Bizarre (and Kinda' Hot) Love Triangle

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Short Takes: ‘The Love Machine’ (1971) ★★

There’s a reason The Love Machine
doesn't share the same cult status as
Valley of the Dolls.

Twentieth Century Fox’s adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls was lambasted by critics upon its 1967 release, but that didn’t stop audiences from recognizing its awesomeness and turning it into a huge hit. So, it was inevitable Susann’s follow-up bestselling novel, The Love Machine, would also be adapted for the big screen, by Columbia Pictures this time out.

This time, instead of dolls it’s dick that drives characters to ruin, specifically the one attached to its main character Robin Stone (John Phillip Law). Stone is a New York City newscaster/manwhore, who moistens the panties of Judith Austin (Dyan Cannon), the much younger wife of IBC network head Gregory Austin (Robert Ryan). Judith, pussy aquiver, urges her oblivious hubby to make Robin IBC’s new anchorman. It’s not long before Robin is named head of the network’s news division, and Judith shows up expecting to be thanked hard and often. Robin is happy to oblige, especially now that his model girlfriend/doormat Amanda (Jodi Wexler) is out of the way, having killed herself after Robin dumped her. Judith, however, won’t disappear so easily.

The Judith and Robin business is mostly confined to the movie’s second half. The first half focuses more on Robin treating Amanda like shit, even hitting her when she tries to leave his apartment early in the morning because she must get ready for a photo shoot, and butting heads with IBC’s programming head, Danton Miller (Jackie Cooper). There’s also an underdeveloped subplot about a hack comic, Christie Lane (Shecky Greene), who hosts a schlocky-but-successful variety show on IBC, getting involved with Amanda briefly before entering a transactional relationship with IBC’s publicist/“celebrity fucker” Ethel Evans (Maureen Arthur). Flitting about the movie’s periphery is openly gay fashion photographer and Robin’s best friend Jerry Nelson (David Hemmings), who holds out hope he can get his hands on the love machine one day.

The Love Machine is no Valley of the Dolls, though it offers some campy fun here and there. Dyan Cannon is miscast (an older actress like Lola Albright or Eleanor Parker would’ve been a better fit even if they had less marquee value), her portrayal of Judith rendering her less a calculating ballbreaker than a bratty high schooler, but at least Cannon understood the assignment. Same goes for Hemmings, whose performance is one of the more entertaining ones in the movie, stereotypical though it may be. Unfortunately, John Phillip Law mistook his character’s name as a character trait, acting like a stone and robbing the movie of much of its entertainment value. He’s attractive, yes, but totally unbelievable as a “love machine.” (BTW, “the love machine” of the title is primarily referring to television itself, though that point gets lost when the movie focuses more on Robin’s compulsive need to fuck as many women as possible.)

Director Jack Haley, Jr., does the movie no favors by simultaneously mimicking Valley (cheesy fashion advertisements, an author cameo, plus two Dionne Warwick songs) while also including some self-aware camp, such as having the Hallelujah Chorus play as Danton Miller exits Gregory Austin’s office, relieved he was not summoned there to be fired. And don’t expect its R-rating to up the ante. Though you get some fleeting glimpses of bare tits and ass (including Law’s) and a couple of f-bombs (but way more f-slurs, especially in the movie’s homophobic last act), they do little to amp up the sleaze. In the end, the movie adaptation of The Love Machine never establishes itself as anything more than a cheap imitation. All that said, it’s still more enjoyable than the turgid 1975 adaptation of Susann’s third novel, Once is Not Enough.

Double Takes: ‘Minx’ (2022-2023) ★★★ ½ / ‘Spread’ (2024) ★★

Minx, a show about a magazine that
features pictures of penises, ended up
being cancelled by dicks—twice.

Feminists and pornography have long had a contentious relationship, especially during porn’s “Golden Age” of the 1970s and ’80s, so wouldn’t it be funny if a staunch feminist found herself working in the very industry she abhors?

