Joe Marzano- A Filmmaker’s Odyssey That Lead Nowhere
By Keith J. Crocker
A funny thing starts to happen to you when you hit your mid 50’s. You become oddly nostalgic. You start looking back at your life and in most cases, you’re trying to find comfort in the innocence you displayed in your youth. I’m not saying that parts of one’s youth was the best part of their life. In reality, it’s quite the opposite. It’s in this youth, that you made the most mistakes in your life. If you haven’t got it together in your mid 50’s, you might as well hang it up.
One of many memories that keep running around my head these days was my odd relationship with fellow Long Islander and filmmaker Joe Marzano. Like many relationships I had at the time, it ended rather poorly and abrupt. During the few years that it surged on, there were some great memories, and an equal amount of poor ones. The way I feel now, with all I’ve learned, I could have maintained my relationship with him far better than I did. But the big question still remains, would it have been worth it?
How we met
I met Joe Marzano in summer of 1987. I became a member of a video store called Get With it Video. They started offering free memberships. They were located on Merrick Road in Valley Stream, Long Island. They were a stone’s throw from the Belair Twin Theater, a former single house that boasted a live performance of the Dave Clark Five during the showing of Catch Us If You Can (1965). Anyhow, one of the managers of the video store was Kevin Ratigan. Ratigan was a kid when he got to see the Dave Clark Five perform at that movie theater. Kevin was an outrageous personality. Very gregarious and loud, once you met Kevin you felt like you had known him for years. Kevin helped curate the horror film collection in the video store. It showcased a trash film fanatic’s dreams; Andy Milligan, Hershel Gordon Lewis, Ray Dennis Steckler. It was like you had died and went straight to hell for liking all these filmmakers. The porn section was even more impressive; Dominatrix Without Mercy, Rape Victims, you name it; every piece of 42nd Street garbage was there.
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| Head-shots of Joe Marzano taken in the 1980's. Marzano had walk on parts in films like Wise Guys (1986) and Ghostbusters (1984). He was also a radio DJ and a voice over artist. |
Anyhow, it was a mere few weeks before Kevin took a shine to me and started introducing me to all his friends. I met fellow Long Island filmmaker Nathan Schiff. Then after Schiff came Marzano. Marzano was a name that was very familiar to me. To those of us who drooled over the AFI books at our local library, Marzano was credited with having directed a version of Venus in Furs (1967). He also acted in a nudie film called Cool it Baby (1967). And his name was associated with a local art cinema; the Uniondale Mini Cinema showed the Marzano mini movies. These super 8mm films were made by Marzano with cooperation by the local BOCES kids. So I was aware of who Marzano was. Indeed, at the time, it seemed like an honor to meet him. He was friendly and welcoming enough, and before you know it, we were spending time at the house he resided in on Franklin Street in Lynbrook. When I say “we,” I’m referring to myself and a filmmaking partner I met in college, who I’ll simply refer to as “sticky fingers.” Let’s leave it as that. Both “sticky fingers” and myself had founded The Exploitation Journal, a fanzine dedicated to trash esthetics. Marzano liked the magazine. I realize now that he craved the spotlight and wanted to be interviewed. More on that later….
But just who is he?
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| First article on Joe Marzano, from Newday 12/2/1954. |
But just who was Joe Marzano? Born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn on January 10, 1934, he was the only son of Anthony Marzano and his wife. The Marzanos moved from Brooklyn, NY to Lynbrook, Long Island, where they became the proprietors of Cappy’s Restaurant located at 20 Ocean Ave. in East Rockaway. Cappy’s had the distinction of operating a private room for gambling, supposedly run by Joe’s mother. Joe worked the family restaurant as both a busboy and waiter while his growing ambition of being a filmmaker started to mature within him. For a period of time beginning in the late 1950’s, it seemed as if Joe was unstoppable in the independent film scene. A series of articles from Newsday, a Long Island based paper, spotlighted Marzano’s work. A Manhattan shot documentary called Symphony in Concrete (1949) was followed up by the Hollywood lensed When We Sleep (1957). Erostratus (1958), which according to Marzano was "A faithful but cinematic adaptation of Sartre's story concerning a psychopath who dreads contact with humanity and who plans to rid himself of it with a bang." It played the art cinemas continuously in the 1960’s, in fact, even sharing a billing with Andy Milligan’s Vapors (1965) at the Bridge Theater on St. Mark’s St. in 1967.
