The Bellboy and the Playgirls

1962 film

The Bellboy and the Playgirls is a 1962 American film by Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Hill. The film is a re edited version of a West German film of 1958 originally titled , directed by Fritz Umgelter with Coppola and Hill shooting nudity inserted into the film for an American release. June Wilkinson, a Playboy Bunny, is featured in the segments. The 3 D footage was shot in Optavision and supervised by Richard Kay. During the production one of the girls stated to Coppola that she was only 17 and that her father was going to kill her. Coppola responded with, "Well, you can keep your bra on," which resulted in him being reprimanded by the producer after he saw the completed film. Hill received $25 for his work on the film and Coppola received $250. Coppola was a student at the University of California, Los Angeles film school and his classmates did not agree with his choice of going into exploitation films. Coppola said, "I was called a cop out, because I was willing to compromise". The film print was believed to be lost after the film's initial release in 1962 and subsequent release on videotape but a collector of Coppola memorabilia had a print of the film. The book Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola states that "Coppola's color footage is easily identifiable in the finished film" and that "the five Coppola sequences add up to nearly fifty minutes of screen time". A short time after the film's release, Coppola started working under Roger Corman.

The film's 3 D footage has been released by "3 D Rarities" on Blu ray in a compilation entitled "3 D Rarities". The version included on the Blu ray contains no nudity.