Words: R.A. the Rugged Man
Photo: Pawel Litwinski
Don Jones is a ’70s grindhouse auteur and the ultimate indie filmmaker. He’s done it all, including writing, producing, directing, camerawork and even acting. “I did all the jobs on a set from the bottom to the top,” says Jones. This issue of Mass Appeal proudly takes the time to celebrate the heavily underrated kick-ass career of Mista Jones and his world of sleaz-ploitation cinema. In order to introduce you to Don’s films, we brought in another cat with many hats—rapper, film producer and journalist R.A. the Rugged Man in for the job.
What was it like on the set of Schoolgirls in Chains (AKA Let’s Play Dead) [CodeRed ’73]?
We shot it for $45,000 and with low budget pictures, there´s never enough time. But with Play Dead we actually got financing before we had a movie. We had no script or idea.
So you came up with the concept of locking cute little college girls up in a basement and collecting them to play with?
[Laughs] Everybody’s fantasy, right? Nah, I wrote it quickly in three days so we’d have something to shoot. In the film, the girls were kidnapped by two strange guys who were brothers. Their mother raised one as her husband and the other as a child. Not a nice lady.
It wasn’t based on any weird shit from your childhood was it?
No, I had very good parents. There was nothing biographical in any of this stuff, it was just my stupid mind.
The best scene in School Girls is when the girl is topless and the dude forces her to play leapfrog with him.
John Stoglin did a helluva job jumping around on that girl. The actress thought she was gonna be a star and didn’t wanna do the nudity. Even worse, her boyfriend was on set and was a pain in the ass. Never let the boyfriend on the set, especially when John’s bouncing around on top of the actress.
Alan Rudolph made the similar themed Barn Of The Naked Dead [CMC, ’74] a year later. Do you think he saw your film first?
Possible. Someone else recently mentioned that film.
Well, it’s about a guy who kidnaps women and puts them in his barn and keeps them as his circus animals. It’s pretty similar.
Wow, I never saw it but sometimes good ideas come out of different people at the same time. You never know.
The Love Butcher [Desert, ’75] is one of my favorite films ever made. You replaced the original director. What did you add to it and what did you take out?
I’d have to see it again to see what was mine and what was his, but it’s about 50-50. I was cameraman on it, but when we screened it, the audience hated it, so the producer said “Holy shit” and hired me as director. So we kept what worked and re-shot about half.
I think Erik Stern’s performance as Love Butcher is one of the greatest in screen history.
[Laughs] That’s pretty high praise. I wish he could hear it. I don’t know what happened to him. Do you by any chance?
Last time I seen him in anything, he was playing the villain in the Charles Bronson movie, Assassination [Cannon, ’87].
Yeah, that was in the ’80s right? I haven’t seen Erik in 20 years, I have a feeling he’s dead.
He’s great and Love Butcher is great. I like the dialogue—“I am a male Adonis, you’re a gimp, Kaleb.” Those are classic lines.
[Laughs] I haven’t seen it in a while. You probably know more about the movie than I do.
Do you have a particular favorite out of your films?
I think The Forest [CodeRed, ’82]. Gary Kent’s a good actor. He plays this horrible character who’s killing and eating people, which is not a nice thing to do, but Gary makes him likable. Plus that was my money. I hocked my house to make The Forest. I only had $38,000 to shoot it, then I was broke.
That’s real indie filmmaking right there, brother.
Yeah, and after I sold it the guy never paid us, so I lost my house and we had to move out—my wife, my mother-in-law, my daughter.
Wow. What is the most controversial scene you ever filmed?
Well, you should see the original rape scene in Play Dead. You never seen such a wild rape scene. The MPAA made me take it out. It was pretty violent but Gary and the girl did a good job. The rape was really well done.
How was it casting the women? They didn’t have any problems with being raped or leapfrogged?
It was the ’70s, [so] nobody cared much about that stuff, but if you cast someone you’re not sure about, you shoot their nude scenes first and if they don’t do it, you get rid of them right away. If you shoot the nude scene last, then they have power.
’Cause they can decide they don’t wanna do it and you can’t do shit about it.
Right. What are you gonna do? You already photographed them, they can walk and then you’re screwed. The main thing about these movies [is], you’re not trying to do art. Believe me, you’re trying to make money.
Which film do you think offended the most people?
I didn’t think it was offensive, but in Play Dead when John had the stethoscope and was playing doctor with the girl in the cellar and she was nude, a lot of people weren’t too happy about that. For me, I’m not much of a slasher guy, so the worst is when Gary Kent kills the girl in The Forest when she’s crawling on her hands and knees and he’s stabbing her, then he cuts her throat.
I never seen Molly And The Ghost [Contender, ’91]. Is that any good?
I raised the money with a bunch of buddies and shot it cheaply with all unknown actors and it didn’t work. In all honesty, there wasn’t enough nudity.
Where would you have added the nudity?
The ghost. She should’ve been nude a lot. I used a very pretty girl who didn’t wanna do that, but if the ghost was naked all the time, I think the film would’ve worked.
Who have you found to be your biggest fans?
I don’t know. All this is fairly new for me. I did these movies decades ago and all of a sudden people wanna know about them. It’s these young people interested in independent films of the ’60s and ’70s, where the director can do whatever he wants. There was no studio telling you what to do, no one was above me, whatever you wanted to do you did. I guess that’s what they like.