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| Second Newsday article spotlighting Joe Marzano from 5/28/1957. |
Long story short, Marzano is known by fans of exploitation films for two movies, both produced by the elusive but extremely productive Lou Campa. Cool it Baby (1967), which featured Marzano in a supportive role, and Venus in Furs (1967), which was co-written and directed by Marzano. These were fan favorites mostly because they had been missing and were sought after. They were distributed and owned by the hateful Harry Novac. In fact, one of the rights of passage for knowing Marzano was to make calls to Novac on Marzano’s behalf asking for copies of the films. At the time we made the calls, only two options existed for getting these films. Either Novac would have to send 35mm prints, or VHS videos. He wasn’t sending any prints. And he didn’t have them transferred to video (at that point, the late 1980’s). I spoke with Novac only once by phone. He was polite enough but got us quickly off the line by false promising that he’d seek out the prints and ship them once they were found. The next time I ran into Novac was at a Chiller Convention in New Jersey, and he was touting the Marzano films as new releases from Something Weird Video. This was in the early 90’s. I never liked Harry Novac, I always felt he was a parasite.
From Venus in Furs to down you go, Joe!
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| Venus in Furs promotional still. This and Cool it Baby (1967) were Joe Marzano's feature length excursions into the glorious 1960's new found freedom of sexual expression. |
Marzano loved to talk about making Venus in Furs; he was proud of the film and ever so anxious for us to see it. Again, when I reference us, I’m speaking of myself, sticky fingers, Nathan Schiff, and even guys like Denis and Kevin from Get With it Video. Marzano had a book of small stills from the film; I’m guessing these were frame enlargements. He often took it out and showed it to us. He was particularly proud of the scene of a girl bathing nude in a tub of milk. He carried on about how he instructed the cinematographer (George Cirello) to shoot it. Raymond Young, founder and publisher of the fanzine Magick Theater, interviewed Marzano about his career and was going to publish it in the zine. The interview never saw the light of day, which enraged Marzano and stressed the friendship. Ray was kind enough to allow me to present a passage from the interview here in this article. This piece concerns Marzano’s relationship with Lou Campa and the making of both Cool it Baby and Venus in Furs.
Joe Marzano: “Around that time, I was working as a film editor for Herbert Kerkow Productions, doing such masterpieces as ‘X-Rays and Their Dental Properties’ and ‘How to Use Your Passport’ and an interesting plastic surgery movie with peoples faces torn apart! In the beginning, I was revolted by this one because it was real. But after a while, I was even eating lunch while I was working on it. It just took some getting used to.
I knew a guy there named Bill Lister who introduced me to Lew Waldeck. They helped me on a short film I made about a woman having a child. As a result, I found they were doing stuff for Lou Campa, such as THE SOUL SNATCHER in which Bill played the devil, leering at spliced-in scenes of people carrying on. They began making this thing called MONICA, which was later changed to COOL IT, BABY, and I was engaged as an actor. Campa produced it, George Weiss was the supervisor. I remember George telling me Bela Lugosi stories, and I didn’t realize he was telling me about GLEN OR GLENDA? and these other pictures he produced.
We filmed it in an interesting little studio run by this old-timer, Jack Glen, who used to be the head of the Screen Director’s Guild. Somehow, I ended up supplying the actors, using a lot of people from MAN OUTSIDE: Bhob, Bob James, Beverly Baum, Barbara Ellen. In fact, Barbara played Bhob’s wife! Never were a couple so ill-suited for each other. Barbara was a very glamorous type of girl, while Bhob you knew would sneak off any given moment to read CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN!
