Exploitation Juxtaposition

Honey Meets Night Visitors

Mar 06, 2024

Before you watch this, here are some things to know - this is like a basement version of playing Dark Side of the Moon against Wizard of Oz and . . .

It contains nudity and violence! Nothing too bad.

I wanted to juxtapose the found footage against the song When I Want You, which was recorded by Night Visitors at Music Designers in Boston in 1978. I stumbled across the trailer for Honey (1966), now in the public domain. I didn’t expect that the cuts, the action, and the images would have a weird synchronicity. The trailer is in full; the timing is unchanged. The trailer is “politically” all wrong, as befits the “exploitation” film genre.

If you have the patience and appetite for some really bad movie-making and a pretty good song, shield your eyes if you must; keep the kids out of the room.

The group Night Visitors was inches from a great record contract, part of a complicated history for another day. There are many terrific songs still to be heard. The late Bernie LoBello was the singer and writer, guitar and keyboards; the late Bard Richmond, an MIT genius, was on bass; Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter and director, was on guitar; I’m on drums as usual. (image below) Suzanne Boucher sings backup. We premiered for record execs at the Paradise on February 1st, 1978.

The trailer was for Honey, a classic Exploitation Film. These were popular at ‘grindhouses’, particularly in the old Times Square. I used to try to sneak in as a kid - a right of passage for horny underage adolescents who lived near the city. Of course, I was terribly shocked. Just shocked, I tell you.

Jerry Denby directed this mess, which stars Peggy Steffans. Under the name Cleo Nova, she made The Love Merchant and The Sex Cycle. As Marie Lamont, she was in the Michael Findlay "Flesh" trilogy: A Taste of Flesh, The Touch of her Flesh, and The Curse of Her Flesh. Have you never heard of it? Me neither.