We open in Portland, Oregon, circa 1955, where a husband and father returns home to his wife and son after a long business trip. Well, not quite as long as expected as he arrives home early and catches his wife in bed with another man in flagrante delicto.
Things escalate quickly from there as the husband is so enraged by this discovery and betrayal he shoots his wife and the other man dead on the spot. He then turns the gun on himself, asking God’s forgiveness for what he’s done before pulling the trigger for a third time.
Unbeknownst to the now deceased patriarch, his young son bore witness to this tragic double-murder-suicide, who can’t quite process what just transpired. And as his mind and emotions lock up tight, all he can muster is to bring a wooden flute to his lips -- later revealed to be a present from his late father, whom he idolized -- and starts playing the only song he managed to teach him: Brahm’s “Lullaby.” (“Lullaby and goodnight" etc.) And get used to that tune, too, Boils and Ghouls, we are going to be hearing it a lot over the next hour and change.
Cut to nearby Stanford Bay some 25 years later, where we zero in on the bedroom of teenager Marion Hauser, whose slumber is suddenly interrupted by a strange nightmare:
In her mind’s eye we now find ourselves in some kind of hospital, where several convenient signs identify as Oregon’s State Psychiatric Institute. We also hear a familiar tune, which leads us to the room of Paul Foley, a long term patient, whom we rightfully presume is the same boy from the prologue now all grown up.
Apparently, Foley (Avalon) was playing his flute past curfew, which is against the rules. We know this because the orderly said so. The same orderly Foley just killed when he tried to confiscate the instrument. The patient then steals the dead orderly’s keys, dons his psycho-loner jacket and ball cap, and manages to make his way out of the facility undetected and escapes into the night before the alarm is sounded.
Speaking of alarms, Marion (Wilkes) is snapped out of this muddled dream by her alarm clock. Time to get ready for school. This process begins with the girl wrestling on a rather cumbersome leg brace, explaining her rather prominent limp.
Once she gets downstairs to the kitchen, we are then immediately thrust into the middle of some pretty ingrained family drama and unresolved tensions between all the Hausers: father Frank (Jaeckel), mother Bea (Bower) and only daughter Marion. And if I could describe the Hausers in one word that word would be ‘volatile.’
Bea constantly rides her husband over his perceived lack of effort to earn a promotion at the lumber mill he works for; Frank deflects by accusing his daughter of going out with that Joey Barrow again last night, even though he’s made it perfectly clear she is to steer clear of him. Why? Because the boy only wants to “get up under her skirt,” says Frank, just like Joey’s old man always did with every girl he'd met when they were Marion's age. There’s even some hints that the elder Barrow had an affair with Bea while they were courting -- or tried to have one. His wife denies this, but her husband isn’t so sure.
This relentless haranguing continues, even though Marion swears she was out with her friend Kathy last night, not Joey, her not-so-secret boyfriend. And as she leaves to catch the bus, her father reiterates the warning that Marion will be sorry if he ever catches her and Joey together.
On the ride to school, turns out Marion was lying and did go out with Joey as she makes Kathy (North) swear she was with her at the Pizza House last night. Well aware of her father’s psychosis concerning Joey, Kathy agrees if she will reveal what the couple got up to the night before. But Marion insists there are no juicy details and all they did was talk about their future plans together.
After classes end, Marion heads to the docks to meet up with Joey (Cullen), who serves as first mate on a fishing trawler. Here, Joey has some good news and some bad news. The bad news is he has to break their date this weekend. The good news is the reason for this: he has to travel to Portland for an interview for a better paying job. For once he gets that coveted job, he and Marion will run off together and kiss this dead-end town, and her dickhead of a father, goodbye once and for all.
Unfortunately, Joey had to cast off before Marion could broach the subject of the strange dream she had last night about an escaped lunatic killing people. Then, on her walk home, alone, Marion is suddenly overcome with a sense of paranoia. She also starts hearing things -- a familiar lullaby wafting on the breeze. But she can’t spot the source.
She is then overcome by the vision of a runaway van barreling right for her, which seems so real the girl reflexively dives out of the way. But when she recovers and looks around, there is no van to be seen.
Later that night, as she tries to study, Marion is once again overcome by another psychic transmission from … somewhere. This time she spies Foley trying to hitch a ride with little success until he bumps into a friendly motorist at a gas station, who offers him a ride in his totally boss van.
This time she’s snapped out of this fugue by her father, bellowing for his daughter to come down and help set the table for dinner. Here, there is more grumbling and accusations about Joey. In rebuttal, Marion claims he at least treats her right and not as some cripple. This rebuke triggers a total meltdown in Frank and a revelation that might explain his abhorrent behavior:
Apparently, he was responsible for his daughter’s injuries while driving drunk and wrecking the car. He feels guilty, she won’t forgive him for this, he deflects back onto her and defers his rage onto Joey. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Here, things get so heated Frank winds up chasing his daughter out of the house, and would probably still be chasing her if not for his wife stopping him.
Meanwhile, tired of being an emotional punching bag, a sobbing Marion returns to the harbor but Joey’s boat hasn’t returned yet. And so, she waits, tossing rocks into the water, whose ripples cause another vision. Check that, not a vision; a flashback.
