Original subtitles

I like that logo.

I really, that is one classy looking logo, Ted.

Thank you. Hello there. This is the commentary track for Mow Mow Sex Sex.

Dave Friedman and Dan Sonny and Ted Bonnet, the director.

All right, roll picture.

You must have did this before, Dave. Yeah, a few times, Dan.

This was, good Lord, I can't believe I was this young when we were shooting

thing. We made this thing in 1967.

Oh,

there you go, Danny.

Yeah, look at how young I was.

Oh, here's all of our whipping scenes.

You know, Frank is a very smart kid.

You remember, what was that picture? Fabulous Bastard from Chicago that we

both in there for a minute ago.

Ted, you got this thing cut so fast.

I mean, it's a... Rabbit fire opening montage. Rabbit fire opening montage.

Traitor Horny and... Oh, there's our... Lily Sincere. There was little Stacy

Walker. Daughter of Fanny Hill and Smell of Honey. Oh, she was beautiful.

Mow, mow. Sex, sex.

That's us.

We never peddle smut. How dare you, Ted? Ted Bonnet picture.

I couldn't even read that, but I couldn't read the other side.

There you and I are, Dave. Oh, yeah, this was that big scene we shot in the

limousine where we were driving down to Cordova Street.

This repartee between the two of us went on and on.

Oh,

I know you were, at this time, we got into politics, and you were going to

for that clone of the ex -president.

Well, we still don't know, but the day we were recording this, they're still

counting the votes down south where the good people live, not out here with all

of the...

Nuts and... In that scene, I think you were talking about Dan Road showing and

sleeping in his car in Montana, and that's when Dan called you a liar, of

course, about that one. Oh, yeah, well, of course. He was a liar. Oh, uh -huh.

Never slept in my car.

Where'd you get this footage, this mind footage?

Through some friends and relationships we have at studios and libraries.

Now I've got a copy of this letter where your dad mined how many tons in one

day? 33 tons?

Can you imagine that?

Unbelievable, wasn't it?

What was the guy, the old country and western singer? He made a fortune out of

16 tons and all you get is a hard day's work.

Now what am I seeing there? There's Roy Gardner. He had a silver

plate in his head.

That was a World War I injury, wasn't it?

I really don't know. Whatever happened to Roy Gardner? He died, committed

suicide at the Governor Hotel in San Francisco. But he put a sign out on the

front. What he had done...

California had a gas chamber at that time, and the ingredients in this gas

went into this gas you could buy at any drugstore. And he went and bought them,

and he put a sign up, do not come in into this door for so -and -so, and he

mixed the thing up and inhaled it and died.

It's a sad story because, in a sense, though the notoriety of Dan, of your

father arresting him, made his career and started the whole exploitation game,

eventually your dad had a falling out with him, right? Yeah, later on, because

Roy Gardner sold his life history to Paramount. To Universal, Dave. To

Paramount? Universal. I sold a million, wasn't that the picture? Yeah,

Universal, Dave.

All right.

But what killed Roy?

He had a crime show at that fair in San Francisco. Yeah, yeah.

What was it, about 1939 or something?

About the same time the New York World Fair was. And the show was a total

disaster. And he closed it after about four or five days.

Nobody came in. By then, they didn't remember him.

Where was this footage shot? This was all recreated footage. Oh, it was shot

Los Angeles.

Well, this was part of the March of Crime series that your dad had, wasn't

Yeah.

Dan,

how old were you when you first went on the road?

When he captured Gardner, I was five years old. Five years old, yeah.

And I'll be 86 next January, so you can tell how long that is. You were the

youngest of the four children, weren't you? Yeah, young.

Who was next oldest, Annie? Annie. Annie and then my brother.

Julia's the one that passed away. The oldest one, yeah. Oh, she was older than

Ted? Yeah.

Older than Ed? Yeah.

Oh, really? Two years older.

Well, wasn't Ed born on the boat coming back? There's Dick Crane.

There's Dick Crane right there. Oh, boy.

And there's a guy I was showing, Wenatchee Washington.

And I asked the guy how he liked the show when he come out.

And he said, I didn't like it. I said, come on, take a picture with me.

And this is the headlines.

On the Herald American.

The Herald newspaper.

When my dad moved to Los Angeles, they put it in.

Officer Sonny, the man that captured Roy Gardner, has moved to Los Angeles. Is

that Main Street?

Is that Los Angeles? That looks like Main Street there.

Well.

I couldn't tell you. It must be Main Street.

Well,

Dan, you're doing a lot of talking here.

We used to handcuff people.

Anyway, he got out of the criminal business and went into the sex business.

Let's put it that way.

Then later on, they made a picture maniac.

And then that's how we got into the exploitation business.

Oh, Danny, you were about 18 when they made Maniac? Yeah.

Your dad and Dwayne Esper sent you out to find a one -eyed cat, right?

Yeah. And you found a one -eyed cat?

Danny, where did you find that one -eyed cat? I didn't find the cat.

The prop man found the cat. Oh, you always told me you went out. And I

wondered, did you knock the cat's eye out? I couldn't believe you. Don't be

silly. Were any animals harmed in the making of that picture?

No, they went out and got that cat with the one eye. I don't know.

Some prop man.

Danny, you always told me you found that cat.

Some prop man brought the cat in.

And they made the picture. Far beyond what you would expect.

So it's a very odd, exhilarating, incomprehensible film, but it works

because you're sitting there shaking your head today saying, I have not seen

something like this.

You know the greatest thing Dan Sonny ever taught me?

A movie is like a flower sack.

No matter how many times you shake it, a little more flower still comes out.

And if you don't, then you change the title to get some more flour in there.

You just keep changing the title until you get more flour.

What the idea was, was to attract people to your film by showing them something

taboo, something forbidden, something that you couldn't see in the average

Hollywood film. Well, it shows that if a girl does something wrong, she'll get

pregnant.

What was the, which was the picture that Clara Kimball Young was in? Was that

Wages of Sin? Wages of Sin. You remember she was a big, big star in silent

movies. And then she wound up working for...

Willis Kent. Willis Kent, and she was the madam in Wages of Sin.

This Frank Henlotter, by the way, is a cult film director in his own right,

having done Frankenhooker and Basket Case, and knows every foot of your film.

He's your archivist. He knows every foot of every B picture ever made.

He is just incredible.

The knowledge of...

Gee, some of the worst movies.

Dan, this was shot in my office in Alabama.

You can see the wad of cash to the right over by the window.

True Friedman style.

Ah,

this was weak.

Now, what picture is that? That was Wages of Sin. Now, this one was the one,

this is Wages of Sin. Yeah, that's Wages of Sin. This is where, and there's

Claire Kimball Young on the right. Right.

And she comes in, and what kind of place is this anyway?

I mean, nobody could be that dumb.

1938, you notice it, 1938?

