Orgy of the Dead (1965)

Hi, everybody. This is Frank Henelarder, director of Brain Damage and Frankenhooker. And we're here watching Orgy of the Dead with the man who wrote the book on Ed Wood. And here we are with the star of the film, so to speak. He gets top billing. And it is Criswell. Now, I guess most of you people watching this probably only know Criswell from Plan 9 from Outer Space. And it opens, Plan 9, the first thing you see is the word Criswell predicts. Now, I'll go into Criswell a little bit later, but... Oh, look, I'm reading from his cue cards. And we should mention that he's wearing Bela Lugosi's Dracula cape from Abbott & Costello meets Frankenstein. How did he get that? They got that from John Andrews, who said, I'm not telling anybody how I got that cape. Oh, well. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm sure. All right. Anyway, Criswell... began as a TV salesman. On a local TV station in Los Angeles, in 1953, he bought airtime to sell Criswell Family Vitamins. And to fill up the 15-minute airtime, he started making predictions. The predictions became so popular that the station actually gave him his own 15-minute show called Criswell Predicts. And by the way, 15 minutes in those days was common. It wasn't that they... So anyway, his popularity was such, the show was syndicated, and his popularity was such that he even did newspaper columns that were syndicated in papers and magazines. And he would also often appear on television, on the Jack Parr show, on the Tonight Show, and eventually with the Johnny Carson show. I'm going to throw it to you in a minute, Rudolph, about plugging orgy. But what I remember growing up with was Carson having Criswell on every New Year's Eve. And, you know, they would do a big pomp and circumstance. Criswell would come out, sit down, and say the world's most idiotic predictions and would have Carson hysterical laughing. And I could have sworn... that on one of those shows, I remember him plugging Orgy of the Dead. And you told me I'm right, huh? He plugged it on September 2nd, I believe, 1965. And, I mean, I don't remember what the audience's reaction to, but even back then, Orgy of the Dead was a strange title. No, he plugged it on September 29th. Ah. Okay. And Orgy was... was finished a few days before. But what happened was, the reason we can't see any of this is that all of the Johnny Carson shows up to 1969 were erased and some shithead at NBC thought it was a good idea to reuse the videotapes. Johnny Carson is furious, by the way, as you can imagine. Listen, accountants have wrecked a lot. 20th Century Fox did all these marvelous films in Technicolor. And one day, one of the smart accountants said, you know, we're wasting valuable lab space because Technicolor has three negatives. And he said, let's just dump the negatives and print them all on Eastman stock. And they said, great idea. So they printed it all on Eastman stock. destroyed the negatives, and now all that Eastman stock is a pretty color pink. Achievement zero. Anyway, more about Criswell later. In fact, I even have one of his books, and I'll be reading some of his more outrageous predictions, especially when the dancing starts. But, Rudolph, talk about this now, because our hero is a horror fiction writer. his horror stories top pop up in all the top spots and well what didn't Ed was making an allusion to his own career as a writer and but he was doing all these paperback books but he did I mean I know him from all the sex books sex stuff he wrote but how much horror fiction did he do and where was that published well that actually the horror fiction didn't really come to like a few years later but as far as getting published. He did have the Orgy of the Dead novel. Which he did apparently after this, right? That's right. Yeah. And the apostle says, well, you know, he already got $600. Well, in 1966, 65, you know, that wasn't so bad. That's a lot of booze you can buy. You know. And in fact, I think the reason everybody loves Orgy of the Dead today is because of this crackpot dialogue that Ed just excelled in. I should mention, too, that Criswell did another one for Ed, and that was the Night of the Ghouls, but nobody knew it back then. Well, it was never released. Exactly. No, that was actually the first one he did after Plan 9. He couldn't pay the lab bills on the film, and it didn't get released until the 80s when Wade Williams went to the service lab. Well, that was exciting, though, back then. Oh, sure. You bought the big box of tape, and it said, Orgy of the Night of the Ghouls. Waldo Hanson, who I spoke to, she said that Ed told her, well, this is going to make you into a star, Waldo. It never came out. Well, actually, while I'm right here, Ed did a book, one of his many books. And this one is easy to find because it's been reprinted a number of times, but it's called Hollywood Rat Race. Well, that never came out until it was... That's actually the first edition. Yeah, but this is a read. This is really... Didn't this come out in paper? No, it didn't come out at this time. This is really the first time it was published? As far as I know. Oh, my God. If it ever came out... In a previous edition, I've never been able to track it. Holy shit. Well, anyway, he does. He's talking about how to make a cheap picture and fail and do good. And he's talking about everything. And he's done. Oh, look at him. He's doing his best Bela Lugosi there. Criswell. But he does say here. He said, our newly released. He's talking about independent producers. And he says, our newly released Orgy of the Dead will be a pleasant surprise here. It was filmed using a widescreen process and exciting color. I love that word, exciting color. It could well become a classic in its field. As well as enjoying the film, you might like to read my novel from which the screenplay was written. It too is entitled Orgy of the Dead. And, you know, he said it's a classic and he's kind of right about that because this film was really, really, really out of step. from what was made in 1965 in sexploitation films. I mean, you know, by... Apostle of... I'll read what he says in a few minutes. I have a couple of interviews with him where he talks about this. And he saw, apparently the only sexploitation film that he ever saw was Russ Meyer's Immoral Mr. Tease. which, you know, is quintessential nudie cutie. It created this exploitation market. 1959, yeah, mainly in release about 1960. And he said he never bothered to see anything else. Well, a lot changed between 1959. It created the fields we call nudie cuties, but by 1965, the market had drastically changed to a more realistic kind of... There were still a couple of nudie cuties in the marketplace, but they were so few and far between. It was basically extinct by then. And in its place, you had a lot more darker kind of sexploitation film. You know, and I'm thinking, for instance, like Hersha Gordon-Lewis's and Dave Friedman's Scum of the Earth, 1963, which is pretty rough. Russ Meyer's amazing film Lorna in 1964. Just a terrific film even today. And... You know, Joe Sarno's Sin in the Suburbs, that's also 1963 or 4, somewhere in there. And then a new kind of exploitation film erupted, which were called The Ruffies. And in 1964, you had films like Olga's Girls, you had White Slaves of Chinatown, and my favorite of the bunch, Olga's House of Shame. So, you know, the average guy... that's been going to see sexploitation films, walks in expecting to see something dark and dirty, and is confronted with a couple of monsters, Criswell, a vampire lookalike, and fucking dancing. I mean, this is the last thing that I think an average guy back then, I don't know how well this did. I don't ever recall an apostle saying it was a success or a failure. But I can't imagine that it had much legs back then. So tell us what... Well, in 1966, I was in high school, and it was my habit of checking out what's playing on 42nd Street. I used to go down there at least once or twice a week to see what was playing. And there at the, I don't know, maybe the Harris... Well, it probably was the Victory, if it was the sex... Victory Theater, where they played the sex type stuff. There was a film called Orgy of the Dead, and there was the one sheet in the window. And I said, whoa, look at this. Criswell. Directed by Ed, you know, directed by, written by Ed Wood, who I knew Ed Wood was at this time. I think Ed Wood's name was on the poster, wasn't it? I don't know. I never saw the, I never saw the one sheet. I'm looking at what they're, oh, the one sheet. No, it's not on there. Oh, that's great. No, just Criswell and a bevy of beautiful girls. All right. But it seemed like something I should definitely see. Yeah. So it was like in the middle of the week. So normally the film would end maybe at the end of the week. So I went back the next day. It was gone. The next day? Yep. Which was, believe me, that was something weird going on there. It was unintended. Something strange. They never did that. It was pulled. I suspect this was much too much for the audience and there was a riot. They had to get rid of it. Well, that proves my point. I mean, it was completely out of step with what was going on then. I think so. But the irony, what's ironic about this is, you know, what was out of place and perhaps even rejected by audiences back then is now arguably the most famous sexploitation film of the 60s. People that don't even