PITTSBURGH MADE: The Booby Hatch (1976)

Rudy Ricci was a zombie in Night of the Living Dead, as well as one of the motorcycle gang members in Dawn of the Dead. Beyond that, he also wrote the story for There’s Always Vanilla and his writing is credited in Return of the Living Dead and The Devil and Sam Silverstein.

John Russo wrote the screenplay for Night of the Living Dead and also wrote some of The Devil and Sam Silverstein, which came out the same year as this. He’d go on to write and direct plenty more films, most notably MidnightThe MajorettesSanta ClawsMy Uncle John Is a Zombie! and many more.

In 1976, the idea that the Living Dead films would continue were way in the future. So if these guys were going to make another movie, why not a sex comedy? Russell Streiner also came on board to produce — and show up as a masked rapist — so this is definitely of interest for those who watch everything connected with Pittsburgh film.

You know. Like me.

Ricci also plays the lead, Marcello Fettucini, a sex machine who works for Joyful Novelties Inc., a company run by Thelonious Suck (N. Detroit, actually Sam Schwartz) that creates the dildos, blow up dolls, French ticklers, lubes, sex dolls and anything it takes to keep America balling. Cherry Jankowski (Sharon Joy Miller) also works there — the alternate title of this is The Liberation of Cherry Jankowski — and she’s also a tester of their equipment. She’s dealing with some rough times as she keeps getting prank calls, getting assaulted by her next door neighbor and has a boyfriend named Herman Longfellow (Doug Sortino) who prefers to dress as a woman and is really into religion.

Marcello isn’t doing all that great. He’s lost his ability to get it up, his father has disowned him and his brother (Dawn of the Dead actor David Emge) laughs at him. Of course these two are goingn to wind up together and then I realized there was ten minutes left, so there’s a whole bunch of sexual hijinks with an industrial film feel. You never see any male nudity, in case you wondered, but according to Russo, some actresses would show their butt, some would only go topless and there’s one brave actress that in no way cares near the end and goes full 70s full frontal.

Keep an eye open for George Kosana as a cop. Seeing as how he was best known for playing Sheriff McClelland in Night that seems right. One of the reporters, Raymond Laine, is another local who was in nearly everything shot in here: Night of the Living DeadSeason of the WitchLady BewareAlone In the Neon JungleDominick and Eugene, Sudden Death and many more. He also did the casting for The Majorettes and Midnight as well as a contributor to The Devil and Sam Silverstein. Paul McCollough, who did the lighting and edited this, wrote The Crazies and composed the music for the 1990 Night of the Living DeadHeartstopperSanta Claws and The Majorettes. Oh man! He also edited Midnight, FleshEaterThe MajorettesHeartstopper and Horror Rock!

There’s a rapist too dumb to be able to take his pants off, worries of erectile disfunction in the days pre-Viagra and when Marcello gets sad, he goes to the lagoon at Kennywood. Russo also had sticker shock when he tried to buy all the marital aids and decided to just make them himself. That explains why a real woman plays the blowup doll and somehow looks as unsexy as possible despite being sold as the pinnacle of sex.

How wild is it that Gray Morrow did the poster for this?

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