You know, a lot of this was shot, you know, those scenes where she was working

in the laundry?

You know that that was shot in that laundry across the street from our

on Cordova Street?

In that line about movies like A Flower Sack that's a little earlier, how many

times did you change titles and reissue the movies?

Well, on this one, you never, because this one was so well -known. Now, Child

Bride. Now, here is really, this was the beginning of kiddie porn.

This manages to offend today.

Now, of course, this was the square -up reel.

at the beginning of the picture, what we call the square -up.

And this was a crawl that rolled, well, for example, with Child Bride. That

little girl was in Grapes of Wrath, wasn't she? Uh -huh.

I used to see her, oh, at the Safeway grocery store

down on Santa Monica Boulevard, oh, back in the 60s and 70s.

She'd be a little bit younger than I.

Did you have trouble with this in 1939?

I mean, you didn't do it. No, I didn't have any trouble. No, I bought the

picture after it was already old.

Through the showing of this picture, that the public will be educated and

this vast evil will be stamped out.

Sincerely, the producers.

No, you just changed that.

prostitution, alcoholism, dope. You know, you just inserted whatever the

was.

You see this beautiful girl in this here that you've just seen on the burlesque

girl? She was so gorgeous. Look at her. And she was queer, I hear.

She was queer.

Which burlesque house was it? I hear you're cutting a dashing figure. Yeah,

that's a good picture. Good -looking son of a bitch. Ah, you look like a

mafioso.

I still envy you one time. That's lowly

sincere there. You've still got a great head of hair, Danny. You've still got a

great head of hair.

What did you give that Gibraltar, $5 ,000? She got $5 ,000 for one day's

What did it take you one day to shoot this thing? Yeah, and I made money with

those little shorts.

But $5 ,000 in 1954, did she have a good agent? A lot of money.

That's a lot of money. Did she have a good agent? Well, I imagine so, but we

did. Willis Kent made this picture for me. All I did was put up the money.

You shot it one day, didn't you? Yeah.

Didn't Merle Connell shoot it for you?

Well, he was around there. I don't know. I don't remember. Wasn't he the

cameraman? I think he had.

You see that?

All of those tapes there in Frank's apartment, those are double behind those

tapes. There's another set of tapes. One day I was up there, and I counted the

sections, and it goes from the floor to the ceiling.

And that's his office, huh? That's his living room. And I said, you've got 2

,800 tapes here, Frank. He says, no, behind each tape there's another tape.

5 ,600 tapes. Forbidden Adventure.

This was Angkor, wasn't it? Yeah, my dad bought this picture after it was

already old.

Now, this had several titles.

Oh, yeah, but it was The Lost City of Angkor, which is in Cambodia, I think.

was originally a very famous travelogue. Yeah. And, of course, then they later

on inserted the Maiden and the Gorilla stuff.

But, you know, Maiden and Gorilla, that's an old, old dodge and exploit. It

all the way back to Ngoc.

After my dad bought this picture, then my dad died a few years later.

Well, my brother and I was running the company, and

Dave Friedman, I mean, Dave Friedman. Friedman,

Lloyd Friedman? No, Dwayne Esper sued us.

We bought the picture from him, and he sued us.

For like $500 ,000.

Says that we took out scenes from Forbidden Adventure.

No, from Engagi and put in Forbidden Adventure.

Well, that's no good son of a bitch.

He's the guy that sold us.

He's the guy that sold us Forbidden Adventure.

And the case went on for...

for two or three or five years, and then he paid his attorney and I paid mine.

Dwayne was always suing you because I never forget that Pappy Golden, oh,

was a character, there was the greatest of the 40 thieves.

He put out that wanted poster of Dwayne Esper, and he sent it to all of them. If

you see this man, beware, notify the FBI.

And Dwayne thought that...

The Sunnies had done it. But I did it. But you brought it on yourself because

you flew into Chicago because he was playing How to Undress in Front of Your

Husband. Right, right.

And he had sold that to you, but he'd kept a print and he was playing that.

Yeah. So he countersued you and that went on forever and ever. Now, what's

guy's name? Chet Huntley. Chet Huntley, right.

Now, this filmmaker came to you desperate, not having been able to sell

film.

Right? I mean, the story goes. That he couldn't sell it legitimately.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

He went, I forget the guy's name.

Joe Rock.

Joe Rock and another guy that owned a car dealer in San Bernardino went to

Africa and they went and made a Mau Mau picture.

And they brought back. That's Anderson right there, the effects guy. Yeah,

yeah, a place on Vermont.

And then they brought the picture back, didn't do anything with it. And then I

bought the picture and shot some scenes.

All of this stuff right here. I shot some scenes, colored people, and I made

exploitation picture out of it.

Didn't make any money. No, it never did make any money.

Should have called it Mao Mao's sex section.

But Frank is the most enthusiastic person in the world about this stuff. I

he knows every foot of every one of these things. I don't think he ever sees

real movies. He just spends his whole life looking at it.

And this was shot on Cordova Street in Los Angeles?

Yeah, the scenes.

Right. That insert is all it done in one day. Which was for this purpose, for

the artwork. Love that one sheet, though. That was a great one sheet.

Great, great one sheet. You never did dumb business.

Well, we got our money back.

Unless she freaks, I never did get my money back.

Well, you will eventually because of the DVDs. Yeah, you're right.

I wish I had my money back on that thing.

Did you get a lot of filmmakers coming to your office at the end of their rope

wanting to do something with the picture?

Which picture are you talking about? Anybody in general, but Mau Mau being an

example of a filmmaker who had just got... If they couldn't sell it anywhere

else, they could always try to sell it.

I was a junk man.

So how much money do you think you put into that movie?

Oh, I think I paid $10 ,000 for the negative, and then I put in another $5

Well, here we are. Oh, there's Rosie's dog.

This is so funny to be looking at this scene while we're sitting in here doing

this commentary.

Rosie, you've photographed beautifully, dear.

And now she's the current president of Sunny Amusement. Yes.

Is she the boss, Dan?

She's the boss. She tells me what to do.

She even tells me when to go to the toilet.

You know, when I first came out with Dan, I think Rosie was working in the

office with B, who was this insane secretary that Dan... Excuse me, Dave,

who are these guys?

Well, those are comedians. They used to work for Harry Ferris in his burlesque

theater. But as I was saying, I think Rosie was about 19

or

20, and she was working with B in the office.

And B had this voice that could crack glass.

Mr. Sonny!

And poor Rosie would do all of the work that B would pile

her desk up.

We just came out of there. We had a snack. I mean, this is so funny to be

sitting here doing this commentary.

Who's the blonde, Danny? Some girl you screwed.

Danny,

you have got to stop that. I was always very circumspect in my dealings with all

of these. Yeah, I was always circumspect.

Oh, in my dealings with all of these young ladies.

