Podcast Tuesday: "Horny Idiot Island"

Dan Aykroyd (left) and Rosie O'Donnell in Exit to Eden.

What made him do it?

It's one of the great mysteries of movie history. Why did Garry Marshall, the genial Brooklyn writer-producer-director behind such decidedly mainstream fare as Happy Days (1974-1984) and Pretty Woman (1990), think he was the man to bring Anne Rice's kinky BDSM novel Exit to Eden (1985) to the screen? And why did he enlist Happy Days showrunner Bob Brunner to cowrite the screenplay? More importantly, what are Dan Aykroyd, Rosie O'Donnell, Dana Delany, and Iman doing in this thing? So many questions. So few answers.

Nevertheless, in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about the megabomb Exit to Eden (1994), certainly one of the most unusual films of its year (or any year). We analyze the plot (what little of it there is), critique the actors, compare the film to the novel, and speculate about what it all means. This episode, I can tell you, was quite an ordeal to research, record, and produce. It would be rude of you to skip it, and I know you're not a rude person. So click that play button. You wouldn't want me to spank you on your tushy, would you?

Incidentally, this episode marks something of a technical milestone, as it's the first one completely written, recorded, and edited on my new laptop. I think my previous one, purchased from a Best Buy in 2015, has seen its final days. Goodbye, trusted friend. You were enjoyed.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 172: The Oralists (1969) [PART 1 OF 2]

It's time to talk about one of Ed Wood's most shocking books.

One of the pivotal literary discoveries of my youth—apart from finding a well-worn paperback copy of Dan Jenkins' Semi-Tough (1972) in the basement—was stumbling across Nancy Friday's Forbidden Flowers: More Women's Sexual Fantasies (1975) at the local library. I'm not sure how I found this book. I was unfamiliar with Ms. Friday and wouldn't have known to seek out her work. But I saw something titled Forbidden Flowers on the shelf, and it called out to me. Little did I know I was about to have my adolescent mind blown.

This book shocked me.

Nancy Friday (1933-2017) was not a scientist or an academic. She was, rather, a sex-positive feminist who interviewed women about their erotic fantasies and turned her findings into the best-selling book My Secret Garden (1973). The book that I found, Forbidden Flowers, was the sequel. It was, by a wide margin, the most explicit volume I'd ever seen. It left even Semi-Tough in the dust. Here were women sharing their innermost thoughts about taboo topics in terms more graphic than I thought were legally allowable in print. And some of the stories in the book were from women who'd read My Secret Garden and were relieved that they weren't the only ones in the world with certain fantasies.

I thought about Nancy Friday occasionally while making my way through one of Ed Wood's least-known yet most disturbing books: The Oralists, published in 1969 by Tiger as part of its "Case History Series" and credited to the fictional Jean Spenser and Roger West. The publisher's conceit is that Jean and Roger are two sex researchers who are married to each other and write books together; this is their scientific study of oral sex and those who enjoy it. Ed's equally salacious Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History (1967) from Pad Library is also attributed to the nonexistent Spenser and West. In The Oralists, Ed alludes to the existence of another S&W book called Sexual Fantasia. According to reader Guy Devrell, this extremely rare title was also published by Tiger as part of its "Case Histories Series." (Fantasia was  assigned the catalog number PP161, and The Oralists was PP190.)

While the veracity of Nancy Friday's books was sometimes questioned, the author vigorously denied making up the fantasies herself. I believe her; the women's stories strike me as genuine. On the other hand, Ed Wood's The Oralists is pure literary invention. As with much of Eddie's so-called nonfiction, there's not an ounce of genuine research in it. The supposed interviews and testimonials within it are all just Ed talking to himself. Whether they represent the author's own fetishes and kinks, I don't know. I sincerely hope not. I suppose that the publisher credited the book to Spenser & West and presented it as a clinical study of sex in order to give it a sheen of respectability it would otherwise not have.

I've long delayed writing about The Oralists for a variety of reasons. For one thing, this book will not appeal to most Ed Wood fans. If you've come here for mad scientists, plywood gravestones, and flying saucers dangling from strings, you will not find them in this book. This is "down and dirty" Ed, wallowing in extreme topics and incredibly graphic language. In particular, Chapter Two and Chapter Seven will be more than most readers will be able to take. Another problem in reviewing The Oralists is that each chapter is devoted to a different, self-contained story, so it's really more like a short story anthology than a novel. A lot happens in this book, in other words.

There's no way around the first problem, i.e. the subject matter and tone of this book. This is Ed Wood at his grungiest and least ingratiating, and we just have to accept that. As for the second problem, the overabundance of material to talk about, I've decided to divide this review into two parts: four case studies now, four more next week. That way, I can discuss all the major characters in The Oralists without shortchanging any of them.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 62: The 'Swedish Erotica' loops (ca. 1973)

Who knew Ed Wood was Swedish?

Jinny: Would you like a beer? 

Howie: I'd like something else. 

Jinny: Now what in the world could that be? 

Howie: I'll show you. 

-subtitled dialogue from The Virgin Next Door (Part One)

 

Hindenburg over the Hudson: Early inspiration for Ed.

There's a common element in nearly every biography of a famous filmmaker of the 20th century, from Grade-Z schlockmeisters to Hollywood royalty: the story of getting that all-important first home movie camera. From those old, hand-wound 8mm jobs right up through VHS camcorders, the story is always pretty much the same. A kid would get ahold of one of those magical devices, and synapses would start firing in his brain. He'd get ideas. "That could be my movie playing at the local movie house," he'd think. And pretty soon, he'd start rounding up the neighborhood kids to start acting in his little pint-sized Westerns and war pictures, shot on location in the backyard.

In his 1998 book The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film, writer William Preston Robertson devotes several amusing pages to the early filmmaking experiments of Joel and Ethan Coen, two siblings who grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis in the late 1960s. Joel, the elder Coen, decided that he and his brother should mow lawns and use the proceeds to buy a Super 8mm home movie camera and film stock. Eventually, the plan succeeded, and the Coen boys did actually purchase a Vivitar camera and some film. The historic purchase did not immediately yield cinematic greatness, as Robertson details:

"Their earliest explorations were, to be sure, uninspired, if not disgracefully lazy. Setting the movie camera up in front of the television, they simply let it run -- filming, at least in part, a Raymond Burr jungle movie. It was an act of artistic lethargy that shamed even the boys, and they soon carted the Vivitar outdoors to see what might be worth filming there."

Eventually, the Coen boys did become more ambitious with their Super 8 extravaganzas, especially once they'd found a neighborhood star their own age, one Mark "Zeimers" Zimering (later an endocrinologist in East Orange, NJ), and crafted around him such homemade epics as Zeimers in Zambia and Ed... A Dog, their surreal update of 1943's Lassie Come Home. This era of the brothers' lives culminated in what Robertson deems their "pinnacle": a surrealist mini-epic entitled The Banana Film.

A Kodak ad from 1934.

