Slavery Sure Made People Horny

Another installment in Harry
Whittington’s plantation porn saga.

Trigger warning: It’s plantation porn. ’Nuff said.

If one were asked to name an especially horny time in American history, the 1850s likely wouldn’t make the top ten, yet SECRET OF BLACKOAKS, the second installment in Lance Horner’s plantation porn series by Harry Whittington writing as Ashley Carter, describes the antebellum South like it was the height of the sexual revolution. From its first chapter, when the new master of the Blackoaks plantation, Styles Kenric, gives his hunky young slave Moab a morning hummer before starting his day, to its last, when Moab, having since fled the plantation, lifts the skirt of his fellow escapee to remove a bullet from her leg and feels an “acute stirring in his loins” upon seeing her bare ass, sex is always at the forefront of people’s minds.

At the end of 1976’s Master of Blackoaks, the titular master Ferrell Baynard dies. However, his oldest son Ferrell-Junior, wracked with guilt over his failure to stop the gang rape of his girlfriend Lorna June, has entered a monastery to become a priest, leaving the door open for his scheming brother-in-law Styles Kenric to seize control of the plantation. In this 1978 follow-up, Styles realizes he fought to become captain of a sinking ship. Blackoaks has massive debts, its cotton crops aren’t bringing in the money like they used to, and the one product sustaining the plantation, Ferrell Baynard’s famous corn liquor, can’t be produced since the distillery burned down. Making matters worse, Ferrell Baynard’s widow, Miz Claire, showing signs of dementia (she frequently urges Styles and others to wait for her dead husband to return before making any decisions), has elected to host the wedding of her “big breasted cousin from Charleston,” piling on more debt on top of the debt incurred from Ferrell Baynard’s funeral.

But Styles isn’t going to let the plantation’s shaky finances stop him from his dream of turning Blackoaks into a premier slave breeding operation. By quickly—and coldly—selling off slaves and arranging a line of credit at the local bank (run by Lorna June’s husband Luke Scroggings), Styles stabilizes Blackoaks’ finances in the short term, with enough capital left over to fund future investments, i.e., slaves. Specifically, Styles wants to purchase women of Fulani origin to mate with his two prized male Fulani slaves, Blade and Moab, the whole plan discussed like he’s breeding purebred dogs. This is not comfortable reading.

His plans are almost derailed when Jamie Lee, the aforementioned big-breasted cousin from Charleston, is caught fucking Moab by her fiancé Link Tetherow (yes, Link Tetherow), described as handsome and muscular, but walking “slightly spraddled-legged, as if he were for some reason tender of crotch.” She accuses Moab of rape, but the Baynards don’t readily buy her story since Jamie Lee has not-so-discreetly been sampling all the cocks of Blackoaks, including the one attached to Morgan, the learning-impaired youngest Baynard son, the experience turning the teenager into a compulsive masturbator. The Baynards manage to hold off a lynch mob, headed by the vile Gil Talmadge who instigated the gang-rape of Lorna June, while a visiting Ferrell-Junior convinces Link to tell the gang of bloodthirsty rednecks that it was all a misunderstanding, implying that he might out Link as one of the Lorna June’s rapists to her husband—and the Tetherows’ creditor—Luke Scroggings (this assumes Lorna June hasn’t revealed the identity of her rapists, which actually tracks as Lorna June likely understood that she would be stigmatized, not her rapists). Nevertheless, it’s not until Miz Claire, in one of her more lucid moments, shoots Gil Talmadge’s prize slave Arthur that the lynch mob backs down. The wedding goes on as planned, and Jamie Lee and Link exit the book.

With the wedding out of the way, Styles puts his energy into turning Blackoaks into a premier slave breeding operation. To that end, he travels to Tallahassee to purchase a female slave of Fulani origin. Enter Ahma, who is tall, beautiful, barely 16 years old and very angry, with a history of running and fighting enslavement at all costs, even killing a man to get away. “You’ll never break her,” warns fellow plantation owner Cleatus Dennison. But Styles, already miffed that he’s not treated with proper deference as the new master of Blackoaks, is determined to prove all the naysayers wrong and buys Ahma anyway. The trip back to Alabama is a long one, made longer by Ahma’s behavior, starting with her attempting to flee Styles’s carriage (or kill herself):

Luckily, the carriage was moving at a slow clip or the girl would have been dead. Though she was shackled, wrists and ankles, she had lunged over the tailboard of the converted carriage. She hung there, head down, her black hair dragging on the rutted road.

Her face was pallid and she was fighting for breath, almost unconscious when Laus, Perseous [slaves traveling with Styles] and Styles ran back and lifted her again into the carriage. Styles poured her a cup of water from the canteen. She stared at him, refused to touch it. “Why do you want to kill yourself?” he demanded.

She did not answer, merely stared at him, her eyes bleak with hatred.

