About
I AM THE GAIA GODevil twisted evil
I WILL SLAP YOU ACROSS THE FACE SO HARD
eek
In the fall of 1976 I was in the midst of moving to a farm in Krumville, New York when the phone rang. It was Sid Levine, the front man for the porno unit of the Gambino crime family. I was their largest supplier of feature product, and Sid said he had to see me right away. Urgent. Couldn't wait. So I jump in the car and make the ninety minute drive to lower Manhattan. Sid was looking grim when I got to his office. He didn't waste any time. "Look, I'm a grandfather and I'm ashamed to have to ask you this, but they need an enema movie." I don't want to break the mood so my inner chuckle never surfaces, but it's close. An enema movie????? Sid has been given an audio cassette recording of something called The Enema Bandit, which has a scene where an effete Doctor, assisted by an evil nurse, is giving an enema to a bound and gagged young girl. He's going to use a device called the Bardex Inflatable Nozzle. So I'm thinking that this just might be the funniest single thing I've ever heard, but of course I don't tell this to Sid. Evidently this idea came from a magazine article about a guy who went on a cleansing spree on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana and forcibly administered enemas to coeds. He was convicted on felony assault charges and was presently serving out his sentence at their state penitentiary. So cassette and magazine in hand, I head for the elevator. The door opens and out comes Dibi (The Boss), and the conversation went something like: "Hey Shaun, how's it shakin? You speak to Sid?' I nod. "Look, I don't want to know about this thing. You just do whatever Sid tells you. I don't want to see it. I don't want to know about it. I don't want to talk about it. OK? Understand?" So Sid is ashamed of it, Dibi doesn't want to know about it, and I begin pre-production on what, until this day, is still considered to be the most outrageous porno film ever made. "Waterpower" is finished and opens to empty houses wherever it plays. Theater owners are scared of it, and audiences don't know what to make of it, and I'm not surprised by either. I had seen Taxi Driver just before Sid asked me to make the picture, and thought that my friend Jamie Gillis would make a great Travis Bickle, only on foot, prowling Manhattan's jungles, looking for evil bitches to cleanse. I used Taxi Driver's diary narrative, and even some of Bernard Herrmann's music score. Stealing music was one of my specialties, and I never got caught. Dibi had said to me, "Just make the thing", and that's exactly what I did. Since I would be making this movie without parental supervision, I was free to turn it into a parody of itself. I wrote a ludicrous script, hired my favorite actors; Jamie, Marlene Willoughby, Rob Everett, and went about shooting what I still think is the funniest movie I ever made. Of course, there was always the chance the boys would catch on to what I was doing, and I would sleep with the fishes, but I didn't think so. Anyway, the Gambinos even tried putting Gerry Damiano's name on it, thinking it would boost box office, but no dice. A few years later the Gambino's sold the picture to their friend and associate Reuben Sturman in Cleveland. Sturman had partners in Europe and opened Waterpower in The Netherlands and Germany under the title, "Schpritz". Bingo.....Cult smash.......Makes a fortune. I guess Europeans are a bit kinkier than their American cousins
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