Back when the terrible film Innocence of Muslims was called Desert Warriors — when it was just some schlocky, lucky-if-it-ever-makes-it-to-DVD film about people not named Mohammed killing each other in the desert — its director was a fellow named Alan Roberts. And if Gawker's got the story right, then Roberts, like the actors involved with the project, had no idea Desert Warriors would be detourned by the crazed Copt, meth-maker, and petty criminal Nakoula Basseley Nakoula — overdubbed, re-edited, and turned into anti-Islamic propaganda. Roberts, it seems, isn't anti-Islam at all.
From Gawker:
Until the release of Innocence of Muslims, the 65-year-old
Roberts has had an unremarkable career as a small-time director and
editor. His directing credits include some softcore porn from the 70s
and 80s like 1977's Young Lady Chatterly, The Sexpert and The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood, third of the Happy Hooker trilogy. (It's probably no coincidence that the cast included at least two porn stars, or that Innocence of Muslims contains a graphic scene of Muhammed performing oral sex on a woman.) Roberts tried to break into action in 1991 with Karate Cop:
"John Travis is the last honest cop in a future dominated by
terroristic martial-arts gangs who fight gladiator-style in arenas."Roberts
is more accomplished as a film editor, with 28 editing credits,
including the 2003 Johnny Knoxville/Christina Applegate vehicle Grand Theft Parsons. In the mid-2000s, he ran a digital post-production facility called Genesis Post-Production according to a press release for a documentary about Burning Man where he's credited as producer.
Since Innocence of Muslims improbably became the most talked-about film in the world, Roberts has understandably been "laying low."
