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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Mar 3, 2019 13:34:49 GMT -5
Because of the page change, I needed to quote DoubleU's post that I responded to, and can't find any way to delete this one, which I didn't realize would start a new page.
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Mar 3, 2019 13:37:25 GMT -5
Been a while since I've posted anything here, but I have a pretty big update for everyone. As I have discussed with some members of this forum privately, filmmaker Sam Ashby has been in touch with me in recent months with regards to Ed D. Louie's HIM. Several months ago he emailed me several contemporary articles from Variety regarding that film. Mr. Ashby recently gave me permission to include links in my essay, which has been updated to include them. I'll give a brief rundown of the articles: April 3rd, 1974 - a small listing for the film as it entered its second week noting "Who he, this gay hardcore superhero? Opening week answer was a pleasantly unmysterious $17,200 or near." April 8th, 1974 - Another small listing noting the film was at 4th place at the New York box office. April 17th, 1975 - A big feature dedicated to the movie. Says that Ed D. Louie is "reportedly the nephew of Frank Lee, San Francisco-based owner of the [55th Street Playhouse]", thus adding more credence to Wakefield Poole's claims. July 24th, 1974 - A small story on "Jack Deveau's Hand in Hand Films" which states "Deveau has picked up distrib rights to Ed. D. Louie's "HIM," the gay hardcore pic depicting Christ which recently played N.Y.". January 8th, 1975 - An index of "Distributor Abbreviations" which seems to confirm that Ed D. Louie distributed the film himself. Big thanks to Mr. Ashby for finding these and allowing me to reproduce them. Thanks for the post, DoubleU, and I will check out the additions to your essay page. I had wondered if Mr. Louie got his investment in the film back with such an obviously expensive ad campaign in the NYTimes and Village Voice. From the Variety reports, it seems like the expense of the ad campaign did pay off for him, and his film proved to be a rare exception to the old adage that porno films featuring religious themes, and showing monks and nuns doing things contrary to their vows, could not be successfully sold in the USA. I know that often a film will have more than one distributor, and sub distributors. And, I had thought that while Mr. Louie could have sold the distribution rights, he also could have kept the rights to still distribute the film himself. But, I obviously need to read the Variety articles first. Thanks for adding them to your essay web page, and for alerting us ZAQBers to the additions. |
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Post by Deeky on Mar 3, 2019 16:58:39 GMT -5
Because of the page change, I needed to quote DoubleU's post that I responded to, and can't find any way to delete this one, which I didn't realize would start a new page. You can just edit the post, Billy. You don't need to delete it. |
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Mar 3, 2019 17:24:23 GMT -5
Because of the page change, I needed to quote DoubleU's post that I responded to, and can't find any way to delete this one, which I didn't realize would start a new page. You can just edit the post, Billy. You don't need to delete it. OK, Deeky, I'll do that nextime. For now, I'll just Leave Well Enough Alone. |
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Post by Deeky on Mar 4, 2019 15:39:30 GMT -5
July 24th, 1974 - A small story on "Jack Deveau's Hand in Hand Films" which states "Deveau has picked up distrib rights to Ed. D. Louie's "HIM," the gay hardcore pic depicting Christ which recently played N.Y.". January 8th, 1975 - An index of "Distributor Abbreviations" which seems to confirm that Ed D. Louie distributed the film himself. More conflicting information. |
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Post by Jack Holman on Mar 4, 2019 15:50:11 GMT -5
July 24th, 1974 - A small story on "Jack Deveau's Hand in Hand Films" which states "Deveau has picked up distrib rights to Ed. D. Louie's "HIM," the gay hardcore pic depicting Christ which recently played N.Y.". January 8th, 1975 - An index of "Distributor Abbreviations" which seems to confirm that Ed D. Louie distributed the film himself. More conflicting information. Well, I'm assuming the '75 article is referring to Louie distributing the film during its initial 1974 run. Although it's also possible that Louie kept the regional distribution rights and gave the full domestic rights to Hand in Hand. |
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Jun 21, 2019 0:04:56 GMT -5
I have not forgotten about Mr. Louie and HIM, but the many complications of This Long Disease My Life, combined with my natural lazy streak (thanks to wet willie for that one), has kept me from being motivated on this project.
I think that finding out about the Factor Press Video Company and getting an entire listing of their films, might produce some results, as well as hoping that the Kinsey Institute people will eventually find what might have been a Hand In Hand promotional film, with part of HIM on it.
And, again, I think some of the answers to this mystery can and will come from unlikely sources.
Along with the Ted Mcelvenna porno collection, another Straw to Grasp at is the Museum of Modern Art.
They preserve old films, including nitrate films, and films from the silent era. (I suppose those film detectives searching for London After Midnight have checked out MOMA's collection).
And, in the 1970s, MOMA did show the extreme porno films of Fred Halstead. Did they keep prints of those films?
And, could they have possibly shown Mr. Louie's HIM?
Because of that claim on the Cinema Treasures message board of one man, that a friend of his had seen a VHS with a trailer that included HIM on it, I think getting listings of porno trailers on VHS might be the right direction to take.
I now return control of ZAQB to anyone who might have any other ideas of how to get answers to questions surrounding Mr. Louie and his mysterious film. I was a bit surprised that on Krakenslayer's message board, some people are still holding onto their hopes that Ed D. Wood Jr. might have made the film under the pseudonym of Ed D. Louie.
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Jul 8, 2019 0:56:43 GMT -5
Another link to another u-tube video on the Mystery Movie this thread is concerned with. Can anybody translate the narration and comments into English?
I doubt there would be any real new discoveries about the film, but it would still be beneficial for us who aren't masters of other languages to know.
Some u-tube vides have translation buttons, but I did not find one for this video.
