It seems an irreducible fact that in anyone’s memories of the 1960s smut world the late Edward D. Wood Jr. was usually always involved. That was the case with the late true crime writer/former actor John Gilmore’s 1997 memoir LAID BARE, in which Wood, the world-renowned Worst Director of All Time and prolific smut book author, figures rather heavily in the author’s porno-heavy recollections of the early 1960s, and also THE TRAVELING YEARS by filmmaker Leo Eaton, who recalls working with Mr. Wood, an “old drunk who wore mini-skirts and angora sweaters and insisted he’d worked with Bela Lugosi,” in the LA offices of the late Pendulum Press smut book outfit.
Further evidence of Ed Wood’s prevalence on the literary smut scene can be found in the 1970 adults-only paperback OUTERSPACE SEX ORGY. A longtime holy grail for those who collect such books, it involves a crew of intrepid cosmonauts on a distant planet whose humanoid inhabitants are equipped with tendrils inside their sex organs and virtual reality television.
What provides this book’s main point of interest are the copious photographic illustrations, which were actually stills from a never-released short film called BLAST OFF! that starred several Ed Wood regulars. The stills, presented in garish color and startlingly graphic detail, depict cosmonauts wearing fishbowl helmets and plastic garments, while the extraterrestrials are represented by painted folk with horns and Spock ears, all situated amid black “space” backdrops marked with shiny five pointed stars. The Ed Wood connection is certainly appropriate, and it’s been claimed that Wood had a hand in the film that inspired this book, and possibly the text itself (which is credited to “Arthur Faber”).
What provides this book’s main point of interest are the copious photographic illustrations, which were actually stills from a never-released short film…
The idea of a pornographic novel illustrated with movie stills was extent years before OUTERSPACE SEX ORGY came to be. Among the pioneers of the format was the aforementioned Pendulum Books, a mob-affiliated outfit that Ed Wood was instrumental in founding. It’s no surprise that one of Pendulum’s earliest and most ambitious publishing endeavors, the 1968 Pendulum Pictorial series, was spearheaded by Wood, who’s believed to have written all of the six Pendulum Pictorial books: BYE BYE BROADIE and RAPED IN THE GRASS, both of which carry the Ed Wood byline, and THE EROTIC SPY, PRISON PASSION, THE NAZI FIELD WHORES and THE SVENGALI OF SEX, which were credited to other names.
The idea of a pornographic novel illustrated with movie stills was extent years before OUTERSPACE SEX ORGY came to be.
The Pendulum Pictorials were illustrated in the form of black and white photos that filled roughly every
other page. They followed, and seemingly attempted to outdo, the similarly formatted Olympic Foto-Reader paperbacks, whose covers tended to advertise “more than 50 (and sometimes 60) photographs.” Each Pendulum Pictorial, by contrast, was said to contain “80 photos” (a more accurate count would be around 75), with all six books clocking in at exactly 157 pages.
This would seem to bolster the fact that Wood was the author of these books, as not too many other writers in or out of the smut field could write so quickly, and with such precision. As Pendulum’s head Bernie Bloom said of Wood, “he was the most prolific writer I’ve ever known. And the fastest. He could write better drunk than most writers could write sober.” I imagine he could, and very likely did, dash off each book in a few alcohol-soaked hours.
…not too many other writers in or out of the smut field could write so quickly, and with such precision.
The only known reprintings of the Pendulum Pictorials were by the late Woodpile Press. A short-lived offshoot of Ramble House, in 2005 Woodpile put out two PENDULOUS WOOD compilations containing the texts of the first three Pendulum Pictorials, albeit without the illustrations. I say that was a mistake, because as perfunctory and unevocative as those illustrations may have been, Wood’s texts weren’t much better. It was the combination that made the books interesting, perhaps not as much as OUTERSPACE SEX ORGY (which is in a class of its own), but interesting nonetheless.
Regarding those photos, they’re alleged to be stills from motion pictures, with the books intended “to create the illusion of actually viewing the movie as you read the plot.” Alas, no trace of those movies (identified as emerging from, variously, “Image 4,” “D-M Productions” and “B&B Productions”) exists, with the illustrations looking like exactly what they are: indifferently composed photographs taken directly for the books, with the identities of the photographers, and the models pictured, remaining a mystery.
Another noteworthy factor of these photographs is their relative tameness. Many a sex act is depicted, but with nothing that approaches hardcore, and no below-the-waist private regions are exposed (as opposed to later, similarly oriented Pendulum series like the Pendulum Exotic books, whose illustrations consisted of nothing but hardcore depictions).
The first Pendulum Pictorial to appear was BYE BYE BROADIE, or PP-001. It’s the most overtly Ed Woodian book of the series, put down in ludicrously overwrought verbiage—“It was melting itself around the pointed tips of her breasts and she cooing like some small bird who had just been treated with some kind gesture”—that can only have come from the pen of Mr. Wood. It also established the formatting and overall tone followed by the rest of these books, starting with the introduction by “The Editor” that, in true 1960s smut book fashion, attempts to evade the censors by offering a faux-legitimization of this “tale of frustration and inhibition in a small world of females without men.”
…ludicrously overwrought verbiage…
The narrative, such as it is, concerns a peeping tom spying on two especially alluring pupils of a girls’ boarding school getting it on. He joins in the fun, only to be stymied by the repressed headmistress, the subject of several out-of-place flashbacks showing that she’s not nearly as puerile as she seems. She promptly beats the guy to death, but the book doesn’t end there, as he somehow springs back to life and kills the headmistress.
The illustrations, as is the case with the rest of the Pendulum Pictorials (and indeed most all illustrated smut books), are only tangentially related to the text. Depicted are young men and women in various amorous positions, and a stern looking woman standing over them. Some have opined that Wood crafted his narrative directly from the images, while others believe the process worked the other way around; the truth will likely never be known.
