Walt Dignan Jr. owned multiple rendering plants in Texas and was at the height of his rendering powers when he decided to take the dip into film production.
Dignan Films LTD. “The Smell of Success”
Walt was in his sixties at this point and was newly married to Jenny Allen, a twenty-year-old blonde bombshell - aspiring model/actress/singer/yo-yo champion - from Beaumont, Florida ("The Mosquito Capital of the World"). Billed as “JENNY ALLEN-THE SASSY LASSIE FROM TALLAHASSEE”, Jenny would star in all four of Dignan’s productions. Their May-December romance actually did begin in May 1970, when the two met at the annual Renderers of North America Convention, that was held at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, FL. Jenny was hired as a hostess for the convention and Dignan was receiving a lifetime achievement medal for contributions above and beyond to the rendering world.
Dignan had no aspirations about entering the film world until he met Allen and heard of her dreams to be the next Jayne Mansfield-Minus the horribly violent premature death.
The following appeared in the Summer 1978 issue of The Lard & Tallow Gazette:
Walt Dignan Jr.: I met my wife, Jenny, at a Renderers of North America Convention. She was modeling a brand-new product, the Slauson 3000 Bone Grinder. All it took was one glance and I fell in love. . . Best dam grinder in the business. Stainless steel. Two times the power than any other model on the floor. Jenny caught my eye as well.
Dignan thought that she had the talent and the body to make it big, so he bankrolled a movie to showcase her to the movie going public.
SHANTY TOWN JAILBAIT (1971) aka ILLICIT AND UNDERAGED (US Video release title), a great title if there ever was one, stars Jenny as the underage protagonist Bobbie Sue. A corrupt yokel sheriff uses her charms to lure passing motorists to have a rendezvous, then when the suckers have their pants down, the sheriff and his deputy bust in and put the bite on the men. Taking a sizable payoff instead of pressing charges. Played as a straight comedy, SHANTY TOWN JAILBAIT fully delivers the laughs that only a plot that revolves around under aged sex can provide.
Del Bascombe plays portly sheriff Jedidiah Boone with all of the subtlety of a runaway locomotive. With seven credits to his name, four of which he played a potbellied Southern Sheriff: TROUBLE IN A SMALL TOWN (1973), SMOKEY AND THE SWAMP COUNTY BOYS (1977) and its sequel, SMOKEY AND THE DIXIE BELLES (1978).
A city slickers run into trouble in a small-town plotline is always rife with possibilities and SHANTY TOWN JAILBAIT Delivers.
To help sell the movie Jenny would have in person meet and greets at drive-in showings of SHANTY TOWN JAILBAIT across the South. In her biography “GOD DIDN’T BLESS ME THESE TITS AND THIS ASS JUST FOR YOU TO GROPE”, she writes about these fan meetings.
“For the most part, the fans were polite and shy when they met me. There were a few instances that stand out. At first, I would wear my costume from the movie; cut off jean shorts and a snug form fitting halter top. A lot of the people addressed me by my character name Bobbie Sue.” A lot of men would ask me if I was eighteen years old yet. I was hit on by movie goers, theater managers, concession stand personal, projectionists. . . You name it. . . I recall that one guy tried to get me to go to spend the night with him in exchange for a box of Flavos' Shrimp Rolls . . . Enticing as it was, I declined.
I started to wear my personal everyday clothes at a certain point to try to separate the character from the real person. It might not have helped that I wore short shorts and form fitting halter tops that exposed my bosom.”
SHANTY TOWN JAILBAIT proved to be not only the perfect launch for Allen’s acting career, but also Dignan’s career as a movie producer. Next up for the couple was another comedy, THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER (1973). Allen plays the daughter of a fire and brimstone spouting Southern preacher man, who not only has a hard time keeping his parishioners in line, but his budding teenage daughter as well.
“Walt and I were so pleased by the reception of SHANTY TOWN JAILBAIT that we immediately wanted to release a follow-up. The only thing that I wanted was to play an older, more mature character . . . So, Walt made my character a seventeen-year-old, instead of a sixteen-year-old.”
Del Bascombe is back, playing one of a group of moonshine swigging, poker playing good ol boys who the preacher tries to set straight bring into his flock.
In 1975 Dignan Films Ltd. switched gears from low-brow sex to low budget horror and produced a Big Foot movie-THE BEAST FROM TALL TIMBER.
Jenny plays the sister of a women who has gone missing on a hiking expedition. What she doesn’t realize is that her sister was kidnapped. She organizes and joins a search party that journeys deep into the tall timber to find her. At one point she wanders away from the search party and is saved by an old hermit packrat (Del Bascombe). Regrettably the film is overly reliant on travelogue footage of the Pacific Northwest . . . while pretty to look at . . . it does bog down the action. The scenes with the Big Foot are well done, including the creature saving the sister from her captors.
Five years later he would produce his last movie, a rural killer on the loose movie with the lame but apropos title; KILLER ON THE LOOSE (1978). A knife wielding looney, with a Frankenstein sized forehead, escapes from a sanitarium and starts bumping off bumpkins. Jenny plays a woman who unfortunately bears a striking resemblance to the killer's ex-wife. She finds herself alone, on a stormy night, trying to fend off the killer on the loose.
Just a few months after the release Walt Dignan Jr. passed away. Jenny inherited the rendering plant empire as well as the rights to the Dignan Films LTD. Catalogue. She is working with a boutique label for future Blu-ray releases.
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