There's Margaret's mother.

Yeah, Mrs. Ryan.

How old were the girls? The girls were, what, all teenagers there. These are

vacation shots of the family. Santa Monica. Palm Springs all the time.

That's me when I was about 30.

Where's your cigar?

No cigars.

There it is. There you are. There's a cigar.

This is in Cronenberg's house.

He had a beautiful home there. Yeah, he stole enough money. He should have had a

beautiful home.

He was a crazy guy.

I never liked him.

When I was with Irwin Joseph in Chicago, Irwin never liked him either. He

turned... What's his communion? This is Kathy's graduation.

No, it's communion. One of your daughters.

Yeah. One of your daughters, Kathy.

Were you ever self -conscious about all your girls being in Catholic school? No,

because I never did do anything wrong.

The only thing I used to do is they went to Catholic school, I used to bring my

money.

There you are, Rosie, right there.

And they're claiming not to remember showing that birth film to the

congregation.

No, Dan never did anything wrong. I mean, the first family of exploitation

sexploitation in this country.

So soon going to be dead.

That's my father's sister.

Never showed her head.

There's Rosie.

Rosie used to be kind of fat.

Oh,

that's nice, Danny.

That all that home footage you shot pretty much, right? Oh, yeah.

Did you hire cinematographers? No, no, no. I used to have a 16 -millimeter

camera.

And then in Coneburg, after I had it for about...

20 years, 30 years, where you would take a snapshot on your camera. I would take

16 -millimeter film. Look at this. This is at my fair down in Anniston.

Here I am in the box office.

Drinking again.

No, that's ice water.

It was only on 98 degrees there that day. Ted will tell you. He was in there.

This was a fun scene.

Coming down, we shot this whole thing in about four days, four or five days,

because Dave and Dan really just didn't have all the time in the world for us.

They were extending their very kind generosity, and we had a certain amount

time to do this.

And I just wanted to follow Dave around during his day because this is your

passion. And this is your carnival. These are your rides. You own this

And we came down to shoot you working the lot. And I asked Dave to just go out

there. We're going to have a mic with a wireless mic. We'll follow about 100

feet behind with the camera.

And just go ahead and work the lot and show us how you do it. And this is all

pretty much off -the -cuff stuff. Here I am trying to con this little girl. Here

I'm telling a couple of the ride boys we had a problem with a...

But don't do it, dealer. You keep coming on the lot. And I'm telling them, you

see this guy running in. Here's some of my copper friends there.

Peanuts. They work for peanuts down there. They work for peanuts.

Oh, this poor old guy. He comes around every year, wants a job. He can't, he's

not all there.

But I always tell him, hey, be here Saturday night, help with the teardown.

And this is the, it's a.

Saturday afternoon, you don't get too much trade. This is our painter. This is

Pappy. He is one of the great show painters in the business.

But Saturday afternoon is kind of light.

These are the Fraternal Order of Police, and they handle the parking.

So I always give them passes.

How many months is your park open?

This is the fairgrounds, Danny. The fairgrounds. Well, we have a five -day

spring date, and then we have a ten -day fair.

And the rest of the time, once in a while, I'll rent it out for a circus or

rent it out for a sky grifter, you know, a preacher under canvas, and swap meets

and things like that. But in the meanwhile, the rides and the joints.

Now, this stuff here is all from She -Freak.

Yeah.

The connection being that really exploitation does come from the

is a perfect fit for why you got into the business. Dan's father had carnival

shows, the wax figure show. He was on the craft show.

He had shows down on the pike in Long Beach, which was the greatest park in

West.

But there was a direct correlation that a lot of the people that were in

exploitation business, particularly out road showing,

go out with carnivals in the summer and a lot of the burlesque people in those

days burlesque only worked back east it only worked in the winter time and in

the summer these burlesque guys would have a girl show out on a carnival that

was the way it all worked i got a clean shirt on there Oh, this

was a funny little picture. This was a picture that Herschel and I made,

Herschel Lewis and I made, called Boing. You remember this one, Danny? I sold it

to you. I bought it from you.

Now, you produced and Herschel directed.

I was a producer and the sound man.

And Herschel was the cameraman and the director.

And the whole crew was Herschel and me and a couple of gazoonies who would pick

up the equipment and take it to the next spot.

And this little girl here that we just saw, her name was Linda Cotton.

Oh, here I am with Paramount. My God, this is a... I don't see this.

There's Cary Grant. I was out on the road with him.

Hell of a nice guy. There I am with Mr.

Hitchcock.

This was shot in 1955.

There I am with Bob.

Bob Hope.

Yeah, I know.

He was the easiest of all of the people. There you are with Bean Crosby. Well, I

like Bob a lot better. Do you know who that is? That's Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee

Curtis's mother.

But of all of the people I ever traveled with with Paramount, Hope was the

nicest, the easiest to get along with. Bob Hope. Yeah.

And the next best was Chuck Heston, Charlton Heston.

I spent a lot of time out on the road with him.

And when you worked for Paramount doing his publicity stunts, did that sort of

train you for the exploitation business eventually? Well, I think I had a

natural... I just always had a fascination with the underbelly of film,

speak. There's Carol.

Working in the yard.

Danny, now this is my museum.

Rosie has seen it. She's been there.

This is a collection of circus, carnival, movie memorabilia.

Everything that I've done all over the years. Now, what is this right next to

your house?

My house sits on about an acre and a half in Alabama, and this used to be a

three -car garage. I bought the property next door and converted it into

this little museum here.

This was a picture called Houdini that I was out with. And that was a guy named

Jack Del Valle, an old carny.

who could hang by his heels and escape from a straitjacket. I put him in front

of the Circle Theater in Indianapolis. You could tie up streets back then, you

know, have street stunts. Then you hoped that after they'd seen the stunt,

they'd all go into the theater.

You must have a couple of hundred photographs on the wall here.

Oh, easily.

This was one of my great stunts. If you can get out of the straitjacket, we'll

give you $100.

Now, of course, I let the first kid out of it.

And then it became an AP story, the local boy outwits big city press

You have a lot of interest, BBC. People come to interview you guys fairly often.

Oh, God, all the time.

One night, Carol, we were down visiting a little show in St. Charles, Illinois.

And the owner of the show, Jake Mills, said, Hey.

Can I put your wife on one of the elephants? One of the ballet girls

up tonight. So I said, honey, you want to ride an elephant?

That's really her riding that elephant. That is really her riding that elephant.

And we hadn't been married too long at that time. I think we'd only been

five or six years.

But now, 2001,

we will have been married 50 years.

It was really marvelous.

It was pouring down rain. The tent was leaking.

And you can see the elephant is wet.

You were a mass of mud when you got off of that thing. By the time they pulled

me down, I had mud on skin as well as costume.

There was the greatest act ever.

