marius Reviews

The Back Row (1973)

Two men engage in games that may/may not lead to commitment

[10/10 · 15 October 2015]

In this time of significant political success for the gay movement, there is much in the genre of gay erotic cinema that deserves the attention of those with open minds about what constitutes artistic achievement. Such a film is 1973's "The Back Row", whose credits associate it with one Doug Richards, whom we know is a pseudonym for director Jerry Douglas, whose body of work in the genre is unexcelled.

The work stands apart from Douglas' other efforts in subject matter, although certain ideas in "The Back Row" clearly influence his later work.

The "hero" of the film, Casey Donovan (itself a pseudonym for actor and erotic gay film superstar Cal Culver), is a streetwise gay New Yorker, into the world of BDSM.

"Back Row" begins with a succession of glaring images of signs heralding sex-oriented bars, movie theaters and bookstores (a technique later used by Jean-Daniel Cadinot in several of his classic French erotic gay films of the early 1980s).

As the camera zooms into the very pleasant sight of Casey Donovan's backside, we hear the first of three extraordinary songs. Composed for the musical score are substantive in themselves with provocative lyrics that integrate with the film's storyline. The lyrics to the first: "You're heading towards tomorrow/Down the street that's leading nowhere/Thinking this is what it means to really be alive//You walk in no direction/Which is really where you're going/And tomorrow may be gone when you arrive//You walk along the sidewalk/Maybe looking in the windows/And you see you own reflection and that's all/It stares in you in silence/While it comes and goes in flashes/Brightened by the full black shadows on the wall/Your life is like a movie that you're watching from the back row/If you thought that you could change it, would you try?//Will it have a happy ending/Would you know it if it happened/Are you really going to sit and watch your life go by?//When the story is finally ended/Will you see that is over?/And all you did was sit and watch your life go by."

The first song is associated with the gay adult film theater, where Casey from the back row observes the (effectively filmed) erotic interplay of the sailor (in dress whites) and the hippy.

The story of the film (and Douglas' films are famous for their story lines) is that Donovan, having observed the goings on from the back row of a gay-oriented adult theater, leaves the theater to explore the city's "gay scene".

In a subway terminal his eyes connect with The Kid from Montana, played by George Payne.

Although there are no direct references, "Back Row" was filmed only a few years after the sensation created by Jon Voigt as Joe Buck, the Kid from Texas in the "legitimate" though initially x-rated film "Midnight Cowboy".)

Despite the apparent double-meaning of the music score's second song, its context clearly relates to the mental sexual games that Casey Donovan's character is playing with the George Payne's Kid from Montana: "Little boy, little boy, won't you come and play with me/I will give you candy and dreams/ Little boy, little boy/All alone in the city, all alone, what a pity that seems/I can show you treasures and pleasures unheard of/You never even gotten word of before, and lots more/Little boy, little boy/ I know many games to play/Won't you stop a minute with me/Little boy, little boy There are joys that you fly for/Things that people die and don't see/I can see you reeling with feelings unheard of; You never ever gotten word of before, and lots more/ . . ."

Payne (itself the pseudonym for a New Yorker of Yugoslav descent, who took part in a couple of gay-oriented films, but whose main reputation and best work was in heterosexual adult erotic cinema). But he proved to be an endearing Kid. Spellbound by Casey's character, the Kid puts his luggage in a subway station locker, and sits across from Casey in a subway car as both wordlessly signal to the other their interest in a sexual encounter.

After they romp through Greenwich Village, Casey leads the Kid to a sex shop in which the Kid's fantasies about Casey are reflected in brief visions of Casey in the nude, utilizing the various sex toys or BDSM gear that the shop offers for sale.

The third song suggests the ambivalence of Casey's character towards his new infatuation, the Kid from Montana: "If I could, I would walk along with you/I would sing a song with you and talk to you of love/If I could I would laugh and cry with you/I would live and try with you/To really fall in love/I would take you hand and lead you to a quiet place/Where the trees would shield us from the cold/If I could, I would send away the world/We would spend a day the world had never known before/If I could, I would call down the velvet sky and together you and I would hide among the stars/Then I'd look into your eyes and promise to love you forever/I really would love you, if I could."

