J. X. Williams
Encyclopedia
J.X. Williams is an American avant-garde filmmaker
and director. Numerous critics have cited him to be one of the most influential figures in American avant-garde
cinema (along with Stan Brakhage
and Kenneth Anger
). Williams was an innovative cult director for several notorious exploitation film
s produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Tarantino
, Scorsese, Waters
and other directors acknowledge a huge creative debt to Williams. His films are rarely exhibited due to legal issues and the poor condition of surviving prints.
, he was raised in a working-class Jewish family with strong ties to organized labor and the Communist Party
. His father, a set designer for Warner Brothers, was a labor agitator and his activities influenced Williams' early leftist leanings. After dropping out of high school, he took a job in the mailroom in RKO Studios and quickly rose through the ranks to become an assistant in the Writers' Division. Though never credited on any production, he was known to have Dore Schary's
ear and would likely have been taken under contract if not for unforeseen events.
ed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee
during their 1947 hearings on Communist infiltration of the film industry
. Mr. Williams refused to testify and, although he did not serve time, the major studio subsequently blacklisted
him.
Without means of support, he drifted into petty crime and fraternized with low-ranking members of the Los Angeles crime family
. These associations soon brought him in contact with notorious mobster Johnny Rosselli who took him under his wing. Recognizing Williams' interest in film, Rosselli put him in charge of directing and distributing mob-funded nudie and pornographic films. Unfortunately, the vast bulk of these loops have been lost or destroyed so little is known of this early period of Williams' career.
Over the next ten years, Williams amassed a small fortune as a smut impresario
with the blessing of Rosselli. At the same time, he continued to operate in the shadows of legitimate Hollywood
productions as a ghostwriter
. Williams claims to have penned 72 screenplays that became major motion pictures. Although almost no one has been able to verify his claims, a consortium of studios quietly settled a copyright
lawsuit filed by Williams for an undisclosed sum.
As the 1960s opened, Williams' debauched years of hard drinking and reckless gambling
caught up with him. He found himself in debt to the Mafia and his life was in danger. As a result, he fled to Europe in hopes of directing legitimate films without the stigma of the blacklist. After a few false starts, he produced his first featurette, Peep Show (1965). Hailed by Henri Langlois
as the harbinger of an American “Nouvelle Vague
”, Peep Show chronicled a mafia conspiracy against Frank Sinatra
to addict him to heroin.
Peep Show holds a significant place in cinematic history for a number of reasons. Most notoriously, the film's use of pornographic imagery got it banned from several countries and even resulted in the director's brief incarceration in Rome
.
More importantly, however, the film tackled a multitude of subjects that did not come into vogue until the seventies. Nearly a decade before Coppola
and Scorsese
, Peep Show offered an unrelentingly grim and realistic portrait of organized crime
, undoubtedly influenced by Mr. Williams' personal experiences as a onetime "gofer
" to Johnny Rosselli and other mobsters in Los Angeles.
Released less than two years after the assassination of JFK
, Peep Show was also the first film to explore the dark side of Camelot. Besides tracing the tangled web of theories that may have led to the assassination, Peep Show gives a blistering account of the fixing of the 1960 election
and the unholy alliance between Joe Kennedy and La Cosa Nostra. Large portions of the film were made from appropriated footage, predating similar works by Craig Baldwin
, Jay Rosenblatt and other avant-garde directors by more than a decade.
Mr. Williams followed a year later with the tawdry I, Jezebel (1966). Reviews were mixed, however, and it may have prompted his return to the United States. With the power of the blacklist finally diminishing in the late 1960s, Williams undertook a series of exploitation film
s that pushed the limits of taste and taboo. This period includes such gems as E.S.P. Orgy (1967), Mondo Vietnam (1968), and The Phantom of the Cinema (1969).