know the word sexploitation have seen Orgy of the Dead. I can't think of another... I can't think of another sexploitation film that lives on today the way Orgy of the Dead does. I have to mention something. Apostoloff goes from somebody who's clothed, and the next thing you know, it's hopeless. Yeah. Isn't that what he does? Yeah, but he doesn't want to waste time. Doesn't that violate the basic tenets of striptease? Oh, I don't think, by then, I don't think he cared about scripties. But isn't that what you're supposed to do in a sex film? Yeah, but you know what his favorite phrase is? His favorite phrase was, yeah, yeah, he said, if I ran a restaurant, I'd give you good food and drink. He said, if I'm making a film, I'd give you big bazooms, which I call ticket sellers. So he just wanted to get right to the ticket sellers, right? Also, I'm looking at the Orgy of the Dead press book here, and there's some really funny tag lines for the film. They're saying catch lines, which I guess meant for the ads or for the theater to hang up. One says... Pretty sure Ed Wood wrote that. Yeah, okay. It says here, you see the wild frolicking of 12 dead girls. You know, I mean, truth in advertising. And then here's another version of that. The macabre frolicking of 12 girls condemned to eternal death for their sins. Wait a minute, are there 12 girls? I'm just reading what it says. I don't know. I think there's only like eight. Well, I'm not going to count them. Well, I'm just saying. I know. We should get this straight. There's another great line here that says, all the newspaper has this tagline that says, are you heterosexual? With a question mark. And I... You know, I can imagine back in 1965, it wasn't a common phrase. And I would imagine the average guy probably looked at it and went, hey, hey, hey, what do you think? I'm normal. No, come on, get out of here. I'm not a goddamn fucking hetero, you know. Then the other tagline they have that I love is, the film, this sounds great, the film that will satisfy every over sexagesimal adult. Now, what does the word sexagesimal mean? Now, it sounds like someone over sex, doesn't it? Yeah, but you know what it really means? Yeah. Okay, it's a great word, though. That's a great word. The film that will satisfy every over-sexagesimal adult? Well, you and I are probably the only sexagesimal men in this room, and that means over 60. You know, so it's really, you know, I mean, pitching this film to, well, you know... Every guy over 60 still wants to see goddamn sexploitation films. Weird rights of 12 beautiful females doomed for their moral looseness. So there we go. Anyway, let me read from a... Next time Criswell comes on, we should mention about him reading his lines. Yeah, yeah. Edward was holding the cards. Yeah, yeah. Well, I have two interviews with Apostoloff. Once upon a time, me, Johnny Legend, and Peter Clark interviewed Apostoloff. And I don't know where we did it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I don't know if it was in L.A. or it was in Las Vegas. I don't really remember anymore. And we published that interview in Psychotronic No. 8 back in 1990. And, my God, don't you miss Psychotronic. I mean, I've never enjoyed a film magazine as much as that one. That really just created it all. Yeah, so do I. I even have the early ones that... The ones he published here in New York that was on the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great. I mean, that was, you know... Look at Criswell. Poor guy. But, yeah, let me get... And then I have the other interview I have. Mike Rainey. You know, the... founder of something weird and he did an interview with Apostoloff oh god I forget where it's a lengthy interview I don't remember the time period but it was never published it was written for a book that something weird was going to put out interviews with everybody and it was never published so it was Mike Rainey and Elliot James and it's a lengthy interview and I'd love to quote from it because there's stuff that I haven't heard, you know, since then. Unfortunately, I don't have a Bulgarian accent. And Steve had a great Bulgarian accent that just colored the word so beautifully. Really, I just loved listening to him, even though there were a lot of phrases I couldn't make out. But it was just his charm. It's like quoting Criswell. I can't do that. There's only one guy that can quote Criswell correctly, you know. But, okay, let me see about... Oh, him talking about Criswell here, because he was really pissed about that. Who was pissed? Posloff. About what? Criswell not knowing his lines. Oh, yeah, yeah. Really pissed. Well, what I have here is... He went on about how the cameraman, Robert Caramico, insulted Criswell, saying, watching you act... Watching wet paint dry. Well, that's pretty accurate. Would you like to recite that story? Well, actually, I don't have it in front of me, but let me go, let me start here, and feel free to interrupt any time at all, please, because he talks about, he said, this is a possible of saying, I started thinking about making films, but I knew I had to have distribution. I also started thinking about what films were needed, what niche could I fill? So another friend of mine said, Steve, I just saw a film called The Amaral Mr. Tease. So I went to see it. It was a cute premise, and I said, well, I could do something like that. See, no sense of what the marketplace is. He's basing this on a 1959 film. So, well, the cameraman that worked on it, Posthoff did one previous film before this one, Journey to Freedom. Yeah, and I even watched that for this a couple of nights ago. uh i think it was released uh yeah probably in there somewhere like that toward johnson in one fast scene he played he just doesn't like the he doesn't like the hero they're in a bar they've got the heroes playing it's supposed to be steve playing a piano and tour goes by robert yeah yeah and it looks it too that's you know i like their tenos uh films gun girls and especially girl gang but my god this has that same very primitive yeah yeah edward was my competitor so to speak That's what he said. Okay, well, all right. You know, people, let them believe what they want. Anyway, yeah, so Tore's in one scene and he walks over and he goes, You Bulgarian! I don't like Bulgarian! And slams the piano keyboard out of his hand and then starts a fight. You know, it's just a great cameo. It livened up the film. I mean, you know, but anyway. getting back to Poslove, he says, well, the cameraman on Journey to Freedom, Bill Thompson, who was such a nice guy, was also the cameraman for Ed Wood. You know? And I think he did all the... Didn't he do all of them? I think he did. Yeah. Right. And Night of the Ghouls. Yeah. Okay. And... Bill said, Steve, I'd like you to meet somebody. He's a nice guy. He's a writer. He's enthusiastic. He's an ex-Marine, and he hates the commies, which to me was very important. I said, fine, I'll meet him. So Bill made the arrangements for me to meet Ed Wood at the Brown Derby. Now, you know this story well, right? He loves telling this one. He said, I used to live only a couple of blocks from the Brown Derby and would go there all the time and knew everybody. I went there early. and told the maitre d' that I was supposed to have a meeting with a gentleman I've never met before, so if anyone asks me I'll be at the bar. So I'm sitting at the bar having a scotch, and a little while later the maitre d' comes over to me with a big smirk on his face, like the cat that swallowed the canary and said, Mr. Apostoloff, your date is here. I turned around and I said, oh shit. There was Eddie dressed in drag, a red miniskirt, white boots, angora sweater with phony tits, and a mustache and three-day beard. And Mike Braney comments, he says, yeah, just your average commie-hating ex-Marine in a dress. And Apostle Love, getting back to the interview, he says, when I saw him, I thought, oh God, open up the earth and bury me quickly. He introduced himself with a very masculine voice and sat down. I asked him what he'd like to drink, and he ordered an old-fashioned, you know, bourbon, tomato juice, and we started to talk. Eddie sold himself to me as a writer who had done a lot of screenplays. I asked him if he had anything with a sexy side to it. And he mentioned a screenplay he'd already written called Nudie Ghoulies. And he gave me a very, very brief synopsis of what was eventually became Orgy of the Dead. And I said, that sounds good. Now you, you brought the, you have the script here. Yeah. I got it. Yeah. And is there anything more than, I mean, how many pages is it? Well, it's obviously, you know, the first incarnation of the film. It's not accurate to... It's 18 pages. And the dialogue has been changed, but this is the first incarnation. Was there a date on there? No date. No date. But it must have been in 65. And no Emperor of the Dead either, right? The Emperor of the Dead is called the Black Skull. The Black Skull. And is there a vampire character in it? No, wait. The... The Emperor of the Dead is called Skull. The Black Ghoul is the vampire character. You also told me that they asked Vampyra to be in this and she didn't want to do it. What was the story? Actually, I thought about it and I asked Steve Apostle if I said, well, why did you get Vampyra for the Black Ghoul character? Yeah. He said, well, you know, sometimes the forest is too close to the trees, and he didn't