Casey somehow imparts to the Kid that they should meet at the adult theater. Casey by taxi and the cash-strapped Kid by hitchhiking both enter the theater where they watch a film with obvious meaning to their "relationship". Casey cannot resist being coaxed into a BDSM orgy in the theater's men's room, which turns off the Kid.

Both are ultimately reunited and embrace and kiss in a telephone booth, although Casey's sexual charisma attracts an onlooker who clearly means to displace the Kid as Casey's sex interest of the moment.

"The Back Row" is a significant film, which never lags in interest - a technically classy film, with an unsurpassed musical score.

Rear Deliveries (1982)

Gay Blue Collar Guys of Los Angeles Deliver the Goods

[7/10 · 18 September 2015]

William Higgins' "Rear Deliveries" hails from a period when audiences existed for "gay hardcore" films shown in movie theaters catering to a special clientèle. (Those who've seen Doug Richards (Jerry Douglas') "The Back Row" will know what I mean.)

"Rear Deliveries" film follows in time Higgins' "The Boys of Venice" and stars two of "Venice's" actors – Derrick Stanton, cast here as a photographer who takes a sexual interest in his photographer's apprentice, Shawn Victors and Guy de Silva, who in "Venice's" final scene, as the husband of a carousel owner, snuggled with Kip Noll, but in "Deliveries" Da Silva is a taxi driver who seeks (and receives) relief in a local men's room from Victors and Stanton.

Stanton in a Higgins' film always is a formidable presence, but the star of "Deliveries" is Lee Marlin (note the fishy word-play on a lead Hollywood actor of the time).

Marlin starred with Kip Noll in Mark Aaron's "Grease Monkeys". If "Venice" glorified the Los Angeles County beach culture of the late 1970s, "Monkeys" was a celebration of gay blue-collar workers. In fact, "Deliveries" is Higgins' own exploration of the gay blue-collar world.

Obviously, all of Marlin's conquests – be it a hitchhiker (Rod Canyon) that he picked up on the Malibu coast highway, or a print shop employer-employee tryst (Greg Dale and Rick Lindley) that he walks in upon and enthusiastically joins when he delivers a package – are Higgins' fictitious inventions.

Marlin's character clearly loves all kinds of gay sex and is a magnet to everyone of that inclination around him. Higgins' fictional character was surely based on men whose real-life experiences were not much different than those was being portrayed in this film.

There is one other major character, who has chosen the name of Benjamin Barker (or sometimes Ben Barker) as his stage name. I'm confident that this stage name has its own significance, because during the late 1970s, a Broadway musical was a runaway hit – Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street". For those who know the musical's plot well will recognize that Sweeney Todd's real name is . . . Benjamin Barker!!

Barker, in "Deliveries", faces the wrath of his delivery service boss Rob Stephens, and Barker has his clothes torn off of him. This leads to a four-way sexual encounter between Stephens, Barker, Marlin and Victors.

(Barker reconnects with Stephens – as pool cleaner and insurance salesman - in one of the next films in the series "Kip Noll and the Westside Boys".)

There is a discrepancy between IMDb's date for this film (1982) and that of the Gay Erotic Video Index (1980). My personal opinion is that 1980 is the better date.

This is great period piece, with sex taking place surrounded by boxes of Fuji VHS tapes. Even at its most outrageous (i.e., when Marlin is on screen), it gives a more realistic view of gay sex in L. A. at the end of the 1970s than a lot of mainstream media trying to recreate the period's "straight scene".

The Class of '84 Part 1 (1980)

The Boys of Venice Become UCLA Students

[8/10 · 31 August 2015]

The follow-up film to William Higgins' first great success "The Boys of Venice" (it's original subtitle was "The Boys of Venice Go to College", it shares an actor (Derrick Stanton) with the first film, as well as its location in Los Angeles County's upscale Westside.

