Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 191: 'Rue Pigalle' (1966)

A Texas sheriff investigates the seamy underbelly of Paris in the unproduced Rue Pigalle.

"I'd not go behind scripture but it may be that there has been sinners so notorious evil that the fires coughed em up again and I could well see in the long ago how it was little devils with their pitchforks had traversed that fiery vomit for to salvage back those souls that had by misadventure been spewed up from their damnation onto the outer shelves of the world. Aye. It’s a notion, no more. But someplace in the scheme of things this world must touch the other."

-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)

In many ways, Ed Wood's kinky crime novel Parisian Passions (1966) serves as a companion piece to the film Orgy of the Dead (1965), which Eddie scripted for producer-director Stephen C. Apostolof. They're from the same era of Ed's career and feature a lot of the same phrases, like "it would seem..." and "evening's pleasure." As I was making my way through Parisian Passions, I kept thinking, "Hmmm. That sounds like a line from Orgy of the Dead. It's almost like these two things were written back-to-back." Which they basically were. We'll get into it.

Parisian Passions and Orgy of the Dead.

Beyond their superficial similarities, these two works are linked thematically. Both of these stories are built around the idea that so-called "night people" engage in wicked, sinful acts while all the decent people are in bed asleep. In Parisian Passions, undercover cop Buck Rhodes is forced to witness such shameful rituals while overseas on a murder case but does not partake of them. (Heaven forfend!) In Orgy of the Dead, straight-laced couple Bob (William Bates) and Shirley (Pat Barrington) are likewise compelled to witness some supernatural debauchery, but they do so strictly from the sidelines.

As it turns out, Parisian Passions would likely not exist at all without Orgy of the Dead. In 1966, after striking a distribution deal for Orgy with a company called F.O.G., director Stephen C. Apostolof received three checks totaling $15,000 (nearly $150K in today's money) from the company's founder, Fred O. Gebhardt. Like any true red-blooded filmmaker, Steve immediately made plans to take that money and invest it in several new productions. These productions would need scripts, and Steve turned to Ed Wood because he knew Eddie could write something very quickly. The result was a screenplay called 7 Rue Pigalle, which centers around a Texas sheriff investigating a series of murders in the red-light district of Paris.

This strange, never-to-be-completed project has surprisingly deep roots. From 1948 to 1950, after fleeing his native Bulgaria and briefly dwelling in Istanbul, Steve Apostolof actually lived in Paris. He remembered his address there as being 7 Rue Pigalle. There is, in fact, a street in Paris named after sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (1714-1785). The surrounding neighborhood, the Quartier Pigalle, became a notorious tourist trap in the 20th century due to its numerous sex shops and adult theaters. During World War II, American soldiers even started calling it "Pig Alley." (The pun only works in English; the French word for pig is cochon.)

The actual 7 Rue Pigalle. Yes, it's a real address in Paris.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 190: 'Parisian Passions' (1966)

Parisian Passions is one of Eddie's earlier novels, but it has all the earmarks of his work.

"But do not trust to luck, at the full of the moon, when the night is dark. Make a wide path around the unholy grounds of the Night People. Who can say that we do not exist? Can you?"

-Criswell, Orgy of the Dead (1965)

Recently, while writing about the numerous recurring characters in Ed Wood's work, I realized I had given short shrift to Sheriff Buck Rhodes. This rugged Texas lawman played a starring role in two of Eddie's novels from the 1960s: Parisian Passions (1966) and Devil Girls (1967). While I already reviewed Devil Girls and its 1999 film adaptation in one of the earliest articles in this series, I hadn't even approached Parisian Passions in the subsequent decade. So let's do that now, huh? Better late than never.

Big in '66: the Pigalle Stranger and Robin.

Published by Greenleaf Classics as part of its Sundown Reader series in 1966 and credited to the nonexistent "J.X. Williams," Parisian Passions is one of Ed Wood's earliest known novels. It is clear, though, that Eddie had already found his very idiosyncratic voice as a writer by this point in his career. There's a phrase I've come to use to describe certain of Ed's books and films: "Wood at his Woodiest." That means he allows his quirks and obsessions to run rampant, no matter what his editors or his readers may want. Well, Parisian Passions is a book like that. In Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), Rudolph Grey describes it as "alternately absurd, comic and poetic." And it is all those things, though some, uh, other adjectives also sprang to mind.

A mysterious, costumed Jack the Ripper-type madman has been stalking and killing the drug-addicted strippers and prostitutes who frequent the Pigalle, the notorious red light district of Paris. I pictured the killer as looking like the Phantom of the Opera, but the cover painting by Darrel Millsap makes him look more like Robin the Boy Wonder. Either way, Inspector Henri Goulet of the Sûreté (the local police force) is utterly baffled by this case. Fortunately, his department is participating in an exchange program with the United States: they send one of their men to America, and America sends a genuine Texas sheriff to Paris. This gives Goulet an idea.

A latter-day reprint of the novel.

When Sheriff Rhodes finally arrives, Goulet arranges to have him "arrested" in a train station so as not to arouse suspicion from the criminal element of the city. Once Buck is in custody, Goulet unveils his plan to catch the so-called "Pigalle strangler." Buck will pretend to be a visiting Texas millionaire looking for a good time, and he will infiltrate the Parisian underground and root out the killer. Buck has never been anywhere near Paris and knows nothing of the city, but he soon finds a guide named Pierre who is willing to take him to the lowest, scummiest sex clubs or "cellars" in the city.

As Buck becomes familiar with these vile establishments, he sees the same few people again and again at different venues. One such habitué is Jacques, the local pusher who supplied heroin to several of the victims and also had sexual relationships with them. Another is Noreen "Norm" Clampett, a butch lesbian from England who identifies as male. They both seem to be likely suspects. But maybe Pierre or even Goulet is secretly the killer. Or is the true culprit someone else entirely?

After a few more murders, Buck decides to spring a trap for the strangler. He and the French police set up a decoy sex club of their own and recruit Lorry/Lorraine, a female impersonator from America, to perform there. When the killer inevitably attacks, they'll nab him. Surprisingly, this works. In the end, Buck, Goulet, and Lorry celebrate their success in a most unexpected way.