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| Cool it Baby, featuring Joe Marzano played at the Bethview Theater on Round Swamp Road. The Bethview seemed to specialize in showing adult fare, though they were often the site of protests and arrests regarding the adult material. They also showed Ed Woods Orgy of the Dead. But my experiences with this theater go back to 1978, when at 13 years old I got to see a double bill of Freaks and Night of the Living Dead. By then the theater was called the Cine-Capri and it operated as an art cinema. |
It was fun making COOL IT, BABY, a lot of laughs. It ended up that their writer deserted them, so I finished the script. All the basic stuff was there, it’s not a creation of mine. If anyone can be credited for direction, it’s Lew Waldeck, as he did the photography and told us where to move and what to do. I suggested certain scenes.
There was one scene I’ll never forget. Beverly has got Barbara on a slab and asks, “What do I say?” So Lew says, “Say mumbo-jumbo.” So, Beverly says “Mumbo-jumbo!” Naturally we couldn’t use it on the soundtrack. And it was boring, anyway. Endless footage of her making strange signs over Barbara’s body. So Bhob and I did narration, making it sound very sexy. But all these things we were talking about had to be happening in the other room that you didn’t see. I remember Bhob, who gets very excited when he talks, talking about “This girl, this girl you see, she was talking to a rock, talking to this rock because she had this strange drug…” Then I went on about “This one girl hung from a ceiling with a swan, and in the swan’s death throes between her thighs, the swan was beating its wings and the girl slowly started to turn and move… quicker and quicker until she passed out.”
So, COOL IT, BABY was successful and, even before it was released, the producers were talking to me. I was pushing myself a little. Because once the door was open, I could sell myself. I showed scenes of MAN OUTSIDE to George Weiss and Lou Campa, then Barbara and I went off to write the script to VENUS IN FURS. That was a little serious because I figured it was my second chance. MAN OUTSIDE failed, but if I could just do two or three of these… I had just begun to hear of Francis Ford Coppola, and he had made it in sexploitation. At that time, you could. These could be made for $10,000 in 35mm, black and white. They were shown on 42 nd Street and drive-ins down south. I knew I could do it well, I knew how to cut corners and do things fast. And at the same time make it look like a quality movie. As long as there were sexual suggestions, they were happy.
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| Cool it Baby (1967) starred Marzano and was a film ultimately completed by Marzano, which in turn lead to Venus in Furs (1967) which was 100% Marzano. |
VENUS IN FURS had been budgeted for $10,000 but I brought it in for $8500 in five days, edited it in four weeks. With the money I’d saved, I wanted to put a scene in the film, also to add time to it, since it was a little short. The lead character in the film is constantly having these visions of all these women, so I decided to have a shot of him walking up the steps of the New York Public Library and have dozens of topless girls running down on him. Lou Campa then promised me this bevy of beautiful girls for the scene. The thing I was worried about was getting away with shooting such a scene at the library. When we arrived to do the scene early in the morning, Lou’s girls were there. Two girls, Sheila and Lisa. That was it. And Sheila was fat! In any event, we weren’t hassled by the police or anything. In fact, the cops that were there seemed to be getting into it!
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| This was the theater Joe Marzano mentions in the Ray Young interview. A popular spot for sexploitation fare, the Bethview was the most centrally located theater to catch these type of titles at. |
I wasn’t aware [of Jess Franco’s VENUS IN FURS]. His came out two or three years later. Mine played in New York for just a few weeks. I remember we had a two-theater premiere! I saw it out here in a theater on Long Island with a mixed audience, not just the guys in the raincoats. I was amazed! It was in a real theater and it was working! I didn’t hear the projector noise, the projection was good and sharp, and the sound was clear.