Later, they stop at a rundown farm to buy some food from the owners who can barely feed themselves. After Ahma spits a mouthful of clabber into his face, Styles, struggling to keep his composure, tries to sell her on life at Blackoaks, as if she has a choice in the matter.

“Two beautiful Fulani boys are waiting for you up at Blackoaks, Ahma. Blade and Moab. They will belong to you alone. You’ll live with them. You’ll have good food—none of this cracker hog-swill. Good food, a nice soft bed. Long nights with Blad in your arms. You’ll want him, Ahma. No matter how much you hate me, that’s how much you’re going to love Blade. Why don’t you behave and eat so you’ll look beautiful for Blade? You’ll make babies together, Ahma. You and Blade. Beautiful pure blood Fulani children.”

Now she spoke, moaning, a savage sound of heartbreak. “Babies? For you to sell, white Masta? Sell like you bought me yesterday?” She raged, fighting at her bonds, tears streaming down her cheeks….

Styles’s shoulders sagged. He walked slowly around the carriage and swung up into the seat, waiting for the [B]lack men to climb in. It looked like a long, hard journey home….

However, Ahma’s resistance to slavery melts—or at least temporarily subsides—the moment she meets Blade. Suddenly, fucking Blade is more important than a life of servitude, conveniently allowing Secret of Blackoaks to put a pin in Ahma’s fiery resistance until the novel’s finale.

Styles isn’t entirely reassured, however. It seemed to him that women were bitches. Some of them were violent bitches. Ahma had already proved her violence. She needed a good fucking—the kind the Mt. Zion louts called “a good horse-fucking.” But Styles soon learns he’s got bigger problems than a slave that may/may not be tamed by Blade’s formidable cock. While he was in Florida, his wife Kathy ran off with Hunt Campbell.

Sex, Booze and Yellow Fever

The British edition of Secret
of Blackoaks. The U.K. version of
Blade is closer to what one would expect,
though still smaller than the
Michael B. Jordan-esque physique 
I’d imagined.

That Kathy would run off with Hunt Campbell is hardly a surprise. Their eventual affair was heavily teased near the end of Master of Blackoaks, and in couple’s interactions in Secret of Blackoaks make their affair inevitable. Hunt, already fired once when Styles deemed tutoring Morgan a waste of money, only to be hired by Kathy as her French teacher, is again sent packing by Styles, told that he needs to be gone by the time he returns from Florida. What’s surprising is Kathy finding the courage to leave with him (she’d resolved she could pay the price of living unmarried as Hunt’s mistress; she could not endure losing him and remaining suffocated and starved as Styles’s wife).

They end up in New Orleans, spending most of their time boning in their hotel suite. Kathy is shy, easily embarrassed when Hunt disrobes in front of her (“I’m proud of my manhood. I’ve nothing to hide,” Hunt tells her) but is suddenly as uninhibited as a Bourbon Street prostitute a few orgasms later (“Do you want to—fuck me?”). Their days and nights are all fun and cum until they leave their hotel room one day and are spotted by the Bretherton sisters, old maids who live at a plantation 10 miles away from Blackoaks.

It doesn’t take long for news of Kathy and Hunt being spotted in New Orleans to reach Styles. Styles, determined to maintain his honor, explains that the Bretherton sisters must be mistaken, Kathy is away visiting family in Charleston, but then immediately plans to track her down. Instead of traveling to New Orleans himself, though, he decides to prepare Blade to make the trip. Here’s where the book really strains credulity. Styles’s plan to manipulate Blade into seducing or, better still, raping Kathy by feeding him stories about how she has always secretly desired Blade, is diabolical, but sending Blade to travel across Alabama unaccompanied in the 1850s, with nothing more than a letter of introduction, a purse full of coins and newly acquired basic reading skills, sounds like a death sentence. Still, I was entertained by the descriptions of Blade getting prepped for his journey, with Whittington always sure to keep the reader apprised of Blade’s huge dick, be it through Styles’s grooming (“[Kathy] told me she kept thinking about that big staff of yours, Blade.”), Blade getting scrubbed down by three houseboys (“Let them wash you down there, Blade—gets sweated.”) or when Blade tries on a freshly tailored suit, which shows off “the outline of Blade’s manhood at the crotch of the skintight trousers.”

Styles could, of course, just leave well enough alone as Kathy and Hunt’s relationship is rapidly disintegrating. Hunt quickly comes to the realization that life with Kathy, a woman used to being cared for by others, is an expensive proposition. His savings are rapidly dwindling, especially now that he’s rented an apartment and hired a servant for them, and he’s been unsuccessful in securing another tutoring gig, an unfortunate consequence when your approach to job hunting consists of sitting back and hoping word of mouth marketing pays off. Furthermore, Hunt becomes increasingly paranoid, certain Styles is close to finding them. He already suspects (correctly) that he’s being followed. Hunt starts drinking more to soothe his jangled nerves. It’s not long before he prefers getting drunk to getting laid.

