Hot Summer in the City Book Review (Part 1: The Book vs The Movie, Day 1, Chapter 2)

Chapter 2 (Arriving at the Gang's Cabin): Unlike the movie where the cabin has electricity, the book's cabin is more like a shack and does not appear to have electricity. At the cabin, the gang is depicted as using kerosene lamps. In the movie, Stitch gets yelled at about possibly starting a fire due to leaving a light on, whereas book Stitch gets yelled at for not screwing in the kerosene lamp. There is also a fireplace, that is not seen in the movie cabin.

The conversation for the remainder of this evening at the cabin is pretty much verbatim to the screen play. This is actually of value because it helps you to understand what Duke is saying in the movie, as there are a few points where his words sound slurred or otherwise inaudible. Here are the ones I had trouble with: 

1. Duke responding to Shorty's question about what he is going to do about the "honky chick" who could get loose and blow the whole plan: She aint gonna git loose, well make sure of that, and besides, the big glow aint for two more days now, an' we'll worry 'bout her when the time comes."

- The reference to a big glow is an obvious reference to the planned Race Riot, but I have never heard that expression before and it sounded to me like Duke said "blow'." As Duke makes the reference to their "killing 100 honkies on Friday," this seems to make the evening of Debbie's kidnapping a Wednesday night. The movie, however, appears to make it a Saturday night when Bill says he will pick her up for Church the next day. Historically the riots began on a Sunday, so both dates are off, although it was possible that Duke was just giving Debbie misinformation.  I reconcile all this in my novel, but you will have to read it to see it:)

2.  Duke explaining to the gang why it is within his right to claim Debbie as "his chick": "I got the right, remember the Club rules. Chief Leopard gits first choice on all the spoils of war."

-This and other parts of the book allude to the gang being a part of a Club, one in which they have sworn an oath. I have not seen any historical references to the term "Chief Leopard" among the Black Panthers or any other Black Nationalist Group. 

3. Duke explaining the "Honky War" to the gang in response to Shorty's objection that Debbie was not a spoil of war, and that they had all seized her together:  "Man that's the honky war. You heard what cats like Stokley Carmichael and Rap Brown say: We're at war with them honkies. Why do you think we're heah boy? 

-In the movie Duke make an additional remark about a Cadilliac, but the only historical reference I can find is Rap Brown stating white people don't beat black people for owning a Cadillac, they beat them because they are black. I have no idea what point Duke is trying to make here, then again, he could just be drunk lol. 

After being led into the cabin, Debbie pays close attention to the banter between the gang. She picks up on the fact that it sounds as though they are involved in plotting some kind of civil unrest after hearing a remark about how last year's riot will be seen as small compared to what they are planning now. She makes a mental connection to last year's riots, reflecting how people are worried that they will start again with school ending in a few weeks. The reference to school being out seems out of place since the date of last year's biggest riot was August 11, 1966, and is remembered as the "Kercheval incident"). Unless of course Debbie was thinking about Summer School.

In the kitchen, Debbie has to heat water on a stove prior to doing dishes. Debbie sees a backdoor to the cabin from the kitchen but it is padlocked. Over the gas stove cooking the same famous pork chops and beans meal as in the movie, Debby blames her mother for her predicament and vows never to forgive her.

A damsel in distress with a flair for history, Debbie analogizes her situation to women in 1945 Berlin who were raped and accepted becoming the property of a Russian soldier whom they would ordinarily be repulsed by, simply for safety reasons. She tactically concludes she must do the same. As the men eat their dinner, she strategically evaluates each gang member, confidently concluding that with her beauty she could win any of them over to be her protector. She describes the men as they as the appear in the movie, although she feels most afraid of Stitch, whereas movie Debby appeared most petrified by Shorty (at least before Jody shows up!). 

Debbie quickly concludes Duke is the best candidate to be her protector. He's strong, clearly the group's
leader, and her female intuition is sensing he is already developing a soft spot for her, despite his having raped her in the car and slapped her after they arrived at the cabin. Debbie believes Duke is acting so dominant towards her (and to a lesser extent the others), as a means of maintaining his stature as the gang's leader. Debbie hopes during her captivity he will become nicer to her in private and become protective of her with the others. To accomplish this, she resolves to be completely subservient to Duke, and through her submission earn his favor and trust until she can escape. 

