Now, let's go to the LA Times of Friday, June 14, 1974. On Page 95, California Superman, the blasphemous Jesus film that was released a year or more before
Ed D Louie's HIM, is playing at the Paris theatre. And in the Paris note the preview showing of Wakefield Poole's Bible, the film that Al Goldstein soundly denounced
in the review following the one he wrote for HIM.
When Mr. Goldstein saw the film in NYC, it had been changed from its original title of Wakefield Poole's Bible to Wakefield Poole's BC Scandals, to avoid offending people.
I think Wakefield Poole's Bible or BC Scandals was a total box office bomb and didn't play for long anywhere, and this preview showing in LA is the only one I know of other than the (how long did it play?) at the Lincoln Art in NYC.
Maybe the preview showing at the Paris in LA was a total disaster there too, because I didn't notice any regular runs for the film in LA, even for one week only.
Following Page 95, is Page 96 with more X rated ads.
Studying the old ZAQB, I found my transcription of the irrepressible, irascible, Al Goldstein's review of Wakefield Poole's Bible, or Scandals. and am pasting it in below for the Pleasure and Delight of all you other ZAQBers.
I thought the showing at the Lincoln Art House that Al attended was a regular run, but he refers to it as a "preview" showing, as was the showing in LA. On a $35,000 budget, Bible was considered a big investment for Wakefield Poole, and the film was a box office "disaster."
I am now wondering if the film had any regular runs at all, or never got beyond the preview stage.
Regardless, there is now a critical revisionist viewpoint that considers Wakefield Poole's Bible! to be one of his best films. (see for example, the cinema vinegar review and others).
From the old ZAQB board:
Score:4492
RE:Film Detectives: Serious, Mature Adults Only
(Date Posted:01/11/2011 1:06 PM)
Here is the text of Al Goldstein's review of Wakefield Poole's
Bible, which immediately followed his review of HIM in Screw:
MORE BIBLE PORN
I thought it would be my opportunity to see the world's first
blowjob. Then again, possibly, it might simply be a chance,
rare albeit, to see the first sexual intercourse between two
people. As one might force his wristwatch to run backwards so
that he could be hurled down the hallways of time to periods
that used to be, I, Like most human beings, long for the
chance at seeing Adam and Eve copulating for the first time.
Since the technology of science does not afford us an
opportunity, I had, instead, to go with the accessibility of
the moment, that creativity would provide, and so was most
anxious when told that Wakefield Poole had a new film called
Wakefield Poole's Bible and that it would be previewing at the
Lincoln Art Theatre on 57th Street and Broadway.
Perhaps I would have been less anxious but more sympathetic if
I had known at the time that New York's Daily News and other
metropolitan newspapers were to be reluctant to run the title
as Wakefield Poole's Bible and have subsequently caused
producer Marvin Shulman to have the title changed to Wakefield
Poole's Scandals.
Poole is a diverse filmmaker, whose movie, Bijou, won last
year's SCREW award as best gay movie, and whose other film,
Boys In the Sand, won our award as the year's worst gay movie.
Like a toss of a coin I wondered whether he would have a
winner or a loser, and the fact that the film would be
soft-core made me realize that the odds had lengthened against
the winner possibility.
Bible, now Scandals, was supposed to have a running time of 87
minutes, but after 27 I decided that the hours, seconds,
minutes, days, weeks and months I have left to live on this
earth just aren't enough to justify wasting any more time, so
I left early.
The film I saw was such a complete travesty of any
movie-making effort, lame as it might be, that I had to flee
with life-preserving urgency out of the stench-saturated
theatre.
From the moment the stupid Lincoln Art projectionist put on
the wrong lens, which resulted in the picture's being
projected too large, so that 20 per cent of the image was
projected above the screen, and another 20 per cent below the
screen, meaning that everybody walked around without heads and
nothing under their kneecaps, it was a bad omen and even worse
was in store for me.
The most stupid, filthy, and self-indulgent of faggots could
not find anyting worth praising in this dreadfully vacuous
fortress constructed in defense of man's inanities. A
sluggish, slovenly slew of shit would be the quote that I
would most like to see Wakefield Poole use when and if he
dares quote this review.
Remember, I only stayed for less than a third of the running
time of the movie, but, in that short period of time, I saw
Adam and Eve torn to waste, Georgina Spelvin made to look like
a fat duck, and movie-making resembling something just
invented by the Flintstones.
In this, the year of Deep Throat II, which got minus 500
points on the Peter-Meter, I must say that Wakefield Poole has
proven his hardiness as an incompetent. In this new movie he
will no doubt give Deep Throat II a run for the money as the
worst film of 1974. God help us if there are any more such
lowly examples of the film art coming out.
I Peter-Meter Scandals at minus 100 and admmit that it
probably would have gotten much less had I but stayed much
longer.
usertype:3 tt= 0
Choconado
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On the Zoomerang ad, while I thought the title was an obvious variation on Boomerang, what that guy in the ad is holding looks more like a tennis racket than a boomerang, or whatever variation of a boomerang a zoomerang might be.
Oh, dear!