Love Minus One (Margabi)
This is a soundtrack from 1971, performed by Denny Vaughn and anonymous Los Angeles based session musicians, to an obscure Love Story-esque film. It also was recorded shortly before the Canadian, Glen Miller-associated bandleader died. The sountrack is all over the place, from a fuzz guitar and organ fueled funk instrumental called “Ride Home Rock”, to a female pop vocal, to a watery tremelo guitar mood piece and even a marachi song. Upon buying this record, curiosity got the best of me regarding the origins of this thing, thus leading to a screening by the director himself, Gabriel Gyorffy. The movie is low-budget and was shot locally. The soundtrack was released on the director’s private imprint and had a limited release in the United States. The plot is about a relationship between a liberal woman (who was sexually assaulted as a child and therefore psychologically damaged) and a conservative male (who was used by his gold-digging wife, who he can’t divorce). Antics ensue when their political and social points of view get into the way. There’s even a scene where she kicks a guy in the nuts! Anyhow, one thing leads to another, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. They consider an abortion, but at the time, such is illegal, as the pending, now benchmark Roe vs. Wade court case acts as the setting of the movie. The couple has to venture to Mexico to have the procedure done. I don’t know if you’d like to know the ending, but I’ll just reveal it anyway: they end up not getting the abortion and they travel back home. I think the director died or moved out of the country. If not, post up some stuff I may be missing!
8 Comments
Sounds like a movie I would like to see. Nice find. That cover has an incredible amount of period charm!
Regarding the comment that “the film was only released outside of America”, I saw this movie in an Ames, Iowa movie theater in 1972 or 1973.
Used rental videotapes of this movie are available in England.
Saw this on a VHS cassette I bought in Britain.
As I remember the movie, he’s the conservative
and she’s the liberal.
Here’s my review in full (from Elliott’s Guide To Home Entertainment. The movie was sponsored by
The International Planned Parnethood Federation
LOVE MINUS ONE **
92 min
1971
USA
Jill Janssen, Mark Bond, Jim Bays, Marsha Cook, Drake Fulton, Berniece
Janssen, Monika Kelly, Krystyna Pearson, Tony Ridio, Fred West, John Gean, Riva
Libera, Yervan Markarian, Ray Jaramillo, Eddie Ricardi, Jim Falen, Dory Curtis
A woman attends a party and after foiling a rape attempt gets a ride home
from one of the guests, with whom she has a violent arguement. Undiscouraged,
he persists in courting her and eventually their relationship blooms despite
such difficulties as the fact that she was raped at thirteen by four boys and
he is trying to get a divorce. A sudden pregnancy, however, brings a major
crisis. A badly made film, with a thin plot and poor characterizations.
Directed by Gabriel Gyorffy
story Love Is A Flower by Gyorffy.
I revisted this one and you two are right. Thanks for the corrections. My mind gets fuzzy sometimes. The starring actress is the sister of “The Fugitive” and 70’s TV movie regular, David Janssen. There’s another Ray Jaramillo on another local record, the producer of Charle Tapia’s “With Soul” (one of my reviews as well). It may not be the same person, though.
A good curiosity piece.
The director is certainly not dead. I live in South Florida and I’m heading over to his house in some hours to work on one of his computers. He’s got a screen play he’s been shopping around forever, and he’s a reeeeeally interesting and eccentric guy. Looks pretty good for his age (which I don’t know exactly, but he mentioned being in his 80s). Only met him and heard of this film days ago.
To my knowledge, Denny Vaughan was not Glenn Miller associated, although he certainly appreciated Glenn Miller’s music. Denny Vaughan played in the Canadian Army Band during WW2 under the direction of Robert Farnon, who was for the Canadian Army Band what Glenn Miller was for the USA Army Band. In early 1944, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower came up with the idea of special radio network that would provide news to the troops (who would soon be invading Europe) as well as entertainment to keep spirits high and memories of home close. One of the more popular programs was the Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme, featuring the USA Army band under the direction of Captain Glenn Miller, the British band under Sergeant George Melanchrino, and the Canadian Army Band under Captain Robert Farnon. On the 15th of December 1944, as the British and Canadian bands went on the air in London, they were to be joined by Captain Glenn Miller’s band, already assembled and ready to go live from Paris. During an unexplained delay from Paris, Melanchrino and Farnon played back to back songs until it was announced that Captain Miller and two others took off from Twinhead Farm airfield (near Bedford, England), but that they and their plane disappeared somewhere over the English Channel (and were never seen again). Denny Vaughan led the rhythm section of the Canadian Army Band, and was no doubt one of the people “filling in” on the 15th of December. After the war, Denny Vaughan had a singing career in London, New York and Toronto, as well as his own entertainment program on CBC Television in Toronto in the mid-1950s. During the 1950s and 1960’s, he did a lot of society band work, and was quite prolific in recording for Muzak in New York, and its Canadian counterpart, CTL, in Toronto. In the late 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles where he was first choral director then musical director for the Smothers Brothers, Glen Campbell, Sonny and Cher, and the children’s television program “New Zoo Review”. First and foremost a composer/arranger, and secondly a pianist and singer, he grew tired of the day to day scene in Hollywood, and wanted to return to Canada to a 150 acre farm in Quebec, and be a gentleman farmer by day, and venture into film scoring in the late evenings. Love Minus One was his first attempt at film scoring, and as the film was very low budget, he funded the recordings himself, hiring and paying the musicians directly. The screening of the film was semi-private, with some members of the press present, who had come largely because Mae West was said to be attending the premiere. As one of the other reviewers commented, the film went nowhere commercially. Some pieces on the soundrack were trite and trendy, with a nod to Midnight Cowboy and Summer of 42 and Love Story scores, and a complete disconnect with an understanding of the pop and rock music of the day. However, he was going through a painful divorce at the time, and so when he delved into scoring which required his more familiar areas of romantic and lush orchestration, they were no doubt some of his better compositions. The words to these songs were composed by Doug Mommary of the New Zoo Review television. The compositions were done in 1970/71, and he died in Montreal on the 2nd of October 1972 of cancer at the young age of 50.
Yes, I wrote the screenplay, directed and edited Loved Minus One. Under my own distribution company, I had it released in the U.S. but, only in regional areas through subdistributors, having not enough budget for an AD/PUB campaign in major cities (NY,LA,CHI,SF, etc)
Love Minus One, but theme and quality, earned an entry into Permanent Collections at U>S.Library Of Congress. It did well on foreign sales, in Europe and South America (Picture of the year in the PHillippines).
For anyone’s interest I’d be glad to give full info who LMO was born. I’d be glad to hear from anyone, still living, who had anyting to do with the film, especially Denny’s family, or my cameraman, Henning Schellerup.
Gabrie (still active and dreaming)
Hi Gabe,Great to know that your still active.
You might remember me as the leader of the Biker Gang in “Love Minus One”.Im the front man on the Movie poster standing, with the long hair…Ron Roman AKA Joe Macaluso.You were best friends with my uncle Tom Macaluso.How is Kelly?I hope you are both well.It would great to hear from you.My email is:
Jmacalu3@aol.com
Take care,and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Joe