If we’re talking about the recent series Minx, the answer is a resounding yes. In this twice-cancelled series, idealistic Vassar grad Joyce Prigger (well-played by the wonderfully named Ophelia Lovibond) thinks readers of the early 1970s would be eager to read her feminist magazine, The Matriarchy Awakens. Unfortunately for her, the publishers she pitches it to aren’t—except one, Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson, also excellent), who runs Bottom Dollar Publishing, producer of skin mags with titles like Lusty Lesbos, Giant Juggs and Feet Feet Feet. He just wants a few changes, in writing style (“When I read it, I feel like a fucking teacher is yelling at me.”) and, most importantly, incorporating photos of naked men. Joyce balks, but her older sister Shelly (Lennon Parham) convinces her to take advantage of the opportunity, reminding her that it’s unrealistic to expect everything she wants. And so, The Matriarchy Awakens gets watered down into a cross between Ms. Magazine Lite and Playgirl: Minx.

Despite having plenty of lube, the Bottom Dollar office/studio is not a well-oiled machine, the operation only loosely supervised by Doug, with his assistant (and sometimes girlfriend) Tina (Idara Victor) frequently stepping in to reign in the chaos. Joyce learns her staff is comprised mostly of Bambi (Jessica Lowe), a nude model now working as “centerfold coordinator” (“I made it up. Doesn’t it sound fancy?”), and Richie (Oscar Montoya), the company’s make-up artist and sole gay male employee, as Minx’s photographer (“[N]one of the other guys want to shoot wieners,” Bambi explains).

Though it’s tempting to dismiss the show as Diane and Sam Make a Porno Mag, Minx has more going for it than that. Joyce struggles to reconcile her feminist ideals (and intellectual snobbery) with the business of selling skin mags, reluctantly accepting she’s becoming the face of sex positive feminism. Doug is cool when controversy makes Minx a best seller, but its high profile also attracts the attention of a Phyllis Schlafly-type city commissioner (Amy Landecker), though what nearly finishes his company is a “Men’s Rights” protest that turns violent. Meanwhile, Richie begins to feel he’s betraying his own community photographing models for the female gaze when Minx owes part of its success to gay readers. And Shelly and her husband Lenny (Rich Sommer) decide to take full advantage of changing mores to spice up their sex life (i.e., they become swingers).

I wanted to watch Minx when it first premiered on HBO Max, but before I could get around to it the show, which had been renewed for a second season, was abruptly cancelled and yanked from the platform. Starz came to the rescue, only to cancel it as well. Then the series landed on Tubi, America’s dumping ground for discarded content. But the series was abandoned way too soon and fully deserved a third season. As it is, viewers will be left wanting to know if Minx will be wrestled away from Constance (Elizabeth Perkins, who became Stockard Channing when we weren’t looking), the wealthy businesswoman who gradually takes over the magazine in season two; if Bambi joins the People’s Temple; and if show runners will ever realize they could audition some ambitious porn stars to do guest spots as Minx centerfolds instead of relying so heavily on prosthetic dicks. Sadly, we’ll never know.

Spread is better than one might expect,
but it’s hardly worth your (or Harvey
 Keitel’s) time.

Staying on Tubi, we go from an unwanted sit-com set in the swinging ’70s to an unasked-for “Tubi Original” movie set in the present day. Spread is about a struggling young journalist, Ruby (Elizabeth Gillies), who out of desperation takes a temp job at the floundering skin magazine/Hustler riff, the titular Spread, only to become invested in saving the magazine from being shut down. (Her big solution: introducing the editorial staff to the existence of social media. In the 2020s.)

Speaking of taking jobs out of desperation, Spread is run by Frank, played by HARVEY KEITEL! Yes, regularly-cast-by-Martin Scorsese-and-Quentin Tarantino Harvey Keitel. In a Tubi Original. It’s not easy getting old in Hollywood…

In fairness, while Spread is no Taxi Driver or Pulp Fiction, it’s better than one would expect of a Tubi Original. Its production values are at the higher end of mid, and all actors give professional performances if not necessarily likable ones. As one might expect, Keitel gives the most nuanced performance, actually managing to pull at my diseased heartstrings, though the tear he brought to my eye might have more to do with my thinking of how sad it is that Harvey Keitel is accepting roles in Tubi Originals than the plight of his character. Gillies also gets a special shout-out, her performance reminiscent of a Mean Girls era (a.k.a. pre-trainwreck) Lindsay Lohan.