Though he started nearly four decades previously and half a country away, Ed Wood's origin story was not too different from that of the Coens, minus the dogs and bananas. Edward Davis Wood, Jr.'s earliest films in his native Poughkeepsie were just as humble as what young Joel and Ethan were doing in the suburbs of Minneapolis.

In one of those fortune-shifting accidents of history, Ed Wood happened to be born during an era when affordable home movie cameras were first being made widely available to the general public. Though little Eddie did hold down several jobs in his hometown as a youth, the fateful movie camera that changed his life—ultimately for the worse, it sadly seems—was a gift from his postal worker father. In his 1994 Ed Wood-based musical, The Worst!, singer-songwriter Josh Alan Freeman attributes the cinematic gift to Ed's mother Lilian instead. The camera and young Eddie's obsession with it form the basis for a plaintive song called "Kodak City Special." Sample lyrics: "Look at me, Ma! I've got a camera! What in the world have you given your son? Let us pray!"

Several interviewees in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy speak with a certain amount of knowledge about Eddie's primordial work. A witness named Fred Robertson, seemingly a friend of Ed's father and quoted nowhere else in the book, makes this tantalizing statement:

"Years ago I had some of Ed Jr.'s films, 100 foot, 16mm, that he took himself. Scenes of him playing G-man with cap pistols, black and white, the typical thing that a kid would have taken -- a couple of guys playing cops and robbers, just clowning around, about four minutes."

Meanwhile, Kathy Wood, Ed's wife of twenty-plus years and perhaps the person who knew this unknowable man best, shared the following info with Grey:

"His dad bought him this movie camera ... and the Hindenburg was coming down the Hudson, on the course where it crashed in New Jersey and went up in flames ... and Eddie filmed it, he said it was thrilling, exciting, he was so proud that he shot it before it crashed. He was always so proud of that. [...] Ed would stage plays in his backyard, all the neighborhood kids would join in, he would stage them, write little stories and then film them. He was always filming things ... and that's all he wanted to do from the time he was four or five. He'd run around taking pictures. That's all he wanted to do."

Kathy's account gives you some insight into the life and mind of Edward D. Wood, Jr. Simply put, the boy was camera-crazy. He never got over that gift from his dad. It must have seemed like magic. But he was hardly unique in that respect. The "my first camera" story appears in many directors' biographies. I doubt, though, that such tales will crop up in the life stories of future filmmakers, who won't actually be using film in their endeavors. In the age of YouTube and the iPhone, the humble yet all-important camera has utterly lost its mystique. So, too, has the moving image. It's now a magic trick anyone with a smartphone can accomplish.

I'm dredging all this up because, this week, we are discussing perhaps Eddie's least prestigious work: the pornographic, hardcore loops he made in the early 1970s under the auspices of producer Noel Bloom. By this point in his life, Ed was making his extremely meager living from a typewriter, not a camera. His only steady, reliable source of income during those dark years was Noel's dad Bernie Bloom at Pendulum Publishing, for whom Ed wrote novels, short stories, non-fiction articles, all manner of pseudo sex manuals and tawdry textbooks. Kathy Wood was fine with this arrangement. Money's money, after all. But Eddie couldn't deny his first love, cinema, and was determined to stay in the motion picture game in any way he possibly could, no matter how lowly the assignment.

That's a constant theme throughout Eddie's thirty-year tenure in Los Angeles. When he couldn't get a feature film going, he'd do what he considered "the next best thing" or "the next best thing to the next best thing," be it commercials for Wesson Oil and Pyequick, unsuccessful Western and horror pilots, bone-dry industrial films for Autonetics Aviation, local TV programs like Criswell Presents and The Sam Yorty Show, and even sports shows—the latter despite Ed's seeming lack of interest in athletics. Anything that would keep him behind a camera. As Ed Wood worked his way down the Hollywood ladder, from horror and sci-fi to to nudie cuties to outright porn, the "next best thing" gigs he took between pictures also declined in prestige.

Which brings us to...

Swedish Erotica (circa 1973)

Linda McDowell greets John Holmes in this bleeped scene from "The Virgin Next Door."

An online directory of porn loops.

Alternate titles: None that I know of, but this is a tricky issue. These films are known collectively as Swedish Erotica, but the individual loops within the series are known by their own individual titles as well, like episodes of a sitcom. A thorough catalog of Swedish Erotica loops is available here. You might find these films posted online under their individual titles, such as "The Virgin Next Door" or "Behind the Ate Ball."

Availability: As of this writing, I am not aware of any official DVD, VHS, BluRay, or digital releases of Ed Wood's Swedish Erotica films. But several, including some of the ones I'm discussing in this article, have been posted to adult sites like Porn Hub, X Videos, and X Hamster. Additionally, there is an entire, now-dormant blog devoted to Swedish Erotica and additional SE content posted to a blog called Retro Loops. So the material is definitely out there. As for how to get it, take your pick. And if there are, in fact, commercial releases of Ed's Swedish Erotica films, please let me know about them. I'd love to be able to link to them.

The backstory: Okay, here is what we know for sure. Edward D. Wood, Jr. most certainly worked on short, silent, basically non-narrative pornographic films called "loops" for an undisclosed period in the early 1970s. But just which films he made, when he made them, and where to find them today is up for debate. We'll have to tread lightly this time, dear readers. Here is what Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr., still the closest thing we have to a definitive biography, has to say about the topic:

"Wood made an unspecified number of hardcore, 12-minute films in the 1970s for Swedish Erotica. Inasmuch as these films are uncredited, Wood's output in this area is unlikely to be documented. Some of the films he may have directed: Massage Parlour; Girl Friday; The Jailer."

Not terribly promising, I know, especially the "unspecified," "uncredited" and "unlikely to be documented" parts. That's a lot of "un"s in one place. But hold on, readers! Another Wood historian, Philip R. Frey, is on the case, and he has a page from his Hunt for Ed Wood site devoted to the Swedish Erotica films, too. There, he lists 19 titles that Ed Wood "apparently wrote and directed" for the long-running series. Frey's list corresponds to a catalog of Swedish Erotica films at a surprisingly clinical Dutch website called the Adult Loop Database (hereafter, ALDb). These 19 films would be the first of over 500 made under the Swedish Erotica banner from 1973 to 1984, meaning that a venerable porn institution began with Ed Wood himself at the helm.

The ALDb lists no Swedish Erotica films with the titles Rudolph Grey describes. Frey speculates that these films might belong to another series of pornographic loops called Cinema Classics, on which Ed also toiled in the early 1970s. I searched through the database of loops and found no titles, under any series, called The Jailer, and while there were several loops set in massage parlors, I couldn't find any actually called Massage Parlour (or Massage Parlor, for that matter). Meanwhile, Girl Friday is the name of a genuine loop from 1970, but it was made in London, England by the Mayfair Film Society and has no connection whatsoever to Ed Wood.

John Holmes in "Big John Part I."