Higgins was noted for bringing high production values to gay hardcore, which included a strong sense of place. "Class of '84 Part I" begins, like "Boys of Venice" and later films like "Members Only" with a few minutes of cruising attractive young men participating in or watching sports, especially those played in bathing trunks or shorts without shirts.

These "cruising" scenes were obviously not staged (doubtless few of the subjects were aware that they were even being filmed, much less for a gay movie), so provide a realistic view of (mostly Caucasian) male youth at play in 1980.

After the cruising loops, we are introduced to Jeremy Scott (whose character is named Kit) as he totes his luggage onto the UCLA campus (significantly approaching the campus through Gayley Avenue, the street that is UCLA's Southwestern boundary).

He meets his dorm room-mate Bob (beautifully played by Derrick Stanton), but Bob is on his way to the shower. Bob decides not to enter the shower room after he notices a threesome of students involved in some torrid sex (one of the famous episodes from this movie) to the beat of Corly Rae Jepsen's disco song "I Like What You're Doing To Me", but does not return right away to his dorm room because he's clearly excited about watching everything that's happening.

Meanwhile, Kit ignores the naked and still excited Bob to check out the gym, where two students have been wrestling. One of the wrestlers obviously for some time been desiring even more intimate contact with his opponent and has his wish granted when his wrestling uniform is ripped off him.

Kit, like Bob, finds watching two men making love to be stimulating. Higgins' cinematography captures Kit's self-stimulation magnificently, setting up the next two scenes, each of which is a minor masterpiece.

In the first of these scenes, Stanton's Bob is in the lower bunk replaying in his head (and hand) the vision of the shower three-way, while Scott's Kip is in the upper bunk with his image of the wrestling match that turned sexual.

In the second scene, Scott's Kip is selling flowers on a corner for a bit of income. Todd Rice (Troy Richards in other films) stops and states he doesn't want to buy flowers. He wants to buy Kip. The latter states that if he buys all of the flowers, he will be part of the deal. The cinematography and pacing of the long, passionate and very sensitive scene in Todd's apartment (to the accompaniment of Lightning's "Disco Symphony") is one the glories of this film.

The final scenes take place when the roommates go on a camping trip in the Big Bear Lake region (100 miles to the East of Los Angeles). This is the first of several Higgins films located in beautiful mountainess surroundings (Big Bear being a prominent locale.)

After Kip and Bob observe (as is their custom) two other male campers in hot sex, they finally give into their feelings for each other, wandering along the edges of a stream holding hands. Kip sheds his UCLA 69 Jersey and the two engage in an extensive, lushly photographed sequence of sexual passion.

Higgins' film work at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s were intended for adult theaters, at a time that no one envisioned patrons having collections of hardcore gay films for their home viewing. Nor can I imagine that Higgins thought they would be valued as socially worthy artistic expression 35 years later.

Hence the dated name "Class of '84", (The movie house trailer for the "coming soon" Class of '84: the Revenge exists.) Yet, this film is a timeless vintage contribution to the genre, that shows Higgins' genius.

The Grease Monkeys (1979)

Three blue-collar employees of a Glendale California Texaco station in the late 1970s have sexual adventures at work and in their leisure hours

[9/10 · 27 August 2015]

"Grease Monkeys" is a substantive film, even if its genre of hardcore gay films is given little respect. Very much a product of Los Angeles at the end of the 1970s, it represents the period in which gay hardcore was shifting from frantic, poorly filmed "loops" with nonsensical plots, to much more professional, high budget efforts.

It is roughly contemporaneous with William Higgins' first major effort "The Boys of Venice", with which it shares its cinematographer (Brandon Ryan), two actors (Kip Noll and Derrick Stanton) and the idea of a surreal episode in a disco.

Some elements in the history of the hardcore gay film industry in Los Angeles in that time are obscure, but the listed producer Mark Aaron is identified by several sources to be an alias of theater owner and film producer Monroe Beehler.

(The Los Angeles gay hardcore film industry needs a substantive history, well-documented, and utilizing relevant information from trustworthy sources.)