We see Marion in the hospital after the accident, where a doctor goes over the extent of her injuries; the shattered leg and a concussion. As they prepare for surgery, they note the girl is O-positive, a rare blood type, and fear they might not have enough on hand. Not to worry, says one of the nurses, they’ve already tracked down at least one donor, who just so happens to be a patient at the nearby state mental hospital.
Now, here we are going to pause and point out that I think we're supposed to infer that this transfusion of blood is the reason Marion and Foley are now psychically linked. And I say infer, because the subject is never brought up again in the entire movie, leaving us to our own deductive devices. And there ya go, and here we are. Moving on.
When Joey’s boat finally returns, he can see that Marion is upset -- even more so than usual, lately, commenting how it looks like she’s just seen a ghost. Kinda, she replies. The girl then relates all the strange homicidal dreams, visions, auditory hallucinations and phantom vans she’s been encountering.
As he embraces his girl, Joey assures that she’s just been under a tremendous amount of stress lately -- her father, their impending elopement -- and it’s just her mind playing tricks on her. He then encourages her to hold on just a little while longer; for once he gets that Portland job, all of their problems will be solved.
Cut to the next morning. Marion is back at school taking a test, but she can’t concentrate and is soon overcome with another vision:
A familiar van is rolling down the highway. Inside, the driver (Montana Jr.) is begging his passenger to please stop playing that damnable flute. Apparently, he’s been playing the same song over and over for the last 200 miles. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the friendly hitchhiker grows deadly serious, revealing the instrument's origin. The driver couldn’t care less and encourages his passenger to just chuck the thing out the window.
With that, he then pulls over to the side of the road so he can take a leak in the ditch. When the music finally stops, he gives thanks as he zips up. But when he turns around, Foley buries a hatchet right into his face.
Then, the end of period bell snaps Marion out of it, who quickly vacates her desk. And at this point, as we can’t help but notice the van Foley has now commandeered sure looks like the same phantom van that tried to run her down earlier, hopefully Marion will realize these haunting dreams aren’t really dreams at all but prophetic visions of what is to come -- and what’s coming right for her…
Born Leonardo Passafaro in Brooklyn, New York, circa 1926, Lenny Montana was of Italian-American descent and was fluent in both languages. As he grew up, Montana kept growing, eventually plateauing around 6-foot-6 and weighing in at around 250 pounds. This would go a long way in explaining why this man-mountain chose professional wrestling as a career -- at least initially.
He officially entered the ring in 1953, where Passafaro would wrestle under the alias of Chief Chewacki and then as The Zebra Kid. As the latter persona, Passafaro was a heel who would wear a luchador mask and zebra-striped tights and matching cape. And he would continue to wrestle under this alias for several years until a series of unmaskings in 1961 were bled dry at several different venues, which revealed his more permanent moniker, Lenny “The Bull” Montana.
The Ledger Star (9/1/60) / Orlando Evening Star (7/10/61).
As the Bull, Montana would eventually claim the title of NWA Central States Heavyweight Champion, before losing the title back to the previous champion, Sonny Myers. From there, Montana would continue to wrestle all over the country under several of the NWA’s regional banners, teaming up with Hard Boiled Haggerty (alias Don Stansauk) or Gypsy Joe (alias Gilberto Meléndez) to win several NWA Tag Team championships.
Then, in 1964, Montana was slated to become the new partner of Gorilla Monsoon (alias Robert Marella), but it fell through at the last minute. This was probably for the better, as after ten years of grinding it out in the ring, Montana ballooned to over three hundred pounds and would wrestle less and less as the decade closed out.
Lenny "The Bull" Montana.
To make money, he would work as a bouncer in several seedy saloons in his native New York and started to make friends in high places -- most notably in the Colombo crime syndicate, one of the five organizations that divided the city up under several rackets -- known colloquially as the Five Families -- some organized, others, well, not so much.
Here, Montana would serve as an enforcer for the Colombos, then under the stewardship of Joseph Colombo Sr.. But Montana would be mostly associated with one of Colombo’s lieutenants, Carmine “The Snake” Persico. And in that capacity, in June, 1968, Montana, along with four others, was arrested and indicted on charges of “conspiracy to murder, first and second-degree assault, conspiracy to commit assault, coercion, conspiracy to commit a felony, and illegal possession of weapons,” according to an article by Tom Renner for Newsday (June 18, 1968).
In the article, the Nassau district attorney stated that what at first appeared to be an assault case was actually a botched mob hit. The victim was Bernard Reissman, an air-conditioning salesman, “who had refused to withdraw grand larceny charges against two ex-employees, who allegedly fled to Puerto Rico with $185,000 worth of the firm's air-conditioning equipment.”
The two ex-employees were Melvin Klein and Louis Greenwald, who intended to use the stolen equipment to start their own business in the Caribbean. According to the indictment, “There was considerable buck-passing or sub-contracting of the alleged contract to murder Reissman, with a Puerto Rican gangster turning it over to Perisco, who in turn gave the hit (kill) order to Carmine (Charlie Wagons) Fatico. Fatico then enlisted Passafaro (Montana) to get Ronald Spinney to do the job, and then Spinney asked his friend Michael Niedich to accompany him.”