think of it. I think, though, if he did ask her, she probably would have turned it down. Well, she may have turned it down because she may have thought it required nudity, but maybe if he was told... But the actress who's playing her, Fawn Silver, said she loved it, but she was very clear that she wouldn't do nudity. Yeah, right. I mean, Vampyra could have said the same. It would have been... It just would have been perfect seeing her in it. Because, I mean, the actress, Fawn Silver, that's doing it is very much in the, is very much doing Vampyra. And when I got to L.A., and this was a, Steve arranged for a screening room showing of the orgy of the dead. Right. Which nobody at that point had seen because it wasn't on video. I mean, they might have seen it back in 1966. Yeah, right, right. That's about it. So it was shown. Now, who had a print? Steve Apostle. Oh, okay. And he rented out the Hollywood screening room. And I invited to make the plenty of the screamers who introduced me to Vampyra. And Vampyra came. There was a bunch of people who were really into this stuff at the screening room. I assume Eric Caden and... But this was in May 30th, 1984, and there was the Hollywood screening room on North Highland Avenue. And you know, this was the first time anybody had seen Orgy of the Dead. How did it play? It got a big popular reception. I think it did. All right, and gets the punchline. And the punchline is... When I left there, Steve gave me the bill for the screening for $45. Would you still have it? I love that you still have it. Well, it was a big surprise to me. He consulted me on that. Well, you should have charged admission. If I had known he was going to do that, I would have. And then sold popcorn, you know. Made some money, right. That's a good thing. Why didn't I think of that? Well, I didn't know about it. That's why. Well, this is, wait a minute, let me interrupt this for a minute. This is Pat Barrington now here. Yeah, okay. Doing the Golden Girls sequence, which Apostle said was done, you know, obviously based on Goldfinger. I'll get back to what he was talking about. With John Andrews as one of the giants, and I think John Bailey is the other guy. Yeah, and let me just... Well, you mentioned that John Andrews, of course, plays the wolf man. Yeah. Yeah, now Pat, I think this is her first film. She's basically a dancer. She's not an actress, as I'm sure you were watching this. And I was always fascinated with her. She did another really excellent film after this called Agony of Love. It's probably one of the only good films that Harry Novak ever produced. William Wadsley? William Wadsley, yes. And it's really good. And she plays a somewhat psychotic housewife who's almost compelled to sell herself as a hooker. She doesn't care. I mean, she really doesn't even need the money. It's just... you know, it's pretty good, and she's so devoid of emotion, the character actually works. It's very nice. Anyway, I looked her up online, and you know, I never know whether to believe what I'm reading online, because there's all kinds of contradictions. I know the Rialto Report, which is a pretty great website that has interviews, podcasts, and articles about you know, people in the adult film business, softcore, hardcore, anything, they did a fabulous, lengthy interview about whatever happened to Pat Barrington. And it was pretty good and pretty sad. And then a couple of weeks later, it was gone from the site. I didn't read an explanation. I mean, maybe they did, but I don't know whether... So I don't want to quote from anything, really, because I don't know what's really true and what isn't, okay? But apparently... if the gist of her life was, you know, she was involved with different men and, you know, moved from movies to dancing and city to city and that. The one detail, however, and again, I don't know if this is true. I have no idea. I didn't know her. No first-hand knowledge. But they're claiming that in 1959, one of the people she met, she was working in Washington, D.C., And she got involved with a local musician named, oh, I think the name was Melvin Reese. I have it. You know, there's trouble. You do notes like me. I'm not used to notes. And now all of my notes are so messed up. Yeah, I got it. Melvin Reese. Correct. Now, this is what I'm reading. I'm not saying this happened. Okay, folks? So she got involved with this guy named Melvin Reese. And a year later... In 1960, he was arrested as a serial killer. Now, I looked up a number of sites on Melvin Reese. They never mentioned a girlfriend or Pat Barrington. You know, I mean, maybe they didn't think it was important. Who knows? But the guy was busy. He raped and murdered a woman. These were all murders between 1957 and 1959. That was his first murder during a highway encounter near Annapolis. this I think I'm getting from Wikipedia, so, you know, take that in stride. He said two years later he murdered the four members of the Jackson family near Fredericksburg, Virginia. So that's five. After his conviction for killing, Reese confessed to two other murders. So we're up to seven. And authorities believe he was involved in two more. Eight, nine. So that's the definition of a serial killer. So, again, I don't know if she left before that or whatever, but I'm just thinking... Oh, look at this. I mean, wouldn't it have been easier, guys, to put her in the bowl before you filled it up with liquid? Instead of putting her behind it and... Now, your arms should come out covered in gold, too, but let's not quibble. I'm just stating the obvious, okay? Anyway... I just like throwing... Do you want to make sense of this? No, I'm just trying to throw a serial killer into the mix. It always brightens up any subject. You could find a detour into a serial killer somewhere, right? Oh, I see. And look at this beautiful golden girl who is apparently living with a guy who is running around killing people. And she obviously... Well, I'm glad she got away. But anyway, he said... You can get back to this scene in particular. This is an apostle of saying from Rainey's interview. He said, on the last day I shot the scene with the Golden Girl, which of course was based on the scene in Goldfinger. Somebody, I don't remember who the son of a bitch was, but somebody said that if you paint a body with gold paint, the person will suffocate because their skin can't breathe. He calls her Barringer. Let me change it to Barrington. He said, Pat Barrington, who played the Golden Girl, started getting real nervous. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I tried to explain to her that if we use suntan lotion, she wouldn't die. She wouldn't suffocate. I don't understand. Okay. But the snake pit, which is what I call the makeup department, was telling her, oh, you're going to die. You better have special insurance. Then her agent called me just as I was ready to shoot the scene and said, Steve, I want you to have a doctor and an ambulance on the set. I said, she's not going to die. Don't be stupid. I explained what I was going to do, but he was adamant that we have a doctor and an ambulance. But he doesn't say if that happened. So anyway, you know, I could see where that would drive him crazy. And glad to report that, no, she didn't die. And that's John Andrews right there, right? The tallest guy? He's one of the guys who puts her in the bowl, I believe. He's listed in the credit as a... Giant. Yeah, yeah, giant, right, yeah, yeah. Giant, and he's the werewolf. Yeah, yeah. The mummy has all the dialogue. Yeah, but anyway, getting back to beautiful Pat. John Andrews said to me, you know, I didn't take it very seriously. This wasn't really the real thing, but, you know. Well. But he did provide the cape to Dracula. Oh, well, you know. Oh, that's pretty good. He said, you know, him and Ed, the reason he... got to know Ed was because John Andrews is a huge Bela Lugosi fan. And that's why he got to know Ed Wood. Yeah. He was a huge Bela Lugosi fan. I would believe that. That makes sense. They were friends, you know, probably for about eight or nine years. Well, getting back to Criswell, he says... Well, Criswell... Are we going to talk about this not being able to memorize the lines? Yeah, I got it right here. That should be noted. Yeah, he says, let me see. He said, Eddie brought Criswell of Criswell Predicts. I'd never heard of him. So Eddie introduced us and Criswell came up to me and said, Hi. Cris never talks. Cris performs. And Chris never walks by himself. I've never seen Criswell alone. He's always surrounded by an entourage. And Chris was always talking about he was on the Johnny Carson Show, and the Johnny Carson Show, and the Johnny Carson Show, on and on. But he looked very regal and very good, so I said, OK, he's in. He's the emperor. Criswell immediately brings in his own personal coffin. Most people didn't know it, but Criswell's family owned one of the biggest funeral parlors. So he brought his personal coffin, which looked nice and photographically very beautiful. Chris also liked to sleep in it. I remember one afternoon we needed Chris for a take and couldn't find him. Everybody looked around. It was a big, big set and no one could find Criswell. Then someone knocked on the coffin and Chris sat up and said, yes. He said, I had a lot of problems with Criswell because he didn't know his lines. So Eddie wrote out Criswell's lines on big pieces of cardboard. But Criswell couldn't read the cue cards without his glasses on. So he looked kind of cockeyed, which pissed off my cameraman, Bob Caramico. He told him Cris watching you is acting like watching paint dry. And Eddie was getting drunk all the time. Bob D'Artagnan told me not to lend Ed any money because you'd never see him again. Ed would get drunk. Well, Eddie naturally... would go and buy some booze. Next morning, he'd arrive around 10 o'clock, drunk as a skunk. I should have fired him then and there, but I liked Eddie. For the sequences where the couple is going through the bushes, I didn't have enough bushes and shrubs, so I told the crew we needed some more, so a couple of the guys went into Griffith Park and started chopping down whatever they could find. It looked good, so I kept my mouth shut. Well, there you go. Oh, there's Fawn. Now, Fawn... I have some stuff about Fawn Silver. Apparently, she... Well, I think... Let me find it. I think... I like her light blue dress and her red hair. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, let me... This interview with Mike Rainey. We should also mention that the... She has like a lesbian... Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that's pretty obvious. She keeps saying, oh, I want her. I mean, by the way, those giant puffs, that's the smoke machine going off. It's set on automatic. I've worked with them. Fog doesn't just erupt from the ground. You know, the whole function of those machines. I love the costume, too. Look at that. Little cat dance. That's the cat girl? Yeah, that's the cat girl. But you're supposed to, a fog machine is supposed to blow in the air, then you waft it, you know, and, you know, dissipate it. Not, just bursting out of the ground like a volcano in this. It's pretty cool. Imagine this is Texas Star. Who the hell is Texas Star? Well, no one else is ever going to mention it. That's why we have you here. Listed as Laura Lee Hart. Uh-huh. Cat dance. I suspect this is the cat dance. Yeah, yeah. All right. No one else is ever going to mention this. Well, I looked at the... She should get some credit. I looked at the credits for the other... Who is she now? She's probably like in Louisiana, you know. Little old grandmother. Yeah. Probably has a bunch of kids saying, I don't want you watching that movie. It's never been on television as far as I know. Oh, God, no, no. Probably cable, though. Probably cable. Well, I don't know. I don't think so. Well, I don't know of any. That's a good question. Has it ever been broadcast or played anywhere on TV or cable? I looked up all the other girls in this, and most of them are just dancers. They're not actresses, so there are very few film credits. I mean, there's one or two that have a... I think two of them had a bunch of credits. One's still working, apparently, today. The Russian girl. Yes, yes. But in general, the only other credits... Where is she? Why don't we interview her? Well, you know, you have a number? Nadezhda Klein. Also known as Nadezhda Dobrova. Well, one of the other... I looked at the other girls, and most of the other credits are, well, no surprise, Bachelor Dreams and Motel Confidential, which were two more Apostle films. Motel Confidential was his first film after this one. And what's so surprising about Apostle's other films, which we should get into, especially the ones with Ed, was they were contemporary. You know, suddenly they were dealing with, you know, contemporary subjects, the black and whites. I mean, College Girls, the name of the sorority is LSD, isn't it? I mean, it's... He didn't write College Girls. Well, I said he made it. Well, he claims he wrote all those. Apostle. Oh, no. It had nothing to do with college girls or motel confidential or office love in all that. But they were immediately after this very contemporary pictures and probably did well because they could get constantly re-released and everything, you know. So my point was what? I just got lost. I'm an old man. I can't help it. You know, that short term memory just goes flying out the window. Oh, I know what it was. It was. I'm not surprised that he probably called a bunch of these girls back for little roles in Motel Confidential. And that was like an episodic film. So you don't really need actresses, you need bodies. And Bachelor Dreams was a short he made that he sold as if it was a feature. It was to go out with one of his films to form a double bill. And apparently most of the footage... uh for that was shot on the set of uh orgy of the dead like tests with that so yeah so that explains that uh you know the other credits of most of these girls you know it's you know they just went oh my god now he's getting now he's getting nasty uh way chriswell looks like he's blasted he does doesn't he was he a drinker Well, Apostle doesn't mention that. He's so angry. I'm just saying from my perspective, he looks like he's blasted. Well, in some ways, I hope so. He probably would have enjoyed it a lot. I'm not making a moralistic judgment. That's what he looks to me. Maybe that's why he couldn't remember his lines. That's funny, yeah. But you know what else, too? They've got a lot of white around his eyes, and that doesn't help things, you know? It probably was put there to take out the bags, but it just doesn't translate well. But don't you love the little spit girl? I just, you know. Anyway, one thing about Criswell, too, you know, he's lifelong best friends with Mae West. I mean... Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's on her 1955 album, The Fabulous Mae West. which you can hear on YouTube, by the way, folks. Also, one of his predictions was that Mae West would become president of the United States. All right? One of his other great predictions, get this, was that Mae West, Criswell, and of all people, Liberace's brother, George, would take a rocket to the moon. And there's a beautiful painting you can see online somewhere. Someone has Criswell and Mae West in spacesuits. smiling through their plastic helmets, on the move, waving. That's that cover of a science fiction magazine. Yeah, I got that. Well, that's, you know, that's... The Pope science fiction magazines from the early 50s. Now, okay, those are two of his crackpot, but he's... Who's a crackpot? No, I said those were two of Criswell's crackpot predictions. You're saying he's a crackpot? I'm saying there's a good chance. But... Listen to this. This is one of the famous ones. You know, if you keep making predictions, one of them is bound. But on the March 10th, 1963, a TV special with, after Parr left the Tonight Show, he had his own show. Parr had a weekly series. And on the March 10th, 1963 show, Criswell predicted, quote, President Kennedy will not run for re-election in 1964. because of something that will happen to him in November 1963. Yipes. Okay, but I also, I have two of his books. I have your next 10 years, and I also have, for the purpose of this, I have Criswell Predicts from now to the year 2000. which was published in 1963. And I might as well read some of these while this action is on the screen. The one I'm reading from is very easily accessible on Amazon, folks, if you want to know what's going to happen in the future. Although there is no future for us, by the way, because he gives the date of the end of the world. He's very specific about it, okay? And it's very cheap. You can buy the hardcover copies. It's not like I'm bragging about some rare, you know, tone that I have. No, no, no, no, no. You can get it. But also, I want to mention that he recorded a record in 1970 called The Legendary Criswell Predicts Your Incredible Future. It was on Horoscope Records. And it was eventually put out on CD. And it should be easily available online. I believe it's on YouTube. I mean, I downloaded it somewhere. I, you know, I don't know if I don't think Amazon sells it as a download, but I have it in my iTunes and it's great. It's just great because there's nothing like hearing him predict with his, you know, very regal voice. And, you know, but I have, you know, while we're doing this and, you know, interrupt me, Rudolph, the moment you want to bring some, but there's a lot of wonderful crackpot predictions in his, in his, in his book. And, uh, uh, I don't even know where to start. Like, you know, media destroys London in 1988. Okay, well, there you go. All right? But a couple of these that are just my favorites. Let me get what happens to Denver. Denver, Colorado. By the way, it's no longer there because of what happened that he... You know, Frank, you could have... What's the percentage of his predictions that came true? Well, on the back of the cover it says 87% have come true. I'm thinking... I would be surprised if it's 7%. Okay? You know, but... Okay, here's what happens in... I predict... that a large city in Colorado will be the victim of a strange and terrible pressure from outer space which will cause all solids to turn into a jelly-like mass. I predict that this pressure will not affect any other part of the world but will be pinpointed at one particular city. Housewives working at home will suddenly feel the floors sway and buck beneath them. Their once sturdy furniture will slither into weird and fantastic shapes. Dishes will turn into putty and silverware will have the texture of rubber. I predict that without warning, buildings will collapse to the ground in near silence, trapping thousands in the rubble. These unfortunate victims will