Card game- book vs. movie similarities and differences: During his poker challenge, book Duke makes Debbie strip naked in front of the fireplace as he prepares to offer her as his collateral for a game of poker. Debbie stands behind him nude during the poker game and watches her fate unfold. Movie Debby stayed dress during the game, which required a $50.00 buy-in, while the book's buy-in was only $5.00. Stitch however, apparently hard strapped for cash, had to borrow money in both instances. The last hand ends the same, Shorty beats Duke with 3 Kings over 3 Queens. 

Debbie's violation - book vs. movie similarities and differences: Other than Debbie's state of being nude during her beating, (Movie Debby still had her dress on, hence affording our heroine an extra layer of protection besides the blanket she's rolled into), Shorty's belt whipping of Debbie plays out basically the same in both versions. Debbie pleads that she doesn't deserve to be beaten, "I've tried to help. I've marched and everything." This likely refers to Debbie having been present at Martin Luther King's Walk of Freedom March in Detroit, on June 23, 1963, the summer before Debbie's freshman year of high school. 

Additionally, we learn that Debbie has also done sit-ins to protest big city housing laws and supported money drives for poor southern blacks, even though she lives in a small town where these issues don't exist. Debbie doesn't mention any of this though, believing the political aspect of her being beaten and impending rape is just an excuse for what animals like Shorty and his cohorts wanted to do anyway. 

Shorty's actual sexual assault of Debbie is much different than the movie, where she is forcibly put on her hands and knees and made to run a train with Coke in her mouth and Shorty violating her from behind. Instead, Shorty gives her a gentle and prolonged experience of oral sex. The reason? As Shorty mentally notes:

"She had passed the first stage of physical submission by violence and now the conquest of her mind and spirit must be accomplished by softness of touch."

Thankful for the physical beating having ended, Debbie's body actually responds as Shorty planned:

"They were no longer hurting her...There was only the light rising sensation of floating, floating on a soft-gentle fleece-covered cloud whose very warmth belied the presence of danger...She had geared her mind to the fighting of the pain and humiliation...but not softness and pleasure. She had not prepared for it." 

As the scene transitions from Shorty's giving Debbie some surprisingly pleasant feeling oral sex to the moment before she is roughly penetrated, the dark political and sociological motives of Shorty's mind are revealed:  

"Shorty could feel the thoughts running through her body and knew that he had won...He pried [her] wide open until all her crotch stood open and unprotected before him...his for the taking. ... He wanted to explode inside her white little belly with himself in rhythm to her own cries of fulfillment. He wanted to fill her with his hot nigger cum until she would never forget tonight as long as she lived. The spoiled little bitch, he'd stretch her so wide, she'd never even be able to feel one again. All the years he had spent in bitter subjugation himself began to bubble over in a boiling cauldron of hate and lust and the desire to hurt...

He ached all over from the thought of the lovely young white girl kneeling in abject servitude in front of him to be used as he would for as long as he could..."

Debbie's violation then mostly unfolds in the same manner of the book, although Coke watches Shorty for awhile before filling her mouth with his manhood. 

"She could feel him thrusting more sadistically now, the sight of her bucking body incited him to greater and greater effort. Her breath had become one long continuous groan that was no longer muffled by the filthy sheet. She was droning on the mattress so that he could look down on it and see with lust-gleaming eyes the effect he was having on her. Her lips opened and closed fishlike in torment, half in humiliation and shame from the sudden uncontrollable feeling surging through her, and half in fear she would be ripped asunder by the cruel hands coursing brutally over body..."

When Coke joins in we learn that his penis he's cramming into Debbie's mouth is between 7 and 8 inches long. Shorty and Coke climax inside Debbie's womb and mouth respectively, unlike the movie where external cum shots were seen, as common with X-rated movies of the time. The final moment involving Stitch is slightly different, as book Stitch begins to penetrate Debbie in the missionary position but is then thrown off of her by Shorty. Debbie then suffers one final indignity, watching through exhausted, hazy eyes, Shorty masturbate a load of his desire onto her breasts. 

