Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 225: More about Mondo Oscenità (1966)

Betty Boatner relaxes in a scene from Mondo Oscenita.

Forgive me for making a second trip to the buffet so soon, but I'm not quite done with Mondo Oscenità (1966) aka World of Obscenity, the forgotten shockumentary with never-before-seen footage from Ed Wood's unfinished juvie epic Hellborn (1956). Reader Brendon Sibley made me aware of this odd little film, which was rereleased by Something Weird Video in 1997. Oscenità was directed by Joseph P. Mawra, an exploitation filmmaker best remembered for the infamous Olga series of grungy, B&W bondage movies originally released in 1964 and 1965. Oscenità contains copious footage from the Olga films, and Brendon informs me that one of those films, Mme. Olga's Massage Parlor (1965), is now considered lost. The fleeting clips we see in this documentary might be all that remains of it.

A typical Olga film.

At the time of its release, Oscenità was an obvious attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Italian film Mondo Cane (1963). Mawra even gave himself a bogus Italian name (Carlo Scappine) for this one. From what I can tell, there are no original scenes in this entire movie; it is all repurposed footage, much of it violent and/or sexual in nature. Mawra simply used whatever material he had available to him to pad the running time, perhaps hoping that the narration by Joel Holt (aka Lou Hopkins) would tie it all together into something coherent.

Beyond the Hellborn footage, which came to Mawra via producer George Weiss, Mondo Oscenità has further scenes of interest to fans of Ed Wood and cult cinema in general. About 45 minutes into the film, for instance, we see a young blonde woman in a flimsy negligee, lounging on a white vinyl couch and smoking a cigarette. After a few seconds, a middle-aged man enters, clutching a half pint of bourbon and two glasses. He sets these items on a nearby coffee table, then snuffs out the girl's cigarette and his own in an ashtray. Now unencumbered, the two lovers make out for a few seconds before the scene fades to black. On the soundtrack through all this, the narrator drones on about how movies have glamourized crime and extramarital sex:

The human desire for realism in motion pictures has created this unfortunate situation. When the code of censorship was in effect, certain responsibilities were set aside for the film producers whereby there would be definite and explicit rules applying to the treatment of sex upon the screen. Promiscuity and adultery or casual disregard for the marriage vows should not be condoned or presented in a way seeming to be desirable. Further rules specified that scenes of passion should not be introduced unless essential to the plot and that these scenes should not include lustful embraces or open-mouthed kissing, nor should there be any suggestive postures or gestures. The spectacle upon the screen of intense passion resulting from love should not corrupt the emotions of the audience. If, however, the passion is presented in such a way as to suggest lust alone, this does tend to stimulate the same emotions in the audience.

What makes this sequence noteworthy is that the blonde on the couch is Betty Boatner, who played the doomed Shirley in Ed Wood's The Sinister Urge (1960), while her male paramour is Western baddie Kenne Duncan, who played the starring role of Lt. Matt Carson in that same film. In addition to being a drinking buddy of Ed Wood, Duncan was a mainstay in Wood's repertory company in the '50s and '60s. Their projects together include Night of the Ghouls (1959) and Trick Shooting with Kenne Duncan (1960). Duncan also worked on such Wood-adjacent films as Pete Perry's Revenge of the Virgins (1959) and Ronny Ashcroft's The Astounding She-Monster (1958). 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 224: Mondo Oscenità (1966)

Ed Wood's footage wound up in the strangest places, but few were stranger than this.

In 1962, Italy dropped the bomb. Its name was Mondo Cane aka A Dog's Life, and it had the effect of a nuclear blast on the world of exploitation cinema. 

The first "mondo" film.

This modestly-budgeted travelogue, which purported to depict strange practices and rituals from around the world, became a huge hit with Western audiences thanks mostly to its heady mix of sex and violence. Even the film's catchy theme song, "More," became a pop and jazz standard. ("More than the greatest love the world has known...") Did it matter that numerous sequences in Mondo Cane were staged or manipulated by the film's three directors? Apparently, not much. Thrill-hungry audiences of the '60s flocked to see such scenes as a human woman breastfeeding a piglet. Wouldn't you? Remember, the internet wouldn't be invented for decades.

It's not often that you can say a single film inspired an entire subgenre of cult cinema, but that's exactly what happened in this case. Naturally, the makers of Mondo Cane produced a series of official sequels, ultimately leading to their beyond-insane Addio Zio Tom (1971), but schlockmeisters everywhere were eager to copy the profitable Cane formula and make lurid shockumentaries of their own. Many of these films had the word "mondo" right in the title so that audiences would know exactly what they were getting for their money. We were given Mondo Freudo (1966), Mondo Balordo (1964), Mondo Hollywood (1967), and even Russ Meyer's Mondo Topless (1966).