If "Boys of Venice" explores the hedonistic beach culture of the famous community on L. A. County's Pacific beach front, "Grease Monkeys" explores the blue-collar gay community in Glendale, a city within Central Los Angeles several miles from the Coast.

Nick Rodgers runs a Texaco franchise. In a service industry that historically hires young males, it is not a stretch to believe that a gay man doing the hiring would be open to hiring young men who share his sexual proclivities. It's an easy-going relationship. Nick, Kip and Lee all like having sex with guys, and have no inhibitions about being the object of each others' affections and attentions.

The film has obvious high production values, and gives a sense of what a full service gas station in the late 1970s (regular gas at 83.9 cents, Texaco Super-Chief at 85.9) would look like.

That said, and conceding that there is lots of sex, "Grease Monkeys" escapes the charge of being a "sexploitation" film through the vividness of the actors' characterizations.

Most notable is the character of a lusty young mechanic created by Kip Noll. The actor was a sensation in "Boys of Venice". Yet, even though he gave and received the various traditional ways that gay love is physically expressed, the character he played is straight.

It is not Noll's character who is engaging in sex with Bravos. It is Bravos' fantasy image of Noll's disco dancer that gives and receives on that pool table for Emanuelle Bravos' character. After all, a person has no control of what sex acts their image engages in if that image is in another person's imagination.

In "Grease Monkeys", Noll is thoroughly gay, and likes it that way.

But he is also a straight-appearing hottie who with high confidence can make a play on any man in the room (and on most of the women too, including those who regard his "gayness" as a challenge they should take on.)

Noll's character has a boyish curiosity as well. When two customers slip into the Texaco station's men's room, Noll's character follows them to the door, listens grinningly to the sex-play (less classy films would have had him break into the mens room for a three-way) and after both customers have paid for their gas, asks one "Which of you got f___d?"

Like Higgins' films of the period, there is a beach scene, supposedly Noll's and Marlin's characters taking a trip to Catalina (although the actual film scene was reliably reported as being a very cold Pismo Beach, California). Noll and Stanton, even if both were in "Boys of Venice", they never appeared together there. But in "Monkeys" they engage in a passionate three-way with Marlin.

Ultimately, the strongest parallel to "Boys of Venice" is making a disco scene a high point of each film.

The disco episode, like in "Boys of Venice", has moments of surreality. In a scene with a crowded room of dancers, all the dancers suddenly disappear except for the three mechanics, who then commence a passionate three-way),

in general the characters of the three protagonists, played by Nick Rodgers, Kip Noll and Lee Marlin, are adeptly drawn. Even if the sexual encounters between the mechanics and their customers are fictional, it is thoroughly plausible that similar encounters have really taken place in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Noll, in particular, is entirely believable in his role.

However, the most original and most memorable scene in the film is its other surreal episode. In the final scene Nick Rodgers' has sex with himself. His persona has been very much wrapped up in his determination to win a drag race with his car on which he has has devoted so much of his waking hours (and which supplies a few of the "plot points" of the film).

Performed (using a double and clever editing) to Queen's "I'm in Love with My Car" it is a tour de force. (One imagines that Queen's song may indeed have inspired the episode.)]

The film is worthy of its reputation as a vintage classic of the genre.

The Boys of Venice (1978)

An iconic view of the West Coast gay scene in the late 1970s

[9/10 · 20 August 2015]

William Higgins' first important film, it fundamentally changed many people's minds about what gay adult film could be like. Although, like the typical Higgins film, a series of loosely related episodes, it provides insight into California gay hedonism in the years just before the AIDS epidemic was identified.

The film also chronicles the wacky characters attracted to Venice's youth-oriented public spaces adjacent to the beach. The film's closing shots include the sobering images of elderly folks rummaging through trash cans for discarded food remnants, which was a grim reality throughout West L. A. in that era.

The film's principal fame is the remarkable 19 and a half minute episode that begins with Emanuelle Bravos (in his only film) in a conversation with his photographer friend Anthony Scott (whose erotic solo sex scene precedes the encounter with Bravos.) Bravos tells Scott about an experience in a disco the night before.