Here, then, is a list of the first nineteen Swedish Erotica films, the ones supposedly directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. The ones marked with asterisks are linked to online streaming videos you can watch for free. The others link to vintage advertisements from a mail-order catalog. The hyperbolic, panting plot descriptions below come directly from those advertisements as well. Along with some purple prose, these advertising blurbs give you some idea as to the content of the loops. The casting information comes from the ALDb.

• The Virgin Next Door (Part One)* - Starring John Holmes and Linda McDowell. "Howie has a thing going for him. He's bored a hole in the wall so he can see into the next apartment ... the apartment of a luscious, vivacious broad ... he likes to watch her undress and jerk off at the same time ... but then he becomes brave enough to visit her ... finds she is a virgin, but willing to try sex with him ... and here he teaches her all he knows with his vast resources of experience ... she takes everything to her head."

• The Virgin Next Door (Part Two) - Starring John Holmes and Linda McDowell. "The girl, Jinny, has much to learn, and through her virgin attributes Howie is right there to eat her pussy, get her completely turned on, and to show her what else to expect from the sexual world.... She finally learns many of the techniques and devises a few of her own ... and the entire blow off of this twenty-two minute film is the cum scene whereby she uses the cum to wash her own body."

• School Girl - Cast unknown. "While at the school library, Janice picks up her book and on the way out she meets one of her classmates. After they sit in the park, they decide to go to her apartment to do her homework. She learns more about sexology than she could ever learn at school. See these school kids in all their perverted ways in this film."

• Western Lust* - Cast unknown. "Duke, watching this voluptuous redhead from the underbrush sneaks up on her and pulls out his weapon and forces her to his shack. At the shack, perversion and lust take over. Put this reel on your projector and see it all."

• Love-Mates - Cast unknown. "A beautiful woman desires sweetness and tenderness in her lovemaking but lust and passion take over. Look on as she is discovered in her bath and her encounter with her love-mate. This is a film you will want to see over and over again."

• Wet & Wild - Cast unknown. "Picture Joyce and yourself meeting and going back to her apartment together. Once there, you boy enjoy the lust and savagery that sex can offer. This is an overwhelming and exciting film you will never forget."

• Park Lovers - Starring John Holmes. "While at the zoo, Debby meets more than she can handle. After looking at the animals her new acquaintance takes her to his apartment where animal lust swings all the way. Unknown to her, he likes it one way; and that is bottoms up."

• Girl on a Bike* - Cast unknown. "Tina Loves riding her bike after class. Meeting new people is her thing, so hop on while she shows you what love and sex is all about. Leaving nothing to the imagination, this spicy film is a must for your collection."

• Lusty Neighbor - Starring Cyndee Summers. "Bill, driven by forces he could not resist, goes over to his neighbor's house for a drink. Tantalized by the idea of her in the shower, he cannot control his desires. When Audrey comes down and he sees her beautiful body, it excites him to the point of no return."

• Hollywood Starlet - Starring John Holmes. A sequel to Park Lovers. "After their meeting at the zoo last week, Debbie is anxious for another date, this time at her home and on her terms, which is to be stripped and made love to slowly and with tender loving care. One of the great action films of all time."

"Two Hot to Handle"

• Morning Walk - Starring Luther Worth. "After giving her dog a good brushing, Ginger takes it for a morning walk. While out, she meets Mike and Sharon, who are out for a drive and invites them to her house for a visit. Once in the house, all Mike and Sharon have on their mind is to take advantage of Ginger anyway they can. This is a fantastic film and a must to the connoisseur."

• Big John Part I - Starring John Holmes and Barbara Barton. "This is a top-notch movie where a poolman interrupts a beautiful starlet while she is taking her morning swim. The footage on this film will hold you captive until the very last frame. If you liked Part I, you'll love Part II.

• Big John Part II - Starring John Holmes and Barbara Barton. "Part II picks up where part one leaves off. While still swimming in the morning sun, flesh and fury erupt. Look in while John and Bridget leave nothing to the imagination in this exotic film. Bright and clear close-ups make this film a winner."

• Devil Cult - Cast unknown. "Devil cultist Peolzig captures this young virgin and while she is at the altar, her flesh is taken with lust. She was given a potion which sends her into the depths of passion where there are no bounds to the imagination. This film is a must to add to your collection."

• Behind the Ate Ball Part I*  - Starring John Holmes and Barbara Barton. "Roger brings his naive girlfriend to his house to play a game of pool, but pool isn't the game he really has on his mind. The action is so hot and torrid, you'll need to fan your screen. This film is a must for those who love indoor sports."

• Behind the Ate Ball Part II - Starring John Holmes and Barbara Barton. "After the game of pool, there is no place to go but into the room of mirrors where all acts are viewed from all angles. Watch her tease his big cue, and rake her fingers over his body. See this young girl ravished, and ohhhh, how she loves it."

• 15" Commercial - Starring John Holmes and Cyndee Summers. "When Vicky & Tom turn on the TV, they find it is out of order. So Tom decides to turn on Vicky with his 15-inch commercial. Watch these two people as they satisfy their innermost needs. Watch as she goes wild after she sucks down on every incredible inch he gives her."

• Wives at Play - Cast unknown. "Bright sun and blue water make for an outstanding background for this most unusual sensuous film. Lovemaking between three outstanding females makes for the most stimulating and exciting film ever. Unbelievably sharp close-ups that will make this film your favorite."

• Two Hot to Handle - Starring Luther Worth. "Two young roommates out for a ride are spotted by a rugged well-hung guy who follows them home. While looking through the bathroom window, he sees the girls making it with each other in the tub. When they finally spot him, they invite him in for an evening of exciting lovemaking. This is an unusual film guaranteed to give you pleasure."

Hot and bothered yet? As you may have guessed from those descriptions up there, with their numerous references to collecting, the Swedish Erotica films were not intended for theatrical exhibition. Rather, they were aimed at erotic hobbyists with their own projectors and movie screens. You were supposed to order these films out of a catalog, have them discreetly shipped to you (in plain brown wrappers, one wonders?), and then play them in the privacy of your own home. In a way, that makes them predecessors of the infinitely more convenient VHS tapes of the 1980s. Affordable VCRs helped to usher in the so-called "home video era." The ability to rent rather than purchase videotapes was a major favor in their popularity, but this was not possible with the Swedish Erotica loops. These you had to buy.

Obviously, the major advantage of the Swedish Erotica loops was the privacy they afforded viewers. If you screened these stag films at home, you didn't have to risk being recognized or maybe even arrested for viewing them in a public place.

The disadvantages? Well, price for one. A single Swedish Erotica reel would have cost you $50 in 1978. That's over $180 in today's money—quite an investment. Though music has been added to the current digital versions, the original reels were totally silent, meaning that you couldn't hear the actresses' moans of ecstasy. Any expository dialogue would have to be conveyed via clumsily added subtitles. Later Swedish Erotica films did include sound, but not the original loops made under the direction of Ed Wood.

