Film Detectives: Serious, Mature Adults Only

[Jack Holman]

Apr 10, 2018 12:06:51 GMT -5 Billy A. Anderson said:

I had noticed that in the ads and wondered about it too.  Maybe someone somewhere has a copy of the Hand In Hand 8mm mail order films list.  

Maybe the Kinsey Institute?

A quick search through the institute turned up nothing. I guess that's something for us to be on the lookout for.

[Jack Holman]

I wrote an email to the institute yesterday inquiring about the footage. I told them what we think the footage contains and asked if there was any possibility of someone living overseas to view the footage... somehow (I can't say I expected to, but I guess there's no harm in asking). I also asked for any further information they may have on the reel. I'm thinking that if we can trace where it came from, we might be able to find another like it. I've got a hunch there were more than one of these reels made, and if that's the case, it's just a matter of finding them.

Anyway, the institute got back to me. Their response in full was as follows:

"Dear Jack,

These films have not yet been digitized so we don’t have much information about it. We are currently working with the university’s media digitization and preservation initiative. Film is the most challenging category of materials and we hope to begin the digitization process in 6 to 9 months. Once this film is digitized we can take a look at it to give you an idea.

Best,

Shawn"

Well, it's a bit of a long wait time, but it's better than nothing. At least if this reel gets digitized it won't get lost due to phyiscal decomposition. I guess I'll see if they get back to me in 6 to 9 months.

[Deeky]

I didn't realize you were in the UK, Jack Holman.

[Jack Holman]

I didn't realize you were in the UK, DoubleU.

Close but no cigar. Republic of Ireland.

[Deeky]

I always forget there are two Irelands.

[Deeky]

And I can never remember which one belongs to the Queen.

[Jack Holman]

Looking through various lists of films that Hand in Hand made and distributed, the latest film I can identify from the reel in the Kinsey Institute is 'Times Square Strip' made in 1982. I've read (although I haven't yet found a source to back it up) that Hand in Hand went out of business in July 1991. So assuming Hand in Hand made the reel themselves, that's 9-years, give or take, during which it could've been made. It's not much to go on, but it's as good a start as anything.

[Billy A. Anderson]

If Hand and Hand films lasted until 1991,then they could very well have put their films onto VHS for sale. Wonder if they did that, and there could be a video catalog of their films.

I suppose identifying by a title the reel that the Kinsey Institute has with HIM apparently the first film on it, would aid in the search. And, of course Hand and Hand could have also put that and other of their films onto 8mm, and possibly have had an 8mm film catalog, although by the early to mid 1980s, VHS rapidly replaced 8mm.

[Choconado]

Yeah, I agree with Billy, 82 alone is an incredibly late year even to still be relying exclusively on 8mm. It's not impossible, but 91? Forget about it.

[Jack Holman]

www.nytimes.com/1970/10/01/archives/4-are-arrested-in-film-seizure-judge-rules-censorship-in-denmark-to.html

"4 ARE ARRESTED IN FILM SEIZURE" - New York Times, October 1st, 1970.
"Judge Rosenberg set Oct. for a hearing in the case of the distributor, Saul Shiffrin of Livingston, N. J., and the managers, Thomas DeGraffenreid of the Evergreen Theater at 55 East 11th Street, Henry Young of the Lido East at 211 East 59th Street and Chung Louis of the 55th Street Playhouse at 154 West 55th Street."

Chung Louis. Can't say I've come across this name before. His last name is strikingly similar to Ed D. Louie's. Perhaps Ed D. Louie was a pseudonym after all, perhaps they were relatives, or perhaps two unrelated people. Not sure if it holds enough water to warrant further investigation, but still an interesting little tidbit.

[Billy A. Anderson]

It certainly looks to me like a subject worth checking out further.

[Jack Holman]

I've done some looking into the films on the Kinsey reel. I managed to identify most of them with relative certainty. Other than the one we're interested in, there was only one I wasn't positive on. I couldn't find a listing for anything called 'Hot & heavy'. I found a 'Hot, hard & heavy', so I've included the information from that listing as a placeholder. I'm thinking that it might just be a typo, or perhaps it really is a completely unrelated film. I've put together a table containing each of the films, their year of release, directors, distributors, and studios. You can find it at this link.

[Billy A. Anderson]

Thanks for doing all this hard detective work, DoubleU.

[Jack Holman]

The site I used to find the listings for the rest of the films was gayeroticvideoindex.com [NSFW, obviously]. While looking for the rest of the films, I figured it might be worth seeing if they had a listing for Him. Sure enough, they did: gayeroticvideoindex.com/V/6/53586.html

A few things struck me as interesting. Firstly, the page lists the distributor and studio behind Him as 'Fantastic Films', not Hand-in-Hand. The listing on the site for Fantastic Films turns up nothing other than Him. The page lists actor 'Ron Travers' in the role of the main (non-Jesus) character. Again, his page brings up nothing other than 'Him'. The page lists several scenes, including a few not mentioned in either David Tipmore or Al Goldstein's reviews.

The page cites three sources for this information:
1. Pete Dvarackas. "Gayflicks" Gay Times #19, 1974 pg. 22 (Review)
2. Bruce King. Gay Scene Vol. 4 No. 12 May 1974 pg. 15 (Review)
3. Data-Boy No. 114 Mar. 12, 1975 pg. 17 (Review)

I haven't come across any of these articles before in relation to the film. The page also lists Gustav Von Will (AKA Tava) under the name 'Tava von Wilo', which I'm thinking is probably just an error. I'm not sure how any of the new info presented on the page holds up, I guess I'd have to take a look at those articles to find out. I haven't been able to turn up anything in searching for them, but I've emailed the webmasters over on the site to see if they can provide me with the relevant scans.

