Your documentary The Prince
of Porn - in a few words, what is it about?
Phil
Prince was a director of rather sleazy bondage and discipline films that
played in Times Square theaters in the late 70’s / early 80’s. As the
editor of some of these films, I became acquainted with Phil and gained
his consent for a filmed interview. I intercut outtakes from Phil’s
films with his ruminations on the porn world circa 1984.
Now you actually worked as an editor for Phil Prince at the beginning of
your career - so how did that come about?
I
flunked out of college, but in 1982 an ex-film teacher recommended me to
Phil, told him I knew how to edit. I was barely old enough to legally
enter a porn theater but Phil hired me to cut his epics. I worked in a
facility that rented editing rooms located in the Film Center Building on
9th Avenue between 44 and 45th streets. And every Friday I’d stroll over
to the New Bryant Theater on 42nd Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue
to get paid $300 in cash scooped directly from that day’s box office
receipts. It was a sweet setup as far as I was concerned.
Having known Phil Prince personally, what kind of a man was he
actually? I
liked Phil, thought he had a fair amount of charm, charisma, whatever.
Later I learned more about his sordid past - like the fact he used to fuck
his wife on stage five times a day and bragged, “We were the
highest-paid team in New York.” And when this same wife was knifed to
death in a robbery, Phil was a prime suspect as far as the police were
concerned. But who am I to judge?
I also have to ask, as an editor of porn, how
close to the action are you actually, or is it just an editing job like
any other at the end of the day? It’s
kind of weird cutting porn, especially the bondage and discipline stuff.
But you get used to it more or less. I would add goofy, inappropriate
sound effects to amuse myself. Let's get back to The
Prince
of Porn - what inspired you to make a documentary about Phil
Prince in the first place, and how easy or hard was it to convince Phil to
do it? I
wrote a screenplay with a main character who was a sleazy 42nd Street
pornographer - modeled after guess who. So I figured The
Prince
of Porn documentary could be a kind of calling card for the screenplay. I got up
the nerve to ask Phil after I saw an interview he did for a magazine
called Porn Stars. This was a few months after I’d stopped working for
him. Phil consented and we shot the interview in his office above the New
Bryant Theater. What kind of an interviewee was Phil Prince
actually, did he need lots of coaching or takes, and how much of the
material did land on the cutting room floor? Unfortunately
the interview was very brief. The money guy behind Phil’s films and the
theater operations had telephoned during the interview and was miffed
about Phil getting the auteur treatment. So after the first camera load
finished (about 15 minutes) Phil took off. And that was that. So where
can The Prince
of Porn be seen? At
filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s website byNWR: An unadulterated
cultural expressway of the arts -
https://www.bynwr.com/articles/the-prince-of-porn Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of The
Prince
of Porn? Well,
Nicolas Winding Refn liked it. Let's get back to you for a bit - did
you, at whatever level, enjoy the movies you edited for Phil Prince, and
did you enjoy working on them/for him?
If
you actually enjoyed the sex depicted in these movies something was
definitely wrong with you. Rape, fisting, brutish manhandling were the
standard, mixed with a bit of piss and other sadomasochistic niceties. But
the productions did have their wholesome side, as storylines often
involved family members copulating with one another. One of the more
unusual aspects of the movies was that the casts were a mix of mainstream
porn actors (e.g. Ron Jeremy, Annie Sprinkle) along with skuzzy riff-raff
found who knows where. You could say Phil’s films oozed sleaze much the
same way motivational speaker Tony Robbins oozes phony charm. Professionally,
you have long left the world of porn behind - so what can you tell us
about your transition to more mainstream entertainment? Not
long after leaving porn behind I was the sound effects editor on Spookies
– which recently was re-released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome to much
fanfare and ballyhoo. I worked on Spookies in the very same editing room
where I had strung together cum shots on Phil’s films. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
If
the barbershop near me doesn’t reopen soon I’ll probably shave my head
for the third time since the pandemic lockdown began here in LA. Your/your movie's
website, social media, whatever else?
The
sound of crickets...
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Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
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Oh
wait, the Facebook page for my claim to fame, Rock'n’Roll
Frankenstein,
a much maligned movie I wrote and directed:
https://www.facebook.com/rrfrankenstein/
Anything else
you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
Did
a crazed Hungarian projectionist at the Pussycat Theater really try to
wring my neck when the doorknob to his bathroom came off in my hand? You
can find the answer here:
https://www.bynwr.com/articles/loose-on-the-deuce-1
Thanks
for the interview! You’re
welcome.
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