Bill Osco is an American film producer and director.
Career
Osco's first production job was the 1970 filmMona, one of the first erotic art films, after Andy Warhol's 1969 filmBlue Movie, to receive a national theatrical release in the United States. The release of Mona is considered to be one of the that helped inaugurate the Golden Age of erotic art films in the United States, and the film is known as one of the paradigms for theatrically released eroticart films. That same year, Osco directed the documentary Hollywood Blue with Michael Benveniste and Howard Ziehm. In 1971, Osco produced another erotic art film, Harlot, followed by the 1974 sci-fi spoof of Flash Gordon, Flesh Gordon, and the 1976 erotic musical comedy film, Alice in Wonderland. The film grossed over $90 million globally. Produced as a softcore film, Osco later re-edited it into a hardcore pornographic version, utilizing footage not filmed during the original production. Osco produced three films by writer/director Jackie Kong in the 1980s, starting with 1983's The Being, which also starred Osco in the lead role under the pseudonym Rexx Coltrane. This was followed by Kong's Night Patrol in 1984 and The Underachievers in 1987, both of which featured Osco in minor roles. Starting in 1987, Osco began his own directorial career with the comedy special The UnknownComedy Show, a vehicle for stand-up comicMurray Langston, also known as The Unknown Comic. Osco would go on to direct another four movies and shorts, only two of which had erotic themes. In 2007, an Off-Broadwaymusical based on Osco's version of Alice in Wonderland was staged at the Kirk Theatre in New York City, to which Osco was credited with writing the book. Set in a trailer park in Weehawken, New Jersey, the show was entitled Alice in Wonderland: An Adult Musical Comedy and flyers advertising it were designated "For Mature Audiences Only." He was also the owner of a pornography bookstore, Niks and Naks, in Garden City, Idaho, and of the Desert Skies Motel, also in Garden City. He bought his Malibu, California home in 1986.
Style
The style of Osco's erotic movies has been described as awful in the sense that the dialogues are plain, the costumes of poor confection, and the sex scenes disturbingly uninspired. This flat-out style is intentional and the provocative touch of Osco's pictures. His movies are full of trash jokes about homosexuals, prostitutes, victims of rapes,... Vincent Canby qualifies his style as "consistent vulgarity".