But while Spread is better made than expected, it fails as a comedy. Spread doesn’t set a high bar for itself, so I guess it’s not surprising it mines laughs from raunchy vocabulary words like analingus and from dildos (writer Buffy Charlet and/or director Ellie Kanner find the mere existence of sex toys hilarious). Those jokes are too obvious to pass up. Less forgivable is Spread reducing its characters to caricatures. Ruby describes herself as a feminist, though her commitment to the cause doesn’t go much deeper than putting a “Feminist as Fuck” sticker on her cubicle. What Ruby is, really, is an entitled white girl, appalled that she must take a job she feels is beneath her when she should be working at The Sophisticate, this movie’s fictional stand-in for Vanity Fair.

Yet Ruby is easier to warm up to than other characters, who are either assholes for the sake of being assholes, like editorial assistant Leslie (Bryan Craig), a gel-bombed douchebag who appears to have wandered in from giving nerds wedgies in a different movie, or simply goofy/weird, like Nelson (Blake Harrison), the socially awkward IT guy, and Prudence (Teri Polo), the flighty receptionist. Only David Allan Pearson as Hank, the too-old-for-this-shit editor of the Pussy Quest page, got a genuine laugh out of me.

Minx succeeds by focusing on its characters as they navigate the changing world of the early 1970s. Spread, on the other hand, has little to say, preferring to task its lead with re-organizing the office dildo closet because aren’t dildos funny? Unfortunately for Spread, not nearly enough.

Short Takes: ‘Swallowed’ (2022) ★★★

Not to be confused with Swallow [NSFW].

A body horror movie written and directed by the same man who gave us Jamie Marks is Dead and The Passenger, with full frontal male nudity and featuring the star of Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge as a vicious queen? You don’t have to ask me twice.

Making Carter Smith’s Swallowed even more intriguing—for me, at least—is Smith makes his story decidedly queer. When we first meet one of its protagonists, Benjamin (Cooper Koch, recently in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menedez Story), he’s celebrating his impending escape from his dead-end hometown in rural Canada, his joining an L.A. gay porn studio’s stable being his all-expense-paid ticket to a more exciting life. His best friend Dom (Jose Colon) thinks Ben is naïve (“Those guys are going to want all that money back, man”), but celebrates with him, nevertheless. Dom is supposedly straight, yet it’s obvious he’s not that straight. Just as obvious is Ben very much hoping tonight’s the night they take their friendship up a notch, or at the very least, Dom consents to a farewell BJ. Alas, despite pointing our minds in that direction, the movie’s title is not an oral sex reference.

On the drive home Dom takes a detour to check on his cousin, DiDi. He and Didi had worked out a deal to smuggle some drugs into the U.S, the money from which Dom was going to give to Ben as a going away present (dude, you could’ve just agreed to let Ben blow you). Except, Didi is now too stoned to act as the go-between, so Dom now must deal with her girlfriend Alice (Jena Malone), who is neither congenial nor compromising, pulling a gun when Dom balks at having to swallow condoms stuffed with product. That gun also comes in handy when Ben needs to be convinced to swallow some condoms as well.

Crossing the border into Maine is the easy part, it turns out. Complications arise when Dom attempts shitting out the contraband and discovers it’s not a drug—but its bite can induce a high. By the time Alice arrives to retrieve the product, she finds Dom catatonic and pants-less and Ben freaking the fuck out. Her boss Rich (Mark Patton) isn’t going to like this.