Adding to Hunt’s stress is the yellow fever epidemic sweeping through New Orleans, killing thousands. Hunt may be hot, but he’s a coward, wanting to avoid physical pain at all costs. He knows staying in New Orleans means risking disease or, worse, being murdered by Styles. Staying with Kathy means financial ruin. So, early one morning, he leaves a letter and $500 for Kathy and flees the city.

Kathy spends the first few days of Hunt’s abandonment in denial. Then she contracts “yellow jack,” whereupon her housekeeper says fuck no! and bolts, taking the $500 Hunt left for Kathy on her way out the door. Shortly after the housekeeper exits the apartment, Joe Bullock, a sleazy P.I. hired by Styles and the man following Hunt earlier, enters. He discovers Kathy asleep in bed, covered in her own vomit. “You poor little bitch,” he remarks before leaving her for dead.

Styles Loses his Shit

Blade does eventually make his way to New Orleans, and while his journey isn’t easy, he isn’t mistreated as badly as one would expect. Styles’s letters of introduction have no sway over the pervading racism of the time, the only courtesy innkeepers extend is allowing Blade to park his carriage behind their establishment and camp out there (Blade still gets a blowjob from a kitchen slave because the demands of smut override believability).

There’s a long stretch devoted to Blade’s misadventures upon arriving in New Orleans, including his meeting a flamboyant pimp, having a night of fun on Congo Square and tangling with a vengeful cop, but let’s skip ahead. Blade finds Kathy nearly dead of yellow fever and enlists the help of a Marie Laveau-esque character to nurse her back to health, or at least healthy enough to travel. They stop at the same inn that had previously refused Blade a room, but as Kathy’s slave he is grudgingly allowed to sleep indoors, though his being permitted to sleep in her room just doesn’t track. Were she accompanied by a female slave, I could believe it. A big strapping Black man sleeping in the same room as a white lady in the antebellum South? Not so much.

The sleeping arrangement is a plot contrivance, of course, employed to facilitate Blade’s seduction of Kathy. While their eventual hooking up is consensual, it kind of plays out like a guy putting the moves on his best friend’s ex while she’s still crying about being dumped. I’ll admit I lost patience with this particular chapter, largely because Whittington draws out the will-they-or-won’t-they way longer than he should. By the chapter’s midpoint I was mentally screaming JUST FUCK ALREADY!

Long story short, Kathy gives in, has some of the most mind-blowing orgasms of her life—so powerful that she forgets the lovin’ Hunt put on her—and immediately regrets what she’s done, whereupon she kills herself by stabbing herself in the heart with Blade’s knife, holding the knife’s hilt reminding her—I shit you not—of “the way Blade had drawn her clasped hand up and down the rigidity of his own staff.” Even when a character is committing suicide, sex remains top of mind.

Remarkably, Blade manages to hide the wound and convince the innkeeper that Kathy passed away from yellow fever. On his return trip to Blackoaks it dawns on Blade that he was used. Kathy had never desired him (Styles was actually describing his own desires for Blade’s body). Styles had used him. By the time he returns to the plantation he’s good and pissed and hungry for vengeance.

Everyone at Blackoaks is grief stricken when Blade returns with Kathy in a box, except Styles, who is described as having “the stony look of a man who has been cheated.” What pushes him over the edge is seeing the note Kathy wrote to him, revealing that she did, in fact, take her own life. Worse, is the letter’s tone, which isn’t contrite but defiant, ending with the line: I found ecstasy only with your Negro slave.

And then Styles loses his shit. He accuses Blade of murdering Kathy, and Blade accuses Styles of lying to him, and that Styles is guilty of killing her. Styles orders Blade shackled and whipped, at which point Blade, out of fucks to give, punches the unhinged master and attempts to strangle him. Now an apoplectic Styles isn’t just content with having Blade whipped, he wants him branded as well, leading to the following harrowing scene:

Styles lifted the branding iron and advanced toward Blade. Ahma screamed and tried to fight free. Perseus and Moab held her. But Blade did not move. When the huge R [for “runner”] was inches from Blade’s face, Styles hesitated, waiting for Blade to whimper, to plead.

Suddenly Styles thrust the branding iron with all his strength into Blade’s face. Ahma’s raging, animal screams were the only sound. It was as if not a man or woman breathed while that branding iron seared Blade’s face. The sharp, sizzling sound of fried flesh was loud in the silence. Blade’s left eye melted under the heat., its socket seared, red hot and empty. The flesh was burned away to the bone from his forehead, foreskull, and nose. His mouth cooked and split like broiled meat. His teeth were bared through the break in his lips in a permanent horrible grimace. His right eye broiled, gray, lying like an oyster in the heat-seared socket. He was completely blind.