Nothing [hardcore] ever happened in these movies back then. The guys were maybe in their shorts and the girls were sometimes stripped down. The big moment would be IF they showed their oversized mammary glands. Most of it was intimated or simulated. These films had to have a story, so it was almost like doing a real b-movie. The thing I liked about COOL IT, BABY was that it had the feel, even when we were making it, of the old Monogram Pictures, like we were doing one of those Lugosi movies like THE APE MAN. It’s funny I met George Weiss there. He told me he had this footage of Lugosi. “Bela died and I don’t know what to do with it,” he used to say.”
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| Original sell sheet for Marzano's Venus in Furs, being distributed by Harry Novac, a master thief. |
With this information at hand, one is forced to ask “what happened to Marzano’s career?” According to folks I spoke to, and even Marzano himself hinting at it, it seems Marzano hit rock bottom after a meeting with sleaze film extraordinaire Joseph Brenner. Here’s the way it played out:
Brenner - “I’ll be more than glad to back your films. Just bear in mind you have to do it all, including pulling your own cable.”
Marzano - “I don’t pull my own cable”.
End of conversation. Apparently, Marzano had taken on the oversized ego of Orson Wells, a man Marzano adored. With his declaration of “I don’t pull my own cable,” Marzano sealed his fate in the world of exploitation films. I always found this point fascinating. I was willing to kill off my whole family for an opportunity to work in this field. And Marzano, who was already there, threw it away by adapting a snobbish attitude when asked if he was willing to work hard to get a film done. Is there a similarity between Joe Marzano and Orson Welles? Yes, but not so much so in talent. While Welles was truly an innovator, like Marzano, he was lazy and loaded with bravado. Both were great storytellers. And both were very good at not getting films finished. Tell me the truth, you there reading this article…would you have wanted to have been one of the unfortunate investors behind an Orson Welles film? Dealing with his ego and his excuses for why he couldn’t get a project done?! Well, the same thing goes for Marzano, he was so overbearing that most people tired of him within a short period of time. Hence, he sealed his own fate. However, he also got excited when he got a new group of fledglings like myself, sticky fingers, or Nathan Schiff, who were willing to work with him…
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| Joe Marzano's resume from the late 1980's. He was productive. |
The Tell-Tale Heart (1986/90) complete with inserts!
Let the editing begin!
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| Joe Marzano as the Necrophiliac doctor in One Grave Too Many (1990) shot on 16mm and written and directed by me (Keith Crocker). The short is currently available on the Bloody Ape DVD. Marzano was an asset to this film, he did a great job. |
At this point in time, Marzano and myself developed an interesting ‘tit for tat” relationship, as I was helping him with Tell Tale Heart, and he helped me by playing a necrophiliac doctor in my short film “One Grave to Many.” My memory of him on the film was a good one; he was a pro in terms of acting and pulled off the role just fine. In the film, he fondles the corpse of a woman played by the now legendary hot dog hooker Cathy Scallia. Cathy would go on to infamy by making the cover of the New York Post, getting busted for offering special services to patrons of her hot dog truck. Cathy was a topless dancer at the time and procured most of the women I needed for my films. I remember her making a snide comment regarding Marzano’s girth, and my good friend and main actor, Paul Richichi, coming to Marzano’s defense and shutting her down. I was so pleased with Marzano in “One Grave too Many” that I decided I wanted to use him in a future film, but this time in a feature role…but more on that later.
