Stagger Lee, A Rented Pig, And A Bucket of Blood

(This story first appeared on March 2, 2007, the day after I visited the set in Compton, in a warehouse owned by a crazy person named Chester. Everything is a sepia reminiscence now, as I am writing from beyond the grave.)

It was back in ’32 when times were hard
He had a Colt .45 and a deck of cards
Stagger Lee

Benny Profane is not the first person to adapt a porn movie from a song title, but he has succeeded in finding an excellent piece of source material, the classic American song Stagger Lee.

“I’m using the Nick Cave version,” Profane said).

Profane is shooting the movie for the Adam & Eve imprint Bad Seed, which had problems with the script, referring as it did to prostitutes and brothels. So the people being paid to have sex are listed in the new script as “performers.”

One such performer is Marie Luv, whom we remember from Atomic Vixens and Digital Playground’s Island Fever 4.

“Did you like Bora Bora?” I asked of her scene in IF4, advertised as having been filmed in Bora Bora and the Bahamas.

“We shot my scene in Malibu,” she said. Everything people tell you is wrong.

Luv and Zak Sabbath posed for softcore photos and I could hear Luv across the warehouse.

“Motherfuckers should hear how I yell on a gonzo shoot,” she said. I have a crush on her.

Among other script impossibilities, but this time comprehensible, was the indication of a baby in the movie. So producer Ron Royster rented an infant potbellied pig to pose as the child of Sasha Grey and Marcos Leon.

“The pig’s name is Apple, Man,” Royster said. “And he’s a good little pig. He waited until the end of shooting to shit all over the place.”

Sasha Grey was lovely, and had the best costume. Filming was in a warehouse in South (formerly South Central) Los Angeles, but the hotel room of the Bucket of Blood set fit neatly inside, and both Grey and Luv shed their respective porn star images to slip into period (or, at least, hyperreal) outfits.