Newsday (June 18, 1968).
Apparently, Reissman was assaulted by Spinney and Niedich while getting off a train at Long Island’s Hewlett station on April 4th, 1967, who then tried to force him into a car at gunpoint. Reissman resisted, called for help, other commuters got involved, a shot was fired, no one was hit, and the perpetrators fled the scene. According to the D.A., “The murder plot was hatched in Puerto Rico, where the underworld offered a contract in six figures (exceeding $100,000) for the elimination of Reissman.”
Montana would plead innocent on all eight counts of the indictment and was held on a $25,000 bond. Some sources claimed he spent some time on Riker’s Island over the incident, but from what I dug up Montana would eventually plea bargain his way to a reduced charge of conspiracy, a misdemeanor, and was placed on a year’s probation. And so, the only ones convicted of anything, near as I could find, were Spinney and Niedich. Spinney would be convicted and sentenced to one and a half years in prison, while Niedich would plead out, too, and serve only one year.
Mario Puzo.
As we moved into the 1970s, Montana would undergo yet another career change -- though it would still be tied to the old. And he owed it all to a schluby pulp writer, who was up to his eyeballs in debt to several gambling concerns and desperately needed a sale to cover his bookies ledgers or faced the very real possibility of getting his legs broken.
The writer was Mario Puzo, who first approached either Robert Evans or Peter Bart at Paramount back in 1968, depending on who was telling the story. Puzo offered up an unfinished manuscript titled Mafia for $15,000 but wound up settling for $12,500 upfront with an $80,000 option if they decided to make it into a film. Not much else happened until Puzo finished the manuscript, now a novel, that was eventually published as The Godfather, which became a runaway best seller -- that Paramount already had the rights to at a very cheap price.
Now, the production history of The Godfather is both fascinating, harrowing, and downright hilarious. I could go on and on about it, but that would be wandering way too far off into the weeds, even for me; and so, to stay relevant to the topic of this write-up, I will try to be as brief and concise as I can and keep it focused on Montana. Wish me luck. Here goes:
As Paramount was gearing up to turn Puzo’s novel into the storied film adaptation in Hollywood, on the opposite coast, Joseph Colombo was fighting back against the Feds for what Mark Seal described in his Vanity Fair article The Godfather Wars (March, 2009) as their “excessive interest in his activities -- which included loan-sharking, jewel heists, income-tax evasion, and control of a $10-million-a-year interstate gambling operation.” Allegedly.
And to those ends, feeling he was being profiled due to his heritage, Colombo turned the tables on the FBI, charging them with both harassment and outright discrimination against Italian-Americans. And then, in what Seal dubbed “an outrageously bold move,” Colombo helped to create the Italian-American Civil Rights League to fight what he claimed was the FBI’s systemic persecution and violation of not only his civil rights but the rights of all Italian immigrants.
Said Seal, “During the 1960s, a dirty, loaded word came into currency: Mafia. It signified one of the most terrifying forces on earth: the Italian-American faction of organized crime, and naturally the men who headed this force wanted to keep the word from being spoken, if not obliterate it altogether. When it became the basis of a best-selling book, and the book was sold to the movies, those men decided that they had to take action.”
The St. Louis Dispatch (May 11, 1971).
A rally was held at Madison Square Garden, raising nearly $500,000 as a war chest to halt production. And Colombo found an ally with Frank Sinatra, who was not happy with the character of Johnny Fontane, whom he felt was “a thinly veiled, insulting parody of his life and alleged mob ties.”
What followed was a series of protests, teamster shenanigans, bomb hoaxes, and personal death threats until things were resolved with a compromise when producer Albert Ruddy promised the word ‘mafia’ or ‘cosa nostra’ would not be used in the film. And as a gesture of goodwill, Ruddy, who had received more than one death threat, got an offer he couldn’t refuse from Colombo and agreed to donate all the proceeds of the film’s world premiere to the Italian-American Civil Rights League, meaning most likely it went straight into Colombo’s pocket for handling fees. (Though Ruddy later claimed Paramount would squelch that part of the deal.)
Then, as filming continued, in a classic case of the tail now wagging the dog, the Mafia now openly embraced the film and several members became ersatz creative consultants and started hanging around the sets and location shoots, all openly embraced by the director, Francis Ford Coppola, in his quest for authenticity.
“After I made the deal with the League, some of the guys used to come around,” Ruddy told Seal. “One day, one of the young dons was accompanied by his bodyguard, a six-foot-six, 320-pound behemoth named Lenny Montana. He was a world wrestling champion who moonlighted in various jobs in the Mob. Coppola fell in love with him immediately, and he was cast as Luca Brasi,” the only man who made Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) nervous.
Originally, the role of Brasi was to be played by Lou Martini, who got sick on his first day of filming. Sadly, Martini had suffered a stroke and would die shortly thereafter. And so, Montana would be a last second replacement. (This is all based on the recollections of Martini's son, Lou Martini Jr.)