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| Another shot of Joe manhandling Cathy Scallia (the infamous Hot Dog Hooker) in One Grave Too Many. Cathy played a great corpse, she was as warm as an ice cube so this role came easy to her. |
Getting back to the editing of “Tell-Tale Heart,” I believe that many of my future problems with Marzano began there. First off, I kept reminding him that the modern era student would not know who he was, hence I tried to have the film edited to keep the camera off his face as much as possible, focusing more on the flashbacks. All in all, there is still too much Marzano and too little Poe in Joe’s adaptation. He also limited the gore that was shot. The video was being edited analog; I believe we completed it in two long sessions. A strange event happened that kept me from attending the first edit, and that’s when I think Marzano started getting pissy with me. Let me first state that yes, I am the one at fault here. That said, other than my presence being needed for input, I didn’t hold up the editing up in any way. Let me tell you what happened. I was working for a University here on Long Island as a landscaper. It was a union position that paid very well, had full benefits, and a retirement plan if I so desired. Unlike the rest of my friends who graduated film school, I was responsible. Long story short; a co-worker of mine was getting divorced from his wife. She happened to call the office that day looking for him. I answered the phone, got into a long conversation with her, and we set up a date for the evening. My co-workers thought it was hysterical, but the he guy who was getting divorced, he didn’t think it was too funny. About a year earlier, I had just come out of a long-term relationship and I was hungry. And I don’t mean for food. Anyhow, I was supposed to be editing with Joe and sticky that night. I do remember calling him and explaining I’d be late…I ended up being real late. Though nothing ever came of the divorcée, and me, I still believe Joe and sticky got bent at my negligence. I had stood them up, so to speak. Anyhow, the “Tell-Tale Heart” was finished, and in my estimation, it still sucked. We didn’t bother pursuing the schools. Marzano was never going to change. Each film he made was going to be a love letter to himself.
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| Here she is in all her glory. Cathy Scallia, the Hot Dog Hooker with her offerings. Of interest, Cathy procured my nude talent from her stable of topless dancer friends. She had a house in North Baldwin when I couldn't even afford a pair of shoes. She was a good business woman. |
I got out of college in ’89. In ’90, I shot the trailer for a film that was going to be known as Bigfoot on Campus. As I was now envisioning the film, Joe was going to play a mad doctor trying to mate nubile college girls with a captured bigfoot. I had discussed the idea with Joe and he was interested. We added this trailer for the film to our then first release of compiled short film work called The Cinefear Sampler. We used to sell this tape using ads in magazines like Cult Cinema and Film Threat. So I was working at the college by day, working on film projects by night, and constantly applying for jobs at film production companies all over Queens and Manhattan. Sticky and I decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get into the amateur porn film market. So in 1991, we agreed to shoot a porn flick on video, as I wouldn’t waste film on pornography (plus everything was going straight to video), so shooting film seemed pointless. Joe was the one guy out of the whole group who had a video camera and analog editor. It was decided he would shoot and edit the film.
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| Lulu and Friends (Aka The Valley Stream Slut). This was the video project that broke Marzano and myself apart. We got screwed in distribution but I did dynamite with it once I had re-dubbed it and put it up on my website Cinefear.com. |
Marzano had already wet his feet in the porn business. He spoke of attempting to get a porn off the ground in the early 70’s. Apparently, Dolly Sharp of Deep Throat fame was slated to star, and she was supposed to do a scene with two males. Marzano said the two male stars had contacted Dolly in hopes they could talk her into practicing the scene. Marzano also spoke of running out of film and missing the cum shot. It looks as though this film had never been finished. So now, here was Marzano’s chance to make good in the world of porn. Sticky and myself were going to write, direct and cast the picture. Marzano was starting to feel some financial burden building up in his life. He was in the actors’ union, and he was making a living doing voice-overs for TV and radio. However, that world was changing and Marzano’s phone was no longer ringing like it used to. He decided he wanted to charge sticky and myself for the work that was to be done. We had all initially agreed to make the film, sell it, and split the profit. Thinking back on this, I have to say that Marzano was right. If I were in the same position now, I wouldn’t have dared entered this without being paid first. That said, I was furious about his request. I’ll never forget what went down in what would be my last conversation with him ever:
Marzano - What are you getting so mad over. By hiring me, you are getting a huge talent!
Keith - By hiring you all I’m getting is your huge stomach!
Marzano - Careful! Careful!
And I slammed the phone down, that was the end of my relationship with Joe Marzano. But wait, there’s more….
