Back in his early days at USC Film School, long before he helmed iconic movies like “The Godfather,” Francis Ford Coppola made a unique entrance into the film world by lending his talents to enhancing soft-core adult films such as “Tonight for Sure.”
One of Coppola’s ventures into this realm involved shooting approximately 18 minutes of 3-D and color footage, which was later incorporated into an English version of a black-and-white German film called “The Bellboy and the Playgirls.”
Recently, a snippet lasting two minutes from this peculiar 3-D project, featuring the well-endowed Playboy model June Wilkinson, has been unveiled on Blu-ray as part of a newly released collection known as “3-D Rarities.”
The producer of this compilation, Bob Furmanek, has hinted that the complete restored film will be available in the future through his 3-D Film Archive.
According to unearthed documents, Coppola was paid $250 by the American distributor to contribute additional scenes, sequences, dialogue, and narration to the film.
It is widely speculated that the future Academy Award winner also took on the role of director for the 3-D segments involving Wilkinson and comedian Don Kenney, who portrayed a bellboy with ambitions of becoming a detective and indulged in spying on lingerie models.
Furmanek has disclosed that partial n^dty is featured in the 18-minute segment directed by Coppola, falling under the category of “nudie cuties” that thrived prior to the emergence of explicit adult content on American screens in the late 1960s.
However, the excerpt from “3-D Rarities” showcased during Kenney’s drag act does not venture beyond the stereoscopic camera zooming into Wilkinson’s impressive cleavage.
Despite its absence from previous screenings of “3-D Rarities” at the Museum of Modern Art, the “Bellboy” clip will be presented again on specific dates for interested viewers.
Attendees of MoMA have been treated to a rare 3-D burlesque short titled “I’ll Sell My Shirt,” featuring a comedic routine where George “Beetlepuss” Lewis and Charlie Crafts coax Corky “Da’ Brooklyn Lovebird” Marshall into a striptease down to her undergarments.
The compilation, overseen by John McElwee from Greenbriar Picture Shows and distributed in Blu-ray format by Flicker Alley, showcases an array of 3-D curiosities dating back to 1922.
Included are a 1953 boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott, 3-D footage of an atomic bomb test, promotional clips from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, various 3-D trailers for feature films, and animated shorts like the meticulously restored “Boo Moon” (1954) featuring Casper