During shooting, Montana would regale both cast and crew about his days as a Mafia button man. “He used to tell us all these things, like, how he was an arsonist,” said associate producer Gray Frederickson. “He’d tie tampons on the tail of a mouse, dip it in kerosene, light it, and let the mouse run through a building. Or he’d put a candle in front of a cuckoo clock, and when the cuckoo would pop out, the candle would fall over and start a fire.”
(L-R) Marlon Brando, Lenny Montana.
Apparently, Montana had trouble remembering his lines and had even more trouble delivering them. Coppola saw his nervousness as a compelling and authentic character trait, but he would honestly give fellow wrestler Tor Johnson a run for the money when it came to emoting. And though his character’s time on film was brief, he helped contribute to two of the film's most memorable lines:
First, when Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) explained to his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) how Brasi had helped his father, Vito, get singer Fontane out of his contract, giving the reluctant bandleader “an offer he couldn’t refuse” while Brasi held a gun to his head -- either a signed release in ink or a release covered in his brains and blood. But that was all told second hand.
Second was Montana’s biggest scene, when the Corleones send Brasi on a covert mission to gather intel on their rival family, the Sollozzos. And though Brasi came prepared, wearing a bullet proof vest, his treachery was sniffed out and he winds up garroted to death -- a long and protracted scene. Sollozo then sent the vest wrapped up in paper with a couple of fishes, a Sicilian message, translated as, “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”
Montana would use this notoriety to continue on as an actor. His first follow-up would be Francesco Prosperi’s Italian spoof of The Godfather, L'altra faccia del padrino (alias The Funny Face of the Godfather, 1973). And he was really quite good in a brief role as a pizza parlor owner who gets shook-down by Harvey Keitel in Fingers (1978).
The actor was also cast as one of the inmates in the Tim Conway prison comedy They Went That-A-Way & That-A-Way (1978), and would play the Kahuna in Andy Sidaris’ Seven (1979), which was sort of a dry-run for Sidaris’ later B&E flicks -- that would be Boobs and Explosions for those unfamiliar with films like Malibu Express (1985) and Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987).
He would also briefly appear as a con-man in Carl Reiner’s The Jerk (1979) and in John Flynn’s Defiance (1980), where Jan-Michael Vincent takes out a whole street gang of terrorizing thugs in dirty old New York City.
As we moved into the 1980s, Montana would next appear in the Jackie Chan vehicle, Battle Creek Brawl (alias The Big Brawl, 1980), which was part of the first and failed attempt to introduce Chan as the next Bruce Lee to mainstream American audiences. Sadly, despite a much deserved cult following, Chan wouldn’t really hit in the States until Rumble in the Bronx (1995) or, if we’re being honest, Rush Hour (1998).
Montana, meanwhile, would then show up in a couple of wrestling pictures: Below the Belt (1980), where a waitress decides to ditch her job and become a professional wrestler; and Robert Aldritch’s All the Marbles (1981), where Peter Falk plays the manager of an all-female tag-team trying to breakout.
But more pertinent to our featured film, the 1980s would also see Montana star in two horror films; one legit, Eric Weston’s Evilspeak (1981), featuring a tour-de-force performance by Clint Howard as an outcast cadet who summons demons through a computer to deal with his tormentors; and the other, Alfred Sole’s Pandemonium (1982), which was a spoof on both the concurrent slasher and boner comedy boom of the era.
Why is this important? Well, we’ll get there but, at this point, we’ll need to pause and shift focus to the second person responsible for the film featured in this write up: Frank Avianca.
Frank Avianca (alias Frankie Sardo).
Avianca was another native New Yorker and fellow Brooklynite of Italian-American heritage. As a kid he would join his parents on stage for their comedy act, where he usually sang a song. Avianca would continue to sing and act all the way through college. And after serving a stint in Korea, he managed to strike a deal with MGM Records in 1958 under his stage name Frankie Sardo.
In 1959, Avianca scored a modest hit with “Fake Out” and would sign on to Irving Feld’s ill-fated barnstorming ballroom tour of the mid-west that winter, 24 venues in 24 days, joining Buddy Holly, J.P Richardson (alias The Big Bopper), Ritchie Valens, and Dion and the Belmonts for The Winter Dance Party Tour on a criminally negligent touring bus with no functioning heaters.
Sadly, despite charting several songs and appearing on American Bandstand, Avianca’s biggest claim to musical fame was how he served as the opening act at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2, 1959. Where, of course, after the show wrapped up, Holly, Richardson and Valens were killed when their chartered plane went down in a frozen cornfield shortly after 1:00am on February 3.
From there, Avianca bounced around several different labels throughout the 1960s. His biggest hit was probably “When the Bells Stopped Ringing." You could even occasionally catch him performing in a music festival, admittedly pretty low on the bill, but he never really broke out nationally.
The Jersey Journal (May 25, 1962).
By the end of the decade, Avianca switched gears and focused more on song writing and publishing than performing; and then officially broke into the movies writing several songs for the soundtrack of Tom Stern’s Hell's Angels ‘69 (1969).