Bravos and his girlfriend were disco dancing on a small dance floor with other straight and gay couples. Soon Kip Noll and his girl friend dance into the camera's view.

After a few moments, Bravos and Noll accidentally back into each other, and when Bravos looks at Noll, he suddenly is overwhelmed by a fantasy in which Noll and Bravos are naked and then begin a period of ardent sex, culminating in a flip-flop of sexual positions on a pool table.

Then, suddenly, the scene returns to the Noll and Bravos fully clothed and attentive to dancing with the women they brought.

All of the scenes are interesting, but the sex scenes at the beginning and end of the film, both starring Eric Ryan, are particularly noteworthy.

The first is a roller-blading sex encounter between Ryan and Derrick Stanton, that takes place after they have collided accidentally. Succoring Stanton's bruises, Ryan accompanies Stanton back to the latter's apartment. In Stanton's bathroom, examining the bruises on Stanton's leg, the sexual attraction of Ryan and Stanton to each other is quickly and erotically requited. (In more original sex talk than is associated with the genre Stanton exclaims that he has a wild man inside him.)

The last sex scene, that pairs Ryan with Guy DeSilva, as married men returning to DeSilva's home (adjacent to the Venice Merry-Go-Round), begins with an amusing exchange with DeSilva's wife, who expresses disgust with her husband and her conclusion that her suspicions that her husband is gay are well-founded.

As she storms out, Ryan and DeSilva decide that if they if DeSilva is going to get the rap for gay adultery anyway, they should make the most of it. What follows is one of the most passionate episodes in a great film, with the sultry Ryan showing how great and how underrated a performer (and actor) he was in this genre.

Aime... comme minet (1982 Video)

Pornstar Pierre Buisson reflects on his rape in a bakery, loving a soccer buddy, and a tryst at Paris' Sacre Couer Cathedral

[7/10 · 3 September 2014]

I regard "Aime Comme Minet" as four separate stories, three filmed at an earlier time, the fourth (which we understand from Cadinot's own descriptions of the resulting product) occurring a couple of years afterward. All four stories star Pierre Buisson, and each deals with one or more themes that are present throughout Cadinot's film career.

I believe it is useful to describe each of the three earlier stories first. Episode 1 takes place in a large bakery where two men Frederic Lemaire and Ducko Vuckovich) work beneath large Pavallier ovens. A twinkish young man (Pierre Buisson) is employed to scrub out large vats where the baker's dough is mixed.

In a Cadinot theme, reminiscent of his contemporary "Scouts" and "Stop", Buisson is provocatively dressed, wearing the shortest of shorts. (If his bakery uniform differs from Cadinot's scout uniforms in that his genitals are shielded from open view, it is clear his body mesmerizes Lemaire and Vuckovich.

THey grab him. Vuckovich, in a departure from a usual rape scene, orally services Buisson who is unambiguously receptive. I find most intriguing about the men's reaction is the length of time that Cadinot spends on the "what the hell is this guy playing at?" expressions on the men's faces.

The second scene (which, to me, seems to utilize Buisson at his youngest age), is a romantic tryst between two soccer buds (Buisson and Luigi di Como) who use the staircase leading to their separate apartments as a place for love-making. They straddle the staircase and banisters in a variety of positions that predate the choreographed encounters of Kristen Bjorn's films. This resonates with the theme of adolescent gay love that Cadinot showed us in "Tender Adolescents".

The third scene returns to the anti-clerical theme that we saw in a more satirical presentation, in "Scouts". We are at Paris' Sacre Couer Cathedral, but there we meet Loic Le Gallec sitting on a bench on the pathway down to a public men's room. This is obviously a place of gay assignation, because Le Gallec sits in short shorts that display his ball-sac to passersby.