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| A compilation of Joe's work as he offered it on VHS back in the days of the video boom. Ray Young designed this flier and did try to help Joe expedite sales. He claims none of these moved. I've stated many times that Marzano was a legend in his own mind. |
I think one of the things that infuriated Marzano was the interviews that were promised and never published by both myself (The Exploitation Journal), and prior to me, Ray Young (Magick Theater). As I was writing this article, I contacted Ray Young and we swapped stories. Here was what Ray said to me regarding the Marzano interview he was supposed to run;
“When he saw that he wasn't in Magick Theatre #8, but I promised him he'd be in #9, he lost all interest in me. The Friday night get together in his basement came to an abrupt halt. He was doubly pissed because he'd set me up to interview Shirley Stoler, who also thought that HER interview would be in #8. Had #9 been published, if it'd had their interviews in there, I think I would've gotten a call to come back, but it never happened.”
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| Marzano interview on his DJ years from an unknown magazine source. |
In my case, I had been promising Joe we’d interview him for the Exploitation Journal, and it looked as though we had intended to run it in volume #1 Issue #10. However, in issue 10, which was released in 1991, there was a letter published in the letter section that was complete bullshit. We wrote the letter, and gave false credit to a writer. Here’s what the letter said;
“Dear EXJ,
I can’t tell you the joy that ran through my heart when you announced last issue that you were going to feature an interview with lost film legend Joe Marzano. He seems to be one of the forgotten faces of the 1960’s and I feel deserves some recognition. While I haven’t seen any of his work, the titles and ad mats alone look promising. Keep up the good work, you guys are without a doubt the best mag around.”
B.S.
Long Island, NY.
The signing of B.S. had two different meanings. For one, it meant B.S., Bull Shit. Two, it could be credited to Bill “Bull” Shelley, a former cohort of Marzano who Marzano kept claiming was a “compulsive liar.” Of interest, I had never met Bill at the time. But I have been in touch with him regarding this article. Anyhow, here was our answer to the phony letter;
“It is indeed sad when one loses a friend. We lost Joe Marzano in early February of this year. Tragically, there will be no interview.”
As hard as I’m laughing here recounting this story, the sad thing is that Marzano did not get interviewed, or in Ray Young’s case the interview was not published. Both Young and myself dashed Marzano’s hopes of publication to the ground. And the sadder thing yet is that to our knowledge, no one picked up the pieces. No one else made an attempt to tell Joe’s story. I think if I regret anything, it was that I didn’t go through with that interview. In Ray Young’s case, I pick up that in many ways he did wish he did a Magick Theater #9, and that the Marzano interview did see the light of day.
Anyhow, The Valley Stream Slut did end up seeing the light of day, with myself writing and directing, and sticky on the video camera (he ended up purchasing one). In 1993, Bigfoot on Campus ended up becoming The Bloody Ape and went before the cameras, sans Joe Marzano. The arduous shooting schedule put me in the hospital with a bronchial infection on Christmas Eve of 1993. The film wrapped in Winter of ’94.
The original One Grave Too Many (1990) featuring Joe Marzano in a guest spot as a necrophiliac doctor. This is the original sound edit as we had to alter the music for copyright reasons once this film was put on DVD.
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly!
The Good!
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| From Newsday 1971, Joe was already on the instruction scene. This of course was going to lead up to his work at the Uniondale Mini Cinema with the Mini Players. |
So, all though there appears to be a lot of negativity regarding Joe Marzano, let me take a moment to point out the positive. I did have some great times with Marzano. One time in particular really stands out. It was the night before Thanksgiving of 1989. I had just purchased a 16mm print of the film Conqueror Worm, and the decision was to have a showing at Joe’s place. Kevin Ratigan was there, as was Dennis (the guy who owned Get With it Video). Nathan Schiff was present, and of course sticky fingers and myself. We did a double feature; the other film was a VHS of Phantom of the Rue Morgue, which was a boot as the film hadn’t been released on tape yet. It was a wonderful night, everyone was in synch, I don’t think any of us ever got along as well as we did that night. I had just come out of an 8 and a half-year relationship, and I really needed the camaraderie of friends that evening. Marzano pulled out a gem of a 16mm projector; it had a recording mechanism that allowed you to record over a magnetic track, it was a sight to behold. When I left his place that evening, unbeknownst to us it had snowed. There was about an inch of snow on the ground, I felt enchanted and charmed. I can still replay that night in my mind and not forget a single moment.
