Bob Vosse may be the father of Swedish Erotica (the adult film company, not the art itself) and a respected adult filmmaker - but American film and television viewers know two other pieces of his work far better which have nothing to do with adult films
Vosse may have made his ultimate way in the adult film world, but his two best-known pieces of work were as a cinematographer - Endless Summer, the cult film of the 1960s; and, the famous curling wave which supported the opening credits for CBS's long-running Hawaii Five-O crime drama.
Vosse, who apparently came to lament the direction adult filmmaking has taken since his heyday, died 13 August of heart failure. He was 72.
"He was a complex guy," says Jim Malibu, a Vosse representative. "Basically, he was the father of this business. He started in softcore and, when it went hardcore, he picked it up right from there."
Vosse was the man behind Swedish Erotica's John Holmes series. His recent films included Black Velvet and Babewatch. Malibu estimates he made over 1,000 adult-oriented films.
"He was a real filmmaker," Malibu says. "He understood the whole thing about film and brought that to the (adult) business."
Vosse worked in B movies in Sweden before coming to the United States. He lived in Tennessee, and was a still photographer there and in the Army before he arrived in California after the war. He went to Hollywood in the early 1950s and began making his way in the film world.
He worked originally in beach- and hot rod-oriented films. "He was sort of known as the wave specialist around Hollywood," says Malibu. "And then later he started in the adult softcore films which translated ultimately into hardcore, and he went with the flow."
But not before shooting Endless Summer, still considered the quintessential film impression of California beach culture.
In the early 1970s, he went to work for Swedish Erotica and all but revamped their filmmaking approach. "They put out silent loops," Malibu says. "He revamped their operation with audio, he'd had his filmmaking experience and gave them that. The loops were six with a common theme in them, and we put them together into a featurette on 16mm film."
In the same period, Vosse moved to San Francisco "because you could shoot up there and not in L.A. because it was too hot police-wise," Malibu remembers. Some of the adult film legends who worked with Vosse include Harry Reems and Herschel Savage.
Vosse was often critical of adult films' moving away from storytelling and into a kind of fast cut style where - similar to Hollywood's current grip in special effects - the sex became the thing and the story fell all but through the cracks.
"He just expected people to be professional and a lot of times they're not," Malibu says. "So people would think different things of him. He demanded a lot. And he made a lot of good work. He made a lot of good things happen, he wanted to make the best stuff he could."
Malibu says that when video came along, people were "a little looser" and not quite caring so much, and that didn't sit very well with Vosse.
"The people doing video who came in without film experience, they just turned the camera on and it was there, so they really didn't understand what was going on," Malibu says. "Unless you're an old film guy or really studied or cared about it, the way he did, you didn't care.
"The action is the thing. Now, they rely on special effects instead of a good story line. We (adult filmmakers) now don't do stories, we just rely on lots of sex and don't enhance it with a good story. And if the consumer wants (that), that's what you give. Bob liked to make stories. And, also, each of the sex scenes themselves was a story. But people don't even direct the sex scenes anymore. They just let them happen."
Malibu blames that turn on what he calls "the MTV generation - people who want to see fast cuts, quick sex, and move on. I don't really blame it on anyone but the consumers. Until (they) change, that's what we're up for.
"A lot of (adult film and videomakers) try to do decent stories," he continued, "but they can't justify the cost. You're talking about adult film where it's about time, and to make a story and make the people do what they need to do, you need to take time to set it up and make this all happen. Now, they make this gonzo thing or pieces of it all in one day - and if you want to do stories, you've got to have the time to do them."
Malibu says Vosse also came to believe it was not just too easy to make an adult film now, there were too many people making them.
"Where Bob would want to take the time for lighting, and develop sets, and develop and tune stories as best we could for the money we had, today it's a different game. But you've still got to fill eighty minutes."
Vosse retired back to Tennessee in 1997. His last film projects with Malibu included The Return of Dr. Blackglove.
