Mau Mau Sex Sex, a full-length feature documentary is a classic case of "It's not how it looks." At first pass, it appears to be a expose on the sexploitation industry. Nuff said. It turns out, however, that Mau Mau Sex Sex is a pleasantly disarming character study of two old men, Dave Friedman and Dan Sonney, who also happened to be purveyors of porn back in the day of the "nudie cutie" flicks.

"I was cloaking a profile of two old men with some sex and comedy. If I had not put those exploitation movies in it, do you think anybody would have watched this one?"

Mau Mau Sex Sex, a full-length feature documentary is a classic case of "It's not how it looks." At first pass, it appears to be a expose on the sexploitation industry. "Nuff said. It turns out, however, that Mau Mau Sex Sex is a pleasantly disarming character study of two old men, Dave Friedman and Dan Sonney, who also happened to be purveyors of porn back in the day of the "nudie cutie" flicks.

As producer/director Ted Bonnitt says, "I was cloaking a profile of two old men with some sex and comedy. If I had not put those exploitation movies in it, do you think anybody would have watched this one?"

You could say the Mau Mau Sex Sex story begins in a San Francisco dumpster where co-producer/writer Eddie Muller found a vast collection from the 'grindhouse' era; that is, posters and lobby cards advertising "Adults Only" movies of the 1930s. That discovery led to his first published book "Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of Adult-Only Cinema," and next to a film collaboration with Bonnitt.

Muller, a writer and Film Noir czar, says "It's so perfect when you think about it that the genesis of all of this was pulling stuff out of a dumpster, and finding this hidden subculture." Eddie Muller does the lineup for the Castro and American Cinematheque Annual Noir Fests, and recently helped the Oakland Parkway Theater's Noir Festival with its line-up. Muller's latest book is called "The Art of Noir: Posters and Graphics from the Classic Film Noir Era."

JR: Did you and Dave Friedman know each other from before Mau Mau Sex Sex (MMSS)?

Eddie Muller: Dave was a huge resource for "Grindhouse." I read his book "Youth in Babylon" as part of my research and I interviewed Dave several times during the course of writing that book.

JR: Mau Mau Sex Sex is not meant to be a comprehensive look at the exploitation business, correct?

EM: It was Ted's stroke of genius to tighten the focus and have it be about the relationship of these two guys. We made a good team because Ted kept that as his guiding principle. And because I had written "Grindhouse," and was versed in the background, I was able to help weave all the historical stuff in and out and give it structure and context.