The savage branding of Blade triggers an uprising, though the revolt is not led by Ahma. The other slaves think her inaction is because she’s distraught over losing Blade, who was killed—mercifully—shortly after he was branded, shot by Miz Claire at his insistence. However, Ahma reveals to Moab her real reason for not participating in the uprising: “You let them go….They scairt...they stupid n[ope!]…they don’t know they got to kill all the whites or they dead….They let one white alive to say they name—they gets killed.” Instead, she plans to escape during the ensuing melee, urging Moab to run with her.

Once Styles hears the commotion and sees most of Blackoaks up in flames (only the main house is spared), he goes outside to investigate and is immediately jumped by four men, led by Perseus, stripped and raped. They hadn’t killed him because they wanted him alive, the object of their raging scorn and ridicule, the white man who screamed like a woman as he was being sodomized in the grass.

The distasteful coda to that scene is when Styles, having mostly recovered from his gang-rape, spares Perseus’s life on the condition that “you give it to me—like did that night of the revolt.” Not only does this conflate rape with sex, but this passage also perpetuates a myth that bottoms are into pain. Then again, what was I expecting from plantation porn, political correctness?

Meanwhile, Ahma and Moab are desperately trying to stay one step ahead of a search posse—involving many of the same men who were part of the lynch mob in the first part of the book—as they make their way north. Ahma is shot, never mind that Styles strictly instructed members of the posse that he wanted the escaped slaves brought back alive. Ahma’s wound isn’t fatal, but it will seriously impede her ability to travel. She urges Moab to keep going without her, but he refuses to leave her. They’re situation seems hopeless, until they encounter an abolitionist ex machina. 

Less N-words than Django Unchained, at Least

Like its predecessor, Secret of Blackoaks was difficult to put down, no matter how uncomfortable it got. And though it takes a few side trips from its main storyline, it’s got a more cohesive plot than Master of Blackoaks.

That said, I must admit—guiltily—that I liked Master of Blackoaks more. Though Secret of Blackoaks is fairly well-paced, there are moments where the book seems stuck in place, such as Blade cajoling Kathy into having sex. Other parts seem like padding, included as just another a way to work in a few more gratuitous sex scenes, even when they ultimately serve the plot, like Blade’s adventures on Congo Square in New Orleans or Moab’s continued affair with the field boss’s wife Florine.

But perhaps the book’s biggest missed opportunity—and Whittington’s biggest stumble—is the handling of the Ahma character. The story would have been more interesting had she been the driving force behind the uprising, convincing the complacent slaves of Blackoaks that even though they’re treated relatively well by the Baynards, they’re still slaves. Instead, her anger is immediately soothed by Blade’s huge dick. I know this isn’t Roots, but it would’ve been more satisfying in some instances if Whittington aimed higher than between his characters’ legs.

Though Secret of Blackoaks doesn’t pack the same punch as its predecessor, it’s still engrossing and appalling, and if nothing else, features slightly fewer n-words than Django Unchained. Recommended for Harry Whittington completists. Everyone else can be assured that they won’t be bored, but they will be judged if they dare read it in public.

I’ve only read a few books by Lance Horner (Rogue Roman,
The Mahound), but I always got a gay vibe from his writing.
So, maybe it’s not a surprise that Whittington borrowed
the name “Kenric” as the last name of Blackoaks’
sole gay character.

Short Takes: ‘One from the Heart’ (1982) ★★

Critics and audiences didn’t like
it when it was released in 1982
and I don't like it now.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 film One from the Heart stars Frederic Forrest, Terri Garr, Raul Julia and Nastassja Kinski, but the only credit that matters appears at the very end of the movie: “Filmed entirely on the stages of Zoetrope Studios.”

One from the Heart is set in Las Vegas, a place that exists in real life, but rather than just film the fucker on location like a normal person, Coppola chose to recreate, at no small expense, the city on his own soundstages. Coppola’s Vegas is dazzling, more fantastical—and significantly cleaner—than the real thing. Angelo P. Graham has art directed the shit out of this place! And each scene, often bathed in neon pinks, blues, yellows and greens, is lovingly captured by cinematographers Ronald Victor Garcia and Vittorio Storaro. If we watched movies to admire the sets and cinematography, One from the Heart would be a must-see. 

Most of us, however, watch movies for the characters and story, and One from the Heart doesn’t have much of either. Forrest and Garr play Hank and Frannie respectively, longtime lovers who get in a fight all of a sudden (something about Hank buying Frannie a house with their money and dragging his feet about taking her to Bora Bora) and split up. Frannie storms off to stay with her friend Maggie (Lainie Kazan), while Hank goes to his friend Moe (an under-utilized Harry Dean Stanton) to drown his sorrows. Hank and Frannie spend the rest of the movie trying to decide if they should get back together or start new lives with the new people they meet on the Fourth of July: Hank a beautiful young circus performer (Kinski), Frannie a charming waiter/aspiring singer (Julia). This might’ve sustained my interest if I gave a shit about any of them, but I didn’t. I was more invested in checking how much time remained until the final credits, disappointed that each time I checked that it was more than I hoped. This was a very long sit, and I watched the shorter 99-minute version (original cut was 103 minutes).