Though Swallowed is labeled a body horror, don’t go in expecting Cronenberg (David or Brandon) wrapped in a rainbow flag. It feels more like a homoerotic crime thriller, with the tension derived from the unpredictable situation Ben and Dom find themselves in, without any grotesque physical transformations (you can expect some blood and shit, however, as well as one prosthetic dick* that’s almost convincing). Smith has shown in his other films that he can get a lot from a limited budget, and he gets more than his money’s worth with Koch, Colon, Malone and Patton, all great in their roles. Unfortunately, Smith tacked on a silly epilogue that’s tonally at odds with everything that came before it and dismisses all Ben has gone through. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it did leave a sour taste in my mouth.

*Not counted as the movie’s full-frontal male nudity.

As Difficult to Put Down as it is to Stomach

 Trigger Warning: This is plantation porn, so there’s a lot of stuff that’s going to offend a lot of people, though I’d be more concerned if you’re not offended at all.

I thought I was done with plantation porn,
until I learned the identity of “Ashley Carter.”

In the opening chapters of the 1976 “Lance Horner novel by Ashley Carter,” MASTER OF BLACKOAKS, set in the antebellum South, we meet Baxter Simon, a Mississippi slave breeder traveling with Gree, a 14-year-old slave boy whose tongue has been cut out as punishment for lying. Simon, searching for one of his escaped slaves, stops at the Blackoaks plantation in Alabama, where he suspects she might be hiding. The plantation owner, Ferrell Baynard, takes an immediate dislike to Simon and insists the escaped slave is not at Blackoaks, yet permits the slave breeder to look around. During Simon’s tour of the plantation, he sees the Baynards’ “pureblood Fulani” slave Blade hard at work castrating hogs and immediately makes an offer to buy him. Ferrell Baynard refuses to sell Blade but allows Simon to thoroughly inspect Blade (Simon worked Blade’s foreskin back and forth several times. Blade’s…rod stiffened, blood pulsing into it so it stood thick and rigid in the breeder’s fist.), arousing—and outing—Ferrell Baynard’s arrogant son-in-law Styles Kenric while doing so. Simon’s visit to Blackoaks concludes with the slave breeder finding his escaped slave, Vinnie, who was indeed hiding on the plantation. When she attempts to flee, Simon kills her and, to the horror of the Baynards (and reader), throws her corpse into the hog pen, her value reduced to nothing more than food for swine.

And we’re not even 60 pages in yet.

So, yeah, Master of Blackoaks is not for the delicate, full of cruel acts and vile language, with characters using the N-word so frequently and so casually you’d think you were on Twitter. Yet, as difficult as Master of Blackoaks is to stomach, it’s just as difficult to put down, delivering everything a reader would want from plantation porn. If you’re not that reader, you probably backed out during the first paragraph of this post. For the rest of you, let’s continue.

After Baxter Simon departs, Blackoaks is visited by a slave trader who is just as despicable, Eakins Shivers. Shivers arrives with a coffle that “looked diseased, half-starved, exhausted. The ankles of every man, woman, and child bled from the unrelenting bite of their shackles with every step they took.” Though the Baynards find his treatment of his property distasteful, Ferrell Baynard invites Shivers into his home, where the two men talk within the confines of Ferrell’s office. Shivers is allowed to camp on Blackoaks property for the night. The next morning, Shivers is gone, and with him, two of the Baynards’ slaves.

Ferrell admits to his mistress, house slave Jeanne D’Arc (often addressed as Jahndark), that the missing men were sold, but tells his family that the slaves ran away, mostly to hide the truth about the plantation’s shaky finances. His oldest son Ferrell-Junior deduces what happened, however, and he does not approve. His father insists he had to. “That’s what Baxter Simon said, Papa,” Ferrell-Junior replies. “He cut out a slave child’s tongue because he had to.”

Even before the sale of the slaves, Ferrell’s son-in-law Styles intuits Blackoaks has a cash flow problem. Ferrell’s side hustle of distilling his own blend of corn liquor is what keeps the plantation afloat now that the over-farmed land only yields low-grade cotton. Styles, who heard the high offers Baxter Simon was making on Blade, thinks Blackoaks should turn its attention to slave breeding, becoming more resentful each time his father-in-law rejects the idea.