[Jack Holman]

Apr 11, 2018 21:54:33 GMT -5 Billy A. Anderson said:

Thanks for doing all this hard detective work, DoubleU.

It's all a group effort, I'm just doing my part to help... plus I have far too much free time on my hands.

[Deeky]

Apr 12, 2018 12:32:04 GMT -5 Jack Holman said:

It's all a group effort, I'm just doing my part to help... plus I have far too much free time on my hands.

This is how soggy biscuit started.

[Jack Holman]

Apr 12, 2018 12:31:06 GMT -5 Jack Holman said:

The site I used to find the listings for the rest of the films was gayeroticvideoindex.com [NSFW, obviously]. While looking for the rest of the films, I figured it might be worth seeing if they had a listing for Him. Sure enough, they did: gayeroticvideoindex.com/V/6/53586.html

A few things struck me as interesting. Firstly, the page lists the distributor and studio behind Him as 'Fantastic Films', not Hand-in-Hand. The listing on the site for Fantastic Films turns up nothing other than Him. The page lists actor 'Ron Travers' in the role of the main (non-Jesus) character. Again, his page brings up nothing other than 'Him'. The page lists several scenes, including a few not mentioned in either David Tipmore or Al Goldstein's reviews.

The page cites three sources for this information:
1. Pete Dvarackas. "Gayflicks" Gay Times #19, 1974 pg. 22 (Review)
2. Bruce King. Gay Scene Vol. 4 No. 12 May 1974 pg. 15 (Review)
3. Data-Boy No. 114 Mar. 12, 1975 pg. 17 (Review)

I haven't come across any of these articles before in relation to the film. The page also lists Gustav Von Will (AKA Tava) under the name 'Tava von Wilo', which I'm thinking is probably just an error. I'm not sure how any of the new info presented on the page holds up, I guess I'd have to take a look at those articles to find out. I haven't been able to turn up anything in searching for them, but I've emailed the webmasters over on the site to see if they can provide me with the relevant scans.

The webmaster got back to me:
"I personally don’t have access to this material.

It is available at One Archives in Los Angeles.

www.onearchives.org

The data came from a volunteer working there who passed it on to me."

Guess I've got another email to write.

[Billy A. Anderson]

While us film detectives and other followers of this thread await word from the Kinsey Institute, and while this Lazy Beetle Bailey type film detective ties to motivate himself to find out Whatever Happened to Rev. Ted Mcllvenna's massive porno collection (the next logical place to look after the Kinsey Institute), and if Ed D Louie's HIM could have been in Rev. Ted's, collection, there are a few other sources that some of you here on ZAQB might want to check out, relating to HIM as an Urban Legend, and what could also be called an Urban Legend: claims that the film never existed.

Some web pages where that claim was made are now defunct, and although I remember saving the Mesmerize thread where a member claimed that the film never existed, I think that thread could have acidently gotten deleted from the CD I archived it to, and is lost unless there is any way to recover a deleted file from a CD.

I do, however, have the thread I started on the Mez board, with Al Goldstein's review, saved and within easy reach.

Now, to get to a place with one claim that HIM never existed:  the Fortean Times message board.

forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/gay-christ.14413/

The thread there was started on March 27, 2004, and last updated post (or reply) #40 on June 21, 2017.

In post (or reply) # 6, there are two quotes from the now defunct truthminers web page, the first one rather long, and the second rather brief, ending by saying about HIM:

"The film never existed."  

Don't know if I had discovered that page on Fortean Times while the truthminers website was still in existence or not, but if I had, I should have archived it to CD to go into the reference file for what could well become a book about the Urban Legend that HIM was a non-existent film, and the eventual consensus among those in the know that the film did actually exist, and could still be in existence today.

[Billy A. Anderson]

Searched the Fortean Times thread a bit more and Post # 12 (the numbering is by posts, not replies to the OP), has a "click to expand," rather long quote said to be from truthminers, which goes into a long argument that the an ad for HIM was a hoax, based on the type of computer files used.

I will do some net searches to find out if truthminers still exist under a different spelling, or different name. If those quotes are accurate (and, being a fair minded film detective, I say that, because I can't get to the original web page posts to confirm the accuracy of the quotes), whoever wrote them, and I think there could have been a name at the end of the quotation, really believed that HIM was a film that was a total hoax and never existed in the first place, even saying it was very clever of the Him Hoaxsters to use the name of a real movie house in the phony ad for their hoax.

[Choconado]

Yeah, it all goes back to the Medveds and their "Golden Turkey" book where they say that one of the films in the book is fake. Between the Medveds being the sloppiest reviewers, often basing their synopsis from an imagined idea of what the poster makes them assume and nothing more (and apparently super nepotistic too. Plan 9 From Outer Space isn't that bad of a film, but it being voted as "worst ever" just so happened to coincide with the Medveds owning a print and touring it around college campuses...what a coincidence...) and the fact that such a premise seems outrageously unlikely, as well as the "lost" status of this gem all create a perfect storm that many b-movie nerds just take the rumor that it's the fictional film as gospel. Nevermind that the film in the book "Dog of Norway" features an image of the same dog as shown in the authors picture on the back.