Stern was an actor who made his debut in the barn-burning slapstick western The Hallelujah Trail (1965), which involved a range war over a liquor shipment; and would also appear in The Devil’s Brigade (1968), where a rag-tag band of international mismatched misfits are hammered into an elite fighting unit. He would also show up in Anthony Newley’s vanity project to end all vanity projects, Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969), which I triple-dog dare you to watch. But it wasn’t easy spotting him in those all-star casts of hundreds.
Thus, roles were kinda sparse until he headlined as a "Cycle Psycho" in Angels from Hell (1968) for Joe Solomon and his Fanfare Films, who specialized in Outlaw Biker films like Run, Angel, Run! (1969), The Losers (1970), and my personal favorite, Werewolves on Wheels (1971). And from that experience, Stern decided to branch out and produce his own biker flick -- mostly in terms of career self-preservation.
“I became a producer so I could act,” explained Stern to The Odessa American (December 27, 1970), who cast himself as the lead in Hell's Angels ‘69, a genre that was red-hot at the time ever since Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels (1966) hit screens. And so, to cash-in, Sterns would form Tracom Productions (-- a mash-up of Tragedy and Comedy). Stern would also co-write the screenplay with Don Tait. Lee Madden would direct.
“I had done motorcycle films before -- and I knew it had to be financially successful in order to be able to make other pictures,” said Stern (ibid). The film cost around $400,000 and, with distribution through American International, brought in $4.3 million at the box-office.
Stern would co-star with Jeremy Slate as a couple of wealthy brothers who, bored with life, cook-up a scam to rob Caesar's Palace in broad daylight just for kicks, man. And not just any scam, but a scam whose tenets relied on getting into the good graces of the Hells Angels so they could trick them into becoming decoys to cause a distraction on the Las Vegas strip while they loot the casino in the resultant riot. Brilliant.
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner (August 27, 1969).
Somehow, Stern also managed to get the Oakland Chapter of the Hells Angels to play themselves; the same bikers featured in Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966), where he spent a year embedded with the club until he made the wrong remark and got himself curb-stomped. Featured members included, and who were heavily played up in the ads, were Sonny Barger, Terry the Tramp, Charlie Magoo, and Tiny Walters.
Admittedly, while the film isn’t that terrible, it also wasn’t very good; and oddly enough, given the supporting cast, rather tame. The film’s soundtrack, however, was a highlight. Avianca would team up with Tony Bruno and Sam Weatherly on the tracks. The high point was Bruno’s “Goofin’” -- a lo-fi, flute-fueled and fuzz-induced Thorazine drip of an instrumental. Avianca pitched in on the funkified “What’s His is His” and Wendy Cole’s soulful ballad “Say Girl.”
Bob Talbert of The Detroit Free Press (October 26, 1969) called it “a first rate blues-rocker soundtrack from a second-rate film about ‘cycles and Sonny Barger’s cultniks.” And Wayne Harada of The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (November 23, 1969) gushed, saying it was “a dynamic score of tuned-in, turned-on, high-flying emotion.” The good press helped, and the soundtrack sold well enough that in 1970, Stern announced Tracom would be branching out with its own music label, Mocart Publishing Inc, and placed Avianca in charge of operations.
Avianca would also slide into the film production side, too, serving as an executive producer on Stern’s next film, Clay Pigeon (1971). Here, Stern played a Vietnam vet recruited by the CIA in the form of Telly Savalas to bust up a narcotics ring run by Robert Vaughn.
“[Stern plays] such an unpredictable, unapologetic weirdo that he's easy to root for,” said Steven Pulchaski for Shock Cinema (2018). “Like when [he] spots cops messing with innocent teens and shifts their focus by stealing a police motorcycle. Or his terrific speech about America's screwed-up judicial system, where wealthy dealers get minimal punishment and kids with a single joint go to jail. Or casually rapping with a dope-shooting teenage runaway. The film is decidedly pro-grass, but it doesn't dig harsher stuff like smack, coke and speed, with Joe even touring a clinic (run by Jeff Corey) filled with teens brain-fried by hard drugs … The film has its fair share of problems -- characters are barely defined and its preposterous plot is short on logic, but damn, if this crazy mess isn't chock full of wonderfully overripe dialogue, gritty action and enjoyably outlandish directorial touches.”
But despite signing a lucrative deal with MGM for distribution, that would be about it for Tracom. Stern would produce just two more films for others, but would continue acting into the 1990s. Avianca, meanwhile, would form his own production company, Avianca Productions Ltd. And the first film out of the gate was a social commentary / melodrama produced in England called The Wild Little Bunch (alias The 14, alias Existence, 1973).
The Sunday Mercury (July 1, 1973).
Loosely based on a true story, the film would be directed by David Hemmings and would star Jack Wild, of H.R. Puf'n'stuf infamy, as the oldest of 14 siblings trying to keep his family together after their single mother passes away. "Far from the over-sentimental tearjerker it could easily have become,” said Variety (July, 1973). “Emerges as a terse, intermittently humorous yet ultimately moving tale.”
Now, here’s where it gets interesting as our two bios start to cross-pollinate as Avianca’s film would be distributed by Brynaston Pictures. For those unfamiliar with this notorious film company, it was founded in the early 1970s by brothers Louis and Joseph Peraino. Also of note, Louis and Joseph were the sons of Anthony “Big Tony” Peraino, who held a seat at the Colombo crime family table. Allegedly.