Passing by is the jogger Buisson, who jogs back to join Le Gallec in an exploration of some of the lesser known (at least to the main congregation) of Sacre Couer's spaces, and an exploration of each others bodies, which they find to their tastes, and do indeed do a lot of tasting

All these three disparate episodes are integrated into a whole film through the device of a cameraman snapping shots of an older Buisson recalling the "rape", the romance with his soccer buddy, and the confidence he obtained by alternating the dominant sexual role with Le Gallec at Sacre Couer.

The English translation of the French title as "All of Me" is, to me unsatisfactory. All in all, the bakery and soccer buddy scenes are worth the effort to track this film down and the images of Sacre Couer make for a great travel film.

Garçons de plage (1982 Video)

So these six guys walk onto a French gay beach

[6/10 · 11 July 2014]

"Garçons de plage", at least to an extent, has three plot elements. First, three pairs of young men on what is surely a designated gay beach spend a few moments together on beach blankets, engaging in the many "getting to know you" sexual activities that one would expect to see in the precisely contemporaneous Laguna Pacific beach films (and their ilk) produced in Los Angeles.

The central part of the film stars Felipe Gambas (paired with Tony Alessandro).

Gambas was prominent in "Les Hommes Preferent les Hommes {Men Prefer Men)" as the sex dancer with a prodigious ability to take an enormous dildo anally and to fist himself, all as an exhibition before men who paid for such a show.

In a secluded portion of the beach Alessandro takes on the role of a boyfriend who fists his mate. He has also brought a enormous strap-on dildo. (We can assume that he and Gambas have no interest in tossing beach balls or playing beach volleyball.)

Alessandro's love-fisting of Gambas is observed by one of the other men who is hidden in the brush. When Alessandro leaves for a restroom, the mysterious one moves behind Gambas, straps on the dildo and applies it vigorously in the orifice that had earlier accommodated Alessandro's fist.

Eventually four of the beach boys chase Gambas' (seemingly welcome) defiler and an orgy of five beachboys ends the film short.

The orgy is expertly choreographed, with the artistic arrangements of the boy's bodies in their lustful pursuits reminding one of Kristen Bjorn's later work.

This is one of the seven video shorts that Jean-Daniel Cadinot released between 1980 and 1982, that typically averaged just under a half hour in length. Three of them "Tendres Adolescents" "Scouts" and "Garcons de Reve" deserve recognition as masterful contributions to the genre (although for different reasons".

"Adolescents" was an affecting presentation of erotic love between two youths. "Garcons de Reve" presaged Cadinot's famous plot-driven later works. ""Scouts" was a satirical recollection of a creative spirit in his late 30s of his boyhood fantasies about the institutions of the priesthood and scouting.

There are analogies between"Garcons de Plage" ("Beach Boys") and "Les Hommes" in that Gambas, whose ability to take objects in his anus is prodigious, stars in both films. After that, Gambas is not listed in any other Cadinot films.

In addition, both short films use Sidney McKenna. McKenna, who takes part in the first scene of "Garçons de plage",(setting his beach towel next to Stephane Bremer's, who, to increase McKenna's already obvious interest, affects drowning.

McKenna's style of mouth to mouth resuscitation would be regarded as derelict by most Red Cross water safety experts.

McKenna is the only member of the cast to be regularly used in Cadinot films.

The Cadinot shorts from 1980 through 1982 may be thought of as different experiments in style for the genre, at times brilliantly successful, at other times (such as in this work) not as much.

However, for those who chide Cadinot for "adding" fisting and dildos to his later works, this films and "Les Hommes Preferent les Hommes" indicate that these themes were always present in Cadinot's vision of his chosen category of filmmaking.

Garçons de rêves (1981 Video)

Priestly hypocrisy as a young man discovers gay sex

[9/10 · 8 July 2014]

Cadinot's short film "Garçons de rêves" is just over 27 minutes long, One of the earliest of Caidnot's films with a specific plot, it continues the anti-Catholic theme of "Scouts".

However, "Scouts" is a satirical film - if anything, the filmic realization of young boy's naughty fantasies about the church and about scouring. "Garçons de rêves", despite its brevity, contains some themes that Cadinot obviously takes seriously.

