Cruising the Movies

Happy Spooky Season, everyone! In the spirit of being more treat than trick, we're releasing this bonus episode to everyone! And boy, do we have a treat for you: we're discussing the previously-lost possession film SEX DEMON. Truly more interesting than THE EXORCIST—it knows when to actually be funny and scary—and building off the suppressed demonic classic ABBY, SEX DEMON has not been seen for fo...

Have we got a surprise for you this week, listeners! On this episode, we discuss Hand in Hand's ode to itself GOOD HOT STUFF. Part cheeky documentary, part meta-history, and part outright salvage job, GOOD HOT STUFF takes us through the young studio's early artistic successes and previews its raunchy upcoming creations. Along the way, we meet an adorable narrator with an incredibly thick mid-Atlan...

What happens when a short story becomes a classic movie, which then becomes a radio play, and then a Broadway musical, and then a campy drag parody featuring the beefy one-time owner of the Gold's Gym empire? You get Ray Harrison and the GGRC's 1972 film ALL ABOUT ALICE. This week, we're celebrating the American Genre Film Archive's upcoming blu-ray collection of films by the GGRC—a Los Angeles ga...

This week on the podcast, we're exposing 'the eternal triangle of bi-sexuality' and all the trials and tribulations that come with trying to have it… BOTH WAYS, directed by Jerry Douglas and released in 1975. Future disco queen Andrea True and Douglas regular Gerald Grant star in this sensitive drama (or is it a comedy?) as a married couple whose loving relationship is torn apart by the husband's...

This week on the podcast, we're taking a look a title that many consider to be among the greatest all-male films ever made: Tom DeSimone's SKIN DEEP . Released in the period after DeSimone's mainstream slasher classic HELL NIGHT , SKIN DEEP  tells the story of Eric, a porno writer who falls for Mark, a hustler he sees on the regular — but is he in love with the character or the man himself? A haun...

We're back! This week we're kicking off our second season by taking in the sights and studs of sunny California with William Higgins's THE BOYS OF VENICE . Taking the form of a sexual travelogue, THE BOYS OF VENICE was truly a breakthrough film that helped usher in a new look and style that would come to dominate the all-male screen for years to come — and introduce a new stable of superstar perfo...

This week on the podcast, we're getting patriotic — or are we? — with a look at Rob Simple's 1972 film, AMERICAN CREAM. A satirical deconstruction of masculinity told in three unrelated loops, AMERICAN CREAM is among the stranger films to emerge from the early years of the genre. Over the course of this episode, we'll talk about the film's roots in experimental theatre, its (not so) mysterious cre...

Tanned, sinewy, aloof — a few adjectives that only begin to describe Peter Berlin, the enigmatic star of Ignatio Rutkowski's 1973 film NIGHTS IN BLACK LEATHER. Described as "combining the camp machismo of the leather set and [Berlin's] own sense of comedy" by Foxylady magazine, NIGHTS IN BLACK LEATHER takes us on a sexual travelogue of San Francisco with our Teutonic lead star as guide. Dressed to...

Happy Pride! We're kicking off June with a double-header: Arch Brown's LOVE THY NEIGHBOR (1974) and Zachary Youngblood's  CELEBRATION (1978/1982). Although neither of these films may be a classic of the genre, both include vital footage of early Pride parades in New York City and San Francisco, pieces of queer life in 70s that you simply can't find anywhere else. We consider what makes Pride such...

"It began at an airport…" This week on the show — and themed around the Memorial Day holiday — we present Jason Sato and Nick Eliot's 1973 drama, BROTHERS. The film explores the relationship between homosexual Vince, and his younger — and straight — brother Rick, who has just returned home on leave from Vietnam. Plagued by "ugly thoughts on his mind", Vince finds himself struggling to deal with a...

"Have you ever wondered about truckers… or about how men get it on… with each other?" asks the trailer for KANSAS CITY TRUCKING CO . , Joe Gage's 1976 story of a straight trucker whose consciousness is raised on his first cross-country haul to Los Angeles. A truly landmark film, KANSAS CITY TRUCKING CO . had a seismic impact on gay male visual and sexual culture, establishing a new vision of blue...

In June 1968, Los Angeles' Park Theatre held the world's first gay film festival. Mixed in the usual works by figures like Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, and Andy Milligan was a new name: Pat Rocco. Though he'd only started making films that year, Rocco would quickly become the vanguard of a new, openly-gay film movement and a crucial figure in the history of gay liberation. This week on the show, we'...

This week on the show we're taking it to the stage with "the all-male hit of 1981," Steve Scott's PERFORMANCE . Featuring a bevy of West Coast superstars and up-and-comers, PERFORMANCE follows the planning and production of an all-male burlesk extravaganza, culminating with Nick Rodgers' unforgettable (and absurd) KISS strip routine. Over the course of the episode, we'll dig into America's strange...