Meanwhile, his wife Kathy is driven to tears by Styles’ physical neglect. We know why he won’t touch her, and I might’ve spared a little bit of sympathy for him if he was merely a closet case, especially when coming out is not an option, but Styles is a sadistic, social-climbing asshole, who only married Kathy for her family’s position in Southern society. When he forces himself to have sex with his wife, he can only get aroused by causing Kathy pain. Kathy’s mother, Miz Claire, is concerned by her daughter’s unhappiness, though she totally misjudges the situation, worrying that Styles is too sexually demanding. “The ugly, depraved things men demand of women. I thanked God when I became ill—yes I did!—when your father moved out of my bedroom,” Miz Claire tells a disheartened Kathy.

The arrival of Hunter “Hunt” Campbell, a young, attractive Yankee hired to live at Blackoaks and tutor 15-year-old Morgan Baynard, provides a distraction, as well as an outsider’s point of view. Hunt has little interest in living in Alabama, but it’s crucial he put as many miles as possible between himself and Massachusetts since his cousin found out Hunter had been fucking his wife. To the Baynards’ credit, even though they don’t understand their new employee from the North, they are fairly accepting of him—provided he understands his place. Namely, that he keeps his abolitionist views to himself. Hunt rebels against this requirement in small ways, though not always successfully. His attempt at ingratiating himself with the kitchen slaves is merely awkward, with Jeanne d’Arc politely but strongly encouraging Hunt to take his white ass out to dining room with the other white folk and leave the kitchen slaves be.

Hunt makes greater inroads when teaching Morgan. Morgan is, in today’s parlance, intellectually disabled and struggles with his lessons, but Morgan’s “body slave” Soapy (a.k.a. Sophocles) is a quick study. Ferrell is none too pleased, telling Hunter that he’s wasting his time and Ferrell’s money. “I won’t tolerate it. There is a law against teaching Negro slaves to read. The state legislature passed that law upon deliberation. In many ways it’s a good law,” Ferrell says.

Not wanting to be sent back to Boston, the Yankee tutor acquiesces. Soapy is distraught, as there was one book (never named) that he wanted to continue reading. Hunter tells him not to worry. “Maybe I could lose it, Soapy. Somewhere you can find it. Only, you’ve got to be careful. If anybody finds you got it, they might fire me—but it’ll be much worse for you.”

But Hunter Campbell isn’t exactly a hero. When his employer extends the offer of a bed wench (“I’ve never believed it was healthy for a man—young or old—to be too long denied a sexual outlet”), Hunt balks, knowing the woman offered him would be forced to do so. But when he retires to his room and finds a nervous 15-year-old(!) slave girl, Sefina, waiting for him, Hunt takes full advantage, his principles no match against his blue balls.

‘I Must Test You…for Viscosity’

The text on the back of the book teases an affair between Hunt and Kathy (“He found solace and torment with Kenric’s wife”), but beyond a make-out session in the final chapters of the book in which Kathy seriously considers an affair with the hunky Yankee, the pair never hook up. The teaser text on the back also suggests Styles Kenric’s homosexuality would be featured more prominently, but it’s not addressed again until the last few chapters, though it does so in a most spectacular fashion, when Kathy spies her husband through her dressing room door “inspecting” Blade’s teen-aged brother, Moab.

“Lawdy, Masta Styles, you keep whipping my snake like that, it gonna be mighty easy to get that juice you wants.”

Styles nodded. His fingers tightened and he slowly stroked the boy’s penis until Moab’s hips tightened and writhed in helpless reflex. “Do you like that, Moab?”

“Lawdy, masta…lawdy…”

The stroking motions increased in intensity and Styles gripped the pulsing penis tighter.

Trembling with horror and outrage at war inside her, Kathy saw that Styles was shaking visibly, like a young boy with his first lover.

