Now that Mara Epstein of iCandy brought up the fact that there was a missing John Holmes/Marilyn Chambers scene at the end of the Up ‘n Coming master which was used to spin the DVD, our curiosity got the better of us and we checked in with historian Jim Holliday who actually did some radio character voiceovers in the film to get an idea of the context of that scene.
Holliday: "Director Godfrey Daniels had cut three versions of this film - an X, and R and a southern Drive-In Theater version. He prieviewed the film a bunch of times, and he wasn't happy with some stuff. He said he really needed something kick ass, and John Holmes had just got out of jail. With Marilyn available for a day, we went to San Francisco at a cost of about $20,000 and did the pick-up scene [with Holmes] in one day. The scene featured John [Holmes was only in this one scene], Marilyn, Herschel Savage and Lili Marlene."
"The film had a theatrical date of three weeks after Holmes got out of jail. They shot it [the scene], edited it and tagged it on and two weeks later it was on the market. Now, Holmes had a done a scene first for Carlos Tobolina after he got out of jail, but Up ‘n Coming was the first Holmes film released after he got out."
Holliday recalls that the Holmes scene was one of the first to incorporate the "Hollidayisms". "Holmes' name in the film was one of the characters from The Rockford Files who was a big country star," says Holliday. "Holmes was playing basically a Buck Owens who spins around in a chair, meets Cassie Harlan [Chambers] and that's what led to the scene. That also led me to going nuts with Godfrey Daniels where I would walk in and say I've written this scene nine different ways, there is no other way to write it. What's wrong? Everybody had to play Hollywood. I said give me a break, have him [Holmes] say these lines."
Holliday says he has seen a videotape of Up ‘n Coming with this scene intact. "Something is screwy," he says.