During the next two years, he struggled with production for The Virgin Sacrifice (1970), a three-hour long Satanic
horror
epic. Reputedly, Sammy Davis Jr. was an early backer of the film and a contributor to the soundtrack before a falling out with Williams. After a short but promising stint on the festival circuit, the film was lost and the negative was destroyed in a fire in the lab where it was stored. A film maudit in every sense of the phrase, the film is infamous in the annals of film history
for the rampant drug use and violence on the set. As Peter Bogdanovich
later observed "Though most people have forgotten the film, few have forgotten its tortured origins. It immortalized Mr. Williams as perhaps the greatest enfant terrible since Von Stroheim
.
Despite the disastrous undertaking, Williams continued to release films through his Cine-Vision Studios, including kaboom! (1973), L.A. Death Trip (1975), and You Axed For It! (1978). These low-budget exploitation pieces were panned by critics but proved commercially successful on the drive-in
and grindhouse
circuit. He spent an increasing amount of time making hardcore pornographic films to fund his productions but his last film, Nunf*cker (1979) is considered one of the best. Not surprisingly, the title, if not the film, also attracted a great deal of controversy, especially from Catholic groups who picketed the screenings.
J.X. Williams also became a director of early music videos for various punk and new wave groups in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
, Switzerland
and retired from filmmaking. He is infamous for his reclusiveness and distaste for the public eye.
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
and director. Numerous critics have cited him to be one of the most influential figures in American avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
cinema (along with Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
and Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
). Williams was an innovative cult director for several notorious exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
s produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
, Scorsese, Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
and other directors acknowledge a huge creative debt to Williams. His films are rarely exhibited due to legal issues and the poor condition of surviving prints.
Early life
Born in Boyle Heights, Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, he was raised in a working-class Jewish family with strong ties to organized labor and the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
. His father, a set designer for Warner Brothers, was a labor agitator and his activities influenced Williams' early leftist leanings. After dropping out of high school, he took a job in the mailroom in RKO Studios and quickly rose through the ranks to become an assistant in the Writers' Division. Though never credited on any production, he was known to have Dore Schary's
Dore Schary
Isadore "Dore" Schary was an American motion picture director, writer, and producer, and playwright who became head of production at MGM and eventually president of the studio...
ear and would likely have been taken under contract if not for unforeseen events.
Career
Like many screenwriters of his time, Williams had leftist sympathies and was known to frequent meetings of groups with ties to the Communist Party. After these activities were reported, he was subpoenaSubpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
ed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
during their 1947 hearings on Communist infiltration of the film industry
Film industry
The film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film crew...
. Mr. Williams refused to testify and, although he did not serve time, the major studio subsequently blacklisted
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or...
him.
Without means of support, he drifted into petty crime and fraternized with low-ranking members of the Los Angeles crime family
Los Angeles crime family
The Los Angeles crime family is an Italian American criminal organization based in Los Angeles, as part of the American Mafia . Since its inception in the early 1900s, it has spread throughout Southern California. Like most Mafia families in the United States, the L.A. family gained power...
. These associations soon brought him in contact with notorious mobster Johnny Rosselli who took him under his wing. Recognizing Williams' interest in film, Rosselli put him in charge of directing and distributing mob-funded nudie and pornographic films. Unfortunately, the vast bulk of these loops have been lost or destroyed so little is known of this early period of Williams' career.
Over the next ten years, Williams amassed a small fortune as a smut impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
with the blessing of Rosselli. At the same time, he continued to operate in the shadows of legitimate Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
productions as a ghostwriter
Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
. Williams claims to have penned 72 screenplays that became major motion pictures. Although almost no one has been able to verify his claims, a consortium of studios quietly settled a copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
lawsuit filed by Williams for an undisclosed sum.
As the 1960s opened, Williams' debauched years of hard drinking and reckless gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
caught up with him. He found himself in debt to the Mafia and his life was in danger. As a result, he fled to Europe in hopes of directing legitimate films without the stigma of the blacklist. After a few false starts, he produced his first featurette, Peep Show (1965). Hailed by Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...
as the harbinger of an American “Nouvelle Vague
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
”, Peep Show chronicled a mafia conspiracy against Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
to addict him to heroin.
