The Sundance Channel, along with Academy Award-winning documentary company Docurama (Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy and The First Amendment Project), are set to release Debbie Does Dallas: UNCOVERED, an exploration of Debbie Does Dallas, the 70's classic that become one of adult’s five highest grossing titles of all time.
The film delves into the lives of the original cast, 27 years later, as well as those of producers and directors, that created a fascinating mythology out of a film that should have been just another porn movie. With interviews from original stars like Herschel Savage, R. Bolla, Eric Edwards and Robin Byrd, the documentary tries to illuminate their lives, past and present. The interview subjects talk openly about the drugs, the exploitation and the thrill of having sex on camera, during a time when the adult entertainment industry was in its infancy.
During the time of Debbie Does Dallas, there were only a handful of porn stars, and as Francis Hanly, the film’s director and narrator observes, “most [of the talent] had gotten into the business by accident. The leads of Debbie Does Dallas had all started out wanting to be legitimate actors.”
“Back then, a lot of the talent were frustrated theatre performers,” said Debbie Does Dallas art director, A.J. Cohen. Cohen continues by saying that you could take the sex scene out of most of the adult movies of the 70's “and you would still have a legitimate movie.”
“Never did I dream that Debbie Does Dallas would be the knockout hit that it was.”
The film also takes a look at the torrid incidents that surrounded Debbie Does Dallas. Bambi Woods, the film’s doe-eyed star, went missing shortly after the filming, never to be seen again. Inexplicably, the 25-year mystery of the small town girl-turned-porn starlet continues, as some have pronounced Woods dead while others think she’s still alive, hiding out.
One of those skeptics was Bob Burge, a distributor at adult mainstay VCX. Burge wanted to do a sequel for Debbie Does Dallas, and had tried, unsuccessfully, to contact Woods in the process, with the use of a private investigator. “If she was dead it would have been a lot easier to find her,” speculated Burge.
The Dallas Cowboy cheerleader lawsuit the film subsequently generated, as well as the film’s notorious financier, Micky Zafarano, are both examined also.
For more information on Debbie Does Dallas: UNCOVERED, go to docurama.com.
