Background:
If you have learned anything from reading the earliest Luke Ford, you know the early porn business was heavily influenced by the Mob, especially the smut produced and distributed on the East Coast. When the Mob needed some porn filmed in New York, the paid a visit to their contacts on 42nd St and told them what they needed. When they needed something
especially sleazy, they called on a handful of fetish-type directors, and showed them at one of the notorious Avon Theaters in Times Square. So it seems director Shaun Costello once got an ashamed and embarrased call from associates of the Gambino family, asking for an enema film. What came out a few days later was this classic.
The movie opened in a scarce few theaters to sparse crowds, all duely shocked. Sales did no better when they added Gerard Damiano's name to the billing (already of
Deep Throat and
Devil in Miss Jones fame). The Gambinos eventually sold the rights to the film to Reuben Sturman, who arranged for his Euro counterparts to open it in Germany and Holland, creating an instant Euro cult favorite. The German release was titled
Schpritz.
Diese verworrene Deutsche.
Basics:
Title: Waterpower
Year: 1977
Director: Shaun Costello (as Helmuth Richler)
Studio: Avon Films
Distributor: Video Home Library
Cast:
C.J. Laing: Detective Irene
Marlene Willoughby: Leslie the nurse
Gloria Leonard: Hostess at the brothel
Clea Carson (as Valerie Morganstern): street hooker
Long Jeane Silver (as Joan Bettie): Pamela the doctor's patient (non-sex)
Crystal Sync (as Eleanor Barnes): Burt's girlfriend
Susaye London (as Lois Yurkan): Ginger
Barbara Belkin: Candy
Sharon Mitchell: Eve, hooker at the brothel
Sally O'Neill: n/s
Beverly Steig: non-sex
Jenny Baxter: Stewardess
Jamie Gillis: Burt the enema bandit
John Buco: Detective Gallagher
Eric Edwards: The Doctor
Philip Marlowe (as Philip Morini): The Captain
Craig Esposito:
Shaun Costello (as Howard Stein): Policeman
Fred Keitel:
David Jarman:
Peter Christie:
Neil Sidecar:
Contemporary Relevance:
Aside from being an utterly shocking film for its time (imagine the XXX story of an enema rapist in the hands of the Meese Commission), 70s pornophiles consider it Gillis' best roughie acting role. Compare it with his slick, suave character in
The Opening of Misty Beethoven. Director Costello has recently come out from under cover in recent years to deliver the straight poop on the film; his apocrypha make it a lot more interesting than similar fetish porn of that era.
Here's an interview with Shaun Costello done a few years back for the dvdmaniacs.com website.
Plot:
Jamie Gillis plays Burt, digusted by all the morally unclean whores around him, who goes on an enema raping spree, after seeing the procedure applied in a XXX peep show. The police chase after him, he keeps on applying the enemas.
The
facts of the story are based around the story of Michael Kenyon, known as the "Enema Bandit." Kenyon began a spree of admistering enemas to women in and around Champaign, IL in 1965. His m.o. was to break in and administer enemas to young women at gunpoint, tie them up and leave them, often with a promise to call the police to untie them, a promise he kept. He locked one UIUC student in a closet un-cleansed, saying she was too ugly--she allegedly required counseling over the insult. The attacks continued in Kansas, OK and CA as Kenyon was transferred during time in the Army, only to return to Champaign (he graduated from UIUC with a degree in accounting and was a cross-country runner). He was arrested in 1975 for robbery, confessed to the enema attacks and did 6 to 12 in prison.
Here's a story of the original Enema Bandit with some apocryphal additives from wikipedia
The
feel for the movie comes from
Taxi Driver. Shot on the same shitty garbage-strewn Times Square alleys, Gillis' character, as a man on a solitary mission to clean up all the defiled women of the city, is a clear adaptation of Travis Bickle. Not to mention Costello stealing much of
Taxi Driver's music.
Scenes:
Folks, this film has $0 stroke value. It's nice to know that this film was made, and that something similar could be made in the future. In the meantime...enjoy a few stills from the film...if girls shitting enemas out their backdoor is a real barnburner to you...I'm sure there is some other materia(w)l up your alley in any number of Dutch or German websites.
You can check
IAFD for the scene breakdowns. I'll go so far as to say that the scene with Bert and the twins Barbara Belkin and Susaye London is especially perverted.
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