One of the stranger acts. This was a weird act. Johnny North called me and

wanted to know if I'd worked the New York opening for this guy.

Eight -year -old xylophone player. Took care of his whole family.

could pick up eight sticks, eight mallets, four in each hand. And the guy

great. You know, on a circus, I said, I thought we were shooting him out of a

cannon or something, or xylophone players don't particularly go for it.

Now, behind here, there are a lot of film prints. Those are negatives. Those

negatives to your pictures? Those are all negatives, right.

Where is this taken at?

This was in Annistown. But a lot of the stuff that was in the vault, there's...

That's also in your museum?

That's also in my museum, yeah. Now, a lot of that I've had to give to Dan, or

to Mike, to transfer.

It's remarkable that these films are still selling through Something Weird

to pretty good volume.

Well, you see, there's two...

two classes of people that buy these pictures.

This is a picture, by the way, that we, Herschel and I, made for an exhibitor in

Chicago named Tom Dowd.

Every exhibitor that had one of these...

adult theaters, said, I'm going to make a nudist colony picture. That's when

nudist camp pictures became the big thing.

And we had to go, this was a nudist camp in Florida.

Oh, what a snake pit this place was.

And these people that inhabit these denizens of nudist camps, oh, my

God.

It's about as erotic as walking through the cold storage room of Swifton

Company. You cannot believe.

Now, all these pretty girls, we had to hire them. That's salting the minds.

This is our cameraman and one of our grips with the full mustache. That guy

just getting a little milk in his cough.

Danny.

Now, where'd you find these girls? I mean, like, where'd you find these

actresses?

You run an ad in the Miami Herald and you have to call the cops out.

Actually, Bunny Yeager, who was one of the very early cheesecake photographers

for Hefner, she ran an agency in Miami that all,

of course, there were not only Herschel and I, but Doris Wishman and four or

five Barry Mahon.

Everybody in the winter used to go down to Miami to shoot a nudist camp picture.

It was one way to get out of Chicago.

In the winter.

In the winter.

So there were, every winter there'd be 10 or 12 of these stupid things made

there in Miami. And this Bunny Yeager had the X on the exclusive

on Furnishing Girls.

But as I said, the real nudists.

But was it hard to find, at that day and age, to find women breaking the nudity

barrier like that, if you will? No, not really. Don't forget, Miami used to be a

mecca for every young girl that lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania,

or Kokomo, Indiana, or Green Bay, Wisconsin, all of these dull,

drab factory towns that came the wintertime.

were just something out of a gulag, so to speak.

So the minute they turned 18 and got out of school, they made their way to

Miami. Now, some of them got gainful employment as waitresses. The boys got

jobs as working the pools, poolside attendants. Some

of them...

Got into the nudie racket.

Well, that was an adjunct to him. And there wasn't anything that mad

about this. They weren't pariahs in the community, so to speak, for appearing in

these. Hey, when Dan and I would be making the soft exploitation

pictures, we'd run ads.

Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter.

And the girls would show up. Now, these nudie cuties, Frank Henenlotter made a

funny remark, which we didn't end up using in the picture, but that nudie

were sort of adult pictures for children.

That's right.

They were very rigid in their construction, almost like a medieval

play. But you always had one of the devices was that the

character.

The male protagonist could always somehow or other through some device see

in various stages of dress and undress. Nobody else could. So voyeurism.

Voyeurism, right. But either through the magic spectacles or some other device.

that he could see these girls nude, but nobody else could.

Mr. Peter Spitz. Now, who wrote these?

Huh? Who wrote these?

I wrote them, whoever wrote them. Now, you told me once that you used to, as in

selling the fizzle, not the steak, but sometimes you would get everything

together and then write the script on the plane going down to the shoot. Well,

we did that.

Actually, we were going down to make Bell Baron Beautiful.

for two burlesque operators, Leroy Griffith and his partner.

And on the way down, Herschel and I wrote the script for Blood Feast. We had

been talking about what could we do that no one, we were tired of doing nudies,

nudie cuties and nudist camp pictures. What could we do that no one else had

ever done?

that would shock people and that was in bad taste.

And out of it came this idea of gore. So we had, we're going to show blood and

guts. So on the way down, we write this script.

And the girl that typed it, well, we had to have some more names on the

credits. So we said, screenplay by Louise Downs. She was our secretary who

typed the script up from the notes that Ursula made.

Oh, now there's, you remember Lolita, Dan? Yeah, those are children.

Yeah, those are children.

We've had that damn bird 38 years, believe it or not.

Bought her in Marshall Fields in Chicago.

Ted, she almost got you that time.

Now, here I am getting ready to go out to the fairgrounds, getting my ice

You know, ice water is not good for you, Dave.

Well, that's why he got that big belly. Oh, okay.

Well,

I can't drink gin out there, so I don't like any alcohol on the lot.

I can't find the top to my thermos box.

Here's a little political portion for...

Bill Clinton, you're talking about... Oh, yeah. Well, we're getting into

political argument.

It's interesting. You would consider yourself a conservative.

Oh, yes.

Absolutely. And, Dan, you would consider yourself a political liberal.

Yeah, I am a liberal.

Oh, come on, Dan.

You always vote for the guy that was in. You voted for Reagan. You voted for

Nixon. You voted... Whoever's in, you vote for. You know, don't tell me. I

actually think that...

our president should continue another four years. Oh, Lord.

I think it's one of the best presidents we ever had. Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton. Well, his legacy didn't prove it. I mean, he was hoping that

his... Well, anyway, let me explain something to you. One thing I like about

this guy, he screwed his way to fame.

Well, speaking of that, there is Connie Mason.

Now, she was the second prettiest girl I ever used in pictures. What picture was

this? This was Blood Feast. Blood Feast. Uh -huh.

Actually, the most beautiful girl was the little girl that I found with Pete

Perry for Daughter of Fanny Hill, Stacy Walker.

And then we used her in a picture called, that's the front door of my

Danny. We used her in Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine.

And then a friend of mine over at Paramount had seen Fanny Hill. He said,

her over.

And I went to get her.

that they wanted to look at her at paramount and she had gone and

and i didn't see her again for three or four years she called me one day and

said i see you coming down to texas i'm living at home

there's the driveway

dan that's uh now all of that over in there in the back is where the little

museum is dave also like loves the scam i think dave loves um

There's a little bit of larceny in this, and I think Dave loves that aspect of

it.

What was so immoral about what I was doing?

This is a picture that Cressy and I... You were screwing that girl. I was

not.

What was the name of it? The Pickup.

We each put up $6 ,500.

Yeah. We made the picture for $13 ,000.

And Cressy plays one lead, and I play the other lead.

And we flipped a coin to see who would distribute it, and Cressy won.

Yeah. But I at least got all the $6 ,500 back, and I think I made another.

$10 ,000 or $12 ,000 on it. But he sold this picture in Europe all over, and it

was lost.