"And then, there was nothing. As she drifted down into a welcome, protective cloak of sleep and exhaustion, just as she lay, too battered and lost to even put her legs together."

Hot Summer in the City Book Review (Part 1: The Book vs The Movie, Day 1, Chapter 1)

As stated in the last post, I thought readers would enjoy knowing what significant material was left out of the movie, and what significant differences exist between the two stories. In addition, as an aspiring author seeking to draft a sequel to this movie, I wanted to cull the book for additional background material and possible storylines that could help me to tell a better story, one that will be true to the spirit of both the original book and movie. 

There are a few, small but irreconcilable differences between the book and movie which will create situations where I must make choices as to what material should be considered canonical in my novelization. Readers will be able to come to these book review posts to see where those choices were made. In most cases I will err in favor of the movie, given that is what fans will be more familiar with, since the book is almost impossible to find. 

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR: As the book author is listed as "The Hare" who is also accredited with directing the movie, HSITC's book author is widely believed to be Gail Palmer.  However, just as with HSITC's directorship, book authorship is also disputed, and this controversy will be addressed in a future post. 

The HSITC book has 6 chapters which cover events over a three-day period in July 1967. I will address significant differences between the book and movie, as well additional material found only in the book. I will also post some excerpts from the book that I feel are well written and help capture both the spirit of the characters, and the summer of 1967 time period in which this story unfolds. Without further ado, let's get started: 

Chapter 1 (Intro Scene: Debby driven home by Bill).  This chapter actually contains the most additional material and differences between the book and movie.  The book starts off just like the movie, with Bill driving his girlfriend and our story's protagonist, Debbie, home from an engagement party. Or should I have said, "Debby"? 

Mark this as the first difference! In my sequel novel's draft, I am using the movie spelling as I was unaware of the other when I started it. I have elected to stay with this as the canonical spelling for my novel, but will use "Debbie" here, to stay true to the book. 

On the drive home, we learn that Debbie and Bill have recently became engaged and are returning home from an engagement party. Debbie is described as being dressed up in a bare shouldered, knee length, white veneered formal. A symbolic choice of color by the author, given Debbie is at her engagement party and later forcibly loses her virginity to Duke in the back of the gang's car. The backdrop to the story is that it is occurring in Michigan, right before the 1967 Detroit Race Riot, which historically occurred in July of 1967.

Two significant differences quickly reveal themselves:

    1. The movie has the couple leaving the Pontchartrain Hotel (in Detroit, Michigan), whereas the book depicts the party at their local Country Club. 

    2. The movie has them getting married in 3 months, whereas the book says four years, during which time Debbie intends to work while Bill goes to college. While movie Debby is clearly intended to be a college aged young woman, we soon learn that book Debbie is only 18 years old! In my novel, I have elected to stay with the movie on these points. 

As the car scene continues to the point where the couple arrives at Debby's house, much additional information is learned about the family dynamics in Debbie's household:  

-Debbie's father had died several months ago, after a long, undefined illness. Debbie was very close to her father and is wanting to stay a virgin until she marries because of him. She feels his spirit is watching her, and out of love for him she doesn't want to break a promise she made to him to be a "good girl" shortly before the end of his life. She equates this with staying a virgin until she is married. Hence, Bill doesn't get past first base with Debbie in the book either.

- Debbie's mother was at the party with Bill's parents and other family and friends. Both moms' had too much to drink. Debbie's mom embarrassed Debbie by dancing suggestively with many men, and ended up having to be driven home early by Bill's dad (named Sam) and a family friend known only as Mr. Grover. Debby is so embarrassed by her mother's behavior she becomes suspicious that she may have been having an affair on her dad during the period he was dying. Her mother often came home late from what she described as "charity engagements."  Just as in the movie, Bill's dad and Mr. Grover take Debbie's mom home (described as being colonial style house). 