Also, projecting 8mm or 16mm movie reels in your own home could be a labor-intensive, frustrating process for the wannabe thrill-seeker. In order to enjoy these forbidden little films, you'd have to know how to thread and focus a film projector and pray like hell that your very expensive $50 loop didn't unravel, break, or, worse yet, melt against a white-hot projector bulb. But the series obviously had some staying power. According to the ALDb, Swedish Erotica lasted from 1973 to 1978, with additional titles produced—seemingly by a different group of people—in 1984.

I Am Curious (Yellow)

As near as I can tell, there is nothing particularly Swedish about the Swedish Erotica movies either. The ALDb identifies the series as US-made. The actors are manifestly American, including porn legend John Holmes, and the loops appear to have been filmed in familiar old Los Angeles. That's a good 5,327 miles away from the native land of IKEA, meatballs, and Tor Johnson.

To understand the meaning of the series' title, we have to venture back almost half a century to a time when American cinema was much more prudish than it is now and when American moviegoers were champing at the bit for some dirty thrills wherever they could find them. In the 1950s and especially the 1960s and 1970s, European art films were more frank in their depiction of human sexuality than contemporary American films, and word of this definitely reached the States. People would eagerly attend European movies and sit through the "boring parts" in the hopes of seeing a little skin. Schlock American filmmakers even talked of adding extra nudity to their own movies for the "European versions."

Swedish cinema gained a particularly strong reputation for scandal in 1969 because of Vilgot Sloman's infamous I Am Curious (Yellow), which was decidedly more sexually adventurous than mainstream American films of the era. Yankee audiences flocked to the somber art film to see its much-ballyhooed full-frontal nudity and simulated sex scenes. The film's financial triumph—a true succès de scandal—brought on the expected legal woes, but the American distributors of I Am Curious (Yellow) managed to beat the rap in court by maintaining that the film had artistic value beyond mere titillation.

Roger Ebert, for one, was unimpressed, giving the film a one-star review in the Chicago Sun-Times in September 1969 and warning his readers that Yellow was "a real dog." As for the film's censorship problems, he was unsympathetic:

"Perhaps the legal defense should have given us warning. The usual parade of literary and movie critics stood up in court and testified (A) that the movie had redeeming social merit, and (B) that, speaking as a healthy adult—honest, judge—it didn't do a thing for me. That's easy to believe. I Am Curious (Yellow) is not merely not erotic. It is anti-erotic. Two hours of this movie will drive thoughts of sex out of your mind for weeks. See the picture and buy twin beds."

Mr. Ebert's misgivings aside, Curious was a box office smash and made a lasting impression in the minds of lustful moviegoers. From that point on, Sweden was synonymous with sex. And did the sleaze merchants in America take notice? You bet they did! Throughout the 1970s, the word "Swedish" was opportunistically slapped on any number of softcore and hardcore erotic films: some made domestically, others imported. I again refer you to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), in which the title character ill-advisedly takes his mortified date to see Swedish Marriage Manual (1969). And the hits kept coming: Sweden: Heaven & Hell, Love Swedish Style, Maid in Sweden, Anita: Swedish Nymphet, and more.

Reverberations of the "Swedish invasion" of the 1970s could be felt for years in pop culture. In 1991, for instance, advertisements for Old Milwaukee beer featured a group of scantily-clad, vaguely Scandinavian-looking women dubbed the Swedish Bikini Team. As late as 1993, Homer Simpson could make his wife, Marge, hysterical with grief by telling her he was going on a tour of Sweden with his barbershop quartet. Although the phenomenon may be unknown to younger Americans, "Swedes-ploitation" was a crucial part of 20th century Americana. Swedish Erotica was just one part of a much larger trend.

Speaking of larger trends, Swedish Erotica was hardly the beginning and end of Eddie's career in pornographic loops. In fact, he was incredibly, almost heroically prolific in this field. According to Bob Blackburn, co-heir of Kathy Wood's estate, Ed's personally-curated resume lists a staggering 716 movies made between 1971 and 1973 alone! These amount to 16 full pages of double columned titles. And all of this while he was turning out stories, articles, and novels by the dozens. Surprisingly, though, Bob could not find the Swedish Erotica films listed among these voluminous credits. Below, please enjoy a mini-gallery of related images Bob has allowed me to share with you on my blog. Among these are:

• A page of Ed's directing resume with some of his short films listed, such as Dick Claims To Be A Stud, Transplanted Lesbian, Clean It Up Good, and Bruce Of Muscle Beach. That last title seems to indicate that Eddie may have made some gay-themed loops, too.

• A brief excerpt from a Wood-penned article about the pornographic film industry called "That's Show Biz. Note the sly double meaning of "show." (A similar pun is made in Nympho Cycler. "I'm about to show my business.")

• A couple of pages of advertisements for loops from a 1975 issue of Ace. Bob tells me this magazine had an article by Ed entitled "A Tax on Sex."

A typical Swedish Erotica title screen.

The viewing experience: Not nearly as depressing or off-putting as I was expecting. Especially compared to the sometimes troubling skin flicks Ed made with Steve Apostolof and Joe Robertson, not to mention Ed's own, somewhat unappetizing attempts at directing X-rated features, the Swedish Erotica loops are lighthearted, largely cheerful in tone, and even fairly fun to watch. The always-generous Philip R. Frey, who previously supplied my copies of The Lawless Rider and Mrs. Stone's Thing, sent me a DVD containing several of the existent Wood loops: The Virgin Next Door (both parts), School Girl, Love Mates, Park Lovers, Morning Walk, Behind the Ate Ball Part I, and 15" Commercial. So I can say I've seen about half of Ed's purported work for Swedish Erotica. I'd still like to see Devil Cult, though, as it sounds a lot like Eddie's short stories, "Hellfire" and "I, Warlock." (Both are anthologized in Blood Splatters Quickly.)

In films of this length—generally about seven or eight minutes—there is not much time for exposition or character development. And, true to form, Ed gets right down to business here. After all, the customer just spent half an hour setting up his 8mm projector and home movie screen, both of which he probably had to drag out of the hall closet. He doesn't want to wade through a lot of preliminaries. The formula for a Swedish Erotica  loop is simple: boy meets girl(s), boy has sex with girl(s), boy achieves orgasm, the end. That's about it. The indoor scenes are brightly-lit, and the exteriors are shot in broad daylight. I wonder if this was done because of the limits of home movie projectors. The ads for Swedish Erotica make a big deal of their films being sharply focused and including lots of close-ups. That's to be expected when the viewer, projectionist, and exhibitor are one and the same.

Unlike Ed's feature-length adult movies, which tend to offset the eroticism with disturbing anti-sexual content, there is no undercurrent of darkness in the Swedish Erotica loops I screened for this article. The sex is (generally) depicted as consensual and mutually enjoyable for the men and women. Traumatic rape scenes are not in evidence here. A couple of the actresses have to be coaxed -- gently, by the standards of adult films of the era -- into having potentially-painful anal sex with the famously-endowed John Holmes, but there is no violence or brutality here, as there might be in a Joe Robertson or Steve Apostolof film. Ed Wood's own predilection for necrophilia, an erotic fixation on death and the dead, is also mercifully absent in the Swedish Erotica loops.

