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Sam Lake

New York pornographic film distributor, named by R.C. Horsch as the head of Mature Pictures, to whom Horsch said he sold his 1973 feature for 50,000 dollars.

Sam Lake was, according to R.C. Horsch, a New York distributor of pornographic films working through the company Mature Pictures. Horsch said that his 1973 feature The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig was sold to Lake for 50,000 dollars, and his website credited the film's distribution to "the legendary Sam Lake (Mature Pictures, Inc.)."12

The 1973 Film

In Horsch's account, the sale was arranged through Salvatore "Sam the Barber" LaRussa, the Philadelphia bar owner he said had financed most of the film, and through Philadelphia organized crime.1 Contemporary trade sources name the company but not Lake. The magazine Take One reported in the spring of 1973 that "Bob Sumner's Mature Films in New York followed up Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig (starring Ms. Spelvin) with High Rise, which was budgeted at an astronomical $75,000," and the Canadian edition of Boxoffice in February 1974 listed the film's distributor as "Mature," with a booking date of October 15, 1973.34 No source located explains the relation between Lake and the Bob Sumner named by Take One.

Relationships 1

Partner of
  1. West, Ashley. "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 2: Performance," The Rialto Report, Podcast 172, September 20, 2026, audio (republishing interviews recorded in 2013). https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/20/ray-horsch-3/
  2. Horsch, R.C. [Commentary on The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig], eroto.com, archived November 5, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20161105022433/http://eroto.com:80/commentary/64-mcp-commentary
  3. Morthland, John. "Porn Films: An In-Depth Report," Take One, vol. 3, no. 6 (March-April 1973), pp. 11-15. https://archive.org/details/take-one-1973-03
  4. "Boxoffice Bookinguide," Boxoffice (Canadian edition), February 4, 1974. https://archive.org/details/boxoffice-canadian-1974-02-04

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