At the age of 26, Louis “Butchie” Peraino owned and operated the Brooklyn-based All-State Film Labs, which was reputed to be ground zero of the Mafia’s efforts to corner the p*rno movie business. Allegedly. And on July 12, 1971, Louis officially incorporated Brynaston Pictures Inc.
What is true is that the company did start out distributing p*rno movies -- in fact, the new firm was bankrolled from the profits produced by the Peraino backed Deep Throat (1972), a monster success (-- to date it has roughly brought in over $600-million on a $25,000 budget), which officially ushered in the era of p*rno chic as X-rated pictures went legit. In fact, some argued that was all Brynaston was ever intended to be: a false front to launder the profits from the mob's p*rn business.
The Los Angeles Times (June 27, 1982).
As the legend goes, Deep Throat’s director Gerard Damiano had a contract that entitled him to one third of the film’s net profits. However, Damiano was forced by his mobbed-up business partners into signing away his shares for a one-time buyout of only $25,000. As the box-office boomed, Damiano allegedly refused to take legal action for fear of retaliation and grievous bodily harm. Even that $600-million tally can’t really be verified, as it might’ve been inflated to hide profits from some other *ahem* illicit “activities.”
With their modus operandi firmly established, by 1974, the Peraino’s started distributing legitimate features, too, backing Andy Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974). They would also import features from Hong Kong through Raymond Chow, like Bruce Lee’s Return of the Dragon (alias The Way of the Dragon, alias Meng long guo jiang, 1972), where Lee famously took on Chuck Norris, and Chinese Hercules (alias Ma tou da jue dou, 1973).
And then there was Ralph Bakshi’s Coonskin (1974). A film that is hard to defend, as I see what Bakshi and screenwriter William Fraker were trying to do but, great googily-moogily. I mean: there's a moral grey area this film definitely plumbs the depths of, where it skirts around the notion of fighting stereotypes with even worse stereotypes as it stares into the abyss of this phantasmagorical mash-up of a live-action and animated retelling of Uncle Remus' Br'er Rabbit tales as interpreted by Larry Cohen, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett.
But Coonskin definitely went off the good-intentions rails long before the climax as three slick, hick hucksters and hustlers take back Harlem from the Mafia and a corrupt police department. Visually, it is stunning. Everywhere else, it's kind of reprehensible. Such is art.
Brynaston also famously distributed Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) when no other studio would touch it. On paper, the producers of the film were to receive $225,000 upfront for the film plus 35-percent of the profits.
Again, estimates showed the seminal horror film brought in around $25 million on its initial release worldwide but little of that actually trickled its way back to Texas. A scenario that eerily echoed what had happened to the Image 10 in Pittsburgh when the profits for Night of the Living Dead (1968) disappeared into the ether. When the smoke cleared, once their investors were paid off, only around $5000 was left to be divvied-up between the cast and crew, netting them about $400 a piece. "We made a deal with the devil,” said Ron Bozman (Cinefantastique Vol. 16, October, 1986), who served as Chain Saw’s production manager. “And I guess that, in a way, we got what we deserved."
Thus, Brynaston made a killing on these cheap pickups with very little invested. (The only dud was Coonskin.) And with profits rolling in, Louis started to get more ambitious, opening up an office in Los Angeles in an effort to start producing legitimate films, too. Allegedly.
“Lou wanted in the worst way to be a filmmaker,” explained Avianca as part of Ellen Farley and William Knoedelsder’s fascinating three part expose on the Perainos and Brynaston for The Los Angeles Times (June 13, 20 and 27, 1982). “He didn’t want to stay in that business (p*rnography). He wanted to get out. He wanted something he could be proud of, something he could put his name on.” For the record, Peraino always used an alias on his p*rn films, like using Lou Perry on Deep Throat.
“I never saw a guy work harder than Lou, I can tell you that,” said Avianca (ibid). “I was impressed by the guy’s energy. Lou wanted to learn everything. And he was Mr. Generosity -- he’d bend over backwards to make a deal with you. I don’t know anyone in my circle who didn’t like the guy.”
Of course, Avianca might be a tad biased as Peraino and Brynaston would back his next feature, The Human Factor (1975), to the tune of $2.5 million. “Anything I asked for or wanted on that picture, I got,” said Avianca, but his efforts would bomb, badly.
The film kind of plays out like John Le Carre’s Death Wish as George Kennedy plays a computer specialist working for NATO, who returns home one night to find his whole family brutally massacred by terrorists. The reasons for this act are both rote and tired and kinda dumb; the police investigation stalls out, like it always does; so Kennedy takes it upon himself to use his computer skills to flush out the terrorist cell and take his revenge. Again, not terrible, and Kennedy is great as always, but also not very good.
The rest of Brynaston’s self-produced releases for 1975 didn’t fare much better. The Devil’s Rain (1975), a horror film, where Ernest Borgnine played the Cloven One, where everyone famously melted at the end, didn’t break out into blockbuster territory like they’d hoped. (Even though the final stinger has haunted me ever since first encountered.) And I hadn’t even heard of Echoes of a Summer (1976) until gathering intel for this write-up.