not be cut or gashed, but death will be caused by crushing and smothering. These collapsed buildings will look like masses of oddly foamed rubber. Oh, he goes on. I mean, it's just good. I like that. Well, I'll keep going then. I predict in this forsaken city will be crippled for I predict automobiles, trains, cars, and buses will be entirely useless. Factories will be unable to continue production. Poles supporting high-tension wires will collapse. The entire population will live in terror and in fear. Oh, boy, oh, boy. He goes on to all the horrible things that will happen at hospitals. All right. I predict that this catastrophe will take place during the Taurus season and the fun-loving people in the amusement zone will suddenly find their day of pleasure turned into one of horror. I mean, considering what's going on, isn't that the least of the issues? But anyway, Penny Arcade will become a dungeon of doom. A canopy of a merry-go-round will plunge down upon the most innocent riders. I predict only silence will reign. where there was once laughter and gaiety. The citizenry of this Colorado city will find themselves enveloped in a jelly-like substance that was once brick, concrete, steel, and lumber. They will be unable to escape, for it will be impossible to cut through or tear this substance. Although soft and pliable, it will still retain the strength and weight it formerly possessed. Okay, I predict that scientists from all over the world will be called upon to help, but no one will be able to offer relief, for they will not be able to conquer this terrible force, this mysterious force from outer space. Gradually, as conditions ease, survivors will be evacuated, but this will become a dead city and will never again be reborn. I predict this unfortunate community will be a victim of elements beyond our control and will always be remembered until the end of time. I predict the name of this city will be Denver, Colorado. The date, June 9th, 1989. Write that date down, folks. The book is full of wonderful stuff like that. I mean, it would have been nice if while this was going on, he could be doing this, you know? He could have been, oh, look at this. This is getting dirty here. And since we're near the end of this film, I should say he predicts what the end of the world will be. He says, the world as we know it will cease to exist... on August 18th, 1999. He said, if you and I meet each other on the street that fateful day, and we chat about what we will do on the morrow, we will open our mouths to speak, and no words will come out, for we have no future. Well, Criswell passed away in 1982, so he missed that, and so did the rest of the world, obviously. Anyway, While we're nearing the end of this, I want to tell you what Posloff said to us about his planned sequel. I think we're near the end. Maybe not. Let me see. Oh, God, we're not. We're only halfway through. I'm racing through this. Well, maybe we should just... Yeah. Maybe we should just get up and leave. Let's call in lunch. Rudolph Rudolph's ready to go folks well you know what I would like to talk about then since we have more time let's talk about oh look at this let me talk about Fawn Silver she's in this film called Legend of Horror which something weird found and put out way back when and her star in the film is Bill Bates the guy in this who Rudolph he said he was an FBI guy right According to Steve, he was like an ex-FBI guy who put in $15,000. Yeah, and according to Steve, in an interview with him, he said, I matched it, and we were in business, so apparently the budget of this was $30,000. And that kind of makes sense. Yeah, so you want to mention her name too? Stephanie Jones. Oh, Stephanie, you're great in this. All right. Go on, she got some credit. Once, yeah. uh this film legend of legend of horror that she's in with bill bates is a real oddball folks it's uh it's like it's two films in one okay um once upon a time there was a argentinian film called uh obras maestras del terror which uh is like you know a couple of stories of terror and um it's really a good film i have it in uh in its original language, so I can't understand it, but I like it. And it's three stories based on Poe. Two of the stories were dubbed and released here in the U.S. by Jack Harris as, it was released in 1965, the same year as this, as Master of Horror. But the one story that wasn't included was The Telltale Eye. And it was bought by this, another producer, I think Enrique Torres, but he had obviously a chunk of film So they shot a bookend around it. All right. And it's in those scenes that star Bill Bates and Fawn Silver. And it was in a process that they advertised as, you know, magic, magic nation, which, believe it or not, was color gore inserts done by stop motion, which, you know, you remember the old Peter Gabriel video where he's singing and it's all stop motion. You can't have a person hold still. That's impossible. So all of the shots are like a knife going in the guy's neck. You know, the guy's quivering as much as the animation is. It's a really odd crackpot film. And, you know, I wish... Pixelated, gory animation. I mean, there's nothing better than that. And I would love to see this film... come out again in a restored version I mean I wish somebody could find the negative I wish somebody could find this thing although I'm not sure when the US scenes were shot maybe 65 maybe but the film wasn't released until 1970 so who knows what the story is with that one but it's a real you know mutant oddity anyway silence uh Oh, God. Hey, there you go. And who is she? Who is this girl? I love the... Well, I can't hear. Is this the... Let me see. Is this the... I don't know. Mexican? No? Hawaiian dance? Is there a Hawaiian dancer? Yeah, it's a Hawaiian dance. Is it a Hawaiian dance? I don't know. Don't ask me, folks. There's also a fluff dance. Now, what the hell is that? You know... Well, let me tell you some more about foreign silver. Hey, Mickey, how you doing, honey? Well, you know, what the hell? You know, I... Okay, I have a little bit about... I can mention something interesting. Yeah. Please, somebody needs to. Well, I have a still of Orgy the Dead on the set. And in this still, you can see most of the people. Right, right. But also, Kathy Wood. Oh, really? And I was always thinking, what is she doing there? And then I just thought about the other day. Well, it's got all these, like, strippers and nudie girls on the set. That's why she was there. Oh, that's right. Don't you think? You think so? Yeah, of course. Of course. Oh, my God. Everybody's dead now, so I can say whatever I want. Oh, my God. Oh, that's great. I was always wondering, why is she on that set? I got the still right here. Yeah, definitely. She was... Well, also on the set, we should mention some of the people that worked on this. Bob Caramico was the director of photography. He directed one film that I had the pleasure of seeing theatrically and something we had sold for years. It's called Sex Ritual of the Occult. Oh yeah, I heard about that for years. Yeah, and it's 1970 was released and it has a lot in common with this. It's all on one stage. One central stage. I never saw that. A fog machine. just like this, and a Chapman crane. So you could tell it was shot by the same man who did this, okay? And it's one of those odd hybrid films. In 1970, sexploitation films didn't know where to go. They didn't know how far they could go, how far, what constitutes pornography, what's hardcore. In some cases, they would do a film that was softcore and maybe have one scene that's hardcore so they can splice it out. That was the year that everything was confused. Yes, everything was confused. That's right. And what's interesting about this one is I could never see any actual penetration in the film. However, they apparently, and not just his film, but a bunch of others, I think they thought that oral sex was kind of outside the bounds of pornography, that it's only the actual screwing that was considered pornographic. So in Bob's film, and in some others like Anomalies and films like that, you'll see gals licking erections, and that seemed to be okay. In Bob's film, there's one scene that actually goes into oral sex. But any kind of other hardcore out, you know? It also has an odd moment where they have two guys on a park bench that, you know, are naked and just fondle each other. Now, that must have really made the audiences go crazy. I mean, that's not... Where was that shot? I don't know. You mean the name of the studio? I have no idea. West Coast. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And like I said, it really looks like this. I mean, it has that same... I wouldn't be surprised if we made the same deal at the same studio. What year was that released? 