THREAD
I am very proud to announce that @bearmanormedia has signed on to release my first nonfiction book, which is tentatively titled MERCHANTS OF Bs.
The book is the result of hundreds of interviews and a lot of $$$ spent on legal documents from various court archives.
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This project started 10+ years ago. I assumed it would take two years to finish, but my decision to dedicate the majority of my life to tobacco harm reduction caused it to be an on-again, off-again project.
When COVID hit and travel stopped, I decided it was do or die time.
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So, what is the book about? In short, it aims to tell the story of several producers, distributors, and international sales agents of lower-budget genre films during and after the 1980s home video boom.
"Explain that in English," you might be saying.
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The creation and rapid adoption of the videocassette player did not just happen in America. Country-by-country, it happened around the globe and the demand for product to line the shelves of video stores was fierce.
The number of movies being produced doubled and tripled.
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For a period of time, genre movies made for $125,000 could quite easily pull in $750,000 or more between all the different markets.
But if you did not control the distribution and sales of your movies, you could easily get screwed. And even if you did, a lot could go wrong.
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The book features seven different stories; some stretch decades, others just a couple years. They all aim to capture the wild lives of people who attempted to make big money during the video boom of the 1980s, and for some, its aftermath during the 1990s.
Subjects include:
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CHARLES BAND (various companies)
The most enduring of all the book's subjects, the hundreds of films produced by Band have already been the subject of two career-length books. However, no one has ever delved deep into the fascinating business history of Band before.
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Nothing could stop Charles Band; not his first wife's car being set on fire, nor a multi-billion dollar French bank accusing him of widescale fraud, nor tax liens, nor threats from financiers, nor millions of dollars in judgments against him personally. He just kept going.
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KENNETH HARTFORD (Cinevid)
"Basically, I sell crap," Ken Hartford told Roger Ebert at the 1984 Cannes Film Market. Hartford professed to own a library of 220 movies, but the truth was murkier.
Hartford wasn't even his real name. And his contracts were often forgeries.
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CINETEL FILMS
CineTel still exists to this day, but they nearly did not survive 1987 after an attempt to make a bigger-budget movie with Gary Busey, BULLETPROOF, went over-budget with checks bouncing and a boxer-turned-unlicensed-security-guard knocking out a key grip.
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HOWARD GOLDFARB (Goldfarb Distributors)
Howard Goldfarb was a salesman who could charm the pants off anybody. Things were only looking up as the 1980s began, but come 1993, he would become the first international film salesman to be imprisoned for fraud. For this film:
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ACTION INTERNATIONAL PICTURES
Founded in part by David Winters, who played Baby John in the original stage production of West Side Story, AIP Studios cranked out low-budget actions films with titles like DEADLY PREY, DEAD END CITY, and DEADLY REACTOR.
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More than anyone featured in the book, AIP's business model was to spend as little money as possible.
When things went upside down at their video company, the company was left with seven figures of debt and a bank loan they were out of compliance with.
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CITY LIGHTS / PM ENTERTAINMENT
A Syrian immigrant named Joseph Merhi and a cameraman who primarily worked in adult films named Richard Pepin started off making some of the crudest, ugliest action films of the 1980s with funding from a Canadian swimming goggle magnate.
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A bitter split occurred with the investor, but with the money they'd saved from their first 15 movies, they formed PM. The pair were soon making slick multi-million dollar action films. Unlike others, they paid people what they were promised and exited w/ a ~$10 mil. sale.
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CAMP VIDEO
When a salesman named Jim Golff started working for an upstart adult video distributor in 1984, he had no idea that his bosses were active members of the Gambino crime family.
Later, when they were seeking out a legitimate front, he had a suggestion: b-movies.
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The book is not yet complete. I have a deadline to meet at the end of the year, but that is doable without slowing down on my THR advocacy. I took a break from writing an Op Ed to finally make this announcement.
Once it's done, then I'll write my WAR ON VAPING book.
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In conclusion:
Two clarifications:
(1) In my draft, I don't describe the security guard as 'unlicensed,' as I don't think CA had licenses for guards back in the '80s.
(2) I believe Ken Herts legally changed his name to Ken Hartford, so more accurate to say it wasn't his "birth name."
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