George Weiss (producer)

Last updated
George Weiss
Born
George G. Weiss

OccupationFilm producer
Years active1954–1995

George G. Weiss is an American film producer who specialized in independent 'road show' exploitation Z movies during the 1950s and sexploitation shockers in the 1960s that openly defied the motion picture production code of the day.

Contents

Glen or Glenda

Weiss is best known as the producer who funded the exploitation film Glen or Glenda (1953) directed by Ed Wood, originally conceived as a fictionalized story of the sexual reassignment surgery of Christine Jorgensen. When Jorgensen refused to collaborate on the film, Wood wrote a new autobiographical script about his own struggle with being a closet transvestite and added stock film footage about sexual reassignment surgery. Weiss appears in the film in an uncredited cameo as "man at transvestite's suicide." Adding to the film's already extensive fantasy sequence, Weiss included incongruous scenes of scantily-clad women, bondage, and whipping taken from another project inspired by the fetish films of Irving Klaw. This was done partly to increase the film's length up to the required 70 minutes. [1]

In 1956, Weiss backed another Wood project, a juvenile delinquent film with the working title Hellborn. The project was soon abandoned. Wood later incorporated the footage into his films The Sinister Urge and Night of the Ghouls . [2]

Timothy Farrell films

Another connection between Weiss and Ed Wood is actor Timothy Farrell, the sympathetic doctor in Glen or Glenda. Farrell had a major role as a gangster in Wood's Jail Bait , and a supporting part in The Violent Years .

For Weiss, Farrell also played doctors in Hometown Girl (1949) and Test Tube Babies (1948), an exploitation film about artificial insemination. In 1951 he was in the risque burlesque film Paris After Midnight with famous stripper Tempest Storm.

He played Umberto Scalli, a sleazy gymnasium owner and drug pusher in three films: The Devil's Sleep (1949), Racket Girls (aka Pin Down Girls (1951)) and Dance Hall Racket (1954) with iconoclastic comedian Lenny Bruce in his only film role. These films were largely an excuse for showcasing "cat fight" female-wrestling footage.

In Girl Gang (1954), Farrell plays another degenerate drug dealer in a film noteworthy for showing the step-by-step process of preparing and injecting heroin. (Weiss did not shy away from taboo subjects in any of his films.)

Stock footage features

As did Ed Wood, Weiss also cobbled together footage from other sources and created a flimsy plot as a framing device. From his collection of erotic burlesque films he released Hollywood After Midnight, Baghdad After Midnight (both 1954) and The Peek Snatchers (1965), among others.

Nudist Life (1961) was mostly put together from assorted nudist camp films from the previous two decades.

Weiss even stole from himself, as in The Pill (1967), which he also directed. The bulk of the film is recycled from Test Tube Babies dressed up as a clinical study on birth control.

Many of Weiss' films are presented in a pseudo-documentary style accompanied by earnest voice-over narration (pretending to be an educational film was a way to circumvent censorship laws). Chained Girls (1965) is an example of this practice.

The Olga series

Besides Glen or Glenda, Weiss may be best remembered for producing some of the first "roughie" sexploitation films of the 1960s with his "Olga" series. Directed by Joseph P. Mawra and starring Audrey Campbell as the sadistic white slaver Olga, Weiss unleashed Olga's House of Shame (which he also co-wrote), White Slaves of Chinatown, Olga's Girls (all from 1964), Mme. Olga's Massage Parlor (1965) and Olga's Dance Hall Girls (1969). Weiss has a brief role as a doctor in White Slaves of Chinatown. Although tame by today's standards, the series was shocking and unique in its day. Underground filmmaker John Waters cites Olga's House of Shame as a major early influence.

Weiss was friendly with New York filmmaker Michael Findlay and his wife Roberta Findlay, an actress and cinemaphotographer. In 1964 Weiss encouraged them to follow in the trail blazed by the Olga films. The Findlays went on to make a series of even more extreme sexploitation films, including The Touch of Her Flesh and its two sequels.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Wood</span> American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and film editor

Edward Davis Wood Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor, and pulp novel author.

<i>Glen or Glenda</i> 1953 film

Glen or Glenda is a 1953 American exploitation film directed, written by and starring Ed Wood, and featuring Wood's then-girlfriend Dolores Fuller and Bela Lugosi. It was produced by George Weiss who also made the exploitation film Test Tube Babies that same year.

<i>Orgy of the Dead</i> 1965 American film

Orgy of the Dead is a 1965 erotic horror film directed by Stephen C. Apostolof. The screenplay was written by cult film director Ed Wood, who adapted the screenplay into a novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Jorgensen</span> First American widely known for gender affirmation surgery (1926-1989)

Christine Jorgensen was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a successful career as an actress, singer, and recording artist.

