“Why the Wooden Indian Wouldn’t” is a compilation of four 15-minute film loops, shot by Mizer from 1960 to 1971, and have been remastered with original audio on to DVD format. The other loops included in the set are titled “Not For Sale,” “My Brother, the Sister” and “The Cowboy and the Rancher’s Son.”
The second disc set includes “Billy Boy,” which is one of the earliest feature-length gay adult films depicting full frontal nudity and explicit sexuality. The movie features Billy Young, Dick Harold, Skip Tumaloo, Jim Gay, Lucky Starr, Jackie Slaughter, Chuck Otis, Ray Cabe, Phil Seward, Richard Steele, James Chittenen and Jackie Nunn.
All of the films in the collection originally premiered in 1971 at the Park Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. None of the remastered content has been available to the public since its theatrical release, nearly 40 years ago, and since then had only been shown by Mizer at his studios or at private locations.
“It’s a forgotten thing because it happened for a very short period of time, and then stuff went straight-to-video. The ‘60s and early ’70s were a special time for pornography,” AMG’s director of public relations Christopher Trout told XBIZ.
Athletic Model Guild owner Dennis Bell purchased the company from Mizer in 2004 along with its extensive archive of nearly 3,000 movies. The films are stored at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, located in Los Angeles.
According to Trout, he and Bell started looking through the archive in late spring, and were surprised to find the loops and the feature-length “Billy Boy” movie in their entirety with audio.
“What’s surprising is we went down to the film archives, and we were looking through all the canisters and we found the sound strips, which are pretty uncommon to find,” Trout said. “So when we sent them off to be replicated, it came back and the sound was in the best condition that we’ve been able to find.”
“When we found these things, we weren’t even sure we had the entire films. But when we put it on the projector upstairs, there it was — for 'Billy Boy' it was an entire film,” Trout said.
And though the films have been remastered for DVD format, both Bell and Trout said that they retain the original feeling and look of 16mm film.
“When I projected the first reel of ‘Billy Boy,’ already knowing this was the same reel that ran at Los Angeles Park Theatre — I knew I was watching a rare piece of gay erotic history,” Bell said. “I heard Bob Mizer doing voiceovers of the cop in the first scene, and that really brought it home for me.
"This was the first hardcore action in the business, before COLT, before Falcon, before anyone else made a commercial effort at gay porn. While it required extensive color and sound restoration, this film is certainly something worth showing the world a second time, even if almost 40 years later.”
The collections have been packaged with retro styling, with appeal for collectors and gay adult cinema fans.
Both collections are available now at the AMG website. “Why the Wooden Indian Wouldn’t” will street Nov. 29, and “Billy Boy” is scheduled for retail release on Jan. 9.
For more information, call Christopher Trout at (877) AMG-DIRECT (264-3473), or at sales@athleticmodelguild.com.