And Mike Rainey had been looking for a print for years, and a year and a half

ago when we were all over in Scandinavia, this distributor in

have a print.

And that's the only existing... By the way, how did you get the Danny subtitles

off of that?

Well, fortunately, the scene we used from the movie was a musical montage

you're going to bed with that woman. Oh, okay. The one line that you had when

you're speaking to her is where we put a gray key over the... Oh, okay. And

said, Dave Friedman in.

That's why we did that. Well, now, Danny, they just had me in my kitchen,

here you are in your kitchen. Yeah, right, right.

You see, you do the dishes.

I don't do dishes and I don't do windows at home.

And now he's going to do the laundry.

The house is always spotless. See, I can walk there. Look at it.

I can walk.

You still got a checkerboard?

Yeah, you want to play checkers?

I can't beat you in checkers. Nobody can beat you in checkers. No, you're the

best checker player I've ever known in my life.

Yeah, I just bought a new checkerboard.

Huh. I wore it the last one. Where did you learn to play checkers? My brother

was one of the world's greatest checker players when he was even 10, 12 years

old. Really? In the state of Washington.

And he taught me, and he knew how to play so good I couldn't even get a king.

You ever play chess?

No, never could.

I never could quite fathom that game myself.

I play gin.

You're pretty good in gin. I'm very good in gin. I play gin, and I like to play

poker, and I love to shoot dice.

And when I'm in Vegas, the only game I play is craps.

How do you do on it?

This year I did pretty well on it.

It varies from year to year, of course. But the last few years, I only go to

Vegas once a year now for the Showman's League convention.

But I always walk away with some of their money.

Well, very good, Dave.

Oh, Danny, it looks so relaxing.

Is that a recliner?

Yeah, it goes back.

We just got rid of them and bought two new chairs.

There is Margaret. There's my lovely wife. Yes, indeed.

We've been together 67 years.

63 years of marriage and four years before that, before marriage.

I love the... Didn't Margaret used to work before you were

married at the cafeteria downtown? She was a salad girl.

Is that where you met her?

Well, no, no, I met her in Goldberg's Dance Hall.

That used to be on 13th and Flower Street in Los Angeles.

And it was a public dance hall? A public dance hall. Oh, really?

Did you dance a lot then?

Oh, I used to. That was Ford Television.

You never had nothing else to do.

I think every child should have a mother and a father that don't drink.

There I am kissing my wife.

Did she give you a lot of grief for smoking cigars all day and coming home

cigar breath? No, never did give me any grief at all. Oh, there's Carl.

Boy, he is your pigeon in this game. You can beat him all the time. What do you

do, take about $1 ,000 a week away from him? No, no, no.

How much do you win from him every week?

I'd say $10 a week.

Is that all? Yeah.

Oh, what do you play for, a quarter percent a point? No, no, hell no.

We play for 25 cents a lead down gin hand.

Oh, okay. We don't keep score.

You don't keep score. Okay.

And then at the end, if I won $5 from him, then we double it to see if he gets

even or I win another $5. Okay.

He's your pigeon. And he wins once in a while. He's your pigeon.

Right.

Oh, you've got to let him win once in a while, otherwise he won't come back.

Yeah. That's what we say in the carnival business, tossing him a cup.

You guys smoked how many cigars a day each? I used to smoke six cigars a day.

I smoked three or four a day. Yeah, I used to smoke six a day.

But I never smoked in my home. I don't know why.

My wife wouldn't care if I smoked. The same thing with me. The minute I went

home, I didn't smoke in my office. I would smoke a pipe at home.

I smoked in my office and I smoked in the car. I smoked in the car and then I

smoked in... You know, it's amazing that poor old B.

ever made it through all the years she was down there. Yeah, because all we do

is smoking.

Now we go to the carnival at night. Oh, here we go.

Dave working the booth. This is at night.

Is that you back there working the booth? Yeah, well, the girl was off.

This is called a dozer. And, oh, boy, do they go up against these things.

You know, everybody has a streak of larceny in them.

And they think they can win. And that's how you, now that ride's called a

zipper. And it's a rough ride to put up and take down.

This is called a yo -yo.

It's a very easy ride.

But look at these people playing those dozers.

Oh, they are waiting. They keep dropping quarters in there, hoping that they're

going to.

Oh, here's one of our wrestling events.

They love wrestling through the South. What's the population of Anniston?

26 ,000. Yeah. But the county is about 120 ,000.

All right, here's a nice correlation between the apes and the wrestlers.

I mean, both of them are big, hairy animals.

And if you had a contest with the...

At a contest as to who had the most brain power, I think the eights would

Oh,

here's our lady wrestlers. Oh, do they love lady wrestlers.

You know, these kids are pretty good athletes, Danny. Oh, I can see that.

you know, I thought these were small -town people, but then I saw in another

documentary those very wrestlers tour the world. Oh, they tour the world. In

fact, Bambi and Peggy Lee, those two girls that you just saw there in

Here I am keeping an eye on everything to make sure that the money goes to the

right sources.

They're out here now in California training these girls for an all -girl

wrestling tour of California.

Isn't that a pretty merry -go -round, Tammy? Yeah.

Technical note, we shot this whole movie with a Canon XL1 Mini DV all -natural

light. Uh -huh.

It's a pretty remarkable camera.

The merry -go -round stays there all year round? Oh, no, no, no. They take it

down in L .A.? Oh, yeah, we take it down and send it to the next date. Now we're

back in downtown Los Angeles for a lunch outing with the Sonny family.

Is this the San Antonio winery? Yes. I think it is, yes, yes.

Very nice people.

Didn't that used to be Lowry's place down there? I don't remember. I know

it is. It's downtown.

I don't remember.

There's Rosie putting food in her mouth. Well, what are you doing?

Sometimes she puts it in her ear.

There's a guy. He's a nice guy.

There's Annie.

There's your sister Annie.

She just got out of the hospital.

Right. What did you do, make him sit at another table?

Well, no, he wanted to sit at another table. I thought it was okay by me.

That's right. When Rosie asked if you wanted to bring him over, he said no.

He's a nice guy. He's an ex -fighter. You grew up with him, didn't you, Dan?

no, but we're the same age. No, no. Oh, I thought you said you knew him. Tell

him he's a bug. Look at his bones. I only knew him about ten years.

What was that exhibitor up in Portland who was a fighter, too?

Moyer?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

God, what a mind you've got.

When you die, you ought to sell it to somebody. He was a good customer. He

played all of our pictures.

Yeah, Moyer.

He was a fighter. Yeah.

God, I forgot about all that.

There you go. Gentleman to the end.

Whose car was this?

It's a Buick, isn't it?

Pretty car.

Now back to the country club.

This was the Eldorado. I loved this car, but Carol didn't like it. She wanted me

to have a four -door, so I had to get rid of the Eldorado and get a Seville.

