But he had an ace up his sleeve: a heavy-breathing ad campaign that all but promised drive-in patrons they'd see a gorilla mating with a shapely brunette. "Who would be her mate...MAN OR BEAST?" leered the Ormond pressbook.

The grosses poured in, and Ron never forgot the value of a sensational ad campaign. In 1959, Ron decided to work the sex angle even more directly with a Freudian study in sexual repression, this time in color. For once, the advertisements told the lurid truth: "Due to the unusual subject of this motion picture, words cannot describe the contents." Not to worry: the movie's title, PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME (PV #11), said it all.

Starring the delectable Vicki Caron as a frigid housewife with a dark secret due to her overbearing mother's machinations, PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME runs the gamut of jaw-dropping, seemingly incongruous plot elements. Included are marital discord, arcane rituals, graphic footage of Philippine flagellants, even hypnosis as a cure for sexual incompatibility. The cast was as strange as the plot. The part of a psychiatric hypnotist was filled by none other than Lash LaRue, who was looking for different types of roles in order to escape his fading western career. LaRue told Ron he'd take the part if Ron could find a role for his wife, Ruth Blair. Ron took one look at her audition and decided she was perfect for the controlling mother.

Mysticism had always played an important part in Ron Ormond s psyche. Born in Louisiana to Italian parents as Vie Naro, Ron changed his name to Ormond in tribute to his mentor, magician Ormond McGill. Now widely known as "the dean of American hypnotists," McGill had studied magic since his grammar school days in California, and he became a popular stage entertainer and "concert hypnotist," a career that continues today. (He is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Genuine Stage Hypnotism, published in 1947.) In 1942, McGill began to tour theaters in the Midwest and Canada under the stage name of "Dr. Zomb" (see PV #14), presenting a spook show known as "The Great London Hypnotic Seance."

He had met Ron as a youngster on the vaudeville circuit, and the two would frequently check out the competition at other spook shows. They remained close friends for nearly half a century. After Ron underwent medical treatment for bladder cancer in 1959,

he and McGill embarked on an eight-month spiritual journey to the Far East, with which he had a life-long fascination. The two documented their travels through journals and photographs, which were published later that year in book form by The Esoteric Foundation as Into The Strange Unknown. A fascinating travelogue of arcane rituals and unexplained phenomena from India to the Philippines, Into The Strange Unknown was New Age mysticism before the term was coined. Practical as well as mystical, Ron used footage with McGill from this sojourn throughout his career, from PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME to the posthumously completed THE SACRED SYMBOL (84).

June's touring skills would prove an invaluable resource to the Ormond Organization. Her real strength lay in roadshowing their two independent features in the late 1950s, taking one film from town to town and exploiting it personally. When you roadshowed a picture in those days, an attention grabber was essential for maximum profit. For UNTAMED MISTRESS, the gimmick man outfitted in a gorilla suit. June would chauffeur the beast down city streets in a convertible, passing out flyers with the theatre location and showtimes. According to June, the gorilla suit was loaned to Edward D. Wood Jr. for the 58 potboiler THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST. Decades later, Tim Ormond, who continues to initiate independent film projects, can still remember the sight of the guy in the gorilla suit on a sultry summer day down South, sipping Coke through a straw inserted into one of his gorilla-suit nostrils. Although June preferred other creative facets of the independent film business over roadshowing, she recalled that UNTAMED MISTRESS "was the first roadshow picture we ever handled, and we made $90,000 in three months in Texas. So we were off and running."

The exploitation kicker in selling PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME followed in the grand tradition of the legendary hype-meister Kroger Babb, for whom June worked briefly in the days of KARAMOJA and KIPLING'S WOMEN "We would sell 'personal hygiene booklets,' which dealt with sex education in very clinical terms," June remembers. "Two separate booklets, one for the women, one for the men. A taped pitch played during the intermission, which was about three minutes long." When the pitch instructed viewers to blink their lights once if they wanted a booklet, the lot would suddenly be flooded with highbeams. "We would make up to $1,000 per night on book sales alone," June says proudly.

Amazingly, the Ormonds had very little trouble with censorship on the road. "The only place June was censored was in Virginia," Tim says. "She had to get a permit, which was obtained by showing and convincing a bunch of old ladies on the censor board. June, by the gift of gab, was able to convince them to give it a limited showing.