Drop Out Wife and The Cocktail Hostesses) when I found a couple of intriguing summaries of her early 1970s films. One such summary was credited to the video company VCX, the other simply to "Anonymous." In both cases, the promo copy had just enough panache to make me scratch my head and wonder aloud if Ed could have written it. Apart from more details about the provenance of these summaries, which I'll share next week, I'd like to truly hear your thoughts and share them here.

First up, the summary for 1972's The Candy Store:

Seldom seen Candy Samples plays a bordello madam who loves to show her ladies how to please her customers. Candy's fans will be delighted by this full-length feature film, which showcases both the mature beauty and remarkably erotic personality of the legendary bust queen. Her "house" features a bevy of stunning young girls, trained by Candy Samples herself to perform feats of sexual magic with their hot, luscious bodies and moist, hungry mouths. The non-stop hardcore action encompasses a wide spectrum of adult sexuality, from the traditional to the bizarre. 'Madam' Candy sees it as her duty to personally instruct and even assist her lovely girls in satisfying the many exotic demands of her clientèle. Bust lovers will thrill to the stiff-nippled antics of Candy and her girls. The oral interludes are bountiful and intense, especially when Candy demonstrates her own personal sperm-simmering techniques. The buxom superstar even wields a whip in the interest of maintaining house discipline! Variations to please every sexual taste are contained within this hard-hitting Candy bonanza.—VCX

Next up, we have 1973's Million Dollar Mona:

The reporter Jimmy Ryan is pleasured under his blanket by his lover when his angry editor calls to break his day off. Jimmy is told to report why does famous Mona von Groana hide in a hotel. Going there, her maid Nympho Mania casually jumps to his arms before sending him to Mona's bedroom. Mona herself is even more harassing. Eventually she exposes her buxom figure to make him forget his interview. She then ties him up in bed until he leaves. Mona then goes to her bathtub, where her maid gives her a breast massage which leads to bed. Mona tells her maid she wants to peep on her with Jimmy if he returns. Her wish comes true when Jimmy's editor angrily sends him back. But as Mona hides due to stealing her husband's inheritance, his men break in and kill the maid and her. Jimmy, who hides in Mona's clothing, gets fired but finds the money. He can therefore finally have his lover pleasure him under his blanket without interruptions.—Anonymous

Now that you've read these summaries, do you have a guess? You can message me privately on Facebook (I'm Greg Dziawer there) and let me know what you think and why. You can also tell me if you'd like me to credit your conclusions or share them anonymously.

Join us next week, and I'll share your thoughts as well as mine!