The star of the film is the luscious Laurent Miala, who appeared in "Les Hommes Preferent Les Hommes". (He wore the black top with levi cutoffs, only slightly less revealing than the cutoffs that comprised the scout uniforms in "Scouts".)

With maximum Catholic imagery - church choirs singing and bells ringing as we see a Cathedral facade, we join Miala in a confessional with the priest (Lorenzo Bellini) to which he is entrusting his mortal soul.

Miala confesses to a passionate affair with a young woman, whose subsequent infidelity causes him to attempt suicide. The suicide having been unsuccessful, ambulances take him to a hospital room that he shares with an African male (Matthias Chamberlain, who is not listed in any previous or subsequent Cadinot movie.)

One member of the hospital's health care team lakes it upon himself to assume responsibility for the hospital ward roommates. He is Sidney McKenna, obviously of European and African descent (who appeared in the orgy scene in "Les Hommes Preferent Les Hommes",and appears in a considerable number of subsequent Cadinot films.)

McKenna shows interest in the anuses of both roommates, ostensibly to obtain anal thermometer readings, but, based on his subsequent actions, his interest in men's anal regions goes far beyond concern about what their temperature might be.

McKenna injects Miala's buttocks with some substance that causes erotic writings, which first Chamberlain, then McKenna, seek to exploit.

Miala relates to his priest-confessor how exciting it was to discover the pleasures that arise when men's phalluses are inserted into one's mouth and anus, especially when such pleasures are occurring simultaneously.

One can detect steam rising in the confessional, and soon the priest is masturbating himself as he contemplates how wonderful it would be for a European white boy to experience at the same time the sexual prowess of two men of African descent.

This is a truly erotic film, that has an edginess that continues to wear well into the 21st century.

Les hommes préfèrent les hommes (1981 Video)

So these six guys walk into a French gay bar

[5/10 · 1 July 2014]

"Les hommes préfèrent les hommes", which has been translated into English as "Men Prefer Men" begins interestingly, involving several familiar faces (and other body parts) of men from Cadinot's past and future films.

Three men are watching a male exotic dancer (Felipe Gambas) gyrating on a bar and begin to explore each other's bodies. Soon an orgy begins that involves all the men at the bar and sitting elsewhere in the room. These include Ralph, who picks up the hitcher in "Stop" (Cadinot's early short, not to be confused with the later "Stop/Surprise"), Laurent Miala and Sydney McKenna, the latter an important star in Cadinot's work.

Unlike the Cadinot films with story lines, either serious or satirical, this is a film that consists of episodes whose only relation with one another is the presence of the exotic dancer. After the orgy (in which the dancer himself eventually participates), we descend into the lower part of the club, where men at tables observe first the exotic dancing, then an episode where the dancer shows his proficiency with a large dildo.

The Cadinot imprint can be seen in a few cinematic devices (flashing neon signs that recall the road signs of "Stop"), but compared to Cadinot's work in the later 1980s, or such American artists as Jerry Douglas in the 1990s (such as "Family Values" and "The Dream Team" or Nica Noelle's 21st century work, all of which show character motivation and storyline, this short video is an ineffective film to judge Cadinot's contributions to the art form.

Scouts (1981 Video)

An autobiographical adolescent sex fantasy

[10/10 · 30 March 2014]

There are themes discernible in Jean-Daniel Cadinot's early films. "Tendres Adolescents" presents a beautiful depiction of unconditional love between two adolescent boys."Stop" presents a archetypal alpha male (the hitchhiker) seeking sexual dominance over other men (the film compromised by a curious inability of the hitchhiker to perform to the level we would expect of Mr Alpha).

"Scouts" is something quite different. Cadinot told us that he, as a gay teenager, felt out of place in the Catholic Church and the Scouts, two institutions which he felt were at odds with his own sexual feelings.

Watching the film with this information, leads one to truly appreciate how brilliantly conceived it is. This is a fantasy film that a filmmaker in his mid-30s created in memory of what were obvious teenage fantasies.

