Today something made me remember the story behind my discovery of the most important formative mainstream #wetandmessy scene for me -- the Pam Grier/Roberta Collins #mudwrestling fight in THE BIG DOLL HOUSE.
This was far from the first good mud scene I ever came across -- I didn't see it until I could drive, so it would've been my junior or senior year in high school. I had been recording wam stuff on VHS since I was 11 or 12, and had one or two full cliptapes by then.
But that BIG DOLL HOUSE scene went to the top of my list and stayed there. Both actresses just drop-dead gorgeous. Both fierce but also grinning & playful. Pam getting mud in her mouth, teeth completely covered, and still looking unfazed.
There are guys on the UMD who are clearly fixated on Just One Scene -- there's an Ann-Margret in TOMMY guy, and a 101 DALMATIANS guy. At times their monomania is a tad tiresome or creepy. But what can I say? I'm That Guy for the BIG DOLL HOUSE mud fight.
Anyway, finding the scene: First, I'm browsing in the film section of Waldenbooks and I flip through a book called RE: SEARCH #10: INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILMS. There's a full-page B&W photo from THE BIG DOLL HOUSE. Pam face-down in the mud & Roberta standing over her in triumph.
Of course I'm like 🤩🤩🤩. Problem is, the photo is totally uncaptioned. No idea who the actresses are or what the film title is. I'm stumped. This is way before Google ... hell, Alta Vista. Fuck!
Months go by, maybe even a year or two. I'd gotten good at analog mud scene sleuthing. TV Guide, of course. Cult film books and magazines. Bootleg video catalogs. Finally, some clue points to THE BIG DOLL HOUSE and I check local video stores. Fortunately, one has it on tape!
It's Friday or Saturday night. I drive over to Video Whatever and rent the tape. Can't remember if I already knew this was the same mud scene from the RE:SEARCH book, or if I didn't realize that until I started playing the movie.
So I start scanning through the movie and then before I get to the mud fight ... commotion downstairs. My best friend has dropped by unannounced. Quickly I turn off the VCR and the TV and stash the videocassette box.
"Do NOT ask what's in the VCR or suggest we watch a tape," I am probably thinking as I am hanging out with my friend. Impatiently, I keep trying to get rid of him. He WILL NOT LEAVE. Agonizing minutes and hours pass.
Of course, today, I would love nothing more than to spend an evening hanging out with this guy, who was one of the best friends I ever had and lives far away now. But this night in 199?, Regis was like: WILL YOU FUCK OFF OUT OF HERE SO I CAN GET MY WANK ON.
I mean, if you weren't around before the internet and Youtube, you won't get this, but if you were a fledgling wammer in the '90s, especially if you hadn't found the early wam producers yet, finding a new mainstream scene was HUGE. A milestone.
Anyhow, back to my teenaged bedroom: BIG DOLL HOUSE is cooling its heels in the VCR. My friend yawns. Stretches. He's tired. It's too late to drive home, he decides. He's just going to spend the night on my floor.
REGIS IS SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE. My head is exploding. My friend is snoozing on my carpet but I can't even sleep. I'm lying there wide awake until dawn breaks. Finally: Friend rouses himself and I kick him the fuck out. Yes! VCR back on!
So that's when I saw my favorite mainstream wam scene: Barely able to keep my eyes open, after being up all night, biting my nails that my best friend would discover the mud wrestling scene cued up in the VCR. The end.
Postscript though: A few years after that I met Roberta Collins at an autograph show and asked her about filming the mud fight scene ... and, reader, Regis DID creep that actress the fuck out. 👍