Another night that stood out was with just Marzano and myself. We had watched a film together at his place, something he wanted to show me. I remember having a very nice conversation with him. I also remember thinking to myself “wow, this guy is so much better one on one then with a group of people.” Going forward, I wish I had acted on this type of get together more often. Marzano could be a nice guy when he wanted to. Shirley Stoler, star of The Honeymoon Killers and 7 Beauties, knew Marzano and he went often into Manhattan to bring her back to his mother’s place for barbeques. I was always supposed to be privy to one of these get together, but both Marzano and Stoler were very overweight, and his days of lugging her in from Manhattan were over. One of the other fun things I remember was Marzano having a message machine and listening to a message left for him by director Paul Morrisey, who was also an associate of Marzano’s.
Marzano did enjoy horror, sci-fi and fantasy films, he had known Calvin Beck, editor of Castle of Frankenstein (he spoke of how Beck was mother obsessed, which was odd considering Marzano was in his 50’s and living with his mother as well). He had known Russ Jones, writer and illustrator for Famous Monsters of Filmland and Eerie magazines. He even told me that Russ Jones tried to claim he was John Elder, screenplay writer for Hammer Films. Of course, John Elder was actually Anthony Hinds. So many fun stories, and Joe was a great storyteller.
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| The Marzano Mini Players. This article from Newsday 1980. Mike Russo
is believed to be the guy who currently holds on to the Marzano library
of VHS and Film. The Anthology Film Archives asked me to contact Russo
about having the Marzano collection shifted to their care for the
collection. I have no clue what transpired after I set up the meeting. |
Joe’s anger at me continued years after I stopped talking to him. One thing that I couldn’t stand about him was he kept calling sticky and myself “The Students.” I take it that he did this because we were both still in college when we met him. But I also take it that he used it as a definition of some sort, sort of saying “you guys are students, hence amateurs, you’re not on my level.” If anyone appeared to be an amateur, it was Joe. Just look at any of those short videos he was producing at the time, they are quite poor. For a man who started out shooting film, he never seemed to bring any of those aesthetics with him when he entered the video world. Of interest, I became “The Bad Student” once I refused to deal with Marzano anymore. Sticky fingers decided he wanted to continue to hang with Marzano, which was fine with me, but I wasn’t having any Joe in my life. So sticky became “The Good Student,” and I was the bad one. Dennis from the video store once told me he was at a Marzano BBQ and Joe actually lamented as to “why I had to be the bad student. It’s too bad he can’t be here now.” Of interest, Marzano wanted me there, that actually says a lot.
Another thing Marzano did, but I’m still unsure if this was done on purpose, he lent me his 16mm camera to begin shooting “One Grave Too Many,” but the camera had a light leak. This, of course, produced flashes of light through the image, rendering it unusable. I was able to salvage the footage and make a promotional trailer from it, but it did ruin a day’s shoot. But the worst thing Joe did to me was to backstab me to Jeff, the guy who ran Hewlett Camera. I had known Jeff since the late 70’s, getting all my Super 8mm film and stills processed through his store. Not quite clear exactly what Marzano said, but Jeff was in a huff and told me to do my processing elsewhere. Stupid decision on his part as I by far spent more money there then Marzano ever did. Regardless, it just deepened my dislike for Joe and all the miscreants I had been associating with over the years. Not since Joe Stalin had I purged that many people in a single bout of execution. It was out with the old, and in with the new!