1970. And it had the same feel. The Fog Machine, the set that was overused again and again, mostly was orgy scenes. You never had, you know, get a bunch of naked people and just do, you know... this sacrifice, that sacrifice, I don't know, it's a, you know, a time waster, but it's a fascinating one, okay? Also, we should mention that the gaffer on this film was Ted Michaels, Ted V. Michaels. And... Yeah, yeah, you know, and he, you know, we all know him from... Doll Squad and from Astro Zombies, which I remember seeing Astro Zombies in the drive-in back when it was rated R. You know, it was reissued as a PG that was out on video for years, but it's actually an R-rated film. And then the one that he did that I am most happy about is The Corpse Grinders. And I wish some company would get on that one. Hint, hint, hint. Anyway, and then... And also, Ted, before this, he had made a great nudie film himself called Dr. Sex. And one shocking moment, a couple of it. Dr. Sex is very much in the orgy of the dead Russ Meyer nudie cutie spirit. It's very funny. It's very silly. It's really good. Let me see what else we can find. I want to get... does talk about uh oh yeah this is what uh paslov says about um um fawn silver who i mentioned was in she's the the vampire character and she's the one who was uh in that other film with bill bates legend of horror yeah and she's he says uh she invited me for a cocktail party at her house one night her husband ron silver was a big shot motion picture attorney. So I'm at her cocktail party and I see a person who she introduced as her father. Now here comes the one-two pitch. I could swear I had met him before, but I couldn't remember where. We started talking and both of us brought up a lot of mutual acquaintances and, stupid me, I suddenly realized her father, who was a rich industrialist, bought out Republic Pictures. Now, Apostle's first film was that journey to freedom was released by Republic Pictures. At the time, Republic Pictures was dying, and they were grabbing, I don't want to say they were grabbing anything they could, but they were grabbing anything they could. And he said, anyway, this guy and Fawn's husband became the biggest shareholder of the company. And afterwards, I said to Fawn, What the hell do you need me for? Your father can make ten pictures for you. And she said, because I want to do it on my own. She told me she didn't want to do any nudity in the film. She also brought her own hairdresser and her own makeup man. And her own star. I don't know what that means. Maybe a star for the dressing room? I don't know. But interesting. He also said he never got any... I don't know which interview this is in. So let me just paraphrase. I think Apostle said he never actually made any money from this film because the distributor was a crook. Let's see if I can find it. Yes, I have it here. This is in the psychotronic interview that we did with him. He said, he tells the same story here. Afterwards, I finished the picture. Foreign silver, blah, blah, blah. Same story.

If you've read three interviews or listened to three interviews with Apostoloff, you know all the stories. And they're all the same. So he has a good memory for this. He's not making this shit up on the spot. He also talks about the first screening. He said, I had a screening for Orgy, for Eddie, Criswell, and the whole entourage at the first Pussycat Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard, which was fantastic. probably the one owned by Dave Friedman and Dan Sonny, at least once upon a time. So we had a couple of drinks for the occasion. Afterwards, reaction was excellent and enthusiastic, but Criswell is quiet. I said, are there no predictions? And Criswell grabs me by my hand and is almost crying and says, Poppy, you made me look so regal. Isn't that wonderful? The guy who distributed Orgy was Fred O. Gephardt. May he rest in peace. So his initials were F-O-G, Fog. I should have known something. So Freddy gave me three checks for $5,000 each in advance. And what do I do when I have the money? I make a picture. So I had Eddie Wood write a script about a transvestite detective. Transvestite detective. Now, who else, right? Who else? About a transvestite detective in Paris called Seven... That's 69 Rupert Gow. Okay. The money didn't come in at the last minute. Well, listen to this. Possum says, that's an address in Paris where I used to live. He said, it's a murder story like Rue Morgue. So I cast the picture, and I built the sets. Beautiful sets. It's the same place we shot Orgy. So the day before we started shooting, my art director tells me, boss, the checks are bouncing. The checks are no good. Then I went bananas. I went to the bank and the checks were no good. So I should have known. Fog. Fog distributors, you know. So I canceled the show and that's why I got into distribution. SCA distributors. Now, by the way, we keep calling him Stephen Apostoloff. When he made the sex films, oh, the sexploitation, the world knew him as A.C. Stevens. Okay? And so SCA... Yep, yep, yep, yep. Uh... 69 Rupa Gal was later released as an Ed Wood paperback. Many of the films were also released as paperbacks. Let me find, if you can carry it for a minute, Rudolph. The sad part is that the 69 Rupa Gal movie, the script was all done. I read the script. The casting was all done. And Ed had a small part in it as like an MC at a show. He cast himself. He was going to be in it. And T.C. Jones, the female impersonator, was going to be one of the lead characters. And like Apostoloff says, you know, at the last minute, the money didn't come through from one of the people that was going to finance the film. But he told me they had built the sets and everything was all set to go. So that's really a big disappointment. While we're talking about that, you hung out with Poslov quite a bit, didn't you? Can you tell us any of that? Well, you know, we were friends. We hung out and had some adventures and stuff. Okay, define adventures. All right, okay. They were that bad, huh? Well, no, no. You know, I just want to be discreet about things. Well, okay. I'll be up all night thinking about what you two guys were up to. We had some fun adventures with women and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to talk about it. Okay, all right, all right. I said too much already. Well, that's what I would expect. You see, that's the kind of life I would expect you to have with, you know, Stephen Apostle. If you're going to go out with a nudie director, what are you going to do? You know what I mean? Rainey asks him in his interview, what was the budget of Orgy of the Dead? He goes, I don't want to say. but we've already pegged it as $30,000, which is a respectable price back then. I mean, it really was for these films. Before we go to his other films, Mike Verney asked him to tell me the story about Ed Wood and the Orgy of the Dead Stills. Okay? So here's a great one. He says, well, Apostle said, I kept press books and a book of stills for all my films. Okay. The stills were kept in thick albums, and the credits for Orgy of the Dead said, from the book Orgy of the Dead. Well, back when we made it, there was no book. Later, and without me knowing it, Eddie made a deal with Greenleaf Publications, a printing house in San Diego, to turn the script into a novel which pissed me off because I wanted some credit too, not personally, but for the picture. And he brings me five copies of the finished Orgy of the Dead paperback. Other than saying it was an Astra production, there were no credits. No cast, no crew, no other credits. He says, anyway, a little while later... I apologize for me coughing. Let me... You know, all this nudity is getting me. I mean, a bride's... A gal like her just, you know... All right. He says, anyway, a little while later... I needed some extra stills, some 8x10s for a theater play date. So I go to the book that holds the stills, and my goodness, they're all gone. Nothing. I said, Eddie, what happened? He said he gave the pictures to the publisher to use in the book. He borrowed them. Today, I don't have any stills from Orgy of the Dead. As a matter of fact, I have a deal with Japan for the film, and they want stills, so I have to have frame blobs made from the original print. And he did the same with the stills for Suburbia Confidential. All the stills for that are gone, too. Because Ed wrote Suburbia Confidential. Can I say something? Sure, absolutely. Orgy of the Dead. If Ed was borrowing the stills from Apostolos books, they were on the show. That got more publicity in more men's magazines than any film I've ever seen. I mean, it was all over the place. There must have been 20, 30 film, paper, you know, magazine, sex magazine, books... that got publicity I never saw a film get so much publicity in those nudie magazines so you're saying whatever Ed Wood did he may not have gotten his films back because you know they never give them back and that's probably true but that film got more publicity than any nudie film I've ever seen it's probably true too did they get the stills before Ed swiped them or after? whatever Apostle had there on the shelf there yeah Ed helped himself, but he got it to all the magazines. I'm telling you, Morty the Dead got so much freaking publicity, man, in the nudie magazines. It was incredible. More than anything I've ever seen. It's true. Oh, I have no doubt. I saw these stills long before I ever saw the film. So if you want to sell the film, that's the way to go. Yeah. So Ed also did a Suburbia Confidential paperback. even though he didn't write the movie. That's what Apostle is saying. He says, yeah, there was yet, well, there was another book Ed wrote which used a still from Suburbia Confidential on the front. Oh, maybe it wasn't called Suburbia Confidential. He said it was a still of Hugh Hooker who played the transvestite in the picture. Hugh, by the way, was the stand-in for Richard Basehart. Eddie wrote something called Death of a Transvestite. That's the book. And the still of Hugh Hooker in drag from Suburbia Confidential was