-New Character: Debbie's brother "Jimmy"

 Debbie's brother is a source of conflict in Debbie's family. Jimmy has run away to San Francisco due to believing their father has been too hard on him. Their father believed their mother coddled Jimmy too much and they fought over him and blamed each other for his running away. Now in San Fransisco, Jimmy has to keep begging his mom for money to survive. Their mother is now giving him less than he needs as she is trying to force him to come home. Debbie is very worried about his well-being and has even given him some of her own money out of concern. Jimmy's latest request for money had been much more than usual, and Debbie's is afraid he is in serious trouble. 

Due to this issue, Debbie began being lavished with extra love and attention by her father while he was alive. This has made Debbie's mother resent her, especially as after he died, Debbie was given the bulk of his inheritance in a Trust Account. Debbie's mother was seemingly left with just a life estate in the home and a single fund that provides her a monthly allowance, and Jimmy received nothing. Unfortunately for Debbie, she won't be given income from the Trust until she is 21 and has only $80.00 to her name from her high school graduation money (which is actually $673.41 in 2022 money!). 

As this scene ends, another significant difference occurs. Instead of Bill and Debbie parting happily, the two begin arguing about Jimmy, and Bill calls Jimmy a "weak livered sissy" which makes Debbie angry. She slams his car door and then storms into the house. 

Scene 2 -Debby enters her family house

-Upon entering the house, Debbie sees booze on the kitchen table and makes a mixed drink with coke to calm her nerves (omitted in the movie) . 

-As in the movie, Debbie hears sounds that make her believe her mother is being assaulted. But then she peeks in and sees her mother having sex with Bill's dad, followed by Mr. Grover (whose watching from a chair and stroking his uncircumcised manhood instead of being given head like in the movie). Mr. Grover's penis is the first penis Debbie has ever seen in her life and she is grossed out by it (innocently thinking 'it looks like a one-eyed monster').  Debby leaves her home running out the front door and forgets to shut it.

-Walking the street at night by herself, Debbie decides she needs to breakup with Bill and hates her mother so much she never wants to see her again.  Breaking up with Bill is a must, as the sight of her mother having sex with Bill's dad felt incestuous.  Seeing them together confirms Debbie's suspicions that her mother must have been cheating on her father before he died.

- Debbie contemplates her future and decides to somehow get to San Francisco to be with her brother, who is the only person she feels she has left in her life.

- Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Debbie, she has passed by the park near her home and is walking on a street at the edge of town. Soon a carload of black men pullup beside Debbie and begin openly ogling and harassing her, scaring her into going off running into the night. Debbie is then kidnapped by the men with the nearby neighbor looking on indifferently, just as in the movie. 

Scene 3. Kidnapped and violated in the Gang's car 

Before discussing this disturbing scene, a brief review of HSITC's historical time period is in order. Through this prism one is better able to appreciate the author's work, seeing how the grim details in this scene are essential (i.e. non- gratuitous) elements that illuminate the true complexity and spirit of the HSITC story.

July 1967 is a year of great racial unrest in the U.S. Many in the Black community are frustrated by the seeming lack of social progress resulting from the peaceful Civil Rights movements. Some are even turning towards Black Nationalist & Separatist movements which advocate violence as a necessary means for creating a society that doesn't discriminate against them. 

At this time, the Supreme Court ruling that prohibited States from making interracial marriage illegal was only one month old.  Because of such laws (and many other reasons) many black men saw white women as the ultimate symbol of white supremacy and equated the sexual possession of one as symbolic of freedom. Writing from prison, Black Panther Leader Eldridge Cleaver describes white women as being from a forbidden tribe, quoting a fellow black inmate as saying, "All our lives we've had the white woman dangled over our heads like a carrot before a donkey. Look but don't touch." 

Cleaver wrote this while serving time in prison for raping a white woman and admitted to having raped several. While expressing remorse for this in his book "Soul on Ice," he described feeling at the time that his offense was an "insurrectionary act," as by defiling white women he was defying and trampling on the white man's laws and systems of values. During the turbulence of the late 1960s, this type of motive was growing in prevalence among both black and white perpetrators of interracial rapes, each viewing it as a type of justifiable revenge for the inverse form of rape committed by the other. 

