I'm always stumped by the first thing people want to know when they meet me. What's your favorite sexo? What are your ten favorite sexos? Well, I've finally decided to do something about it�"partially so I won't be left without an answer when next questioned on the subject, but more because it'll be interesting to see what titles pop up out of all those movies I've reviewed (how many have there been in 36 years?).
One thing I know is that I have more favorite scenes than full-length movies. But there's one full movie that would hover right near the top of my Top Ten list. Serendipitously, it's just been reissued in a fully restored edition, remastered and glamorized the way it deserves.
It's Wakefield Poole's Bijou. Along with Poole's Boys in the Sand , it's one of the cornerstones of gay porn. And though it was made in 1972�"42 years ago!�"it's still mighty fresh. Sure, by today's digital standards, the film stock's grainy. But the film's content remains gritty.
Bijou stars Bill Harrison, a handsome, dirty blond with a majorly big dick. Think of a big dick, and then think of one that's a lot bigger. That's Harrison's. Among his other appreciable attributes, like the fine sandy fleece shining on his forearms, I'm particularly fond of his thick mustache. Very 1972 clone, and hot.
He plays a construction worker who accidentally acquires an invitation to a club named Bijou. He has no idea what's in the club, but he's game�"even when a flashing sign in the club's dark interior instructs him to remove his clothing. Naked, he wends his way through a labyrinth that's home to a strange erotic world. Deep within the maze, he comes across a gay orgy, where he's venerated, fucks some guys, sure makes use of the opportunities presented, and where the participants of the gay orgy finally cum across him. We really can't tell if he's gay or straight, or even if he likes what he's doing.
Spoiler Alert: Only as he leaves, in the film's last second, does he break into a smile that tells all. It's a fleeting grin that makes a perfect freeze frame. Roll credits.
Watching the movie again, I relished a clever moment of Poole's direction. Harrison's snatched a woman's purse off the street. Investigating its contents at home, he sniffs at her lipstick, takes a lick off its tip. For gay viewers, it's very phallic. For straights, it's a tell-tale clue Harrison's straight, too. If the gal's panties had been in the purse, he would have sniffed them. It's the sort of character-revealing director's touch you don't see much in porn.
Although it doesn't shy away from hardcore, the mysteriously brooding Bijou has an emphasis on ambiance over overt sex, making it the first example of what I've called artporn, and what Poole has called (when asked what he'd like to see in today's porn) "a little brain sex."
It doesn't take brains, however, to be moved by the film's hot cast, which includes Stoner, aka Bill Cable, an iconic Colt and Playgirl model, who sadly doesn't participate, but merely stands nearby and nude for all to worship. As for Harrison, he's a constant eyeful. When his penis is revealed for the first time in the film, 1972 audiences gasped and wondered if it was a special effect. Nowadays we take a dick that size in porn as our just due, and the only special effect may be the Viagra holding it up.
The guy behind this dolled up re-issue is Jim Tushinski, who directed the documentary That Man: Peter Berlin. Coming soon is Tushinski's documentary about Poole, who's known as the godfather of gay porn. It's Tushinski who's been behind the DVD resurrection of all of Poole's movies.
Bijou was first on DVD as part of a 2002 two disc treasure chest, The Wakefield Poole Collection. But that iteration of Bijou was created from faulty sources, which turned much of its mysterious, deep black tones into an ugly green wash. For this edition, Tushinski supervised a meticulous color correction, creating a digital master scanned at 2k from the movie's original 16mm elements. "The results," says Tushinski, "are astounding." I emphatically second that emotion.
While encapsulating the sexual revolution of the 1970s, Bijou is right in line with porn's current obsession over straight men.
"I wanted to show that a straight man could go and experience something and think of it as a kick," Poole says in the director's commentary track. And what a true picture of the '70s it is: liberating, enraptured with male sexuality, hedonistic, drugged, and, yes, melancholy�"a mood largely credited to Poole's right on choice for the soundtrack of Gustave Holst's The Planets, with that composer's longing for the ineffable throwing an unfulfillable yearning over the movie's sex.
And get this�"though listed at $19.98, the current sale price at distributor www.VinegarSyndrome is a mere $15.98.
Read John F. Karr's NSFW archive of reviews at www.KarrnalKnowledge.com