The Young Marrieds, Ed Wood's lost porno: a Dimitrios Otis interview

So I'm neither a porn connoisseur nor an Ed Wood fan, but more from lack of exposure than lack of interest. I'm perfectly willing to consume porn as cinema, if it's interesting - like the work of Zebedy Colt, say. And I've always been curious about Ed Wood - mostly because I know serious cult movie cinephiles like Adrian Mack admire his films - but believe it or not, aside from about five minutes of Plan 9 From Outer Space, which I caught on TV in my 20's and quickly switched channels on - I have never actually seen an Ed Wood film, ever: not one. I've seen Tim Burton's film about him, I know his reputation, but I'm actually more inclined to seek out good movies than bad ones, unless someone really urges me to do otherwise (which is how I came to see Ray Dennis Steckler's Rat Pfink a Boo-Boo, say; thanks, Blake. I still remember it).

There are tons of reasons to be interested in The Young Marrieds, however - Ed Wood's final film, and a porno at that, which I plan to see for the first time on Friday at the Rio Theatre, with the man who re-discovered it here in Vancouver way back in 2004, Dimitrios Otis, in attendance (selling DVDs of it, too!). The press release for the film talks about how "Otis found the 16mm print in a cache of films from the old Venus Theatre on Main Street, a notorious ‘den of depravity’ that was finally torn down in 2007 to make way for condos." The story of any film rediscovery is interesting; when it takes in the historic battle between art spaces and condos that is being waged in Vancouver, it's all the moreso.  

But there's more to it. The Young Marrieds also features a lost performance from a woman who acted in John Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Alice Friedland - a beautiful woman with an odd career, apparently doing a hardcore turn in the Wood film. Cassavetes' own body of work has been subject to a lost film or two being discovered, including the original version of Shadows, tracked down by, and currently in the possession of Ray Carney (better known on the interet these days for l'affair Rappaport than his Cassavetes scholarship, sadly). 

"Porn archaelogist" Dimitrios Otis was kind enough to answer a few questions about the film by email in advance of the screening. He started with some background (which may have seen print elsewhere - hope I'm not steppin' on anyone's toes), informing me that "The Young Marrieds was shot not too long after Necromania, possibly as early as summer 1971 and certainly by Oct. 1971 (the film itself is dated 1972, under the unknown "Palo Productions" company copyright)."

Wood biographer Rudolph Grey "has researched a ton of stuff about The Young Marrieds -- as with other films, Pendulum Publishers (there is a convoluted chain of film production companies involved with Wood's films--- "Cinema Classics", Stacey Films---but yes it started with this book/magazine publisher) milked their skin flicks in various ways (pun not intended): 8mm "loops" derived from the sex scenes, use of on-set shots for pictorials, "reviews" were done (by Wood himself of his own movies!). Often they described different titles/characters from the actual film. For instance, The Young Marrieds was reviewed (previewed?) as Group Sex Ball in a Pendulum pictorial article." 

"Grey has found movie ads starting in 1974 so it is possible it was sold to another distributor at that time. Grey also found the trailer (the only copy of it to have ever surfaced) at a DIFFERENT company altogether (he kindly lent us the trailer to put on the DVD, a nice coup for us.) The trailer has a different approach and narration, suggests to me it was made BEFORE Wood finished the feature (Wood cut his own trailers, btw, and also edited his own films)."

How did Otis find the film, however? Was he searching for it? (The remainder of this article is all Dimitrios Otis! See you at the Rio on Friday...). 

Wasn’t looking for The Young Marrieds – didn’t even know it existed! When I did my first event at the Fox in 2000, the cousin of the Fox owners told me he had a bunch of films and I should do an event at HIS theatre (the Venus). I ended up offering just to catalog his supply. He had 300 reels of 16mm films – they were in his garage at 24th/Main – the Fire Marshall had made him remove them from the Venus as a fire hazard. The Fire Marshall wrongly thinking they were flammable (that was, like, 60 years ago when film had nitrite stock!). Anyway, the guy’s wife wanted to get rid of them, so I bought them – cheap!

After I had them a while I guess I remembered how in Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. (by Rudolph Grey) it was described how some of Wood’s films were lost. So I started checking thru the films – and oddly enough The Young Marrieds was in there!

I had actually been very moved by that whole closing section of Nightmare of Ecstasy when I originally read it---I’m sure my response was typical.

The Young Marrieds itself is of course a low-budget sex movie – but Wood put a lot into it, and like much of his writing, it contains a lot of his personal views and feelings. Wood wrote the script, directed, edited, did the sound, cut the trailer. I feel he was an auteur.

Curiously, in his last movie Wood revisited his first movie, Glen or Glenda. The “young married” couple are both variously freaked out by sexual “freaks and weirdos” (gays and lesbians), then are progressively confronted by these elements through the film.

The Young Marrieds also continues progressively from the film Wood made before it – Necromania. In Necromania a couple undergo a testing process to see if they are compatible to get married, then in the next film the titular couple are being tested in the post-honeymoon phase of their marriage.

Although much of Wood’s cinematic technique is sloppy – crude editing, bad sound --- he appears to have made a lot of effort to dress the set. If one looks carefully one sees set dec items moved around and re-placed on the different sets. Quite a number of the items re-appear from Necromania, and I think he re-used some of the “nighties” too. Wood also liked to put tall candle holders (with lit candles) on coffee tables then shoot so they are foreground.

While Wood was of course working in a genre purposed to stimulate the audience, he actually subverted this purpose in small and large ways. A solo scene with the wife is set during her viewing of a daytime soap opera (nicely emphasizing the middle class suburban setting) but the purposed sexual stimulation is undermined by the loud and very bizarre sound of the soap opera playing as she operates her dildo. And the ending is simply one big shock to the heterosexual male audience’s expectations. One wonders what the producers thought about their investment.

There is quite a bit of that unique Wood dialogue and funny gaffes. A framed picture on the wall enters the picture and becomes part of the action – until finally between takes someone nails it firmly back on the wall! One of the actresses is pretty bad, probably first time on camera – and she appears to regret her involvement immensely. A bear rug---complete with head---is immediately tripped over. That kind of thing.

My favourite moment is when the “young marrieds” are having communication difficulties in bed. There is a teddy bear on the bed and as the couple reach an impasse then the bear is picked up by the wife, and at one point lies between them as a sort of “amenable object” conduit for their attempts to regain intimacy (each is touching one end of the teddy bear.) We can tell that Wood was directing the actors in this – because since the film was made with live sound he had to later cut the sound out to cut out his own voice directing the actors (in a more polished production they would dub in voices to fill in the gaps.) I have no doubt Wood placed that teddy bear on the bed and directed the husband and wife to handle it. This is of course employing Freudian-type psychological levels.

There’s no doubt this is an Ed Wood film!!

Dimitrios Otis, porn archeologist