used as the cover. And of course, nothing is mentioned, not even a simple courtesy about the still being from my film, not a single line of credit. It's not about me, but I want the films advertised. He said he never saw a dime from those books. And just to back up what you just said, Elliot James, who sat in on this, said, I have a magazine from the late 60s, Torrid No. 4, with a huge story on Suburbia Confidential that includes a shot of you behind the scenes directing and something like 20 pages of stills from the film. That's amazing. Anyway, you want to talk about some of the other films? Well, let me get back to the... Are we going to comment on the end of the film? Are we there yet? Now, Paslov says this is a real skeleton. That's what he told me. Yeah. He's got some nice camera work on this. Well, I think... I think Karamiko knew his stuff. You know, what's interesting about Karamiko, he did all these number of low-budget films. Guess what happened to Count Dracula? Stuff on that level. And then, years later, he's shooting Dallas. He became a big TV DP. You know? He's passed away now, but... so he's talking let me get Paslav is talking about the the talking about the ending of the rap party for the film and he mentions here his he was uncomfortable with he didn't he asked take it from me for a minute Rudolph if you can because I want to quote I don't want to paraphrase well I'm just watching Criswell at the end here We keep saying it's the end like we're hoping and praying, but I don't think it is yet. You know, that's the trouble. You know, I'm so... Oh, I think so. I think so. I think that's why the film is so popular today. Yeah, and he has baby blue eyes, doesn't he? That's my impression. I could be wrong. There's the great Bill Bates. I can't find it, but I remember Apostle talking about he asked Pat Barrington to scream, and he said she couldn't scream. He said it came out sounding like yip, yip, yip. So he was... He didn't know what to do, and he was thinking maybe I should replace her in that. So he said to her, you know, go home over the weekend and practice. And he said apparently that John Andrews and the other guy who plays the Wolfman were giving her private lessons over the weekend on how to scream. She came back on Monday, screamed, and everything was fine and dandy. I'm not sure of that. It's a weird scream she gives. You know, it's like, I love these two. Well, it's cool that Jane has the mummy and John Andrews is the wolfman. But it just cracks me up that they're having a private conversation during all this, you know? I mean, just... That's what makes it like a cartoon. Yeah. Anyway, on the last day of the shoot, Eddie says, Criswell would like to have a wrap party. He wouldn't say he wanted the party. He said Criswell wanted the party. I said, okay. We ended up working all day long. The crew is hungry. The cast is hungry. I'm hungry. Around 6 o'clock, we were shooting the sequence that opens the film where the couple is in the car. I heard all this noise, turned around, and oh my goodness, there were all these people I'd never seen before, people that Eddie and Criswell invited to the party. Pat Barrington froze, and I started falling behind. So I told Eddie to get rid of everybody. I told him to send them home until I finished the picture. Then came a delegation. Won't you finish it tomorrow? I said no. There's no party until I finish. Goodbye. Then I sent Eddie out to get food for the cast and crew while we continue to work. A little while later, I saw Eddie and the guys come back carrying boxes. Since we still weren't finished, I said, take five for a lunch break. I opened one box and saw a case of bourbon. I opened another box and it was a case of scotch. Another was a case of bourbon. And finally, some pretzels and potato chips. I said, Eddie, where's the food? To him, this was the food. So I said, excuse me. So someone went out to one of those fast food places to get some food, some real food for the crew. Around 1230 in the morning, I finished shooting. But now it was too little and it was too nice and quiet. I turned around and Eddie was nowhere to be found. My assistant director was nowhere to be found. His assistant director was D'Artagnan from Journey to Freedom. And he says, my script girl, who was a man, was nowhere to be found either. So I shook hands with my cameraman, gave him my congratulations, and went home. Next morning around 9 o'clock, Eddie walks into the office. I said, where were you last night? He said, I was tired. I said, as long as I'm on the set, you're on the set. The retainer walks in. I said, how can you leave the set? You're the AD. In case I collapse, you have to finish. He said, well, it was getting very late. I said, fine. From now on, you can leave as early as you want to and come in as late as you want to. Forget it. It's finished. Goodbye. I finished the film without them by getting Don Davis to do post-production. I wouldn't talk to Eddie through almost the next three pictures. So that's why Eddie didn't jump and follow him on those black and whites. You know? About the black and whites. My favorites are the ones with... Well, that's not true. My favorites are the first black and whites that Apostle have made. I love Motel Confidential. I love College Girls. That's the best. I hope Vinegar Syndrome will get around to these. I love Suburbia Confidential. They're all great. Let me stress, unlike what you're watching now, they're sexploitation films. They are not nudie cuties, and they're very... contemporary for 1965. Another one is Office Love, and I love all of that stuff. It's really good. However, when we get back to the colored ones, Edward was back involved with starting with, I don't know, starting with, I think, well, that's later. I think Class Reunion was the first one he did. yeah um and uh the class reunion is actually god help us a sequel to college girls would have been i hope you guys put it out as a double feature anyway um edward was back writing this is from the interview now in psychotronic uh possible says ed was edward was back writing most of the scripts so the dialogue oh no he's not saying this this is me saying this Pardon me. These are my comments in the article. I said, Ed Wood was back writing most of the scripts, so the dialogue got wackier. Wood rarely received any screenplay credit for these films. Some say Apostleff didn't even pay him. By then, porn films were becoming common, so Apostleff stopped making the men leave their boxer shorts on during sex scenes, but he stopped just short of making hardcore. He's been quoted as saying, quote, I don't make smoot, which is smut with a Bulgarian accent, okay? My favorite thing about class reunion is a wonderful line of Ed dialogue. I mean, nobody writes this like him. At one point, a woman called Fluff, one of his favorite words too, says to a guy called Wimpy, quote, this is how the actress says it, I'm always ready, willing, and I hate to use the word able, but for lack of a better word, able. It doesn't get better than that. I mean, that just doesn't get better than that. Let me see. Then in one called Dropout Wife, another great Ed Wood line that I love. Let me see. One of the ladies of that says, quote, If we put chastity belts on under our panties and we threw away the key, you can damn well be sure that every male in the world would be on his knees begging us to let him out of the toilet. Somewhere I got really lost writing that sentence, I'm sure. Now, which one is this? Is she Fluff? I don't know. But I think the one that I think... Rudolph and I probably like the best is Fugitive Girls, right? That was also known as Five Loose Women. And Fugitive Girls was released in two versions, an X and an R. And even though the R cut some of the stronger sex scenes, it also has footage that's not in the X-rated version. So when that comes out, and I hope that's on the Vinegar Syndrome schedule. Yeah, I just got the sign that, yep. It is. Hopefully they'll have both versions on there. Yeah, excellent. Because there's some Ed Wood shots of him as Pops getting harassed by the motorcycle gang. That's not in the X-rated version. Yeah, yeah. And in future... What? Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. The X-rated version, when we tried to get it for something weird to put out, Paslav couldn't find the negative. He said he lost the negative to it. Now, also, by the way, I have no doubt it was lost. A lot of times it's lost and then it's found again. I mean, you know, in the clutter or cans or something. I don't assume anything is really ever gone. You know, it just misplaced. So we had to put out the R-rated version. And, you know, we had the X-rated trims we had to put on as an extra. And, you know, it plays better with it all. I mean, you know. But anyway, the other thing that makes Future of Girls so much fun is Ed Wood plays a garage mechanic named Pops. And he's playing it like, oh, yeah. And he has this great line, remember, where he's going to make the phone call. Oh, I hope these girls don't hear me on the phone. I hope they can't hear me speaking on the telephone or they'll come at me. And then one of those being Western type things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Gabby Hayes at a gas station, you know? Anyway, poor Barringer looks so bored there. Like, you know, like, do I have to stay here tied up all day? Can I leave? If she's dancing, can I sit down? Anyway, the other nice surprise in Fugitive Girls is Ed plays a second role. After Pops gets killed, oops, spoiler, He shows up later on as a sheriff, and I didn't even recognize him the first time I saw it. Peter did. He said, you know, that's Ed Wood there. And Ed's wearing sunglasses, a slick mustache, and playing it totally different. And it's really great to see him pull off two different roles in one of Apostolo's better films. It's really a lot of action. It's a lot of fun. The girls are great. And it also has one of my favorite lines, where... The girls come on the hippies, and I forget who the actor is, but he realizes what's going on. He looks at this one girl who threatens him, and he goes, Good Christ, a lesbian! Which is, you know, hey, those are the times, folks. Well, that came through because Kostov let Ed Wood get a lot of his script through. Yeah. Well, you know, which brings up an odd one to me. The plot of Beach Bunnies has very little to do with Beach Bunnies. It has to do with a newspaper magazine, a gal who's trying to find out if some guy's actually, what, a woman in a sex change or something? I don't know. It's a really oddball plot. And it's one of those that Ed allegedly wrote, and I can't hear any of his voice in it at all. I just don't hear any of his crackpot lines. And I wonder if Apostle may have rewritten it. I wonder if the actors just had lived it. I don't know. I suspect a lot of it was rewritten. I've seen it recently, but it just happened time and time again. What was the book you told me about? Was it For Love or Money? You told me about a paperback that... Ed wrote that got published and apparently the publisher fixed all the grammar. I think so. And he turned... Yeah, I mean, it was just now mediocre instead of an Ed Wood jewel. Yeah. Yeah. And I found the dialogue on some of the latter films that Ed did right was missing the crazy shit that you hear in this one, you know? And that's really all. That's why the best scenes in this is just them two sitting together and, you know. So anyway, we got a few minutes and time for another Criswell prediction? Yeah. All right. I'll do a two for this time, okay? This is, again, this is all 1968. These were published in Oh, I'm not going to read this one, but there's a fascinating one where... Remember, this is 1968, and he claims that, in one of his predictions, that there's going to be an experimental... There's going to be some kind of lab chemical accident that's going to turn the people of a certain city into cannibals. Okay? And that, you know, literally, people will be devouring flesh in the streets. And he gives the, I don't think the date's important, but the city is. It turns out he claims this will happen in Pittsburgh, you know, the home of George Romero and Night of the Living Dead. I mean, it's just, what the hell's going on here, okay? So, I mean, is that an accurate prediction or is that a semi-accurate prediction? Anyway, here we have, I predict. that perversion will flood the land beginning in 1970. I predict a series of homosexual cities, small, compact, carefully planned areas, will soon be blatantly advertised and exist from coast to coast. These compact communities will be complete with stores, churches, bars, and restaurants, which will put the olden Greeks or Romans to shame with their organized orgies. He says you will be able... to find them near Boston, Des Moines, Columbus, Philadelphia, blah, blah, blah. Much thought and planning will be expended in setting up these communities where perversion will parade shamelessly and all will be within the law because the perverted will claim they have been discriminated against and the Supreme Court will rule that whatever these consenting adult males or females wish to do, they can. I predict that history will repeat itself right here in America, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, in the year 1970 and increasingly after the Supreme Court upholds them in 1973. So watch out for that, folks. And then, might as well... Well, I already told you about the end of the world, didn't I? I already did that one. So, you know... But it's a, you know, here's men become cannibals. And that's going to happen. The Pittsburgh cannibalism massacre will happen in November 28th to December 21st. How specific? 1980. 1980. Yeah, yeah. A lot of, I mean, folks. Oh, New York is gone. New York will be gone with... would be submerged by water. That's the end of that. Oh, well, here she is now. Maybe I should now jump ahead to Apostleff talking about the sequel. And when I interviewed him, he brought this up, not me, because I didn't know there was going to be a sequel. But he says, Orgy of the Dead 2, I will not talk about. And then he goes on to now talk about it. He says, I'll just say that it'll take place in a similar setting as the first one, but will be very philosophical in many, many ways. I'm taking a poke at us, at society, as human beings, what we do, how we do it. It'll start with something happening with a little spaceship or a probe, and there'll be very good discussions between the guests and the emperor. There'll be some dancing in it. There's nothing wrong with dancing. Even dogs dance in their own way. So there'll be dance. So there'll be dancing in it. It just won't be 90 minutes of dancing and 10 minutes of dialogue. Getting a new Criswell will be easy. I'll have Johnny Legend be in charge of finding a new Criswell lookalike. I mean, you just don't find Criswells on trees. Anyway, and I have a fantastic ending. Right now, I have a treatment for Orgy of the Dead 2. And I'm concentrating... Now, by the way, this was put out because... It was going to be Japanese money because the film did so well in Japan. That's what he told us. So, anyway, he says, I'll show what happened. He's talking about the characters were barely introduced. For example, the girl who worshipped gold has turned into gold, the bride who blah, blah, blah, and so on. This time, I'll show what happened in a flashback, why he or she is the way they are. Also, what do you know about the wolfman and the mummy? What's their relationship? What is the sex of the mummy? Is the mummy... A man or a woman? I'm going to show that the mummy is a girl. Well, that's news to the guy playing the mummy, I'm sure. So, folks, unfortunately, Orgy of the Dead 2 never got made. Rudolph, you said Steve gave you a copy of the script? Yes, he lent me a copy of the script to show you. But I didn't make a copy of it. Is that accurate? Is the mummy a woman at the end? I believe so. Oh, well, oh my God, look at this. This is such a tragic ending. And there she goes. I like the color composition. I love all the colors. You know, this is nice, bright color. This is really good. I'm just saying the light blue, the red. Yeah, yeah. The tits. I'm serious. Yeah, I know, I know, yeah. Like when Pat Barrington's out there, we're looking at color, right? I think she was thinking about it when she wanted to, you know. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I'm just being, you know. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Poor Criswell. That's his worst looking shot. I took a shot of that off the screen. Yeah, well. When it was in the screening room. I got a slide of that. I love these two guys just lying on the ground. The guy's taking notes. I don't know why he's taking notes. Two buddies trying to find out why these two people are unconscious there in the graveyard. Yeah, yeah, okay. You know? And I'm exhausted from talking. You know? I think I'm just going to sit here and watch this ending and shed a couple of tears that Criswell's gone and Fawn Silver's gone. And... Oh, yeah, she is gone. I meant from the film here. But I guess they all are. I guess they all are. You know, I mean, who's left to interview? You know? Who? Oh, is she really? Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Wow. You guys going to get an extra ad? Oh, beautiful, baby. All right. Okay. Oh, that's fabulous. Yeah. She's the only one of the dancers I saw has a huge list of credits and still working. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So... You know, I'm just... You know, anyway, like I said, this is such an oddball film. I don't think it found its audience back in 1965 or the ones that really appreciate it, but amazingly, it's the one that is so well-known out of all the sex films of the 60s. This is the one that almost everybody I know has seen. The name is well-known. Was this ever on Mystery Science Theater? Probably not, because of the nudity, yeah. Yeah, and... They just pick him up. He's been lying there for a half hour. Now he can pick up and walk? I mean, what? You know. And that's that. Any closing comments, Rudolph? I think we've pretty much covered it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last time I did a commentary with Rudolph, ten minutes before the end, he was packing up and practically out the door. So, and there we go. Goodbye, Chris. You can see right here that he's reading us lines. Oh, yeah. I know. It's not even subtle. It's pretty bad. Ed is like in front of him with the cue cards. Yeah. With the dialogue on the cards. And you can see he's reading it. Yeah, I don't know if I read that quote. Is that too much for him to memorize a few pages? I don't know if I read the quote, but Chris Apostle is still angry now when he talks about this. Anyway, everybody, thanks for listening.