The Ugly
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| Joe Marzano's obituary as it appeared in Newsday of July 2000. |
Joe Marzano passed away on July 5, 2000 in Oceanside, NY, the cause of death was heart failure. According to Ray Young, “After Joe's mom died and his sister sold the house in Lynbrook, Joe went into some kind of assisted living/HUD facility, packing a lot of his cameras and equipment in the small room. Nathan told me later that a lot of it was ripped off when Joe would step out. It must've been a horrible end for him.” It wouldn’t surprise me at all if his friends who came to visit him stole Joe’s equipment; because that was the type of people he kept as company. It seems that whenever I ask people who knew Joe to reminisce about him, tons of negativity keep coming to the top. For instance, in conversing with Bill Shelley, he told me that a friend of his visited Lou Campa in California in the early 80’s. He claimed Campa did nothing but bad mouth Marzano, basically lamenting the out of shape women Marzano featured in Venus in Furs. It seems to me that Marzano’s legacy is stained by his standoffish attitude.
One great missed opportunity that should have happened was a film that never materialized in the late 80’s. Dennis and Kevin of Get With it Video were willing to back a low budget film that would have featured Shirley Stoler with Nathan Schiff doing some special gore effects. Marzano was set to write, produce and direct, yet it never happened. As I stated, by the time I knew Marzano, his best work was far behind him. While he loved shooting video and playing with his blue screen effects, everything about his work had become very sloppy, it actually was embarrassing being involved with it.
In the mid 1990’s, I was guy Friday to a theater owner. I helped him renovate and run his theaters. I had been a projectionist, and I had started my alternate career as a speaker on cinema. I remember I had given a presentation at the Malvern Library. I heard from a friend that a week later, Marzano presented at that same library. When he started having equipment trouble, he started vocally blaming me because I had been there the week before. Of course, he was most likely joking, but it still shows what a miserable human being he had evolved into. I also heard he was delighted when I finally stopped working for the theater owner. He now felt he could have screenings of his work at the guy’s theater, like as if I had the ability to stop that!? Anyhow, the showing went down, but no one came to see. Again, he was a legend in his own mind.
Back around 1977, Marzano ran a film workshop at LINK, a youth counseling center in Lynbrook. From there he developed the Mini-Players, an acting troop that shot Super 8mm movies that were shown at the Uniondale Mini Cinema. Apparently, Marzano received funding for doing this, and it certainly seemed to be one of the kindest gestures Joe ever engaged in. But Bill Shelley shares this, “Joe never paid for anything. He would bully us kids into buying rolls of Super-8 film. And scream, hollar and carry on like a two year old over gas money. I worked with him almost to the end before he was really abusive and wore out his welcome.” See what I mean? Every time I find something to praise about Joe, there is always more information that comes about and contradicts what I had thought. In Marzano’s obituary, the writer clams Marzano made “over 500 films.” That is pure bullshit. Every time Marzano pulled the trigger on a camera, it immediately became “one of his films.”
Amazing, Joe Marzano was a filmmaker, a radio DJ, a voiceover actor, acted on stage and on screen, and in the long run, he was an overgrown infant who ended up pissing off just about everyone who had tried to deal with him on some professional level. So then what is the point of this article, why was I compelled to write it? As I stated at the beginning of this piece, an odd nostalgia has started pervading my thoughts. Joe became the centerpiece of recollections. I believe this happened because I never resolved my issues with Joe. He never got to apologize to me, nor me to him. I guess that leaves a door open for me that I feel I need to close. I believe this article will help me close that door. My preference is to go out on a lovely memory of the night before Thanksgiving 1989, with Marzano and my then comrads of film watching movies on 16mm, laughing and enjoying each other’s company, an innocent moment that is so hard to find in these weary times we live in today. RIP Joe Marzano, it should have been so much better than it was.
THE END
I'd like to give special thanks to Magick Theater's Ray Young for not only sharing his Marzano memories with me, but also sending me a huge folder of Marzano material that was supposed to be used in the interview conducted in the 80's. This article is ten times richer because of this. Also, thanks to Bill Shelley of Shelley Archives for sharing his Marzano memories, he provided me with many laughs. And thanks also to my librarian wife Christina Crocker for getting all the newspaper articles and ads, I could not of done it without her. And of course thanks to Joe Marzano for providing all the memories.
