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.

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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.