PP-002 was RAPED IN THE GRASS, which is often claimed as Wood’s “most extreme” novel. I’d say PP-004 and PP-005 (discussed below) are more accurate holders of that title, although RAPED’s photos may well be the most extreme of the Pendulum illustrations, with depictions of slapping, stabbing, strangulation, a topless woman with a knife pressed against her breasts and a few pictures that come perilously close to revealing ladies’ forbidden nether regions.
…the most extreme of the Pendulum illustrations, with depictions of slapping, stabbing, strangulation…
The narrative, alas, is even more perfunctory than that of BYE BYE BROADIE. Purporting to “give the viewer and the reader an insight into raw human emotions as they exist in many of our world societies of today” (so claims The Editor), it features two young women on vacation in Central America who run afoul of a band of sadistic guerrillas whose ranks include Greda, a lesbian. What follows is an orgy of rape, beatings and crucifixion that concludes on a semi-optimistic note, with the gals forging an alliance with Greda and the well-endowed leader of the guerrillas.
PP-003, THE EROTIC SPY, is credited to “Abbott Smith.” It was the first of the non-Ed Wood credited Pendulums, but has been positively identified as a Wood book due to the inclusion of Golden Girl (proclaimed by The Editor as “one of the most exciting characters to have emerged from the world of fiction in recent years”), a character who also appears in the Wood scripted flick ORGY OF THE DEAD (1965). The Wood authorship would appear to be further bolstered by verbiage like “she could feel the stiff rod within the confines of his trousers pressing hard against the terry cloth covered temple of her love,” a sentence that could only emerge from one place. THE EROTIC SPY is, I should add, the most enjoyable of the Pendulum Pictorials, a book that with some added spit and polish could have conceivably passed muster as a legitimate novel.
…a book that with some added spit and polish could have conceivably passed muster as a legitimate novel.
About Dick and Ann, a pair of dashing spy lovers (think James Bond hooking up with Modesty Blaise) getting into some dangerous kerfuffles before going up against the Golden one, the book is packed with by-now-standard photographic depictions of people having soft core sex in various unremarkable locales, as well as a decidedly uninspiring portrayal of Golden Girl (with the nuance-free black and white photography failing to convey her gold skin). It concludes, at least, with a satisfying burst of brutality as GG gets her just desserts and the protagonists live happily ever after.
…a satisfying burst of brutality as GG gets her just desserts and the protagonists live happily ever after
PP-004 is PRISON PASSION, whose credited author “Harmon Wold Jr.” would appear to be a giveaway to
the identity of its true author (that name isn’t far from Edward Wood Jr). A book that foreshadows the WIP (women in prison) exploitation pictures that would proliferate in the coming decades, it’s set in an outdoor women’s prison camp where the young and sexy Laura is unjustly interred. After she’s manhandled by the lesbian matron and a sadistic male guard, her luscious cell mate Sandy brains the latter with a shovel and the two escape into the woods, where they indulge in some therapeutic same-sex carnality. But they’re recaptured, with the final pages introducing a jolt of sheer unpleasantness to the series in the gruesome fates that befall the protagonists.
A book that foreshadows the WIP (women in prison) exploitation picture…
One more thing: the illustrations, depicting soft core shenanigans amid outdoor locales that don’t look especially prison-like (what they do resemble is the “Central American” scenery of RAPED IN THE GRASS), are noteworthy in the spoiler-ific way they depict certain actions described in the text, such as the final horrific fate that befalls Sandy (or at least her corpse), before they actually occur.
PP-005, THE NAZI FIELD WHORES by “Michael Snow,” is by far the ugliest of the Pendulum Pictorials, taking the sadism of the final pages of PRISON PASSION to new heights. It’s a Nazisploitation book in the grand tradition, with two partially Jewish woman named Anna and Marie charged with servicing Nazis during WWII. Wood’s research on the period was evidently quite minimal, as this is essentially a rewrite of the previous book, with the ladies getting together to service each other, albeit at the instigation of one of their evil overseers. A & M plot an escape that isn’t to be, leaving their fate to the psychotic Sergeant Kruger, who initiates a riot of unspeakable torture from which suicide is the only way out.
Wood’s research on the period was evidently quite minimal…
The book’s nasty edge is blunted somewhat by the ridiculousness of the photographs, which invite yet another mention of the term “Ed Woodian.” Those pics show folks getting it on in somebody’s book-lined living room and what appears to be a Los Angeles park, with the Nazi angle displayed by having the guys wear armbands with drawn-on swastikas and a sheet bearing just such an emblem (which likewise appears to have been drawn on) draped over portions of the scenery.
The book’s nasty edge is blunted somewhat by the ridiculousness of the photographs…
Closing things out was PP-006, THE SVENGALI OF SEX by “Edgar Andrews.” It serves as a something of
a palate cleanser after the ugliness of PP-005, being a lighthearted (by late 1960s standards) sex odyssey about Larry, a randy hypnotherapist. He specializes in female neuroses, and his latest batch of clients present him with plenty of issues to solve. It seems that Shirley, Sue, Diane and Eve, attractive young women all, each have a debilitating sexual hang-up. Larry initially provides one-on-one hypnosis sessions in which the gals explore their pasts, then follow-up visits in which he dispenses his own brand of curative psychology (I think you can guess what that entails), and finally a four-in-one “graduation session” in which Larry gives the ladies a collective send off.
The illustrations here are interesting. Amid the expected soft core sex that only occasionally matches the descriptions, we see a guy (Larry, presumably) making out with his own reflection in a mirror, which occurs nowhere in the text. It almost seems as if the photos are telling an entirely different story, one that frankly seems a lot more interesting that the narrative Wood has provided.