She heard Styles mumble something unintelligible about “fluid.” His breathing quickened and he sank to his knees before Moab. Moab’s eyes widened in disbelief at the white man on his knees before him. Moab was almost deranged with overwhelming passion. He could only stand, legs apart, as Styles caught him about the hips and pressed his face against his thighs. Styles gasped, “Viscosity.”

“What masta?”

“Viscosity, Moab.” Styles mumbled fanatically, his face pressed into the boy’s crisp black pubic hairs. “I must test you…for viscosity…. Do you see, Moab? Oh my, God, Moab, do you see?”

“I see, masta,” Moab whispered helplessly as the white man crammed the dark and distended penis between his lips, nursing it furiously.”

So, yeah, that happens. When Kathy confronts him, Styles alternately tries to blame her for spying then gaslight her, apologizing that she’s so upset about what she thinks she saw. But Kathy isn’t having it: “Think I saw! I saw you on your knees, Styles—sucking—that Black boy’s—cock!”

Kathy lobs the expected epithets at her husband (“Homo! Homo! Homo!”) before adding: “Being a homosexual is not nearly as rotten as your lying—your pretense.”

But Styles is unmoved. Since divorce isn’t an option, the pair split in the only acceptable way: Styles moves into a separate bedroom, just like his father-in-law had so many years ago.

Road to Tragedy Paved with Boners, Bored Rednecks

Kathy’s oldest brother Ferrell-Junior has his own issues. FJ knows Lorna June Garrity is not of his class, hers being in the lower-middle, but her social standing has no bearing on her beauty. Lorna’s mother, Lucinda, bitter ever since her husband was cheated out his inheritance by his conniving cousin Leander (all these L names!), is determined to claim her place in Southern society and is not above whoring her daughter out to get what she wants. (Mr. Garrity just drinks.) Lucinda gives her daughter advice that should be familiar to fans of Bobbie Gentry (or Reba McEntire or Orville Peck): “You be nice to Mr. Baynard now, Lorna June. You want him to come back again, so you be nice to him.” 

British publisher Pan Books’ cover
for Master of Blackoaks emphasizes
the book’s cruelty over the sex.

Lorna June is indeed real nice to the Baynards’ hot oldest son, making sure FJ is good and hard when she starts negotiating a more prominent place in his life, and by extension high society. Ferrell-Junor ultimately reasons that “the exchange was totally fair—her beauty was worth far more than all the dull parties his mother and her friends would ever throw.” Also: the power of boners.

His post-nut bliss later turns to regret when he sees his odious “friend” Gil Talmadge at the local watering hole. The book makes clear that FJ doesn’t really like Gil but goes along with his antics—like having a mentally disabled slave girl masturbate for the guys’ amusement—just so he’s not shunned by the group. Gil tells FJ that Lorna June is the town lay. “Hell, if you didn’t screw her the first time out, you’re in a new minority, old pal,” Gil says. “Every white guy in Calvert County has had ole Lorna June Garrity—at least once.”

FJ later confronts Lorna June about the rumors. She confesses he’s not the first man she’s been with (“I might have made a couple mistakes, but that’s all they were—mistakes”), but she quickly silences Ferrell-Junior’s concerns, as well as get him to again promise to invite her to an upcoming party at Blackoaks, with a blowjob. Girl knows how to negotiate!

The day of the party arrives, but the Garritys don’t. FJ had pleaded with Kathy to invite her but learns later that Kathy “accidentally” lost the invitation, conveniently finding it the morning after the party. A guilty FJ rides to town to apologize to the Garritys. Though her mother is royally pissed about the snub, Lorna June is forgiving and suggests she and Ferrell-Junior go for a ride out into the country. FJ doesn’t understand why she still wants anything to do with him, but it seems Lorna June finds him as hot as he finds her. Like they have on all their previous buggy rides, the couple pulls off the road to bang. But, as we’ve seen time and time again, the road to tragedy is paved with boners and bored rednecks:

They were so engrossed in each other they did not hear the rustling in the underbrush. It was not until they reached a driving climax, almost struggling off the blanket in their frenzy, and Ferrell fell away from her exhausted, that he saw Gil Talmadge and the others standing just inside the small clearing.