Eight scouts, divided into two troops, embark on a treasure hunt in a rocky, mountainous area through which runs a rapidly moving stream. They are accompanied by a fully frocked priest (Jacques De Rives), carrying what appears to be a Bible. The priest's long black gown is the only garment the priest is wearing as we can see when he raises the hem of his frock up to his face to wipe off some sweat.

The scouts, without a hint of self-consciousness and with no underwear,wear the briefest of shorts which are split to assure that their own treasures are always evident to fellow scouts (and the viewing audience).

Unlike the hitchhiker in "Stop", none of the eight scouts have any trouble at all manning up for whatever comes. Both of the stars of "Tendres Adolescents", Ange Dominique and Jean-Paul Deval, are among the scouts.

THe priest's bible has another book inside. Instead of, say, Thomas Aquinas, it is some of the racier work of Tom of Finland. This puts the priest in the mood to see what the scouts are doing, and finding them engaged in sex comes up behind one, lifting the front of his frock, shows the scout how to become a Lucky Pierre.

Soon both scouts accept the Priest's invitation for them to crawl under his habit, one in front, one in back, to continue their religious education.

Meanwhile other scouts are studying maps and practicing orienteering. Despite wearing shorts obviously dangerously inappropriate for such high adventure activities as rock-climbing and wading in rapids, the scouts still want to take part in the sexual fun and games.

Scouts learn the techniques of giving and receiving pleasure while negotiating the rocks through which a rapidly flowing river runs or hopping over rocky crags high up a mountain.

The film has the spirit of the naughty thoughts of boys in their late teens, remembered and memorialized nearly two decades later by an experienced maker of adult films.

Tendres adolescents (1980 Video)

Two male youths leave a hayfield to make love

[10/10 · 22 March 2014]

"Tendres adolescents", a 30 minutes film from 1980, was one of Jean-Daniel Cadinot's first films. It is a stunningly beautiful depiction of a sexually explicit love affair between two youths (both obviously of the age of consent, and there is lot of consenting that is about to happen.)

The youths are played by Ange Dominique (who is dominant) and the beautiful Jean-Paul Deval, whose obvious adoration of Dominique assures that Dominique will find all the pleasure he could ask for.

The film begins with the two boys working in a hayfield, each wearing a full length linen shirt and linen trousers, whose loose fit allows the viewer to gauge how intensely each one desires the other. They embrace and roll in the hay, and decide to bathe. They walk together to the chicken-filled courtyard of a house, where Dominique brings a very large saucer which he fills with water, allowing Duval to begin to wash himself off. But soon Duval devotes himself to taking care of Dominique's sexual appetites. After each washes a bit, and Duval experiences Dominique's passions, they happily return to the hayfield. Dominique later appears in two other Cadinot films "Scouts" and "Age Tendre et Sexes Droits", while Deval appears in "Scouts".

Stop (1980 Video)

A hitch-hiker takes a willing motor bike driver for a rendezvous in an old van

[7/10 · 21 March 2014]

There was much going for this relatively short film, with several themes that reappear in later Cadinot works. First the lead character's costume. He hitch-hikes at a bus stop in the shortest of red-colored shorts designed to expose his very promising package to anyone interested.

Throughout the film, pictures of French road signs usually with a sexual association, are highlighted, His very short shorts do the trick and he gets a ride to a country road, in a very accessible place where he can fondle himself easily seen from the road. First a bicyclist notices him, but does not stop, but a motor bike driver does. The driver himself is clad in the kind of very brief package-exposing tattered shorts that reminds one of the uniforms worn by the scouts in Cadinot's "Scouts".

The stud driving the motor bike drives him up the road (slowly passing the bicyclist to allow the hitch-hiker to feel up the bicyclist's ass. But it is the motor bike driver and the hitchhiker who explore an old open wreck of a van, where the driver submits to the hitchhiker's every desire.

My rating might be higher if the hitch-hiker was as obviously enticing (and aroused) sexually as he was costumed, but this film is still worth a look.