PEEP SHOW holds a significant place in cinematic history for a number of reasons. Most notoriously, the film's use of pornographic imagery got it banned from several countries and even resulted in the director's brief incarceration in Rome.

More importantly, however, the film tackled a multitude of subjects that did not come in vogue until the seventies. Nearly a decade before Coppola and Scorsese, PEEP SHOW offered an unrelentingly grim and realistic portrait of organized crime, undoubtedly influenced by Mr. Williams' personal experiences as a onetime "gofer" to Johnny Rosselli and other mobsters in Los Angeles.

Released less than two years after the assassination of JFK, PEEP SHOW was also the first film to explore the dark side of Camelot. Besides tracing the tangled web of theories that may have led to the assassination, PEEP SHOW gives a blistering account of the fixing of the 1960 election and the unholy alliance between Joe Kennedy and La Cosa Nostra. (Not surprisingly, PEEP SHOW was funded entirely from European sources).

In addition to screening PEEP SHOW, film scholar, curator, and archivist Noel Lawrence will give a detailed introduction on the making of the film and the colorful life of its director, including excerpts from Mr. Williams forthcoming memoir “The Big Footnote”. We will also present three of his short films from the late 1960’s: “Psych-Burn”, “Satan Claus”, and “The Virgin Sacrifice”.

"Creating a unique body of work from a heady ferment of crime, drugs, politics and porn, J.X. Williams was either a mad genius or a mob stooge. Rediscovery of his films will help cinema historians decide. He could very well be the Missing Link in the secret history of mid-20th century America." -- Eddie Muller, Programmer, San Francisco Film Noir Festival

"PEEP SHOW has a dark, sleek, seductive look, like polished obsidian – a dark magnificence that emerges in its revelation of an unspeakable construct of extortion, drugs, and the leveraging of influence in the highest (and lowest) of places." -- Gregory Avery, Nitrate Online

Film Program

Psych-Burn 1968 | 16mm | 3:00
Unfinished music video for never-aired ABC pilot.

Satan Claus 1975 | 16mm | 3:00
"In the mid-Seventies, I was working as a projectionist for this crummy movie theatre in downtown LA.   The owner owed me six weeks back wages and when I ask him for the money, the scumbag has the gall to inform me that I'm getting laid off Christmas week. If he'd known my reputation for mischief, he might have thought twice about it. On my last day of work, I had to project a Christmas matinee for kids. Before the main feature, I added an unannounced opener to the program called "Satan Claus".   I fled the theatre right after my film ended but I heard the owner had to refund the entire box office.   Even then, several outraged parents filed a lawsuit against the theatre. Merry Christmas, you cheap bastard!"

- J.X. Williams (from his forthcoming biography "The Big Footnote").

The Virgin Sacrifice 1969 | 16mm | 9:00 (excerpt)
"Before 'Virgin', I never put much stock in the idea of a 'cursed' production. Take a film like 'Incubus'. Just cause the director's nephew died, the production company went belly up, and Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate attended the premiere....Those could all just be coincidences. Shit happens. But with 'Virgin', you could just smell the vapor of evil clouding the set. It didn't help that our chief investor was a ranking member of the Church of Satan. In the end, we tallied three OD's, a maimed-for-life set designer, bankruptcy, and a car bombing (sort of). Even the film itself disappeared. Not just the prints. The film lab burnt down and we lost the negative. All I've got left is the nine minute opening to the main feature and the sound-sync is fucked."

- J.X. Williams (from his forthcoming biography "The Big Footnote").

Peep Show 1965 | 16mm | 46:00

Chicago 1961,The Labor war between the Teamsters and the Seafarers is heating up and Union Cab Local #777 is caught in the frying pan... A passenger enters a taxi. Pulls a gun on himself. A backseat suicide? No. He just wants to talk. Needs a confessor. He's mobbed up. They've got a contract on him. Has one last story to tell. Fasten your seat belts for a wild ride through the mean streets of Chicago, the fleshpots of Hollywood, and the secret corridors of Washington where the real decisions are made. Hold your breath, shut your eyes and get ready for the Peep Show ! - From a 1965 press kit for "Peep Show", author unknown