But that is not to say that these films completely lack any of Ed Wood's trademark kinks and fetishes. Several of the actresses wear the lacy, frilly nightgowns and black stockings Ed so adored and coveted, and there are plenty of fuzzy pillows, blankets, and rugs nearby, too, which correspond neatly to Ed's lifelong love of angora and other soft materials. In one episode, furthermore, Ed Wood even includes some scratchy-looking footage of a NASA rocket taking off as a visual metaphor for an orgasm, so his penchant for stock footage was not limited to his science-fiction and horror films.

A familiar owl painting in Swedish Erotica.

For Ed Wood superfans, however, the most amazing detail to be found in any of the Swedish Erotica loops occurs right in the very first one: The Virgin Next Door (Part One). Before John Holmes pays a visit to neighbor Linda McDowell, he first spies on her through a hole drilled in the wall and masturbates while watching her undress. (Ed Wood does some crude, not-entirely-coherent intercutting to indicate that Holmes is fantasizing about the woman.) On Holmes' side of the wall, the hole is covered by a painting of a bull -- a properly macho symbol for this well-hung ubermensch. But on McDowell's side, there is a very familiar-looking painting of two owls, and the peeper can look through the eyes of one of the owls into the woman's bedroom. This is a device imported directly from Wood's previous feature film, Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love. From what I can see, it's the exact same prop, merely being recycled!

This is crucial to me, because it indicates that Ed Wood really did direct The Virgin Next Door and, in so doing, worked with one of the most famous male porn stars of all time, John Holmes. In case you had any doubts, Holmes' famous appendage—as impressive for its Coke-can girth as for its length—is showcased frequently in the Swedish Erotica shorts. The phallus is clearly a star, and the director lavishes upon it the kind of admiring close-ups once afforded to Greta Garbo.

As for the man to whom it is attached, Holmes appears very young and naive in these films. He was in his late twenties at the time and had only really been making X-rated films for a couple of years by then, though he'd already played his signature role, lascivious detective Johnny Wadd, at least twice. He is tall, thin, and almost goony-bird gawky. While some have said he looked like Leave It To Beaver's Ken Osmond, leading to a silly urban legend that Holmes actually played Eddie Haskell, the actor reminds me more of an undernourished Donald Sutherland, circa Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Animal House.

If nothing else, the Swedish Erotica films have a kind of time-machine quality to them, since the decor, clothing, and hairstyles of the early 1970s—trendy then, tacky now—are all on abundant display here, along with all the exposed flesh. Here, you will see towering bouffant hairdos, shag carpeting, avocado-colored furniture, wide collars, and unsavory-looking porn mustaches. This will sound counterintuitive to many of you, but I detect some innocence and naivete when I watch the Swedish Erotica loops. They seem to be relics of a less savvy time in our nation's history when, in order to even watch ten minutes of uninterrupted porn at home, you had to send in fifty bucks and wait six to eight weeks for delivery!

Thanks as always to Phillip R. Frey and Bob Blackburn for their invaluable help in assembling this article.

Meanwhile, at a drive-in theater in Utah...

Charlton Heston airs out his armpits in The Ten Commandments.

Yesterday, the Twitter account Historical Images tweeted a rather remarkable -- and seasonally-appropriate -- image which caught my attention. It shows a drive-in movie theater at twilight. Above a blueish-looking sea of mid-20th-century automobiles looms a huge screen aglow with the image of Charlton Heston as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's biblical super-epic, The Ten Commandments (1956). The caption reads: "Charlton Heston, as Moses in the The Ten Commandments, on screen at a drive-in theater in Utah, 1958." I don't know if that's true or not; Twitter accounts of supposedly "historical" vintage photographs are notoriously inaccurate. I grew up well after the heyday of drive-in movie theaters, so I've only been to such an establishment once in my life. (For the record, I saw The Crow that way.) I know that they were controversial back in the 1950s, though, since they were considered (by frustrated prudes) to be hotbeds of teenage sexuality and juvenile delinquency. Some people even derisively called them "passion pits," because the horny adolescent customers were presumably having sex in the relative seclusion of their vehicles, totally ignoring the actual movies. So how odd to see a morally-upright film like The Ten Commandments playing in a drive-in. And in Utah, no less! This is the very epicenter of Mormonism and, by far, the most uptight of all the 50 states! It figures that this is what would be playing in a Utah drive-in in the '50s, rather than a cheesy horror or biker flick. Anyway, here's the pic:

The Ten Commandments plays to an attentive Mormon audience.

Pretty cool, right? But something seemed off about it to me. The image on the movie screen, of course, comes from the film's most famous scene: the parting of the Red Sea. But it doesn't look like Moses is getting great results at that particular drive-in theater in Utah. That "sea" of cars I described earlier doesn't seem to be parting one bit. What's the deal? Is God taking a snack break? If so, He's making His buddy Moses look like a real chump out there, like a comedian who's bombing. That didn't seem right. Moses can part a sea, but he can't clear a path through Mormon traffic? So I crudely "fixed" the image in Microsoft Paint. Here's that:

Now Moses can get to the snack bar unimpeded.

Ahhhh.... that's much better.

Hester Prynne is dead!

Lillian Gish goes to the scaffold once more in an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Thomas Bowdler's legacy

You might have noticed some cosmetic changes here at Dead 2 Rights lately. Allow me to explain them, as they represent some not-insignificant alterations to the site's content as well. First of all, this blog's flirtatious previous mascot, late pinup model Fran Gerard (aka Miss March 1967), has been replaced by the stern, unsmiling visage of one Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), an English physician best known for producing The Family Shakespeare.

Bowdler's infamous tome, first published in 1807, was a volume containing expurgated -- which is to say "cleaned-up" -- versions of William Shakespeare's plays. "Nothing is added to the text," proclaimed an 1819 advertisement, "but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." So Lady Macbeth's "Out, damned spot!" became "Out, crimson spot!" Because of The Family Shakespeare, Bowdler's name became forever synonymous with censorship. To bowdlerize something is, in essence, to remove the naughty bits.

Thomas Bowdler's intentions were not altogether -- or even chiefly -- evil. He lived in a more prudish time than ours and simply wanted a version of the Bard that he could share with his wife and children. Because of Bowdler and his book (or, rather, series of books, for The Family Shakespeare was a franchise), the teaching of Shakespeare to younger children became more acceptable.

Other editors had gone much further than Bowdler, actually tacking on happy endings to some of Shakespeare's tragedies. Bowdler's work was meant to counteract that sort of desecration. But no matter: Thomas Bowdler was rendered a villain by history, a sour-faced scold who dared to censor the greatest writer in history. Tough luck, Tommy.