And so, like many movie production companies, Louis and Brynaston overextended themselves and were now hemorrhaging money. Said Avianca (ibid), “[Lou] was like a sponge. He wanted to learn everything, but he wanted to do everything, and it was kind of hard. I remember a lot of people who worked with him would tell him, you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Take your time.”
Now, there had always been rumors swirling around as to where Peraino’s money was coming from. And to some it was the worst kept secret in the world. Some producers knew about the dirty money, but simply didn’t care; like Jack H. Harris, who signed with Brynaston to distribute John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s Dark Star (1974). “Sure I heard the rumors,” said Harris (ibid). “So what? They didn’t ask me to join (the Mafia), nor did I ask them if I could.”
“I laugh about those things,” said producer Sidney Beckerman, who backed films like Kelly’s Heroes (1970), which for a comedy was a pretty good war movie, and as a war movie was an outstanding comedy, and Marathon Man (1976). Beckerman had been courted by Peraino for a future project that never came to fruition. “I think the Mob is too smart to invest in movies. They don’t like to lose money. I think that’s why our business is probably one of the cleanest in the world -- it’s too much of a gamble. Can you imagine if the Mafia had backed Heaven’s Gate (-- the 1980 film that ultimately bankrupted United Artists)?”
But the wheels started to come off when The New York Times (October 12, 1975) published a story by Nicholas Gage under the headline “Organized Crime Reaps Huge Profits from Dealing in P*rnographic Films.” And Gage would name names, too, calling the Perainos “the most successful of all Mafia figures involved in the production and distribution of p*rnographic films. Moreover, the great success of these p*rnographic films has given several p*rno movie makers with Mafia connections the money to go into the production and distribution of legitimate films.”
This and a follow-up article by The New York Post would have a devastating effect on Peraino and Brynaston. “Suddenly all the exhibitors were not so quick to want to book his product,” said Avianca (ibid). “And the advertising people and so forth suddenly wanted cash payments instead of a co-op or credit-type thing. And I don’t think Lou ever got over that.”
Ever loyal, Avianca continued, “There is nothing, nothing in all the years I’ve known him that could remotely be considered ominous regarding Mr. Butchie Peraino. He’s a big teddy bear.”
The Tampa Tribune (October 12, 1975).
Teddy bear or not, the lawsuits were piling up as cheated filmmakers sued for their rightful profit shares. Sydney Finger, whose accounting firm specialized in auditing the labyrinthine books of motion picture productions since 1963 recalled that his audit on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to be “as much of a horror story as the movie … We found Brynaston’s books and accounting were just totally inadequate for reporting profit to participants. You would think that since Brynaston did prepare financial reports they would be able to indicate to you exactly how they got those numbers together. But they couldn’t. I never knew how in the world they got those numbers together (ibid).”
In other words, the numbers didn’t add up. And it only got worse from there. Reportedly, the check to Raymond Chow for the rights to Return of the Dragon bounced. Twice. And stars like Borgnine or Kennedy never got any proper residuals as Brynaston defaulted on nearly everything. Thus, they were soon in arrears to film labs, ad agencies, exhibitors, and even their landlords for several of their branch offices recently opened around the country.
Ever defiant, Peraino told Variety, “Times have been tough, but nothing we can’t overcome.” He would even announce Brynaston’s future productions, which included The Greek Tycoon (1978), which was news to that film’s producers, and Fort Apache, The Bronx, which, again, eventually saw release in 1981 but Peraino nor Brynaston had anything to do with either feature.
Meanwhile, as Peraino rubbed shoulders with the Hollywood elite, he was also embroiled in a federal court case in Tennessee, along with several others, including actor Harry Reems, on an indictment for distributing obscene materials linked to Deep Throat across State lines. Director Damiano and actress Linda Lovelace were granted immunity in exchange for testifying against the others. And on April 30, 1977, Peraino was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison. As was Reems, who would later be acquitted on appeal.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (March 20, 1981).
Not long after, Brynaston, owing almost $750,000 in back taxes and millions in other substantial debts, quietly folded. But they never filed for bankruptcy; the company just simply locked the doors and ceased to exist, with their catalog sold off to other distributors, like New Line Cinema, who picked up and re-released The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1980 -- after paying off Hooper and the others upfront.
But some felt the fall of Brynaston had less to do with their mob ties and more to do with the Hollywood machine that tended to grind people up. “Hollywood is a true economic democracy,” said Ruddy on the Peraino’s familiar fate (ibid). “And I guarantee you that on the bottom line they didn’t get Hollywood’s money. Hollywood got their money.”
The Journal Tribune (May 2, 1977).
“The prevailing view in Hollywood is that the company was undone by the vaulting ambitions of its president,” wrote Farely and Knoedelseder (ibid). “Louis Peraino simply overreached. He tried to do too much too soon with too little knowledge of the business. He overextended his company and, like countless other independent distributors before him, went broke.”
Which, honestly, brings me back to Beckerman’s comments. About how the Mob doesn’t like to lose money. And if you trace the trajectory of Brynaston, and how much money it was currently losing, if they were mobbed up it makes sense that they would cut bait, take the money, and run, leaving many people high and dry.