Had the movie been the musical comedy it’s labeled as, One from the Heart could’ve worked, yet it only looks like one. Though it’s got a pervasive (and admittedly pretty great) soundtrack supplied by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, I wouldn’t call it a musical. And comedies are usually funny; One from the Heart is only irritating, with Forrest acting like a discount Stanley Kowalski and Garr spending most of the movie in a sputtering dither. Audiences didn’t like it when it was released in 1982 and I don’t like it now, critical reappraisal be damned. Still, it looks great (80% of the reason behind my two-star rating) and, if nothing else, it’s shorter than Megalopolis.

Short Takes: ‘Only Good Things’ (2025) ★★★

Is it enigmatic, or just pretentious? More
importantly, does either matter when you
get to see Liev Carlos and Lucas
Drummond naked?

It’s difficult to praise the work of Brazilian writer-director Daniel Nolasco without getting defensive. I liked his 2020 feature Dry Wind (a.k.a. Vento Seco), digging Nolasco’s 1970s-Joe Gage-meets-1980s-neon-noir aesthetic and how he presents gay desire like a 1980s queer teen-ager who just got his hands on a copy of Honcho. However, the explicitness of the movie—and I’m talking about the uncut version I wished I’d purchased when the DVD was still in print, not the edited version streaming on Prime and Dekkoo—makes it easy for cinema snobs (not The Cinema Snob) to dismiss Nolasco as just a high class pornographer, as if that’s a bad thing.

Nolasco’s 2025 film Only Good Things (a.k.a. Apenas Coisas Boas) has many of the elements of Dry Wind: vivid photography, attractive actors with an exhibitionist streak, and trans actress Renata Cavalho, albeit in a significantly smaller role. However, Nolasco’s narrative is less direct this time out, which makes it harder to embrace. I liked it upon reflection, but I can see it pissing off many viewers. My three-star rating is generous.

Only Good Things opens in 1984, when Marcelo (curly-haired cutie Liev Carlos) crashes his motorcycle while riding through the Brazilian countryside, the cause of the accident as odd as it is startling. He’s discovered by a passing rancher, Antônio (Lucas Drummond, really selling that ’stache), who takes the unconscious biker back to his rustic farmhouse to tend to his injuries, as well as admire his cock and taste his blood (how Saltburn!). Later, when Marcelo is still impaired enough to require assistance undressing for a shower but healed enough to get horny, it’s Antônio’s cock that gets admired. And tasted (no money shot, though).

A romance develops, though Antônio is wary, certain Marcelo will leave him at any moment. “There’s nothing here for you,” he reminds Marcelo repeatedly, almost daring him to go. But what threatens this relationship isn’t Marcelo possibly growing bored with farm life but by Antônio’s homophobic father stepping up his intimidation tactics in an attempt to force his son to sell his land, the escalation leading to tragedy.

Though the first half of the movie moves slowly, with a little too much time devoted to capturing Antônio’s routine (milking cows, herding cattle, cheese making), I was very much invested in his story. Then there’s a time jump to present day. Antônio, now played by Fernando Libonati, is in his sixties, living in a São Paulo high rise and seemingly inhabiting a completely different film. The switch is jarring, and it initially turned me against the movie, never mind that the second half also features some full-frontal nudity from Igor Leoni, as Antônio’s assistant Eduardo. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Antônio is an unreliable narrator. That realization led to a kinder view of the movie. Still, I prefer the movie’s first half, even if it is belied by its second. 

Short Takes: ‘Scorchy’ (1976) ★½

Connie Stevens was never meant to
yell “Freeze! Police!” unironically.

I don’t want to suggest that police departments only hire women with voices in the Bea Arthur or Margo Martindale range, but if you’re casting a female detective in your crime drama and you want her to be taken seriously, it helps if she doesn’t sound like a 16-year-old girl. Of course, no one was taking the AIP movie Scorchy all that seriously to begin with, least of all its writer-director, schlockteur Howard Avedis, so maybe the ludicrousness of Connie Stevens as a tough-as-nails (yet bubbly and horny!) detective doesn’t matter.

Stevens plays Jackie Parker—supposedly nicknamed Scorchy but never once addressed as such—a Seattle-based narcotics agent out to bust a drug ring involving Philip Bianco (Cesare Danova) and Carl Henrich (William Smith, wonderfully nasty as always). Bianco fronts as an art dealer, importing rare sculptures that are stuffed with heroin, then having Henrich, acting as an art restorer, remove the drugs when they reach stateside, confiscating the sculpture from its new owner if needed, as happens when said sculpture is delivered to an aging film star played by Joyce Jameson. If that sounds unnecessarily convoluted, that’s because it is, but how else are they going to work in a joke about the film star being a closet lesbian?

