Screening
AnnouncementUnderworld Cinema: The Life and Work of J.X. Williams
Showcave
1218 1/2 Temple
Los Angeles
Friday, May 25th 9:00
For press inquiries and bookings, please contact Noel Lawrence at 415-290-0401.
For more info on J.X. Williams, visit http://www.jxarchive.org
The 2004 program at the Rotterdam Film Festival presented two major cinematic rediscoveries -- the original version of John Cassavettes’ “Shadows” and a lesser known but equally significant film by an obscure director who worked under the pseudonym “J.X. Williams”. Produced in Copenhagen in 1965, PEEP SHOW chronicles a secret history of the Kennedy administration, revealing a mafia plot to addict Frank Sinatra 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 in 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. (Not surprisingly, PEEP SHOW was funded entirely from European sources).
In addition to screening PEEP SHOW, film scholar, curator, and archivist Noel Lawrence will give a detailed introduction on the making of the film and the colorful life of its director, including a discussion of his forthcoming J.X. documentary "The Big Footnote". We also will present three of his short films from the late 1960’s: “Psych-Burn”, “Satan Claus”, and “The Virgin Sacrifice”.