Peep Show holds a significant place in cinematic history for a number of reasons. Most notoriously, the film's use of pornographic imagery got it banned from several countries and even resulted in the director's brief incarceration in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
More importantly, however, the film tackled a multitude of subjects that did not come into vogue until the seventies. Nearly a decade before Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
and Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, Peep Show offered an unrelentingly grim and realistic portrait of organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
, undoubtedly influenced by Mr. Williams' personal experiences as a onetime "gofer
Gofer
A gofer or go-fer is an employee who is often sent on errands. "Gofer" reflects the likelihood of instructions to go for coffee, dry cleaning, or stamps, or to make other straightforward or familiar procurements. The term gofer originated in North America...
" to Johnny Rosselli and other mobsters in Los Angeles.
Released less than two years after the assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
, Peep Show was also the first film to explore the dark side of Camelot. Besides tracing the tangled web of theories that may have led to the assassination, Peep Show gives a blistering account of the fixing of the 1960 election
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...
and the unholy alliance between Joe Kennedy and La Cosa Nostra. Large portions of the film were made from appropriated footage, predating similar works by Craig Baldwin
Craig Baldwin
Craig Baldwin is an American experimental filmmaker. He uses “found” footage from the fringes of popular consciousness as well as images from the mass media to undermine and transform the traditional documentary, infusing it with the energy of high-speed montage and a provocative commentary that...
, Jay Rosenblatt and other avant-garde directors by more than a decade.
Mr. Williams followed a year later with the tawdry I, Jezebel (1966). Reviews were mixed, however, and it may have prompted his return to the United States. With the power of the blacklist finally diminishing in the late 1960s, Williams undertook a series of exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
s that pushed the limits of taste and taboo. This period includes such gems as E.S.P. Orgy (1967), Mondo Vietnam (1968), and The Phantom of the Cinema (1969).
During the next two years, he struggled with production for The Virgin Sacrifice (1970), a three-hour long Satanic
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
epic. Reputedly, Sammy Davis Jr. was an early backer of the film and a contributor to the soundtrack before a falling out with Williams. After a short but promising stint on the festival circuit, the film was lost and the negative was destroyed in a fire in the lab where it was stored. A film maudit in every sense of the phrase, the film is infamous in the annals of film history
History of film
The history of film is the historical development of the medium known variously as cinema, motion pictures, film, or the movies.The history of film spans over 100 years, from the latter part of the 19th century to the present day...
for the rampant drug use and violence on the set. As Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
later observed "Though most people have forgotten the film, few have forgotten its tortured origins. It immortalized Mr. Williams as perhaps the greatest enfant terrible since Von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
.
Despite the disastrous undertaking, Williams continued to release films through his Cine-Vision Studios, including kaboom! (1973), L.A. Death Trip (1975), and You Axed For It! (1978). These low-budget exploitation pieces were panned by critics but proved commercially successful on the drive-in
Drive-in theater
A drive-in theater is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars.The screen can be as simple as a...
and grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
circuit. He spent an increasing amount of time making hardcore pornographic films to fund his productions but his last film, Nunf*cker (1979) is considered one of the best. Not surprisingly, the title, if not the film, also attracted a great deal of controversy, especially from Catholic groups who picketed the screenings.
J.X. Williams also became a director of early music videos for various punk and new wave groups in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Filmography
- The 400 Blow Jobs (1964)
- Peep Show (1965)
- L'Homme La Femme Le Film (1966)
- Hollywood Play Girls (1966)
- E.S.P. Orgy (1967)
- Supermaniacs (1968)
- Mondo Vietnam (1968)
- The Phantom of the Cinema (1969)
- Norwegian Wood (1970)
- The Virgin Sacrifice (1970)
- Prison Girls (1972)
- kaboom! (1973)
- Sex Crimes of the 21st Century (1974)
- L.A. Death Trip (1975)
- Morrie (1976)
- You Axed For It (1978)
- Nunf*cker (1979)
Current whereabouts
After a legal settlement in 1981 with several major film studios over copyright disputes, Williams moved to ZurichZürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and retired from filmmaking. He is infamous for his reclusiveness and distaste for the public eye.