This car was sporty. It made me young again.

This is our country club, Dan.

Very nice.

We sat there the day we met. I came down to meet you the first time. We had

lunch, and then a wave of tornadoes came through, and we were trapped and went

and had dinner the same night.

Yeah, I went back again.

Here's the Wicked Witch of the West.

She's saying here that, I don't know, something came up about my

long career in the never -never land of motion picture wonders.

She's saying, well, I always knew one thing.

Oh, these were Bob Hope's girls here. Bob called me up one day and said, I

you to go on tour, the Corbett twins.

And those were the two girls that played the lead in Zorro.

We had the world premiere.

That's you and Carol.

There's Carol.

We had the world premiere in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

I looked all over the map to find a town with the word beaver in it, and there

was only two.

Oh, reminiscing. You're talking about what could you do to really offend.

And when you were scratching your head about the next wave, the next genre. And

that's where we got to the roughies. The roughie.

Actually, Blood Feast. This guy was without a doubt.

The singularly worst actor in history. And this girl was the singularly worst

actress. Well, what picture was that? Blood Feast. Blood Feast. I thought I

it when I seen that blood.

I mean, the picture has become such a cult classic.

And I just came back from Spain.

And all of these Spanish kids knew every line in the picture.

And they cheered. The great heart ripping out scene. If I seen that

right now, I'd throw up.

I really would.

Poor Scott Hall, who played the police captain, he was a friend of mine on The

Ringling Show.

He was the sideshow talker. And he couldn't act either, but Herschel said,

you can't act, so just talk loud.

Now,

here is the great tongue -ripping out scene. This is the scene that...

Well, Danny had started something. Don't forget that

crazy picture.

was the birth of a whole new genre of film. What was the guy that banked that?

You know, the guy that owned the drive -in theater.

Colbert. He died a couple of years ago. Oh, he was a character. Yeah, he was. He

had about 20... You know, I always loved it. He sold Seymour Bordy the West

Coast rights to the three pictures in perpetuity.

Seymour had all... But Seymour couldn't get any prints.

So then he sells Stan Caden the world rights in

perpetuity. And he had access to the negative.

And it served Seymour right because he double -crossed you.

You know, he should be against the law. He shows things like this.

God, I'm going to throw up now.

He sure used a lot of red paint.

That was a special blood that we found at this cosmetic company down there. Oh,

that was my famous... That was an act of genius.

Yes.

That came, Carol said, I screened the picture for Carol. I said, well, okay,

what did you think? She said, one word? I said, yes. She said, vomitous.

So I went out and had these vomit bags made.

That picture, as I said, created a whole new genre of film, The Slash. It was 10

years ahead of Friday the 13th.

Well, Danny, there's where we made most of our money. We're in drive -in

theaters. Yeah.

And they are a gone goose now. You know, I just came back to L .A. this week. I

was looking in the Times.

Pacific drive -ins, there's only about two of them left in the ads.

It's all gone. I said, excuse me, Sergeant. He was actually a corporal,

always promote him. I said, I'm the producer. I ought to run you in. You've

my whole district blocked out.

But the drive -in was the great, great thing. And the horror picture in the

drive -in was the great answer.

Because a young boy would take his girlfriend to see it, and something

would come on. She'd grab him and, oh, hold me, hold me. And he'd say, I'll

you, honey.

You know those Hollywood people, they'll do anything.

He said, damn.

I did a lot of gimmicks with the thing.

Gruesomely stained in blood color.

But Danny, you know, you say, you bought these pictures. I bought them all. You

made a lot of money with them.

So you too are not totally sin free.

Oh, I'm a sinful guy.

Well.

If it brought money in the bank, I'd send it.

Well, you taught me one thing, Danny. You taught me a couple of things. You

taught me that a movie was like a flower sack.

No matter how many times you shake it, a little more flowers coming out.

And then the other great thing I learned on the carnival, the first law of the

carnival, take some and leave some.

You can be a bull or be a bear, but never be a hog.

And that's worked pretty well for me my whole business life and my personal

life.

Dave, I've come to the conclusion that you've got more knowledge in this here

exploitation business. No, this guy right here has got more knowledge than

anybody. You do things with it and he don't. All he does is read books.

No,

he makes movies. He makes very good movies. He made a movie called...

Frank and Hooker. And he made three pictures, Basket Case, Basket Case 1, 2,

3. God, I never heard of it. Well, it's a story of these twins are born and

the...

The second twin is undeveloped, attached to, and they separate him, and they

want to dispose of him. He puts it in a basket and keeps it. What was the name

of this guy?

Byron Mabe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He directed Sheep. Nice guy.

He wanted to be an actor. Well, he was a partner with Bob Cressy. No, no, no,

no, never.

No, that's Lee Frost.

Oh, you're right.

Lee Frost directed this picture for me. Yeah, you're right.

Byron was an actor who had worked for Barry Mayhem. Lee lives in New Orleans

now. I talk to him quite often, and he's retired.

He and Russ Meyer and Radley Metzger were the three most

talented people in our business.

And each of them had a chance to go to the majors.

Lee made a picture for Fox called Race with the Devil.

And, of course, Rush made a couple of pictures at Fox.

Radley, those three were the real talents in this business.

Now, this whole era of the roughy is...

I would say the most controversial of the films, just because of the violence

against women. Did you have a lot of problems with these films?

No, no.

Was that defiler? That was defiler, yeah. That's what I thought.

We shot that right there on Cordova Street.

Dan had an old warehouse. This was in front of Cordova Street. I was a sound

man. And we made a studio out of it.

For you, it was just a calculated bet to do a picture that makes business.

The roughy was more than anything else an escape from the nudie cutie and the

nudist colony picture.

wanted it to be shot in black and white because the nudist camp pictures, the

nudie cuties were all in color. We wanted this to look like an old stag

fact, once in a while, we'd even put scratches in the thing. And the first

we made was something called Scum of the Earth.

And that kind of established the whole genre of Ruffy.

And The Fireman's was the first picture I made out here after...

Herschel and I had split up, and I made up my mind I was going to make a better

picture than anything that Herschel and I had ever done together, and it was.

And it has today become, look at how skinny you were then, Danny.

There is the, now there, she was the prettiest of all of them, Stacy Walker.

You know who shot this picture?

Who? Laszlo Kovacs, who became one of the really big cameramen, and this boy

here.

went on from after this to that series of the rookies, Sam Melville.

And that guy there. That guy here.

This we shot, I rented some motel for this.

Great title.

Great title. Well, the original title was The Man Eater, but the L .A. Times

said they wouldn't take that title. So at that time we were going into these.

long white skin on black sheets and things like that.

When were you having your most difficulty with censorship boards?

During this era?

I mean, were you in court a lot with this stuff?

Over the years, it came and went.

