Coming Soon: An Uncle Eddie Documentary

You can thank local filmmaker and portrait artist Marc Brodzik.

Screenshot from The Resurrection of Uncle Eddie

Screenshot from The Resurrection of Uncle Eddie

It has been 23 years since the twisted story of Ed Savitz aka “Uncle Eddie” emerged, a story that involved the Center City attorney paying children and young men for sexual favors, which included buying their feces, smelly socks, and soiled underwear. And now a Philadelphia-area filmmaker has set out to make a documentary about Savitz, not only retelling the old story but also exposing new details about the case.

“I’ve thought about this for a long time,” says Brodzik, who lives in South Jersey with his wife and three children. “It’s going to be a huge amount of work, and it’s going to cost me a fortune. But finally, I said, fuck it. I have kids. It means something more now.”

Savitz was arrested in 1992 and charged with molesting four boys in their teens in his home at the Wanamaker House on Rittenhouse Square. But once news of the arrest broke, many new allegations emerged, with some estimates of victims going into the hundreds and even thousands over as many as 20 years.

When police searched his home and storage locker, they reportedly found thousands of photographs of boys and more than 300 bags of soiled underwear. Savitz died of AIDS in 1993, just days before his trial was to begin.

Brodzik is also exploring Savitz’s alleged connection to a much more modern child molester: Jerry Sandusky.

“Sandusky and Eddie Savitz were definitely connected,” he says. “There are these elite pedophile rings all around the world. Frankly, I used to think this was all conspiracy theory stuff. But the more I look into it, some if it’s just not looking so fake anymore. I am starting to believe.”

The filmmaker, who runs a video production company called Woodshop Films and YouTube channel Scrapple TV, has previously made documentaries or shorts about Pennsylvania coal miners, a hardcore punk singer who killed his girlfriend, and a bizarre Philadelphia performer named Darren Finizio. Clearly, he has an affinity for dark, strange subjects.

“I paint portraits of people for a living,” he says. “There’s a lot of darkness. Right now, I’m painting pictures of people with face tattoos. And Eddie Savitz is one fucked-up subject. Plus, it’s local, so I don’t have to drive to coal country every weekend like I did for the coal documentary.”

Brodzik has already interviewed some of Savitz’s victims and is putting out a public call for more.

“There were so many victims, and so many people who knew about it when it was going on,” he says. “When I was in school in South Jersey, we knew that people were going to see Uncle Eddie to sell their underwear for weed money.”

He also contends that some of the families of the victims knew what was going on but just turned a blind eye.

“That’s what’s bizarre,” he observes. “Everybody knew about it. It’s like that Louis C.K. standup act on Saturday Night Live, when he was talking about the ‘neighborhood pedophile.’ Everybody knew the neighborhood pedophile, and some guys would go get a hamburger from him and then run away. It’s very disturbing.”

In addition to more victims, Brodzik also needs working capital, and so he’s launched a Kickstarter campaign to finish The Resurrection of Uncle Eddie.

“But I’ll do it regardless of if we get funding or not,” he promises. “I have to.”

Follow @VictorFiorillo on Twitter.