In the HSITC book, it is as though the author has placed the mind of the young Eldridge Cleaver inside the mind of Duke's head, with the same general outlook shared by all the gang members:  

-Debbie's status as a virgin being forcibly deflowered is dealt with to a painfully detailed degree, as if designed to evoke the greatest fear of a white person from this era. Stitch gets his fingers inside her and damages Debbie's hymen first, then Duke completes the puncturing by rape. With minimal bleeding and having been punctured easily, Debby later begins to oddly speculate at the cabin that she must be experiencing such little pain due to all her horseback riding growing up.

- Debbie is actually forced to take several drinks of hard liquor (instead of just one as in movie) prior to being taken against her will by Duke. 

As Duke savors his moment of conquest, the author gives us a window into his mind to enable the reader to better understand his motives:

"He could feel his heated cock growing thicker and thicker in her belly, as he ground savagely into her with a wave of sadistic delight flickering across his contorted face. He had never had anything white like this before, nothing this young, and tender, and helpless and it was driving him insane...He had to end it before he lost his mind."

-The author also provides a very tedious and graphic description of the rape from Debbie's perspective. The heroine of our story fights back hard. During her violation she becomes worried about having been impregnated when she feels Duke seeding her. The author darkly takes us inside the horror of Debbie's mind as she undergoes her violent deflowering:

"Through the dim haze of her tortured mind, she could feel him growing and growing, deep-deep inside her until it felt his rampaging instrument would split her in two. He was going to come in her. Her tears cascaded in torrents onto the rough Levi's of Shorty's crotch. The lewd thought was passing in her mind of this horrible unknown Negro filling her helpless belly and womb with his hot, sticky lust. "OH GOD" she thought. "I MIGHT GET PREGNANT!" She tried to clench her buttocks as a senseless gesture of self defense...

"Oh God, no, no, no, NO!" She screamed as she felt it ricocheting around in a warm wet pool in her vagina-a hot, fiery reminder of her total subjugation to the cruel inhuman tormentor fucking in her from behind. 

-Arriving at the cabin, Debbie is taken from the car and her bra, panties and shoes are left behind.  She has difficulty walking and actually clings to Duke's arm to maintain her balance, despite being afraid of him and loathe to his touch. Conversely, in the movie Duke has graciously allowed Debby to have her shoes back on her feet and actually grabs and leads his captured suburbian ivory princess by her arm into his lair.

Finally, this part of the movie script cures a small oversight in the book, as in the movie this is where the gang learns Debbie's name. Or, given the author's emphasis on Debbie's feeling that the gang just sees her as an object to be used, perhaps the total lack of concern by the gang regarding her name was intentional? At any rate, as this lasted longer than I expected, this seems like a good place to stop.

                                                         TO BE CONTINUED...

In Search of the Book "Hot Summer in the City"

 Somewhere between Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Egyptian archeologists, are the words to be found for describing my quest to find this book. After watching the movie "Hot Summer in the City" in 2014 and agreeing with Quentin Tarantino's assessment of its being 'The greatest porn movie of all time," I spent years looking for the book that supposedly inspired the movie. 

Incidently, I find the greatness of the movie actually lies not in the sex scenes, but in its compelling plot and complex character development which is somehow packed into a movie that is only an hour and 7 minutes long (and is still filled with lots sex and has a four minute scene devoted to the cooking of pork chops no less!). HSITC's accomplishments in character development for an X-rated film are truly unsurpassed.  That the plot revolves around racial unrest and the 1967 Detroit race riot makes HSITC just as relevant in today's BLM Era, as it was when the film was produced in the 1970s. One would think given the Tarantino accolades and the movie's inherent greatness, the book would be easy to find. 

Alas, as my seven year search proves, it is anything but. I spent years checking on ebay, online book stores, forum boards and elsewhere trying to find it, but my efforts were fruitless. I found one occassion in which it had been listed on ebay that was referenced in a forum board, but the writer had found the large price tag too prohibitive. Four years into my quest when I saw that post, my desire to own the book had become so great I feared I would mortgage my house if that was what it took to buy it.