This week on the podcast, we're taking a look at the sole big-budget feature from the filmmaker Christopher Rage once described as being "the man who practically invented gay porn," Arch Brown. THE NIGHT BEFORE tells the story of Hank, a slacker with no real ambition in life other than to meet all the interesting people in New York City. And that he does — or does he? — when he runs into Paul one...

This week on the podcast, we're finally taking a look at the film that set the gay world on fire: Fred Halsted's L.A. PLAYS ITSELF . Described by its creator as a sort of 'confessional yin-and-yang,' the film's highly controversial emphasis on sadomasochism and ambivalent tone drew as much condemnation as it did applause, making Halsted a legitimate gay icon virtually overnight. Over the course of...

This week on the podcast we're wrapping up a month of grand romance with Gorton Hall's 1974 epic, ZOOMERANG! The first film to be shot in the exciting screen process known as Ultravision, ZOOMERANG! tells the story of Gary and Jack, a middle-class gay couple living in domestic bliss. All that changes when Jack's old 'basically straight' tennis partner throws a wrench in the relationship by visitin...

This week on the podcast — and just in time for Valentine's Day — we're taking a look at Francis Ellie's 1976 "romantic triangle of triumph and tragedy," KISS TODAY GOODBYE. George Payne stars as Charlie, a construction worker who finds himself having a torrid affair with Bill, an executive at his firm. Will Charlie and Bill find happiness together, or will outside forces tear them apart? Over the...

This week on the podcast, we're taking a look at the film that gave notorious "Master of Sleaze" Christopher Rage his nickname: his sole 16mm feature, SLEAZE. Hyped in advertising as being "ain't no LOVE STORY," SLEAZE documents the initiations and going-ons of an underground, 42nd Street sex club. With a cast of unknowns and heavy hitters like Casey Donovan, Daniel Holt, and Scorpio; and a visual...

We begin a new year of the podcast with Arthur J. Bressan Jr.'s 1985 film, JUICE. Bressan's final adult film (and penultimate feature), JUICE is a sweet movie about 48 cruisey, humpy hours in New York City marked with a deadline. Michael Christopher plays Jim, a photographer who's about to lose his job at New York's hottest gay magazine if he can't find new faces by the end of the weekend. Will hi...

Merry Fistmas! On our last episode of 2020, we'll be exploring a film about shafts and the working class, Jack Deveau's 'blue collar blue movie,' ROUGH TRADES. A deliberate attempt by Hand in Hand Films to scale back production costs, ROUGH TRADES is a simple story about one music producer and a whole lot of handymen. Over the course of our discussion, we'll dig into Hand in Hand's disastrous atte...

It's a Fistmas miracle! As a special stocking stuffer for you, we have an interview with Adam Baran, filmmaker and founder of the long-running New York sex party, NYC Inferno.  Over the course of our discussion, we'll be talking about Adam's first encounters with NEW YORK CITY INFERNO (Episode 12), the ways he's been able to evoke the film's era while avoiding nostalgia, and maintaining community...

This week we're kicking off Fistmas season with our very first French film: Marvin Merkins' NEW YORK CITY INFERNO . Straddling the line between narrative and travelogue, the film tells the story of Jérôme, a Frenchman who descends into New York's hedonistic leather scene to find his missing lover, Paul. Shot at several legendary New York gay spaces — including the notorious Mineshaft — NEW YORK CI...

This week on the podcast, we're rebounding from our last episode with a true classic of the genre, Tom DeSimone's 1979 film, THE IDOL. Heavily promoted upon its release as being "the motion picture you've waited a long time to see," THE IDOL tells the story of Gary Evans, a college track star with a secret he took to the grave. But what was that secret — and who knew the real Gary? Listen as we di...

This week on the show, we're taking a look at two... out there... films built around iconic — and long gone — San Francisco cruising spots: The Slot Hotel in Mother Goose's ROOM 328 and the Spartan Cinema in Fritz Gemein's HONORABLE JONES COMES OUT.  Over the course of our discussion, we'll go into the history behind each of these locations, the mysterious identity of Mother Goose, and the real sc...

We wrap up our month of horror-themed titles with perhaps the spookiest of them all: Peter de Rome's nightmarishly psychedelic 1976 film, THE DESTROYING ANGEL. Tim Kent stars as Caswell Campbell, a seminary student torn between the cloth and the flesh and plagued by visions of his more endowed doppelgänger. As he loses himself in hallucinogenic drugs and increasingly debauched gay sex while on sab...