Hey you! Yeah, you. Come here. Now listen, I’m gonna give you an offer you can’t refuse. Let me open the back of this truck and show you the goods. I stumbled upon a truck filled with vintage VHS tapes from an old ma and pa store from the early 90s. Terrible Andy Sedaris bikini flickers? Got ‘em. Roger Corman actioners starring the likes of Michael Dudikoff and Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson? Got ‘em. An orange Nickelodeon VHS tape featuring the best of SNICK? Come on, who do you think you’re talking to? Oh, the disrespect on this kid, am I right? But listen, I like you. You seem like a real wise guy, so I’ll tell you what. I got a real top winner here in the back. Yeah, way in the back, by my two guys there. What? Don’t worry, those Tommy guns ain’t loaded. Just for show. Way back, I got a box filled to the brim with… get this? Factory sealed, never been played before… You ready? Fred (CENSORED) Olen Ray direct-to-video treasures! Okay, so whaddya need? A picture-perfect copy of Scalps? Got it. A never been opened tape of Scream Queen Hot Tub Party? Got it. A rare, stupidly intact version of Wizards of the Demon Sword? Got it (but I have to admit it’s the European video nasty copy of a copy). Wait, what’s that? You want a copy of his masterpiece of mafia mishap madness, Mob Boss, starring Eddie Deezen?!? Sure, I have something in the ba… What are those red lights? It’s the coppers! Run! I’d love to stay and help you, kid, but you’ll have to settle on a previously viewed copy from Family Video or your local thrift store, and be sure to pick up its companion piece of Beverly Hill Vamp while you’re at it!
A true renaissance man, as well as family man and veteran, Fred Olen Ray (aka Bill Carson, S. Carver, Roger Collins, Peter Daniels, Nicholas Medina, Nick Medina, Sam Newfield, Ed Raymond, Sherman Scott, Peter Stewart, and Freddie Valentine to name a few of his many various pseudonym directors names) might be the one Florida man whose headlines might actually be true! Born in Ohio in the early fifties, Ray was a true monster kid, reading every issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland from cover to cover and regularly attending the drive-in and local matinees, where his dream of becoming a filmmaker took hold. Eventually making his way to a local TV station in the sunshine state, his entrepreneurial nature led him to use the station equipment to make his first feature film, The Brain Leeches, for a mere three hundred dollars, and though not a fan of the project (who could not be a fan of a pro-wrestling scientist who battles aliens!?!), it did encourage Ray to advance further for his next feature, The Alien Dead, after which a career skyrocketed with a reported one-hundred-and-sixty-five directorial credits to his name (and counting… and counting… and counting… Actually, within the time it took you to read this, he made four more)! One of these self-financed/produced/directed weapons of mass entertainment would be Mob Boss, Ray’s attempt to do his version of Eddie Deezen Meets The Brooklyn Gorilla type picture with The King of the USA Up All Night nerds Eddie Deezen (perfectly cast as a mafia hoodlum, right?). Not since Marlon Brando left the Oscar at the altar has a bullet of creativity rung through the screen. It would be easy to look at the film and tear it down for the off-kilterness it sometimes delivers (some bad acting in a few spots, a storyline Mario Puzo would spit on, etc.). Still, I look at it and am impressed by how much real talent Ray was able to muscle onto your ’92 Toshiba CRT 13-inch TV Model CF1327B. Just the ability to compile together a list of actors like Oscar nominated actors William Hickey (Prizzi’s Honor) and Stuart Whitman (The Mark), Morgan Fairchild (The Seduction), Irwin Keyes (Frankenstein General Hospital), Don Stroud (License to Kill), Brinke Stevens (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama), and Leo Gordon (McLintock!) would be enough to impress the harshest critic, but the legend managed to include the likes of Dick Miller (Chopping Mall) to make a small appearance! Released in a select few theatres, but mostly geared toward the home video market, the film played heavily on TV rotation on late night venues like USA Up All Night due to the nudity in the film easily snipped out, another clever ploy by Ray to make sure it would find an audience, even if critics took out a contract to whack it D.O.A., something Ray (looking very much like a cigar smoking Corleone family member) never feared from the likes. Get out of here!
The age-old question (one I’m sure many of us face in our daily lives) – can the son of the mafia don take over the family business (talk about a son-of-a-gun)? On occasion, in real life, this has happened, but rarely; that never stopped Ray from truly wanting to discover the truth through his art. When Don Anthony has his life attempted in a jumbled contract hit, he is left with no choice but to bring his estranged son into the family business to make sure the other families don’t swarm him like sharks, but like most of the fish swimming (sleeping) in the sea, his son (Deezen) stinks! Knowing nothing about what his father does, the Don’s son is placed in charge, and as an audience (maybe not as a critic), his shenanigans to discover what the mafioso life is truthfully (um…) like will make you find a thousand ways to die… laughing!
Gunning you down at a ninety-three minutes, Deezen would team up with Ray one more time (but only with Ray as a screenwriter) to create a Ray/Deezen trilogy with Teenage Exorcist, starring alongside Ray alums Brinke Stevens and Michael Barrymore (The Hills Have Eyes). You can find this little thug on streaming services like Tubi, but if you are a true connoisseur of Ray’s oeuvre, you can buy/watch most of his films on Blu-Ray/DVD from Amazon and directly from his website, retromediapress.com. So, listen, kid, now that the fuzz has scattered, what would you offer for this collector’s edition VHS of Deep Space? In fact, save your money, but there will come a time when I must ask you for a favor (to rob a warehouse that stores vintage cassettes of Dinosaur Island), and I just ask you to remember this day. Go ahead and kiss my dubbed German version of Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold! Now, (CENSORED) off! You’re bothering The Rayfather!