Then one day a casual search on Google resulted in the fullfillment of my near decade's long ambition! The book was actually listed for sale on Etsy and at a price far, far less than I would have been willing to pay. I literally felt like I had struck gold (see the book pictured at top)!

 Now, having had the opportunity to read the book, I thought I would do a 3 Part Book Review, covering the same three day period as is covered by the movie. I will highlight significant differences between the two and interesting additional material found only in the book, and also re-print a few exerpts that exemplify the wonderful writing style of the author. The spirit of the book, both in terms of the characters and the backdrop of the racially turbulent times in the late 1960s, mirrors perfectly with the spirit of the movie, which serves to make the book every bit as extraordinary as the movie itself. Enjoy and please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments. 

HSITC Casting Mystery: Will the Real Lisa Baker Please Standup?

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HSITC Casting Mystery: Who is the only non-credited Actor?

 His character is the only part not acknowledged in the credits, despite his character's singular scene occurring at the most pivotal moment of the movie. While he doesn't speak, neither does one of the two male characters involved in the menage-a-trois with Debby's mother. The other two involved in said threesome spoke mainly in guttural, sexual sounds, yet all three characters are named and an actor attributed to the part. So why no such love for the man at the doorway?

As movie watchers will recall, our virgin protagonist Debby (played by Lisa Baker) trips and falls face first into this man's yard as she's fleeing to escape the testosterone fueled designs a carload full of black men have on her body.  As Debby feels herself being subdued by two of her pursuers and senses her freedom slipping away, she sees a glimmer of hope when the homeowner flips the house light on and comes out the door. 

Instead of making any attempt to assist her however, the man simply looks at Debby and the two black men ("Duke" played by Duke Johnson & "Stitch" played by Stitch Umbas), and then turns off the light and goes back inside! By his choosing to abandon the damsel in distress in his yard, our heroine is carried away by her captors and loses her virginity in a violent act of political insurrection.

.

In effect, Debby's hymen became the first casualty of the 1967 Detroit Race Riots due to her neighbor's indifference, changing her life and those of the others' around her, forever. Shouldn't this character at least have been given a name? 

At first glance, one would think determining the name of this actor would be like finding a needle in a haystack. However, I believe I have the answer as to the identity of this man and was surprised at how easy solving this mystery was. 

To begin with, I developed a suspect list. I asked what man was known to have a connection to the movie, but would have wanted to keep a low profile concerning that connection? In addition, as the film was made in Michigan, it seemed likely that this person would have known ties to Michigan. Finally, I had the thought that there could be a clue as to this man's identity hidden in the credits. Consideration of these three inquires lead to one obvious suspect, a man named Harry Mahoney. 

We know now that when this film was being made in the mid 1970s, Mr. Mahoney was dating the woman attributed as being the Director, Gail Palmer (Real Name Gail Parmentier). Palmer also managed an X-rated movie theater ran by Mr. Mahoney in Lansing, Michigan, who at the time owned several, and was facing many legal challenges as he sought to broaden his X-rated business empire.  The story behind the film is that Mahoney, wanting to keep a bit of a distance from the film but at the same time promote it to generate a huge amount of buzz and profits, had the film advertised as being the first XXX-rated movie directed by a woman, namely his girlfriend, Ms. Palmer (see below). 

HSITC Cabin, located at Kalkaska, MI

Establishing yet another Michigan and HSITC tie, in an interview Ms. Palmer credited Mr. Mahoney as owning the cabin which was the primary setting for the film.  I learned this information from a great blog called "Projector has been Drinking" which gave wonderful information about the historical development of HSITC, and the sordid saga of Mr. Mahoney and Gail Palmer's relationship. It can be found at the link below: 

http://projectorhasbeendrinking.blogspot.com/2021/06/once-upon-timein-hot-summer.html

Having enough evidence at this point to put together a "photo line up" of the two, I came across the following evidence. The picture on the top is of Mr. Mahoney (taken from an August 2007 feature in the Sandiegoreader.com), and the picture below is from the movie. 

With these two photos, I pronounce this mystery as "solved." The man at the door is Mr. Harry Mahoney. Case closed.