<i>Ed Wood</i> (film) 1994 film by Tim Burton

Ed Wood is a 1994 American biographical comedy-drama film directed and produced by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Ed Wood, the eponymous cult filmmaker. The film concerns the period in Wood's life when he made his best-known films as well as his relationship with actor Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau. Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie, and Bill Murray are among the supporting cast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doris Wishman</span> American filmmaker

Doris Wishman was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. She is credited with having directed and produced at least 30 feature films during a career spanning over four decades, most notably in the sexploitation film genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conrad Brooks</span> American actor (1931-2017)

Conrad Brooks was an American actor. He was known for his many appearances in the 1950s films of cult director Ed Wood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexploitation film</span> Genre of independently produced, low-budget feature films

A sexploitation film is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films. The term "sexploitation" has been used since the 1940s. Sexploitation films were generally exhibited in urban grindhouse theatres, the precursor to the adult movie theaters of the 1970s and 1980s that featured hardcore pornography content. The term soft-core is often used to designate non-explicit sexploitation films after the general legalisation of hardcore content. Nudist films are often considered to be subgenres of the sex-exploitation genre as well. "Nudie" films and "Nudie-cuties" are associated genres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Bell (actress)</span>

Virginia Bell was a topless model and actress.

This is a list of the books by Edward D. Wood, Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Farrell</span> American actor

Timothy Farrell was an American film actor, best known for his roles in Ed Wood films such as Jail Bait, The Violent Years and Glen or Glenda. He also worked for the County Marshal of Los Angeles, California.

Michael Findlay was an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Along with his wife Roberta, Findlay created numerous low-budget Z movies in the 1960s and 1970s. They have been described as "the most notorious filmmakers in the annals of sexploitation".

Stephen C. Apostolof, sometimes credited under aliases A.C. Stephen(s) or Robert Lee, was a Bulgarian-American filmmaker specializing in low-budget exploitation and erotic films, who gained a cult following for a wide variety of films that range from erotic horror and suburban exposé to western-themed costume pictures and Mission Impossible-type capers such as. Apostolof had gained a reputation for creating high-quality mass entertainment with minimal budgets. He was also one of the few directors to work steadily with the infamous Ed Wood and such sexploitation icons as Marsha Jordan and Rene Bond in the 1960s and 1970s.

<i>The Sinister Urge</i> (film) 1960 film by Ed Wood

The Sinister Urge is a 1960 crime drama film that was written, directed and co-produced by Ed Wood. It starred Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Dino Fantini, Jean Fontaine, Harvey Dunn and Conrad Brooks.

<i>Tonight for Sure</i> 1962 film by Francis Ford Coppola

Tonight for Sure is a 1962 softcore comedy film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It was the re-edited version of a nudie film named The Wide Open Spaces directed by Jerry Schafer. Jack Hill was the director of photography. The music was composed by Carmine Coppola. This is a film set in August 1961, on the Sunset Strip, and in the El Rey Casino in Searchlight, Nevada. The movie stars Karl Schanzer and Don Kenney and featuring female co stars Marli Renfro, Virginia Gorden, Electra, Exotica, Laura Cornell, Karla Lee, and Sue Martin.

<i>The Violent Years</i> 1956 film

The Violent Years is a 1956 American exploitation film directed by William Morgan and starring Jean Moorhead as Paula Parkins, the leader of a gang of juvenile delinquent high school girls. The film is notable for having an uncredited Ed Wood as the author of its screenplay. It was released in 1956 on a double bill with the German import Conchita and the Engineer.

Take It Out in Trade is a 1970 softcore pornographic comedy, written, directed and edited by Ed Wood. The plot centers on a couple who hire a private investigator to locate their missing daughter. He finds her in a "house of ill-repute," full of various soft-core couplings. Ed Wood played a transvestite named Alecia in the film.

<i>Havana Widows</i> 1933 film

Havana Widows is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Ray Enright, starring Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell. It was released by Warner Bros. on November 18, 1933. Two chorus girls travel to Havana in search of rich husbands. Their target is Deacon Jones, a self-appointed moralist who cannot drink without getting drunk.

<i>Dad Made Dirty Movies</i> 2011 film

Dad Made Dirty Movies is a 2011 Bulgarian-German documentary film by Jordan Todorov following Stephen C. Apostolof's life and career. The film premiered at Visions du Réel International Film Festival in April 2011 and consists of archive footage as well as interviews with Apostolof's family, friends and associates.

<i>Chained Girls</i> 1965 American film

Chained Girls is a 1965 film. It is an example of the exploitation film.

References

  1. Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr., by Rudolph Grey, 1992: Feral House, Inc., pp. 46, 198
  2. Conrad Brooks (Presenter) (1993). Hellborn (Motion picture). Cult Video magazine.