“Get out of here,” Ferrell said to her. “Get in that buggy and get the hell out of here. Dress on the road. Anything. Get the hell out of here.”

Lorna June isn’t quick enough. FJ is beaten and tied to a wheel of his buggy, powerless as Lorna June is gang raped. In the aftermath, Lorna June marries homely bank clerk Luke Scroggins and FJ, who heretofore has shown zero interest in his mother’s Catholic faith, becomes a motherfuckin’ priest.

A Steady Stream of Depravity, Debauchery and Dicking

I thought my days of reading plantation porn were behind me. I had waded into the slaveploitation cesspool in the latter half of the aughts, first with Kyle Onstott’s Mandingo, then its early sequels, Drum and Master of Falconhurst. I was drawn to their lurid content, the books being in questionable taste only increasing my fascination. I was offended by the subject matter, sure, but then I should be. Slavery is offensive. I take greater issue Gone with the Wind, which is, to quote director and What Went Wrong co-host Chris Winterbauer, “Civil War fan fiction.” At least plantation porn doesn’t try to romanticize the antebellum South.

It was when I sampled some slaveploitation lit outside of the Falconhurst series that I began reconsidering my interest in the genre. Richard Tresillian’s The Bondmaster (“Harder than Mandingo! Louder than Drum!”) was OK, even if it’s basically a retelling of Mandingo, re-locating the story from the American South to sugar plantations of the Caribbean, but its implying that slavery wasn’t that bad so long as the slaves knew their place (a.k.a. the DeSantis narrative) did not sit well with me. Worse was Dragonard, a book I learned about through The Colbert Report, of all places. By virtue of focusing his novel on its repugnant main character, who aspires to be a slave master, author Rupert Gilchrist downplays the plight of the slaves. I also got the distinct impression while reading it that Gilchrist relished every N-word he typed. When I came to the end of Dragonard, I came to the end of my exploration of planation porn.

But then I learned “Ashley Carter” was yet another one of Harry Whittington’s pseudonyms. Whittington had been signed to continue writing the Falconhurst series in the early 1970s after the death of Lance Horner, who’d been writing the series after originator Onstott’s 1966 death. This accounts why some “Ashley Carter” books from this period include the credit “A Lance Horner Novel,” though Master of Blackoaks has nothing to do with the Falconhurst series.

Anyway, I sought out Master of Blackoaks because of its author, not because of its genre, and I was not disappointed. Whittington again proves he was good at his job, giving readers what they wanted, no matter the genre. Still, this book’s not for everybody. If you do pick it up, maybe don’t break it out while waiting in line to see a performance at the Apollo (or anywhere in public, really).

Master of Blackoaks is still trash, and Whittington cranks it up to 11, making it the best kind of trash, the book delivering a steady stream of depravity, debauchery and dicking. Whittington adds some redeemable touches, however. He makes sure that the plight of the slaves is known, and that while some, such as Jeanne d’Arc, are able to achieve some modest privileges (one of the perks of banging her master), they will always be denied the ultimate privilege of freedom, as Jeanne d’Arc discovers near the end of the novel. The Baynards may be “good” slave owners (i.e., they prefer their field boss Bos not whip their property, thank you), but Whittington doesn’t let readers forget they’re still slave owners all the same. The Baynards’ slaves are thought of as part of the family—until money’s tight, and then they’re chattel that Ferrell Baynard has no compunction about selling to a heartless slave trader like Eakins Shivers.  

As the book goes along, Whittington focuses more on sex than servitude. In addition to detailing Hunt Campbell’s night with a teen slave girl (yeah, that’s all kinds of wrong), FJ’s romps with Lorna June and Styles blowing Moab, he devotes several chapters to the field boss’s sexually frustrated wife Florine finding satisfaction with a very eager Moab (he’s a slave, but he’s also a horny teenager). While these chapters increase the novel’s prurient content, they add little to the narrative and reduce Moab to little more than a walking hard-on long before Styles tests the viscosity of his load.