Nearly two centuries after Bowdler's death, writers and artists must still contend with the prevailing moral attitudes of their time. This blog, for instance, has been created on the Blogger platform. Blogger, in turn, is owned by Google. And Google has, I can assure you, an absolute horror of sex. They're not alone. Lots of people have a horror of sex. It disturbs them to a greater extent than any act of violence ever could. For many of these people, nudity and sex are synonymous. The image of a bared female breast is, for these people, a source of great discomfort. That's just a reality. It's how people think.

So what does this mean for me? Well, for the last few months, it has meant that my blog has had a "Content Warning" screen that readers had to click through before they could read whatever I'd just written. I opted to put one on there myself so that Google wouldn't do it for me. That would have been far too embarrassing. To be honest, though, I hated that warning, even though it was self-inflicted. I cringed every time it popped up on my own screen. Yes, even I had to click through it to reach my own blog. Even though I have never profited one dime from Dead 2 Rights, that warning made me feel like a pornographer. Like Hester Prynne, I was wearing a badge of sexual shame. Hers was red, mine was orange.

So this week, I did what I felt I had to do: I bowdlerized the holy hell out of Dead 2 Rights. In essence, I performed an exorcism on this blog... or, perhaps more accurately, a sexorcism. As far as I can remember, not a word of the text has been altered, though some links have been removed, as have some embedded videos.

Most crucially, over 50 images have been voluntarily altered rather than excised. Exposed breasts, vaginas, penises, and even asses have been dutifully blacked out. As you might imagine, this almost exclusively affects the Ed Wood Wednesdays series. I'm very proud of the work I have done on those articles, and I want them to remain easily available and accessible. If that means putting black rectangles over some boobies, so be it.

Thanks for understanding,

Joe

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 56: 'Howl of the Werewolf' (1973)

A werewolf looms over a Daisy Duke-wearing maiden in this vintage artwork.

"And above all, never forget that the pen is mightier than the plow-share. By this I mean that writing, all in all, is a hell of a lot more fun than farming. For one thing, writers seldom, if ever, have to get up at five o'clock in the morning and shovel manure. As far as I'm concerned, that gives them the edge right there."

-Michael O'Donoghue, "How to Write Good"

Hunter S. Thompson

A commonly-repeated anecdote about the late gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson is that, while working for Time magazine in the 1950s, he used to retype pages from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) verbatim, just so he would know what it felt like to write a great novel. While I have never gone to quite such lengths, I have wondered what it would be like to inhabit Ed Wood's skin -- or at least his apartment -- for an afternoon or so. What must it been like, for instance, in those desperate, whiskey-drenched days of the early 1970s when Eddie would drag himself back to his trusty typewriter in order to bang out yet another short story for one of Bernie Bloom's pornographic magazines? 

I'd like to think that, despite his ever-worsening circumstances, Ed was able to will himself into an inspired artistic trance when he wrote these stories. The muse inhabited his ruined body and guided his ten furiously-typing fingers. Though he needed quick cash to keep his landlady at bay and settle his tab at Pla-Boy Liquor, conveniently located just down the street from his profoundly-sketchy flat at the corner of Yucca and Cahuenga, Ed Wood was never wholly a mercenary. It just wasn't in his DNA. 

Whatever you may think of him, Eddie was an artist. Even when he was writing pornography, he made it his own. That's why I've kept such careful records of the themes and motifs that dominate his work. Eddie may have assayed a half-dozen different genres in his novels and stories, but the only writer he could really imitate was himself, just like Hunter S. Thompson ended up developing his own unique writing style, even though he apprenticed for his trade by literally imitating F. Scott Fitzgerald. Everything Hunter wrote came out sounding like Hunter, not Fitzgerald, and everything Ed Wood wrote came out sounding like Ed Wood. 

How much for the sweater?

I do not and cannot write like Eddie did. That's neither a boast nor an admission of failure, just a fact. I've spent many hours with Ed Wood's work over the last couple of years, but I can't really channel the man. Lots of people have tried -- look at the tribute films I've covered in this series -- but Eddie has proven stubbornly inimitable. If you'll remember, one week of this project was actually given over to an original short story, written by me and inspired by Plan 9 from Outer Space, but there's nothing particularly Wood-ian about it in terms of structure or vocabulary. For better or worse, that story is me, not Ed. 

But that doesn't mean I've given up trying to invoke or evoke the spirit of Edward Davis Wood, Jr. This will sound ridiculous, but I have actually gone so far as to price angora sweaters, just so I can wrap one around me when I write. Similarly, I don't drink, but I've considered taking up the habit, just so I can feel closer to Eddie whenever I need to. I mean, alcoholism was one of the central facts of his life. It affected so much of what he wrote, including this week's story. How can I possibly hope to understand that "glow" Eddie claimed to get from booze, unless I sample a little of it myself now and again?

For the time being, I am not going to become a drunk or an angora fetishist in the name of research. Instead, what I have done this week is to faithfully transcribe a complete short story from the early 1970s by Edward Davis Wood, Jr., right down to those idiosyncrasies in punctuation and grammar. When Eddie conjugates the past tense of "sink" as both "sank" and "sunk," for instance, I have let it stand. In actuality, typing up this story did fleetingly make me feel a little like the man whose life and career I've been faithfully over-analyzing the last few months. I liked the feel of these words emerging from my fingertips. Ed wrote with a lot of verve and energy, and I felt a little of that vicariously. This is an erotic werewolf story -- and, yeah, I know how that sounds -- from the same era of Eddie's career as the short stories in Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr., the anthology I reviewed at length and in detail late last year. 

"Howl" was not one of the stories in that invaluable omnibus, but it would have been right at home there. Many of the classic Wood-ian motifs are present in this tale. Sex and death are intertwined in the most literal way possible. (You'll soon find out what I mean.) Mention is made of full moons, graves, snakes, dildos, and negligees. Breasts are again fetishized. The animal instinct lurking within man is once more given free reign. Yet another one of Wood's frustrated career gals -- in this case, a restless secretary -- seeks solace in nature, only to learn too late that salvation is impossible in this fallen world. And, naturally, our heroine's drinking habits are much-discussed. (Wood's potent potable of choice, whiskey, is a key prop in this story.) 

As for a deeper meaning, I'm stumped. Is this a puritanical story about a female libertine paying for her "sinful" lifestyle? Is it a cautionary tale for young women, warning them to be on the lookout for predatory males? Or is it perhaps a quasi-feminist work, presenting a sympathetic female character who just wants to be taken seriously without sacrificing her own pleasure? Maybe it's all of the above. Read on and decide for yourself.

"Howl of the Werewolf"

by Edw. D. Wood, Jr.

(originally published in Deuce, vol. 2, no. 3, Gallery Press, 1973)

Deuce magazine.