Anyway, an undercover Jackie befriends Bianco’s wife Claudia (Marlene Schmidt, also in Avedis’s The Teacher) and gets enlisted to fly the drugs out of state (yeah, she’s a pilot, too), but then Henrich takes off with the smuggled smack. Henrich’s double-cross kicks off an extended chase sequence that almost makes Scorchy worth watching, if only to see a nervous-looking Stevens behind the wheel of a rally car (context doesn’t matter). The other reason people might want to see this movie is for a few scenes featuring the star of Parrish and Susan Slade topless, scenes Stevens clearly was not comfortable doing. She also has a sex scene with a young, tragically coiffed Greg Evigan in his film debut (and no, he doesn’t show any skin), though it looks more like Stevens is being restrained by Evigan than fucking him. Hot.

I have a weakness for seeing stars of the 1950s and ’60s in 1970s exploitation movies, which was why I wanted to see Scorchy, despite all the warnings against it. To her credit, Stevens, who’s like a Joey Heatherton with significantly fewer scandals, isn’t bad, she’s just miscast as someone who must yell, “Freeze! Police!” and expect to be obeyed (though still more believable than Melanie Griffith in 1992’s A Stranger Among Us). I might’ve given Scorchy another half star had it been 85 or 90 minutes, but it’s a heavily padded one hour and 39 minutes, the extra time used to kill Scorchy’s potential as cheesy ’70s fun and leaving the audience with a meandering muddle instead.

Short Takes: ‘Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso’ (2025) ★★½

Watching Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso (a.k.a. Homem com H) wasn’t the first time I wondered about the logistics of filming R-rated rim jobs (that would be when I watched the HBO series Looking), but it was the first time I was prompted to do some online research on the subject. And now I know that yes, there are modesty garments that cover actors’ buttholes, dashing any notions I had that Jesuíta Barbosa (as Ney Matogrosso) and Bruno Montaleone (as Marco, the tragic lover) were staring directly into each other’s naked assholes when filming their sex scene.

Sorry, I really shouldn’t begin a review obsessing about the particulars of filming simulated sex, but it was top of mind when I finished watching Latin Blood. The movie is not about actors tossing salad, however. It’s a biopic about queer Brazilian singer Ney Matogrosso, known as much for his outrageous costuming and androgynous appearance as for his voice.

That Matogrosso (né Ney de Souza Pereira) rose to such heights is a testament his determination as much as his talent, given that his father, portrayed in the film by Rômulo Braga, was a harsh, borderline abusive, disciplinarian who seemed determined to break the young Ney’s will at every turn. Then again, proving our parents wrong can be a powerful motivator. After brief stints in the military and performing in a Brasilia college choral group (and having an affair with an older man), Matogrosso moves to Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960s, where he ultimately joins the rock group Secos & Molhados (Dry Ones & Wet Ones), becoming its art director as well as its lead singer. The band is an immediate hit, yet while it owes much of its success to Matogrosso’s stage presence, the film suggests the Secos & Molhados’ founding members—both straight—wanted him to tone it down. Instead, Matogrosso goes solo, to even greater success.

Director Esmir Filho, who co-wrote the script with Laura Malin, has crafted an entertaining film, featuring some superb performances, especially from Barbosa, and a few questionable wigs. It’s not a very impactful film, however. The problem with biopics that go from cradle to grave—or cradle to present day, in this case—is they tend to play like highlight reels. Latin Blood rapidly cycles through Matogrosso’s life, from 1949 to present, barely allowing the audience time to get its bearings before jumping to the next decade, only slowing down for the 1970s. Characters appear with little introduction—perhaps, in the case of Cazuza (Jullio Reyes), because the filmmakers believe none is needed. But if you’re unfamiliar with Brazilian musicians of the ’70s and ’80s, you’ll think he’s just one of Matogrosso’s fuck buddies, until it’s revealed in another time jump that he was a famous singer in his own right, and an AIDS casualty a scene after that. There is no time for tears, however. Latin Blood quickly hops to another moment in Matogrosso’s life as it races to a finale concert by the real, present-day Matogrosso.

You may get more out of Latin Blood if you’re already a fan of Matogrosso’s music. If not, at least appreciate that, despite often playing out like a Wikipedia page with sex, nudity and a soundtrack album, it’s not some Bohemian Rhapsody PG-13 bullshit.

A Gay Man Watches Straight Smut #6*: ‘The Passions of Carol’

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Reading Roundup: Sin in the Suburbs More Fun than Small Town Secrets

The cover for the 1962 paperback
 edition of John D. MacDonald’s
Soft Touch suggests it’s a novel about
 a vacation fling gone wrong. Regardless,
I wish the eBay seller I bought this
from had chosen a different spot for
their barcode.