One of the lesser-known examples of the phenomenon is a film called Mondo Oscenità (1966) aka World of Obscenity. Right off the bat, the film's Italian title is bogus, since it's an American production. This demonstrates the across-the-board popularity of Mondo Cane: for a brief period in movie history, American filmmakers were pretending to be Italian! Director Joseph P. Mawra—best known for his work on the kinky, bondage-heavy Olga movies, such as Olga's House of Shame (1964) and Mme. Olga's Massage Parlor (1965)—actually called himself "Carlo Scappine" for this one. A likely-nonexistent producer called "Gino Poluzzo" (with no other credits) is also listed in the main title sequence.

Mondo Oscenità pretends to be a documentary about the history of obscenity in motion pictures. I say "pretends to be" because Joseph P. Mawra is clearly using this film as an excuse to show as much salacious (for the time) material as he can possibly assemble. And to get this thing to feature length, he just throws in whatever scraps of celluloid he had lying around the editing room, including some silent comedy footage that has nothing to do with anything. Fortunately, deep-voiced narrator Joel Holt (billed as "Lou Hopkins") is there to tie it all together with ponderous pronouncements like this:

In the next 75 minutes, we will take you into the world of motion pictures, into a world unfamiliar to most. A world made up of thought, sight, and imagination. A special kind of medium that can transport you into the future and take you back to the past. It is a state of unrealities, where sight, sound, feelings are all too real, where stimulations are aroused, where feelings are raised and lowered according to the thoughts of the director. We will show you what was considered too strong for the public in the early days of the motion picture and what is being viewed today. We will show you scenes from motion pictures that were judged as obscene only a short time ago, scenes that led to the outcry that obscenity in motion pictures was taking over the industry, that this is becoming a world of obscenity.

I'm guessing Mawra was more than a little influenced by Rod Serling. This is essentially The Twilight Zone: After Dark. The above monologue is even accompanied by footage of the stars in space.

What makes Mondo Oscenità of interest to us today is that it includes some otherwise-unused footage from Ed Wood's abandoned film Hellborn (1956). While he was an avid follower of trends in the entertainment industry, Eddie never even attempted to make a "mondo" movie of his own. Some of his nonfiction books and articles, like Drag Trade (1967) and Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History (1967), are written in the same basic spirit as those films, however. In fact, every time Wood writes about the odd sexual practices of Japan, as he does in Drag Trade and several of his magazine articles, he's channeling the spirit of Mondo Cane.

It was reader Brendon Sibley who hipped me to Mondo Oscenità, and I'm grateful he did because this is quite a find. I'd recently compared two different versions of the Hellborn footage, one from a 1993 documentary and one from a 2017 Blu-ray, and found that they contained the exact same footage, only projected at different speeds. In brief, the film alternates between two different groups of juvenile delinquents, one male and the other female, as they commit various crimes and get into fights. In the end, the boys and girls come together for a sort of picnic at Griffith Park. The footage ends with a black-clad hoodlum, played by Conrad Brooks, wandering off into the woods with his date, a curly-haired brunette in an angora sweater. This was the Hellborn I knew, and I thought it was all there was to know. I was dead wrong.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 212: Comparing two prints of 'Hellborn' (1956)

Two views of Conrad Brooks as a juvenile delinquent in Hellborn.

When Woody Allen was dissatisfied with September (1987), a somber, Chekhov-inspired drama he'd written and directed, he did something truly remarkable. Even though the movie was already in the editing stages, he scrapped everything he had completed, revised the script, recast all but two of the major roles, and reshot the entire film from scratch. The resulting motion picture garnered lukewarm reviews and earned back only 5% of its $10 million budget. It remains one of the biggest money-losers in the Allen filmography.

I think this story establishes Woody Allen as the cinematic opposite of Ed Wood, despite the passing similarity of their names. Eddie rarely had the luxury of throwing away footage that he'd shot and developed. His most famous feature, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), was literally built around using some precious silent film he'd shot of actor Bela Lugosi shortly before Bela's death. And when Ed's juvenile delinquent epic Hellborn (1956) ran out of money and couldn't be completed, Ed took some of the footage he'd shot for it and recycled it in Night of the Ghouls (1959) and The Sinister Urge (1960), regardless of whether it actually fit.

Generally, when we talk about Ed Wood's career, we can divide his film projects into two major categories: ones that got made and ones that didn't. Hellborn is in that rare middle territory, along with Range Revenge (1947), Crossroads of Laredo (1948), and The Night the Banshee Cried (1957): ones that sort of got made. Which is to say, enough footage was shot to give us a vague idea of what this project was supposed to have been. The remains of Hellborn were included in a 1993 documentary produced in conjunction with Cult Movies magazine that I reviewed some time ago on this blog.

Recently, however, reader Brandon Sibley informed me that the 2017 Blu-ray of The Violent Years (1956) from Vinegar Syndrome contained the Hellborn footage as well. This was certainly news to me, and I was eager to compare the 1993 and 2017 editions to see if there were any notable differences between them. Fortunately, since I don't own the Blu-ray (yet), Brandon was kind enough to rip a copy of the Hellborn footage for my perusal.

