Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The 'Young Marrieds' Odyssey, Part Three by Greg Dziawer

There's something familiar about this young man.

At the penultimate moment of Edward D. Wood Jr.'s 1971 pornographic feature The Young Marrieds, Ben (the film's neurotic, homophobic protagonist) is asked point-blank by his friend and coworker: "Whatsamatter, Ben? Haven't you ever sucked cock before?" The heterosexual swinger orgy now ended, Ben must make a decision.

A rapid montage of images of nude men entangled flits across his mind. In the first image, something seemed familiar to me. The model on the right. Even with his face turned away from the camera, and only his side exposed, I recognized him.

It was a little over a year ago when I first encountered Eduardo. At first, I knew him as a model in the gay-themed Pendulum magazines, showing up in photo features. Earlier this year, I watched Sex and Astrology, a transition-era soft-to-hard sex film from 1970. Purportedly exploring the sexual aspects of the Signs of the Zodiac. The Aquarian, the 11th sign (the next to last scene in the film), performs with a python, in the nude, a sexually suggestive dance. I recognized the performer right away as Eduardo. 

Picking around independently of Eduardo or Ed and related matters, I recently came across a string of (mostly) full-page advertisements for Eduardo's services as Master Barber. Apart from apparently working nude, his name in the ads is in an identically elaborate font ubiquitous in the Pendulum mags of the time.

We'll continue to work our tails off here At Ed Wood Wednesdays in the future, striving to identify other models in the images that taunt Ben.