As important as the setting can be to a story, I often encounter authors (and sometimes filmmakers) who treat it as inconsequential. This is especially true of books about the sexploits of the beautiful people, which usually do little more than mention the city where the characters reside/travel to (Los Angeles, New York, Paris) and a few chic locations (Rodeo Drive, Le Cirque, Maxim’s) before focusing on excessive cocaine use, backstabbing and fucking. Of course, there are other authors who go too far in the other direction and use up a lot of ink with florid descriptions of every vista observed, every street traveled, every room entered, every zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

But most authors get it just right, careful to evoke their story’s setting without writing about it to distraction. Not surprisingly, one of those authors is John D. MacDonald, whose 1958 thriller SOFT TOUCH provides a snapshot of suburban depravity, where bored couples fill their empty existences with liberal amounts of alcohol and casual flings. For Jerry, suburbia is a stifling prison, made unendurable by his wife Lorraine, described as “unhappy, shallow, lazy, short-tempered, cruel and amoral.” Lorraine spends most of her time partying with the neighbors, only coming home to sleep it off or pregame for the next night. Jerry wants to divorce her and hook up with Liz, the attractive secretary at E.J. Malton Construction Company where he works. Except, the construction company is owned by his father-in-law. If only he had the capital to start his own company, he could make a clean break and start over with Liz.

Enter his old war buddy, Vince Biskay, who now works as a pilot doing odd jobs for a South American dictator. Vince has come to Jerry with a scheme to intercept a suitcase filled with the dictator’s cash in Miami before it’s handed over to an arms dealer. Jerry is resistant at first but is ultimately swayed when assured he’ll be little more than a getaway driver.

Things don’t go as planned, and they get worse as Jerry’s increasing greed and paranoia clouds his thinking. The ever-reliable MacDonald ramps up the tension as Jerry tries to stay one step ahead of real and imagined threats, convinced he’s pulling it off despite his near-misses and total fuckups, which includes a fight with Lorraine that ends very badly and a tryst with one of the neighborhood’s bored, horny housewives who steps naked out of the bedroom at the worst possible moment.

Soft Touch is a lean, fast-paced thriller that proves once again that MacDonald was a master of the genre. I’ll also recommend the 1961 movie adaptation, Man-Trap. Though Ed Waters’ screenplay takes a lot of liberties with the book’s story, giving it a much happier ending, the movie is largely worth watching for Stella Stevens’ enjoyably nasty performance as Lorraine (re-named Nina in the movie for some reason).

The model’s expression on this 1975
paperback edition of The World They Wanted
is less “Come hither,” and more “What
 the hell do you want?”

Sticking with another tried-and-true author, I selected something from the Herbert Kastle bibliography, THE WORLD THEY WANTED, in which suburban malaise moves to center stage.

Though the cover of the Mayflower Books edition I have makes the novel appear to be about bed-hopping in the 1970s, the book was originally published in 1962, when women weren’t expected to have ambitions beyond housewife, when $17K a year was a decent income, and when a three-bedroom split level could be purchased for $20,000. And $20 grand is what it costs to buy such a home in Birch Hills, a development that’s the brainchild of builder Matt Swain, who hopes there are New York City residents willing to make the move to a more bucolic setting.

Plenty are. Among the first to buy homes in Birch Hills are the Rands, who hope that their juvenile delinquent son George will start flying right once he’s moved away from the bad influences of the city. Joe Bialdi, who has been struggling with mental illness much of his adult life, thinks owning a home in Birch Hills will give him plenty of projects to occupy his troubled mind. Only the Lerners make the move to the ’burbs for typical reasons—more space for the kids—though Miriam Lerner wishes her husband Dave would consider some place closer to NYC, a place that is known to have a Jewish community. Dave, who wants only to assimilate into WASP circles, is drawn to Birch Hills precisely because it affords him an opportunity to deny his Jewish identity.

Of course, the move doesn’t mean their problems stay behind in the city. George Rand finds different ways to rebel, mainly by boning the Bialdis’ overweight daughter, Josie, who has decided the best way to attract boys’ attention is to put out (well, she’s not wrong). Meanwhile, his parents’ marriage begins to fall apart. Steve Rand becomes an alcoholic, and his wife Nancy reveals herself to be a judgmental, antisemitic bitch who hates sex. Is it any wonder that Steve cheats on her?

The move also threatens the Lerners’ marriage. Dave, a commercial artist, is experiencing a career slump and takes his frustrations out on his wife—violently at one point. Miriam, who’s seen how Matt Swain looks at her, contemplates having an affair. Joe Bialdi, on the other hand, seems to get what he wants out of the move, but mowing the lawn and chopping wood can’t keep his inner demons at bay when he discovers George is “taking advantage of” Josie.

