NEW YORK CITY — Annie Sprinkle is one of the most talented, gracious and enduring stars in the annals of porn ... so imagine how happy we were to receive this latest update from her:
"A group of us from the 1970s NYC porn biz, plus Veronica Vera representing the 80s, got together just for fun at Zarella's restaurant in Manhattan," she wrote.
"I was flown to NYC by Arthur Morowitz's adorable son Steven Morowitz (and his partner Josh), who inherited Distripix film company.
"They will be remastering, re-releasing and repackaging my 1981 porn film classic, Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, for a collector edition - PLUS at long last reinstating the long-censored famous golden shower scene. So they filmed me on a director chair reminiscing about the making of the film. The film looks amazing - you can see every single pubic hair, and we all sure had a lot of pubic hair back then!"
"It as so great to see everyone. I never thought I'd see the day. I was reminded of the unique, fun, creative people I made movies with, and fucked, in the Golden Age. As porn director Carter Stevens emailed me recently, 'We are the dinosaurs still roaming the Earth.' Dinosaurous REXXX indeed! Everyone brought their significant others, except Kim who came with a mutual friend Rosanna."
"The attendees were: Michael Datore; George Payne; Ralph Logia (aka Ralph El, who worked for [the late producer/director] Leonard Kirtman and wrote and directed my first leading role in Teenage Deviate); the ever-dashing Jamie Gillis; Joe Sarno (directed me in Slippery When Wet), who is rarely seen in public these days; Veronica Vera (my beloved bosom buddy); Kim Pope (who was the biggest star when I got into X in 1973 and my role model); and moi, happily overexposed. Everyone was warm and friendly and cuddly."
"Cameraman Larry Revene, who shot so many films, was with us too."
"We toasted the 'bad' old days, and remembered all those who are no longer roaming the Earth, by name."
"Thanks Steve and Josh for picking up the tab. Good luck with your company, and keeping our erotic heritage alive!
Perhaps one day we can make it an even bigger reunion. That would be fun."
"PS: The daily paper in Norway (like the NY Post) where I was doing an exciting art project with my wonderful wifey Beth some months ago called me a 'fallen porn star.' If this is what it is to fall, please let me fall further."
**
We were sufficiently intrigued by the prospect of a rerelease of Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle that we gave a call to Steve Morowitz for additional info.
"Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle is, I think, by far her favorite movie, and we've had a lot of customers demand since we started, you know, asking why was it edited? Why was it cut?" Morowitz told AVN. "It wasn't an issue of quality, because it was a better-shot film by Joe Sarno, so it was more about getting the stuff back in there, and since we initiated our Platinum Elite Collections , which is this new style we're doing - remastering the movies and getting the stars involved and adding liner notes and high-end box art - we've already done the transfer from 35 mm negative. It's beautiful. It's uncut; we didn't tamper with it at all except to make sure it was good quality, and everything had to be cleaned, so we put it through the ultrasonic film bath and all that stuff.
"We're very pleased with the quality. The old one wasn't that bad, but the background was very dark, and the difference between the new one and the old one are like night and day. You can actually tell from the opening scene when she's behind the piano and talking about her life and stuff, you can totally see the set in the background, whereas in the old version, it's very dark and she's popping out of the foreground. Now it's back to the form you would have seen it in the theater."
"Usually we have somebody voice-over one scene or sometimes we'll have somebody pick their favorite scene," he continued, "but with Annie, we actually did a whole interview, which was a whole tape from two cameras. Then we set up a laptop and had it right in front of her and she did a whole 90-minute commentary, scene per scene, action per action. What we're trying to do, so that the commentary works well, we're going to author the movie the way it's been seen in theaters - it'll be in a multiple disc pack - and then the second disk will be the movie in a picture-in-picture look and Annie will be in there talking the entire time. It's historical, but it's more of an erotic voiceover. Not one you're going to masturbate to, but Annie's much more poetic and artistic that a lot of the other stars."
Morowitz noted that his in-house historian will be writing an eight-page "liner notebook" to accompany the discs, including clips of newspaper ads and reviews of the period.
"It looks like it's going to be a three-disc set," he said. "The first movie will be the exact 35 mm version, just the way we want it to be seen, and maybe the trailer as well. The second will be the same version but with commentary, and as we're doing the authoring, we may add other options to the menu. And then the third disc will be the bonus interview with Annie, all about her life and her love of porn. We formulated a lot of questions based around her life, because we knew she would talk about Deep Inside for the commentary; we wanted to get other things so it was clearly not just doing the same thing twice."
Morowitz is contemplating a theatrical "premiere" in New York City when the package is released, and plans to invite several of the film's stars to attend.
(Photo: Top row, l-r: Michael Datore, George Payne, Ralph Logia, Jamie Gillis, Joe Sarno. Bottom row, l-r: Veronica Vera, Kim Pope, Annie Sprinkle.)