It was the constant howling which unnerved Rita. It hadn't ceased since the moon became full. She rolled over on her bed and looked to the bright moonlit window ... then she cringed again as the eerie howl seemed to fill the entire night. There was no other sound ... and it seemed closer ... almost as if it were right outside the window.
     For a brief moment she thought about closing the window. But that would have made the room impossible. It was stifling even with the window open, it would have been a complete furnace closed.

     But she got out of the bed and crossed to the window. She tested the screen. It was secure. Then she went back to the bed and took up a sheer negligee which she slipped into. She hugged her arms around her breasts as the howl came again and a sudden chill shook her entire being. A chill where there wasn't even the slightest breeze.

     Once more she crossed to the window and looked out into the deep shadows. The moon made the countryside almost as light as day, but where the trees and brush cast their shadows it was pitch black.

     And it was from the pitch blackness that the howls originated.

     "And when the moon is full," she whispered to herself, "the werewolf prowls." Then she grinned. "Bull shit!" She turned her back to the window, but still hugged her arms around her front. "Now I'm talking to myself ... and talking like a fool to boot." She began to pace the floor. "Got to get my mind off such thoughts. Damned nonsense coming out here in the woods by myself in the first place. What in hell is a city girl doing in the wild ... got to be out of my mind."

     The howl came on strong, sharp, then trailed off in a long wail.

     Slowly she walked back to the bed and laid down. There was one thing she could think about which might take her mind off of the present situation. SEX was a powerful mind exploder. If anything could dismiss those howls, the thoughts of sex would be that entity.

     When was the last time? It seemed like a month but in reality it had only been three nights before. The night before her vacation was to start. It had been Willie. Good old Willie ... the office manager. She'd had him several times before, but that last time stuck strongly in her mind. He came at her like a tiger. It appeared almost as if he'd been sex starved for months. But that wasn't so.

     "It's just something I feel about you leaving for these two weeks. It seems like such a long time," he had said. 

     "It will go by faster than you think." 

      "I hope so. But why stake yourself way out in the woods like that? Going back to nature might be alright for some people, but good Lord Rita. You're city born and bred. Take a cocktail lounge and a television set away from you and you'll go ape." 

     "I'm taking a cocktail lounge with me." 

     "It won't be the same." 

     "So maybe I'll become a lone, silent drinker." 

     "You'll be back in two days." 

     "Not on your life. I'm determined to stick it out. I've never been in the woods before. It's something I've dreamed of for years. Who knows! Maybe I'll like it." 

     "Honey you'll go ape-shit without a guy between your legs for two weeks. Look! You might kid somebody else, but I know you. You got to have a guy and his rod. You can't go two weeks without it."

     "I'll take a dildo with me." 

     "Oh be serious." 

     "What makes you think I'm not serious." 

     "Snakes, wolves, bears ... you'll piss in your panties every night."

     "Maybe I won't wear any." Then she had reached over and pulled his head down to her pubic region. "Kiss me ... kiss me there."

     He buried his nose and his tongue deep into her muff and her eyes closed and her hands went to her own breasts which she rubbed rhythmically. Her head suddenly began to toss from side to side and her buttocks rose and fell to meet his every action.

     The explosion, when it finally came felt as if it were going to tear her insides out. She liked that and she screamed at the height of the sensual heats.

     A quick series of howls, one after another brought her back to the present ... howls which seemed to be just outside the window. She came to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Horror, terror is a thing that comes out of the night ... an entity that does exist ... a something that no one sees, but all can feel, realize. Rita was realizing that terror more and more with each passing second. She would have screamed if it would have done any good. But what good could a scream be? There was not another house or cabin within ten miles. That was the reason she rented that particular cabin in the first place. It was far away from anybody else and it was close enough to a quiet lake ... she'd seen many pictures of the moonlight reflecting across a quiet lake. She wanted to see the real thing. 

      But it wasn't turning out quite the way she had thought it would. The days were fine. But the nights ... that was something else. The night before had been bad enough, but that second night of the full moon ... the howling outside had grown in intensity. She clasped her hands tightly over her ears but the sounds were not shut out ... stuffing cotton in her ears also made no difference, she found that out the night before.

     Where were the cricket sounds and the other night noises? There was nothing but that wolf howl ... even more horrible when a cloud traveled across the face of the moon ... the sound was a cry for release from the grave ... a lost soul screaming from the depths of hell. She knew the sound was that of a wolf cry even though she'd never heard one before, except in the movies. And the wolf was outside, not there in the room. It couldn't come tearing through that tough screen on her bedroom window and all the other doors of the cabin were locked.

     Rita had never been one to frighten easily. But she'd also never been alone in the woods, far from civilization before. The woods had their own sounds ... sounds that would take a lifetime of living with them to fully understand. 

     She walked back to the bed and laid down. She locked her wide eyes on the ceiling where they would remain until the sun came up and the sounds of the woods came back to a more normal atmosphere. She hadn't closed her eyes all night ... and even more so it was a long time after sunup before she unfroze her body and stood up. All night she swore she was going to get out of that cabin as soon as the day was upon her once more. But something about the sun, the daylight seemed to make everything alright again.

     In the bathroom she stripped off her negligee and nightgown then lifted her breasts with each hand. They were firm and young and inviting ... even to herself they were inviting. At times she would raise them high enough so that she might kiss each nipple. The thought raced through her mind even at that moment, but she didn't. Instead she got into a lukewarm shower which she later turned into a cold one. The sparkling clear water quickly snapped all the cobwebs out of her brain, and she began to feel alive again.

     "Now why in the world would a howling dog or wolf or whatever it was give me such a sleepless night?" she said aloud to her towel while she went through the drying off process. "I've waited a lifetime for a vacation alone in the woods. I sure as hell would be a creep if I turned heels and ran. Silly!" Once more she turned and viewed herself in the full length mirror. She turned slightly from side to side so that she could take in all the delights of her luscious body. "After all I'm no child. I'm a grown woman." She winked at herself.

     She put on a thin nylon blouse over a matching skirt. She hated sneakers but they were comfortable for the long walks in the woods she planned. But there was something more important than a walk that she had to do first.

     The village was some twenty-five miles away, but she wanted a pistol and in order to get one she had to make the drive. She hadn't really noticed the place when she drove through it on the way to the cabin. But that had been at night and she was tired. She hadn't missed much. Except for a couple of cabins there was a gas station, a beer bar and the general store. She went immediately to the general store.

     "Oh no, ma'am," replied the ancient storekeeper as he looked over his steel rimmed glasses. "You can't take a pistol with you just like that. Takes three days. Got to put the order through the police and get their okay and that takes three days ... Way out here ... maybe five or six. But three days is the shortest time."

     "But I need it right away. There's a wolf prowling around my cabin. I need the protection."

     The old man winked, perhaps remembering incidents in his own youth. I sure bet there's a lot of wolves prowling around your door ... " Then he changed the subject back to the gun again. "Ain't nothing I can do about the pistol. but if you really got to have a gun." He turned to a gun case which he unlocked and took down a twenty-two. "Now this here's a new light weight twenty-two. Holds twelve shots, long rifle. This you can take right with you."