The Philadelphia Inquirer (November 14, 1975).
“If Human Factor would’ve worked, I think the company might still be in business,” said Jack Dione, Brynaston’s former Midwest division manager (ibid). “That film really killed us, the last hopeful blockbuster.”
This dud would officially derail Avianca’s producing career, too, who struggled mightily to get any other projects off the ground after his benefactor went to jail. The closest he got was teaming up with Ruddy, optioning the rights to Gloria Vitanza Basile’s novel House of Lions, a Godfather-esque tale of three generations of Sicilian gangsters. They hired Basile to adapt her own screenplay, and Avianca was eyeballing the likes of Anthony Quinn and Marilu Tolo, last seen tormenting Roy Colt and Winchester Jack (1970), as the leads. But that’s about as far is it ever got
However! Avianca would appear in front of the camera in Ruddy’s oddball boxing film Matilda (1978), where the boxer in question was a kangaroo. And not just any kangaroo, but a stuntman decked out in a ratty kangaroo costume; a costume that looked more vermin than marsupial, honestly, who punches out a hot-dog vendor, is declared a dangerous animal, and sentenced to be euthanized. It is then rescued by a one-lung talent scout, who decides to put the animal into the ring for … reasons. Honestly. You cannot make this stuff up.
“The narrative piles idiocy upon idiocy, with Matilda becoming a sensation in the boxing world and also the center of a sting operation designed to capture mobsters,” reported Peter Hanson of Every ‘70s Movie (June 1, 2015). “Meanwhile, everyone in the movie tries to pretend the Matilda costume isn’t as embarrassing as it is ridiculous. Slapstick bits sputter, verbal jokes thud, and the contrived rom-com banter between Elliot Gould and costar Karen Carlson is lifeless. All in all, it’s a wonder this film wasn’t picketed by the ASPCA—the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Audiences.”
Despite a cast that included Gould, Robert Mitchum, and Roy Clark, the film cratered so hard it has essentially disappeared off the face of the earth. It was also a contributing factor in accelerating the demise of the once storied American International Pictures. I’ve been wanting to see it for years but have yet to turn it up as the film never garnered a home video release -- at least to my knowledge -- and the only thing out there are a few gray market rips of a European release.
In the film, Avianca would be billed as Hood #2. And you’ll never guess who played Hood #1. That’s right: Lenny Montana.
Now, I have no idea if these two had ever met before appearing in Matilda together, but meet they did. And as we moved into the 1980s, Avianca and Montana hatched a plan to make one of them-there slasher movies, too, to cash-in on the trend.
The two would then take a story idea called Premonition, written by George Hart and Joe Shink, which [obviously] took inspiration from Irvin Kershner's Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), which was based on a script by John Carpenter. In that film, a fashion photographer (Faye Dunaway) is plagued by precognitive visions of a serial killer engaging in his bloody deeds. Worst yet, from what she “sees” in these accelerating visions, the killer is circling ever closer to her.
(L-R) Clint Eastwood and James Fargo.
From there, Avianca and Montana would adapt this story into a screenplay with an assist from James Fargo. An assistant director by trade, Fargo had worked on Duel (1971) and The Sugarland Express (1974) for Steven Spielberg; also Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) for Clint Eastwood. He would then slide into the actual director’s chair on a couple more Eastwood vehicles: The Enforcer (1976), the third film in the Dirty Harry franchise, and Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which teamed up Eastwood with an orangutan; a film I love unconditionally. (Right turn, Clyde, 4VR!)
To direct the film they turned to prolific TV director Alan J. Levi. Premonition would be a rare theatrical feature for Levi, who had directed some 450 TV commercials before landing his first network job. And over the next 45 years he would direct over 350 hours of prime-time network television on shows like The Six Million Dollar Man (1974-1978), The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982) and Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979). And would later slide into a producer’s chair for Airwolf (1984-1986) and Misfits of Science (1985-1986).
Alan J. Levi.
As to where the money came from to pay for all of this and make the film, well, that’s a little murky. Stephan Sofro and Len Turner are listed as the executive producers in the credits but they appear to be ghosts everywhere else. As are the two production companies listed: All State Film Company and Mountain High Enterprises.
Still, we’re determined to find out and get to the bottom of it, best we can. But for that you’ll have to tune into Part Two of our Two Part retrospective on Blood Song. Stay tuned, Boils and Ghouls!
Originally Posted on 10/29/2026 at Confirmed, Alan_01.
Blood Song (1982) Allstate Film Company :: Mountain High Enterprises :: Summa Vista Pictures / EP: Stephan B. Sofro, Len Turner / P: Frank Avianca, Lenny Montana / AP: Lee Shrout / D: Alan J. Levi / W: James Fargo, Frank Avianca, Lenny Montana, Joseph Shrink (story), George Hart (story) / C: Stephen L. Posey / E: Ann E. Mills / M: Robert J. Walsh / S: Donna Wilkes, Frankie Avalon, Richard Jaeckel, Antoinette Bower, Dane Clark, William Kirby Cullen, Noelle North, Jennifer Enskat, Roydon Clark, Lenny Montana, Lenny Montana Jr.
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