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Jul 19, 2019 8:44:34 GMT -5
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Post by Killer Goldfish on Jul 19, 2019 21:11:11 GMT -5
I'm hoping your next trick will be to find me a copy of Zeppelin vs. Pterodacyl. |
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Jul 19, 2019 22:20:16 GMT -5
Goldie, Zeppelin vs. Pterodacyl is a new one to me. Can you give me any deitails on that one?
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Post by Deeky on Jul 19, 2019 23:38:10 GMT -5
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Jul 20, 2019 2:00:42 GMT -5
Well, Deeky, you have at least showed us the box? the film is in. Do you think you can find a copy of the film for Goldie. |
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Post by Killer Goldfish on Jul 20, 2019 14:01:08 GMT -5
Well, you said HIM didn't exist but you found it. Deeky showed you a poster for a Hammer film that is not supposed to exist so...
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Aug 5, 2019 12:59:13 GMT -5
Well, I am more firmly convinced that somewhere out there, someone does have a Ed D Louie's HIM, or a part of it, such as a trailer.
I don't know if anyone here on ZAQB is a member of the Mylife.com outfit, but following a lead on Krankenslayer's To Obscurity and Beyond, I followed up a post there which mentioned an Eddie D. Louie living in Hawaii, who had Ed D. Louie listed among his dbas.
From what I know, Mylife.com has been accused of scamming people by telling their members, that people have been inquiring about them, when that was not really the case, and offering to tell the members who the inquirer is, for a fee.
Other than that, I don't know of any other accusations made against Mylife.com.
I did do their search on the Mr. Louie whose dba's included Ed D Louie, reaching the point where I had to enter my email address to get the report, but that would apparently require my signing up as a member of Mylife.com, which claims to have free membership, and knowing what they have been accused of about their members and offering to tell them for a fee, I would not fall for that, but I am still just a bit wary of Mylife.com.
Anybody here on ZAQB a member of Mylife.com?
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Aug 5, 2019 17:51:02 GMT -5
Deeky, glad you liked my post. There was another Eddie Louie, I think also listed on MyLife.com, who was an actor in fairly high profile mainstream films, and I found out, possibly from checking him out on the dreaded IMDB, that he is fairly recently deceased.
Would like to check out his career, life times and departing the physical vehicle more, but just have not found the time to do so.
Chung Louis, manager of the 55th Street Playhouse who was arrested for showing Censorship In Denmark, gets into matters of how names are spelled. Often times with French names, an s on the end of a name can be silent, as with the state of Illinois, (which President Lyndon B. Johnson, sorry to say I'm old enough to remember that President, didn't care that the s on the end of Illionis (am I making any spelling errors, inside the name?), didn't care about silent letters in a name and called it that state, Ill-annoys).
I seriously doubt that there was ever any prosecution of Chung Louis and others arrested in the crackdown on Censorship in Denmark and other films at that time, and the charges were probably dropped with no press reports, although I might do some searching on Chung Louis in 1971 and later years.
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Aug 13, 2019 20:53:16 GMT -5
Late last night, I was trying to find the interview where Hershell Gordon Lewis lamented that one of his best violent special effects, the stomping murder in Moonshine Mountain was just too much for the family audiences he was getting at the World premiere in Charlotte, NC in the Fall of 1964, (the newspapers for that day had red ink in the movie ads).
So, he reluctantly cut the scene out of the print. Moonshine Mountain later played at the adults only Astor Art Theater in the Queen City of Charlotte, along with Suburban Roulette, I think it was, so he didn't have to send a censored print to that house.
I thought that Mr. Lewis might have discusssed that, for the present apparently lost film footage in his interview with John Waters in his biography, Shock, was it Shock Value, and while he did mention Moonshine Mountain as a "half gore" film, that detail about the missing stomping footage was not mentioned.
But, Mr. Waters did mention the Golden Turkey Awards, where a missing blasphemous film about Jesus was nominated for a Golden Turkey award, so having read that book, Mr. Waters must have certainly known about Ed D. Louie's Him.
I've mentioned that possibility in the past, and neither I, nor anyone else has ever found any mention of HIM in any of the writings of John Waters.
I have been thinking about writing an email to Mr. Waters, and asking him if he saw HIM and if he was aware of the film being debunked as a hoax for many years, but haven't decided yet if I'll do it, or hope that someone else will do it.
But, you know the old cliched saying, If you (or I) don't do it, it won't get done.
And, no matter who might contact John Waters by email with questions about Ed D Louie's HIM, they might not get an answer, although he was very nice to send me a post card with a brief note when I wrote to him by post office mail back in the 1990s.
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Post by Deeky on Aug 13, 2019 21:46:04 GMT -5
I don't think that is an option. He is famously Not On The Internet.
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Post by Billy A. Anderson on Aug 13, 2019 23:39:46 GMT -5
I don't think that is an option. He is famously Not On The Internet. Deeky, Wild Bill Wilkerson never went on the Net. And, our mutual friend Paul Roen, as a librarian did have to use the Net some in his job, but disliked it and we still communicate by post office mail. If John Waters is Not On The Internet, then I suppose he could still communicate by post office mail. I think he said, not sure if it was in Shock Value, that he had done all the blasphemy he wanted to do in his earlier films. Of course, that does not mean he did not still like blasphemy, and could have still found it of interest when the earlier Jesus porno film, Lodestar (aka Loadstar, and California Supermen), and Ed D Louie's HIM came out within about two years of each other. |
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Post by Deeky on Aug 14, 2019 7:42:46 GMT -5
If John Waters is Not On The Internet, then I suppose he could still communicate by post office mail. You can write to him via Atomic Books in Baltimore. They collect mail for him and pass it to him periodically. |
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