Goodbye to the man who brought us Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, The Erotic Adventures Of Zorro, Trader Hornee, Thar She Blows, and Ilsa She-wolf Of The SS. Producer and Huckster extraordinaire David F. Friedman died Sunday in Miami of heart disease at age 87. For a full appreciation of the history of exploitation films, you should read his autobiography A Youth In Babylon for Friedman was one of the few of the exploitation giants whose roots stretched back to actual carnivals. His father ran one and much of Friedman’s youth was spent traveling the carnival circuit throughout the South. It was there that he was first bitten by the showbiz bug, giving him a taste for exploitation and spectacle that would serve him well in the future. Friedman apprenticed with fellow showman Kroger Babb (best known for the birth-of-a-baby film Mom And Dad which played like a tent revival for years...
- 2/15/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The first that I heard of Frank Henenlotter was on a perfectly awful cable tv show that aired on Manhattan's Public Access channel in the 1970s.
"The Nikki Haskell Show" was a self-indulgent half-hour cable show hosted by Haskell, a wealthy socialite-divorcee and former stockbroker who now claims that her show marked the invention of "reality television." About a year ago, after her diet pill company got in trouble with the NFL over a "secret ingredient" that should have been labeled, Haskell signed up for an account at YouTube and started posting clips from the 30-year-old program, but she seems to have lost interest after posting just ten of them.
The main reason I'd tune in Haskell's silly show was the programming that followed it, "adults only" programming like Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein's "Midnight Blue," porn performer Robin Bird's "Hot Legs" show featuring New York's leading "dance talent" and,...
"The Nikki Haskell Show" was a self-indulgent half-hour cable show hosted by Haskell, a wealthy socialite-divorcee and former stockbroker who now claims that her show marked the invention of "reality television." About a year ago, after her diet pill company got in trouble with the NFL over a "secret ingredient" that should have been labeled, Haskell signed up for an account at YouTube and started posting clips from the 30-year-old program, but she seems to have lost interest after posting just ten of them.
The main reason I'd tune in Haskell's silly show was the programming that followed it, "adults only" programming like Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein's "Midnight Blue," porn performer Robin Bird's "Hot Legs" show featuring New York's leading "dance talent" and,...
- 11/17/2009
- by unclebob
- DreadCentral.com
With titles like "The Defilers", "She Freak", "The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill" and "The Flesh Merchant" to their credit, it's unlikely that veteran producers-showmen Dan Sonney and David Friedman will be subjects of an AFI tribute anytime soon.
But that doesn't stop TV writer-producer Ted Bonnitt from giving these sexploitation pioneers their due in "Mau Mau Sex Sex", an affectionate if insubstantial portrait of the artist as a dirty old man that unspooled at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
There's certainly no shortage of archival naughty bits on display, and the two subjects are bona fide characters themselves, but Bonnitt is content to merely scratch the surface. He passes up a terrific opportunity to put their eyebrow-raising work in any satisfying historical or sociological context, limiting any outside commentary to horror film director-archivist Frank Henenlotter.
Instead, Bonnitt mainly trains his camera on these now-retired purveyors of the "nudie cutie" as they take the viewer on a fond trip down mammary lane. Definitely the Felix to Friedman's Oscar, Sonney was the son of a famed lawman who was featured in a series of films that documented his rapid-fire agility with a pair of handcuffs.
Friedman, once billed as "the world's greatest carny," was able to parlay a fair share of his freak show know-how into the picture business. For example, take the intriguing title, which refers to a 1950 news documentary about the rise of the East African Mau Mau resistance movement narrated by Chet Huntley. Deciding it needed a little more oomph, they snuck in some additional footage of "sex-mad natives" -- which was actually shot in South Central Los Angeles -- before it hit the drive-in.
In the early '60s, when those innocent nudist camp volleyball games were no longer packing 'em in, they turned to edgier fare, including the disturbing "roughies," in which female characters were unpleasantly victimized (again, some form of social commentary would have been appreciated here), leading up to 1963's "Blood Feast", the first of director Herschell Gordon Lewis' cult splatter films, which opened in Peoria and became a smash hit.
Of course, the advent of video and the death of the drive-in effectively rendered their particular brand of showmanship obsolete. In a bit of irony, Friedman and Sonney take Bonnitt on a tour of their old San Fernando Valley stomping grounds only to discover their former production offices have been taken over by an Asian Presbyterian church.
It's the only part of "Mau Mau Sex Sex" where no additional comment is necessary.
MAU MAU SEX SEX
7th Planet Prods.
Director-producer: Ted Bonnitt
Screenwriters: Eddie Muller, Ted Bonnitt
Director of photography: Ted Bonnitt
Editors: Ted Bonnitt, Christopher Rowland, Eddie Muller
Color/stereo
With: Dan Sonney, David Friedman, Frank Henenlotter
Running time-- 80 minutes
No MPAA rating...
But that doesn't stop TV writer-producer Ted Bonnitt from giving these sexploitation pioneers their due in "Mau Mau Sex Sex", an affectionate if insubstantial portrait of the artist as a dirty old man that unspooled at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
There's certainly no shortage of archival naughty bits on display, and the two subjects are bona fide characters themselves, but Bonnitt is content to merely scratch the surface. He passes up a terrific opportunity to put their eyebrow-raising work in any satisfying historical or sociological context, limiting any outside commentary to horror film director-archivist Frank Henenlotter.
Instead, Bonnitt mainly trains his camera on these now-retired purveyors of the "nudie cutie" as they take the viewer on a fond trip down mammary lane. Definitely the Felix to Friedman's Oscar, Sonney was the son of a famed lawman who was featured in a series of films that documented his rapid-fire agility with a pair of handcuffs.
Friedman, once billed as "the world's greatest carny," was able to parlay a fair share of his freak show know-how into the picture business. For example, take the intriguing title, which refers to a 1950 news documentary about the rise of the East African Mau Mau resistance movement narrated by Chet Huntley. Deciding it needed a little more oomph, they snuck in some additional footage of "sex-mad natives" -- which was actually shot in South Central Los Angeles -- before it hit the drive-in.
In the early '60s, when those innocent nudist camp volleyball games were no longer packing 'em in, they turned to edgier fare, including the disturbing "roughies," in which female characters were unpleasantly victimized (again, some form of social commentary would have been appreciated here), leading up to 1963's "Blood Feast", the first of director Herschell Gordon Lewis' cult splatter films, which opened in Peoria and became a smash hit.
Of course, the advent of video and the death of the drive-in effectively rendered their particular brand of showmanship obsolete. In a bit of irony, Friedman and Sonney take Bonnitt on a tour of their old San Fernando Valley stomping grounds only to discover their former production offices have been taken over by an Asian Presbyterian church.
It's the only part of "Mau Mau Sex Sex" where no additional comment is necessary.
MAU MAU SEX SEX
7th Planet Prods.
Director-producer: Ted Bonnitt
Screenwriters: Eddie Muller, Ted Bonnitt
Director of photography: Ted Bonnitt
Editors: Ted Bonnitt, Christopher Rowland, Eddie Muller
Color/stereo
With: Dan Sonney, David Friedman, Frank Henenlotter
Running time-- 80 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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