It’s tempting to label The World They Wanted as a soap opera and, well, it basically is, but it’s more John Updike than Grace Metalious. It has plenty of lurid parts, but they are written to make a point rather than titillate—and much less explicit than similar scenes in Kastle’s later books. Kastle certainly had the talent to pull off a more ambitious novel, and he almost does it with The World They Wanted. Unfortunately, it’s brought down with a wrap-around narrative concerning Matt Swain and his sales director Adeline Teel. I found myself way more invested in Matt’s business challenges than whether he’d finally come to his senses and marry Adeline (or whether “Addy” would finally come to hers and move on). Worse, Kastle gives the book a corny ending that’s so Hollywood romance you can practically hear the swelling orchestra as you read the final paragraphs.

Avon at least got its cover right for its
1982 paperback edition of
Family Reunion.

Still, I’ll take an OK Herbert Kastle novel over a dud suspense novel, which is what I got when I picked up 1982’s FAMILY REUNION by Joyce Harrington, an author primarily known for writing short stories.

Ten years have passed since Jenny Holland left behind her mother and the small town where she grew up for New York City. Though she hasn’t once visited during her decade away, she has kept in touch with letters to her mentally unstable mother, who never replies, and her cousin Wendell, who writes frequently, never mind that Jenny rejected his wedding proposal before lighting out for NYC. (As for that whole cousins thing: Our cousinship was far enough removed to make this union not only feasible but appropriate.) Recently (roughly 1979 or ’80) Wendell has been writing to Jenny about a planned family reunion at River House, her late grandmother’s estate that has been vacant since her passing. Jenny, who has some unanswered questions about her late father as well as hoping to make amends with her mother, decides the reunion is as good a time to visit as any, and books a flight.

Returning to her hometown raises more questions than answers. An antique straight razor frequently disappears, only to reappear in different parts of River House. The door to the house’s cupola has rusted hinges but a shiny new padlock that is sometimes locked, sometimes not. Jenny returns to her room to find her new clothes cut to ribbons. A heavy dresser in an upstairs children’s room is mysteriously overturned while all adults are on the ground floor. Jenny hears ghostly voices calling to her from across the nearby river. The face of an old hag appears in a kitchen window, disappearing just as suddenly. Are these events supernatural, or part of a sinister real-world plot? Also, what really happened to Jenny’s father?

These mysterious goings-on and past secrets might have yielded an intriguing Midwest gothic (assuming Jenny’s hometown is a fictional stand-in for Harrington’s hometown of Marietta, Ohio), if only Harrington hadn’t written the suspense out of her story at almost every turn. The characterization of Jenny, our narrator, is uneven to the point of being annoying. She is at once quirky and independent, or passive and needy, depending on what the story needs her to be. There are a few passages that imply she’s possibly unwell, such as when, seemingly possessed, she contemplates slicing her wrist with that antique straight razor. One could argue that revelations later in the book would explain some of her behavior, such as her becoming more unsure of herself once in the presence of her family, but Harrington never quite makes that connection.

But Jenny isn’t the only problem character. There is Wendell’s sister Fearn (probably pronounced Fern, but that extraneous “a” had me wanting to pronounce it Fee-urn), who is mildly bitchy at best, a total cunt at worst, and she’s usually at her worst. When she’s not berating Jenny like a high school bully, she’s yelling at her children whenever they move, being downright abusive to her daughter Millie. However, there are moments when she’s suddenly nice to Jenny, which immediately struck me as suspicious. These moments come to nothing though, and Fearn resumes being her usual unpleasant self. Another thought was Fearn was being set up as cannon fodder and I eagerly awaited the moment she was killed by whatever/whomever is terrorizing this family reunion, or at the very least, that someone would beat the shit out of her. Instead, Fearn remains unharmed for the entire book, with no one, not even Jenny, bothering to call her out on her shitty attitude.

Most of the other characters in Jenny’s family are written as either judgmental biddies or close-minded yokels, suspicious of Jenny and her big city ways. The few exceptions are Aunt Tillie, a sharp-tongued retired schoolteacher, and another conveniently distant cousin, David, a hot, motorcycle riding hippie who lives in Tucson with his young son Malachi. David becomes Jenny’s closest ally and eventual love interest, Harrington having a thing about keeping romance within the family.

To Harrington’s credit, she does effectively capture the setting of River House and its nearby town, though her description of the unnamed town’s named neighborhood of Muley is cringeworthy: It wasn’t quite the town ghetto, but a few [B]lacks lived there. Oof! Too bad Harrington seemed more concerned with writing about Jenny’s hometown like a high school outcast with an axe to grind than crafting an entertaining gothic thriller. Had it been kept to 200 pages, Family Reunion could have been a tight tale of suspense. Instead, it’s a long-winded and tedious 304 pages, not really kicking into gear until its final 75. Like most family reunions, this one’s best avoided.