     "Will a twenty-two kill a wolf?"

     "If you hit him in the right place. You a good shot?"

     "I don't know. I've never fired a gun before."
     "Then you better stay in your cabin at night and keep the door locked ... You don't need no gun." 

     "Show me how to use it."

     She reached the cabin just as the sun was sinking over the distant mountain and the rays had turned to a fire red. She watched the shadows deepen for a long moment then she picked up the rifle and then entered the cabin. She put the rifle and an extra box of ammunition on the kitchen table, then went into the living room area where she sunk into a deep fur-covered chair and kicked off her sneakers.

     The drive had been tiring. She had taken her time on the mountain roads, but still it had been tiring. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again it was nearly dark and the man in the white shirt and denim slacks stood looking down at her.

     Rita snapped forward in her chair, startled. The man grinned but made no move toward her.

     "I have a gun in the house," she said for lack of anything else to say.

     "I know. I saw it on the kitchen table." Then he waved his hand slightly. "There is nothing to be frightened of. I knocked several times and when there was no answer I tried the door. It was unlocked, so I came in. It was easy to see why my knocking went unanswered. You were really asleep."

     "I had a sleepless night and a very long drive today." She felt no fear of the man. She stood up. "Are you lost?"

     "Something like that. I've taken a cabin in the higher mountains for the summer. I started for the village and only got this far along the road. Seems that a boulder cut loose from the high ground and fell to the road. I didn't see it until it was too late. Broke an axle I suppose. Yours was the closest cabin. Thought you might have a telephone."

     "I don't."

     "I guess most of the cabins up here in these mountains lack the modern means of communications. I suppose I'll have to put up a smoke signal like the Indians."

     Rita laughed. "I certainly can't send you out at this time of night to roam through the fierce jungle. You know there are wolves out there." 

     "I've heard them." He lowered his eyes momentarily then raised them again. "A body'd have to be dead not to hear them."

     "You're welcome to stay here tonight." She indicated the living room couch. "You can stay on the couch then in the morning I'll drive you into the village."

     "Now that's what I call hospitality."

     "Like a drink? Whiskey is all I have."

     "Now that's what I call double hospitality."

     She got up and went to the kitchen cabinet. The drinks were mixed with water and when the man had captured his he sank down on the couch while Rita went back to her chair.

     "I'm Rita Raleigh ... secretary ... on a mountain vacation for two weeks."

     "Kent Tenstyle ... rich ... young ... and willing." 

     Rita liked that part of it. It had only been a few nights, but she felt the crotch of her panties getting damp. "And good looking," she ventured. 

     "You're not something a guy could turn away from either Miss Raleigh." 

     "Miss Raleigh makes me sound positively ancient. Let's make it Rita." 

     He nodded and took a large gulp of his drink. 

     "I had my dinner in the village before I left. But I can get you something."

     "Don't bother. I'm not hungry ... for food that is." His eyes twinkled, and Rita had been around men long enough to know what that twinkle really meant. She could almost picture his thoughts as his eyes roved over her lovely body, and she wondered if he could figure her thoughts. 

     He moved to stand very close to her when she went to make a refill of their drinks. She didn't turn to face him at that precise moment but she could smell his man smell behind her and again his thoughts seemed to be pressing themselves into the back of her head. 

     She liked what she was feeling and the closer he came to her the more that feeling was intensified. She found herself wanting to feel his arms around her ... it seemed an eternity since she had a tongue sticking into her mouth ... the male sex organ parting her pubic hairs. Her thighs trembled at the thought ... the expectancy. And when is hands came down lightly on the back of her shoulders she turned slowly. He took the glasses from her hands and put them on the kitchen table near the rifle and ammunition. They looked at each other for a long time, their eyes locked in the heat of the moment. 

     His arms went around her and her lips raised to his and then she was feeling his tongue slashing within her mouth. And with their lips locked together he used his right hand to unbutton her blouse and when it opened her naked breasts popped into sight. "The bedroom," she mumbled through the tight lips ... 

     "Yes," he sighed, but didn't release the pressure of his lips. His hand found one of her lovely globes and he placed the nipple between two fingers. "The bedroom." 

     The movement of light in the sky out through the open kitchen door caught his eyes. He focused them on that growing light. 

     Rita's eyes were closed and she clung to the man desperately, as one who is starved for all the experiences she craved. 

     At first it was only a crescent, but the yellow glow was quickly forming into the perfect ball it would soon be. The moon was following the sun around the earth. Soon it would be full, and clear in the deep black velvet of the night.

     Kent stared at the coming event, and the corners of his eyes began to twitch. At the same moment Rita felt the change in her lover. She pulled away slightly and looked at him, but his eyes were fastened to that void beyond the door.

     "What is it Kent?" 

     He did not answer her. In reality he had not even heard her words. His hands dropped to his sides as he turned full to face the open door. Momentarily Rita stepped around in front of him but he didn't seem to realize her presence. She moved back more to the center of the room. Her eyes dropped to the rifle, then once more raised up to the back of Kent's head. 

      Something strange was happening to the man. The hair, damp hair, at the nape of his neck was growing by the second. She looked down to his hands and hair was growing rapidly there. His shoulders seemed to broaden and become slightly hunched forward giving his back a rounded appearance. 

     "What is it Kent? What's happening?" 

     Still there were no words from the man, but she could hear his sudden heavy breathing and a slight gurgling sound which drifted up through his throat. His back was to her and it heaved heavily. He began to pant like a dog in heat. 

     Fright built itself quickly in Rita's heart. She snapped up the rifle and aimed it at his back, but she did not fire. "Kent. I want to know what is happening!" 

     Her breasts popped in and out of her open blouse front with every panicky breath she took. She bit at her trembling lip. One hand left the rifle to brush the hair out of her eyes, then went immediately back to steady the weapon. 

     Kent threw his head far back and the howl of the wolf filled the entire room and it was only topped by the piercing scream which issued from Rita's throat ... Then she fired shot after shot from the rifle. She saw each of the bullets strike their mark in the creature's back. The rifle then locked in silence when the last shot was fired. She screamed again and the rifle fell from her hands. Her eyes went wide in terror as the creature turned to face her ... The lips parted to reveal the flesh tearing fangs and the drooling saliva which flowed over the corners of her lips. His face was completely covered in hair ... the gray-brown hair of the wolf ... of the werewolf. 

     He snarled, then wailed again. His hands went up high as he started in for the kill. 

     "None but the silver bullet can kill a werewolf," she heard herself realizing as the claws tore her clothing from her body. She tried to turn and run but the claws dug into her flesh in long jagged, blood letting cuts. Then she was on the floor and he was on top of her. He felt his muscle enter her and he pumped explosively at her over and over again until that final moment of climax ... and at that moment of climax his fangs tore into her throat ... 

     She died with the scream and the blood gurgling in her throat, and her thighs quivering from the effects of that last climactic explosion.