At first, I was shocked to see that the Vinegar Syndrome version ran over nine and a half minutes, while the Cult Movies version lasted only about seven minutes and 50 seconds. Had Vinegar Syndrome found nearly two minutes of precious extra Hellborn footage? Nah. A side-by-side comparison revealed that both versions of Hellborn contain the exact same shots in the exact same order, but the 1993 version runs about 25% faster than the 2017 version, hence the shorter running time. When I slowed down the 1993 edition just a little, it synced up with the 2017 edition perfectly. This begs the question, which running time is more accurate? I have no idea. My copy of the 1993 Hellborn documentary was made from a VHS tape, but Vinegar Syndrome says its copy of the footage was sourced from VHS as well. You'd think they'd run at the same speed. Nope.

Content-wise, as I indicated earlier, the two Hellborns are the same. I've never seen a script or even a plot outline for this film, but it seems to center around two violent street gangs—one all male, the other all female. We see both groups committing crimes, including mugging a man in an alley, terrorizing an ice cream salesman, and robbing a gas station. At the end, the two gangs rendezvous in the park. Conrad Brooks has a central role as a gleefully violent thug. Ed Wood plays two parts: a switchblade-wielding crime boss and a female robber. Mona McKinnon also turns up as a gun moll (or knife moll, if you will). Conrad's brother, Henry Bederski, has a memorable cameo as the aforementioned ice cream salesman.

There is a striking visual difference between these two transfers of the Hellborn footage. Neither one, it must be said, is in great shape. The source footage, much like that of Range Revenge, is alternately underlit and overexposed. Perhaps Ed's camerawork was faulty or the footage was poorly preserved. The 1993 transfer is rather dark and murky, but there's a reassuring, homogeneous smoothness to the images. In contrast, the 2017 version is considerably brighter but also quite a bit grainier, giving it a scratchy, speckled appearance.

As seen in Hellborn (sort of): Atlas Batteries and RPM Lubrication.

When I was performing the side-by-side comparison described above, my eyes initially preferred the dark-but-smooth 1993 version. But ultimately, the Vinegar Syndrome version won the day because it was sharper and revealed more background details. For instance, when the girl gang robs the ice cream joint, there's an oval-shaped neon sign in the window that reads "OPEN ICE CREAM." In the 1993 edition, this is just an indistinct ovular blob, but it's clear as day in the 2017 edition. Similarly, during the famous sequence in which Ed Wood (in full drag) robs a service station, there are signs advertising "ATLAS BATTERIES" and "RPM LUBRICATION" in the background. They're visible in both versions, but they're only legible in the 2017 version.

Another point in favor of the 2017 version is its soundtrack. The surviving footage for Hellborn is totally silent. One wonders what Ed Wood's plan would have been for completing the film. Stock music? Narration? Post-dubbed dialogue? It's a moot point, since the project was abandoned. The Cult Movies version from 1993 adds some tinny, lackluster synthesizer music to Ed's flickering, soundless footage. The score has a very distinct '80s/'90s sound and doesn't really match the footage at all. Meanwhile, Vinegar Syndrome chose to underscore Hellborn with some rambunctious 1950s rock music driven by saxophone, drums, and guitar. There's a snarling version of "Malagueña" that I especially enjoyed. If Hellborn's juvenile delinquent characters had been real, these are the records they might well have listened to!

I remain skeptical that Hellborn is a "lost masterpiece" or that it's of particular interest to anyone other than Wood completists. But, if you want it, it's out there to be found. In multiple places, no less!

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 118: 'Hellborn' (1956/1993)

Hellborn is like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.

One of the strangest passages in Ed Wood's Night of the Ghouls (1959) occurs just four and a half minutes into the film. Ostensibly a follow-up to Bride of the Monster (1955), Ghouls is another of Wood's supernatural horror thrillers. The plot revolves around a phony medium, Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan), who inadvertently manages to summon the dead while performing fraudulent seances in a spooky mansion. For some reason, though, narrator Criswell takes a few minutes to talk to us about juvenile delinquency:

Your daily newspapers, radio, and television dares to relate the latest in juvenile delinquency. At times, it seems juvenile delinquency is a major problem of our law enforcement officers. But is this the major horror of our time? Is this violence and terror a small few perpetrate the most horrible, terrifying of all crimes our civil servants must investigate? 

The National Safety Council keeps accurate records on highway fatalities. They can even predict how many deaths will come on a drunken holiday weekend. But what records are kept? What information is there? How many of you know the horror, the terror I will now reveal to you?

As we hear this voice-over monologue, accompanied by hot jazz drumming and a wailing siren, Wood shows us flashes of seemingly unrelated footage: a police car whizzing from somewhere to somewhere else; young people dancing and eating at a pizzeria called Jake's Pizza Joint; two men (Ed Wood and Conrad Brooks) fighting in a pit as a crowd watches; a gang of three men beating the tar out of a fourth man as a girl stands off to the side; a car going off the road and tumbling down a cliff before crashing into a tree, etc. Apart from the shots of the police car—this is another of Ed's many police procedurals—none of this footage belongs in Night of the Ghouls. So what's it doing there?