I mean, the funniest thing in the world, Blood Feast, never

had any censorship problems.

Because it was the oldest story in the world. Now, those pictures could never

play Europe.

Europe has a greater sensitivity to violence. Violence, and they don't worry

about sex.

Which is the opposite here. It's just the opposite in the United States.

So violence was never a problem.

But sex, God forbid.

Did you have a percentage of your operating income devoted to legal fees?

It was just part and parcel of doing business, defending ourselves.

Fortunately, we had, this was right on Washington Boulevard, this little last

scene to save the cost of an actor, that's me.

But we had some great lawyers here, Stanley Fleischman. Yeah, oh, he was a

one. You want to hear a little story?

A guy named Dick Crane, that was my brother's brother -in -law, and I were

in Texas.

And we had a picture named Tell Your Children.

But we changed the name to Sex Slaves or something like that. I forget.

And so we screened a picture for the censor board, and they'd say, oh, that's

nice little picture. Go ahead and show it. But when they seen the advertising,

sex slaves, they ran us out of town. They shut that picture down, and that's

true story. Well, if you remember, Danny, we got a bust here with Daughter

Fanny. Oh, yeah, yeah.

We got lucky. It went before that lady judge whose brother had run for

Locke Davis.

Mary Locke Davis, I think. He had run for governor of California on the

Republican ticket.

And this was right about the time of the Ginsburg decision.

And she screened the picture and she said, I don't really see anything wrong

with the picture, but under the new law, the pandering law, I must take a look

at the advertising.

Well, thank God I had toned down the one sheet.

But they had seized all of these stills.

And some of them, we had some hot stills and some cool stills. And I whispered

to Danny, the only stills that were in front of the theater are the ones that

have got the thumbtack holes in them.

And so she's looking through these stills. Dan raises his hand and says,

Honor, I want to get up on the stage. She said, You mean the stand, Mr. Sonny?

And he said, All right. So he explains to her. She said, Well, I understand.

And she says, Okay, case dismissed.

And the funny thing about that, that prosecutor, Stanley Stone, he leaves the

district attorney's office the next year, and what do you think he does? He

becomes a defense attorney for the exploitation of the business.

So it was always just a matter of whose ox is gored.

But we spent our whole lives... Look at the guy sucking a tit.

Danny, they did that in these pictures.

This was from Lars She Blows. You remember when we were shooting this

at Newport?

There was a cute little girl, Sherry Mann.

Where are they today?

Sherry's a...

A dealer in Vegas, Marcia Jordan, who was really the queen of the

nudies. She married a very well -off guy up in Fresno.

They come and they go. This was Siegfried, the picture I made in

was Ramrodder.

Were you over in Europe a lot?

I used to go to the Cannes Film Festival every year. I went to Sweden and made a

picture there with Seymour Bordy. And Joe Sarno. And Joe Sarno. I see Joe.

was the name of the picture? Oh, God, what was that thing?

Love the Way You Want. No, no, no, that was that German picture that you bought

and sold it to Joseph and me. Oh, that was, this is on the carnival lot.

I went to Germany and bought a good

German picture named Love the Way a Woman Desires.

And I brought it back and I said to myself, this picture is too

good for my distribution.

I went and sold to Dave and his partner.

And I got a good hunk of money. You got more from us than you paid for the nap,

didn't you? I got a good hunk of money.

And that's about the time when I was...

Getting acquainted with you, Dave.

So I know what you said. I know what you said. Getting bankrupt at our company.

Yeah, I think I did. And I think I know what you were thinking.

Well, that son of a bitch and crook is a... Dan Sonny sold us a white slave. I

think I'll join him.

You also sold us a little nudist camp reel.

A little colored nudist camp reel.

I put that with some of our birth of a baby shows.

I couldn't stand that picture that you sold to Irv. But Irv fell in love with

that picture.

The heroine in that picture reminded him of his wife. I said, Irv, what are we

going to do with this thing?

I mean, it's nothing. Nothing happened. What was the name of it?

No, no, no. Yeah, but no, I'm talking about the German feature. Oh, the German

feature. You know, we were both in this picture. This was a picture that

Kleinberg made.

And you played the bartender and I...

Oh, you were really emoting there.

Oh, yeah. I called some woman a bastard.

I think we ought to get a print on that bastard from Chicago from Mike. You want

one? Yeah. Okay, sure.

We're doing more studying of them now than they ever would have been. You're

talking about selling each other films. You're kind of introducing this notion

of what was known as the 40 Thieves.

We were states' writers.

I'd buy pictures from him. There was a Hell's Angels. Hell's Angels.

We dealt with all the crooks. You dealt with the Hell's Angels?

Yeah. How did that happen? We had them in a picture. Made them in a motion

picture. Put them in a movie. They were hams.

They wanted to be in the picture. How did you find them?

They found us.

You see, back then, we were all states' writers.

I would buy Dan's pictures for Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, the Midwest.

He would buy my pictures for the 13 western states.

And we were always hawking film back and forth. So I finally get old

and tired, and I says, Dave, come on out here. I said, you got a free office?

And it got nice weather, and boy, he was here fast.

We both used to deal with a character named Gaston Hockey. Oh, yeah.

He's dead now. He died. In Paris.

And he, this guy had film.

A lot of times he didn't own it, but he had film to sell.

He sold Kroger, Babb, and Irv and me a picture called...

It was a Swedish picture called On Summer in Medmonica, A Summer with

Very famous. I hope we're not boring you, Danny.

And we opened this picture. I take it up to Minnesota. There's a lot of Swedes

up in Minnesota.

And I'm playing this picture, and I'm not holding it. I'm flashing a yard

And I'm playing to these Swedes, and we're not counting it. We're just

it every night.

But suddenly we get a wire, cease and desist, and Spinska Film Industry, and

Irv and I fly into New York, and we meet Dr. Lindquist.

from the svenska film industry yeah sure i said well we bought this picture from

mr hakeem and he says yeah that is right but mr hakeem never bought it from us

so we had to pay the royalties again and he said you know that as an

emma bergman picture i said yeah it's got some nice tits and asses there's a

pussy there's a pussy this was the first that was the best deal i ever made yes

sir you named those theaters

That was a name that became generic for adult theaters all over the country.

Was that your best deal, Dan?

My best deal? No, my best deal was when I married my lovely wife. This is the

second best deal.

Now, we're talking about when the hardcore explicit films started coming

What did you guys have to do with that aspect of it? Oh, I never would go in

hardcore. Well, I freely admit that I made four of them, not

for myself.

First of all, I had written a script.

And a character from Philadelphia that wanted to get into the business, he

bought the script from me for $5 ,000.

Then he asked me if I would produce it, which I did.

And I know I wasn't going to distribute it or anything else.

And then he wanted another one. So, again, I did the same thing.

Then another character came in, Bill Castleman got in a deal with this guy.

