We gathered around the dinner table one night on the patio at Maxine’s, a South Beach mainstay for late eats. We prepared to break bread with an eclectic group of industry stars including HotMovies spokesperson Ron Jeremy and the incomparable Sunny Lane.

As drinks were served, we took the opportunity to speak with Mr. Jeremy about the legendary Cecil Howard and the making of Scoundrels, Howard’s AVN Award-winning epic about to be released for the first time in 25 years on HotMovies.com and Ron Jeremy’s Video Theater.

HM: Ron, it’s great to see you, as always. Please talk a little about your experience working with Cecil Howard on Scoundrels.

RJ: I was always doing comedy. All the Chuck Vincent comedies, I was known for that. Sizzle, Fascination, you know…. And then Cecil Howard has me do this movie where he goes, “No jokes, no cracking jokes, no typical Ron Jeremy laughing…” and I went along with it. It was a very, very serious psychodrama…. People are gonna see this film and say, damn, they made movies as good as Pirates back in those days.

Cecil Howard was one of the really good filmmakers. He never compromised. He did Neon Nights, he did Babylon Pink. He didn’t sacrifice for the video market, which started to take over.

Howard is actually the Burt Reynolds character from Boogie Nights. He refused to jump on that shooting videos format. He wanted to make motion pictures on FILM, not video. Babylon Pink, with Ron Sullivan (AKA Henri Pachard) directing and Cecil Howard producing, won so many awards in that era.

HM: Scoundrels was the very first AVN awarded Best Picture winner ever in 1982.

RJ: It might have been. Scoundrels was with me and Lisa Be. We played a family. It was great! I’d love to see that movie again.

HM: Do you remember Copper Penny, the hot young Penthouse model that never did any porn again?

RJ: Very well. She was the fantasy girl. She was the girl we all fantasize about. She was a Penthouse Pet, she would never do porn, but she’s in this porn film as the ultimate dream girl. I love this film so much. I remember this. She plays a cigarette girl and I see her by my apartment and I start fantasizing about her…. Then I leave with her and get stopped by a cop. It’s great. Abstract, esoteric, avant-garde. Scoundrels is really a very, very classy, well-made movie. Everything Cecil Howard ever did was classy.

HM: He asked us to give you his best.

RJ: I love that guy. First he put me in Foxtrot, I had a small part. He goes, “God, Ron Jeremy can really act. I’ll give you a lead in my next film.” So he gave me the lead in his next film, which was Scoundrels, 28 years ago – which was before Sunny Lane was even born.

He was a real classy filmmaker. It’s important to remember that a lot of filmmakers back in those days really (lived) exactly the part Burt Reynolds played in Boogie Nights. Remember those scenes where they try to tell Burt Reynolds that, “Look, get with the program! Stop shooting these full-length feature films on film – the market’s going video!”

Cheap DVDs, no storyline, pro-amateur, gonzo. Here’s the dialogue: “Here’s a cup of coffee. Blow me.” Or “Electrician! I’m here to fix your electricity.” “Eat me.” There. There’s your dialogue.

But back in those days, in the early ‘80s, they did really classy films. Real movies with sex in ‘em. A lot of famous directors got started back then: John Avildsen, who went on to direct Rocky; Wes Craven, who did Nightmare on Elm Street…. Mainstream filmmakers that back then, they started out doing porn.

Cecil Howard, Ron Sullivan, Chuck Vincent, Anthony Spinelli, Riley Metzger are the few filmmakers who exactly portrayed the Burt Reynolds character. They didn’t want to cheapen their product and shoot on video. It was insulting to them. These are the guys who did these full-length feature films with budgets of over $150,000 and made classy movies. Even Gerard Damiano, who did Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones, he didn’t wanna do cheap porn. He never could adapt to that video style.

It’s a bad example but it’s like telling Steven Spielberg to direct a soap opera.

HM: Or a straight to video movie….

RJ: Exactly, he’s not gonna do it. For these guys, it was insulting to be asked.

These young kids of today, like the Rodnievisions, these guys can do it. But it was insulting to a Cecil Howard to ask him to do a wall-to-wall fuck film. Fred Lincoln adapted. Certain people adapted. Paul Thomas adapted to it. John Leslie adapted to it. The ones who didn’t often ended up obscure, poor, broke. Damiano, I think, died fairly poor. Made millions for the porn business and the mob, back in those days, but he died poor. But (the films they made) should absolutely be respected. Because they’re better than much of the crap you see today.

Pirates is a good example of a good movie. Pirates is a throwback to those movies. Porn film has become like Hollywood in that they’re divided into the B films and the A films. You could watch a high budget film by James Cameron or you could watch a (horror) film. You’ve got your As and Bs in Hollywood, in porn it’s the same thing.

HM: So is Cecil Howard like the James Cameron of porn?

RJ: Yes. I’d say he was.

HM: Talk for a minute about the dynamic of being an actor working with Cecil Howard.

RJ: You liked working with Cecil Howard or some of these other big directors because they had big story lines. Back in those days, when you worked on his films, you worked maybe ten days as an actor and then maybe one day of sex. Wake up in the morning and feel like an actor that day, (someone) who understood dialogue. In today’s day and age, every day you wake up, you’re fucking somebody.

HM: So it was in a different class.

RJ: Very classy. That’s why it was called the golden age of porn. The early ‘80s. The golden age of porn.

HM: It just isn’t the same anymore….

RJ: No. Though Cecil was in a way like John Stagliano. He wouldn’t whore out his product, you know? He claimed a high price for his product even if it caused him business problems. Same thing Stagliano would do…he maintained a certain reputation. He has the best directors. He’d hire Greg Dark, John Leslie, himself. He wouldn’t cheapen his product. Cecil Howard wouldn’t either. He’d rather not sell. He did his own editing and he took his project from start to finish. He kept a close watch on every aspect of that movie.

HM: Didn’t he rent out theaters? Did you ever go to any of openings, go watch porn in the theaters back then?

RJ: Back in those days certain filmmakers, they had the theaters back then. That shut down when everyone went video. Before there was video, you had to see a porn film in a theater. There was nowhere else to see it. Cecil Howard would go to play his films there and he knew he had the best product. He would do what’s called four-walling. When you four-walled a theater, you would buy the theater for a week or two…pay the rent and keep the profits. It was an investment, but you’d make the bigger money. That only happened until the end of that golden era.

Interview Courtesy of RonJeremy.com