So we made this one.

But, you know, it was just, I have nothing against these pictures from a

standpoint. I still believe that any American adult has the right to see or

read.

anything he wants to in the privacy of a theater or in the privacy of his own

home. But it just wasn't good show business because it didn't have that old

Carney tease.

And, you know, our business was, boy, we didn't see it this week, but next week

we're really going to see it. The trailer was everything.

But all of a sudden now they're raising the curtain and giving away the third

act. I mean, what could you do after they've done it all?

And it was really more clinical than it was erotic.

So I said, if this is what it's going to be.

But the audience reactions even before Hardcore, as you're talking here, Dan,

you're talking about...

how the police would come in and look through the peepholes into the men's

And did you have a lot of that problem in the theaters? Oh, on Main Street. I

used to have six theaters on Main Street. In Los Angeles. In Los Angeles.

For arrests a day. And the police would be in our bathroom with a little hole

through the wall and watch and see if people were jacking off. When they jack

off, they would arrest them. And you couldn't do anything about that? No, no.

didn't do nothing about it.

And you wouldn't believe that who they were arresting.

Judges? No, no. Doctors? Lawyers?

They were arresting educated people like ministers and attorneys

and people like that. Unbelievable.

I can believe it was attorneys.

I mean,

this was, they were so...

The police were so, back then, particularly in Los Angeles,

and they were so anti -gay, you know, and this was, if

you had any display of homosexual behavior, they'd not only arrest you,

beat you up before. I mean, the LAPD was not the most tolerant police department

in the world.

Now, Dave, you said that Dan took every other seat out of a theater to give

these guys some room. Actually, it really wasn't Dan. It was a competitor

Dan's named Max Gardens, who had a little theater called the Galway

And I used to book that house for him, and he needed three pictures a week.

And he had all of this problem. He had that guy, Joe, that worked for him. It

was a con factor.

And he actually took every other seed. It looked like a giant checkerboard. I'm

finally glad you come on. That's the first time he told the truth in your

Now look at this stuff.

Unbelievable. And this young kid, that's Mike Rainey of Something Weird.

And Dan, when he saw this junk pile out here, he just could not get over it.

I will never, to my dying day, when you were shooting this stuff, it was like

midnight in a coal mine back there. And this stuff is so clear. This digital

camera is just something.

There's no lights on us. It looks like there's bright lights, but there were no

lights.

Nobody's interested in this old stuff. This kid is so smart. Dan calls him the

41st thief.

He is. He really is.

He really is.

And he gets things done, too.

He's a fireball.

He is an absolute fireball.

moving in different directions, you know, to retire and whatnot.

I came along, and now we've gone from video to television to clips, stock

footage, where this stuff is going to be used over and over again and seen

constantly probably to the end of time.

Is that a school over there? Yeah, it is. What kind of school?

Elementary.

Don't tell him you're... I know. Isn't that... Danny,

you're still thinking back in those terms.

Hey, little boy, you want to buy some filthy pictures?

Every day for 28 years I drove this.

We had nice offices, didn't we? We sure did.

Well, Danny, here we are on Cordova Street.

It has broke my heart to see it.

Ray Hackey's place, that used to be Lapidus'

popcorn stand.

Here was the property.

Now whose car was that?

This was the car that Ted had that he was hauling us around in. Oh, that's

right. All right, okay.

Be careful getting out of there, Danny.

Come around and wait a minute. I'll come around and help you.

I'm waiting, Dave.

I'm glad you did to help me.

What I couldn't get over that...

You sold this property to that Korean Presbyterian church, and they have all

this barbed wire around there now, and it's almost like a prison camp.

And this was the main offices and next door.

Can you imagine that citadel of cinema, sin and sleaze, now a place of

worship? How times do change.

The Lord moves in strange and mysterious ways indeed.

Yes, you're right, it does.

You know, it was cold that day.

It was a December day.

That was a December day, and it was cold.

It was a nice day to go down. I think it was a Saturday. See down there in the

background, that big building that was Beacon's Warehouse? Yeah. You know what

they stored in there more than anything else? What was that?

Negative. Oh, yeah, they had a bunch of bolts back there. Well, no, but that

whole Beacons building was basically a negative storage house for the majors.

Yeah. They used to park on my parking lot.

I would rent my parking lot to them, to four or five people there.

It was an interesting day. We shot all the footage of the two of you together

the car and walking around here. I think we did it in three hours, down at Mike

Franny's.

Drove around all your old haunts.

Back in the back was the little insert stage.

And then there was a string of little apartments back there.

Bea lived in one of them. It wasn't much bigger than a film vault.

And that was her little hole.

She was like a mole or a mouse.

We used to give her free rent. You'd give her a whole big hearted den. Well,

was my landlady. She never spent more than $10 a week on herself. She used to

collect the rent for us. Yeah.

And she would go out and buy a loaf of day old bread and a head of lettuce.

And that was her, that was her.

And she lived in the back.

She lived in the back.

That was her whole existence.

The poor thing never spent a dime.

She used to wear the same clothes every day. I said to Dan one day, you know, I

don't understand this.

Clothes are always clean or something, but she wears the same thing every day.

Dan laughed. I said, don't you know what she does? She finds something she'll

wear. She buys three copies of it at the same time.

Well, Danny, this is a fitting end.

There's where we used to store Elmer.

McCurdy. McCurdy. The outlaw. The Oklahoma outlaw. The Oklahoma outlaw. We

stored it there for 35 years. If that church only knew.

Yeah. You know, Ted, I like this ending. These two old guys walking off into the

sunset. It's a very fitting ending.

And I'll say one thing. It was a lot of fun making this thing.

I enjoyed my life, but it's hell when you get old.

But as I say, this was fun doing this thing.

It was a lot of fun getting to know you while we did it. Yes.

Well, good night, folks.

Thanks for listening.

Time to go pee, huh?

So is it pretty much accurate, Dan?

Yes, it was. And Dave, I'll tell you, really knows more about show business,

exploitation picture, than anybody I've ever met.

Well, Danny, I also know an awful lot about

Very, very classy cinema. I know the films of Brunel. I know the films of

Bergman, Antoninini. I mean, I'm a... Well, we ought to change your middle

to Knowledge.

Well,

thank you for sitting down and doing this.

But, you know, we're not recorded anymore, are we? Yes, we still are, sir.

you're not going to use any of this? You don't know what we're going to use?

Well, I just don't understand.

Why you have to do this? No, no, I don't understand how this could make money.

What, what, now I'm out of success?

No, no, the, the, the, this here little recording we're having

now. On the DVD versions, they must have this commentary of the people that

were involved in making the picture. And that's this pleasant afternoon we have

spent here with Ted.

And... Say goodbye, Ted.

Bye, Ted. Goodbye, Ted. Bye, Dan. Bye, Dave.