The novel’s story is told in an episodic fashion, making for a fractured narrative. It’s about Ferrell Baynard—no, wait, it’s about Hunt, the Yankee tutor. Nope, now it's about FJ and Lorna June. Hey, why don't we check back with Ferrell Baynard.... It’s not hard to follow, though, just a bitch to synopsize. More frustrating, Master of Blackoaks doesn’t have a fully satisfying ending, leaving several storylines up in the air, with an implied “to be continued,” likely because Whittington knew they would be. There are three additional books in the Blackoaks series. I own two of them, meaning my plantation porn reviews are…

To be continued…

The fourth book in the Blackoaks series, A Farewell to Blackoaks,
was published in 1984 and is difficult to find today. The few
I found online had price tags of $70+, so, no, I won’t be reading it. 

Short Takes: ‘The Holiday Exchange’ (2024) ★ ½

Does anyone really care if rich people find love? Like, has anyone kept up at night worrying—about bills, about work, about the next four years—ever spared a thought about Peter Thiel’s love life? I know I haven’t. Though, now that I’m thinking about it, is Peter Thiel even capable of love?* 

Anyway, because Christmas—or rather, because there is a dearth of LGBTQ+ holiday TV movies this year—I decided to check out The Holiday Exchange, which re-teams two of the stars of Shoulder Dance as two rich, attractive gay men who exchange houses when faced with the prospect of spending the holidays single, which, in the world of TV Christmas movies, is tantamount to a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

In Los Angeles, we have Wilde, played by Taylor Frey, who has recently broken up with his actor/screenwriter boyfriend Sean. Across the pond, Oliver, played by Rick Cosnett, a well-mannered and well-off divorce attorney, has just found out that the man he hoped to spend the holidays with has other plans that pointedly don’t include him. Fortunately, there’s an app to the rescue: Grindr mister B&B. Wilde treats himself to a holiday vacation, and rents Oliver’s cozy manor house in the fictional Brilfax. After a quick FaceTime call, Oliver decides to rent Wilde’s garish Los Angeles mansion. Wilde’s U.K. vacation is interrupted by Oliver’s movie actor cousin Henry (Daniel Garcia), who shows up needing a place to stay after the pipes at his house freeze. Oliver, on the other hand, ingratiates himself with self-help author Julius (Samer Salem) at a book signing. Low-key conflicts arise (Julius is butt-hurt when he learns Oliver is a divorce attorney; Wilde jumps to conclusions when he sees Henry at a pub with another man), but love, Christmas, etcetera.

I promised myself going in that I would give The Holiday Exchange a chance, even though it is directed by Jake Helgren. There’s a scene early on, when Wilde’s ex Sean (Kyle Dean Massey) shows up to discuss their breakup, that has the expected energy of holiday rom-com, as does a later scene featuring Ashley Fink as a spunky bookstore manager. But these moments are mere teaspoons of rum in a what is otherwise a full glass of egg slog. Most attempts at humor fall flat, such as Wilde being locked out of Oliver’s house after a snowstorm, wearing just a scarf and plaid boxer shorts, his motivation for going outside in the first place not readily apparent. Some actors, such as Kyle Richards, as Wilde’s overly supportive mom Lola, and Camila Banus, as Julius’s publicist/friend Naomi, deliver sit-com style performances, talking really fast and loudly, with nothing funny to say. Richards’ performance in particular leaves the impression that Lola is the type of mom who tried to bond with her son by sharing her cocaine.

The Holiday Exchange is more concerned with the rom than the com, anyway, but even there it falters. Cosnett’s Oliver is blandly charming and there is some chemistry between him and Salem, but Frey’s Wilde is spoiled and smug to the point that I was more invested in him getting punched in the face than kissed. However, this holiday lump of coal isn’t entirely Helgren’s fault. He didn’t write this fucker, his leading man Frey did. However, characters doing an ad read for mister B&B? That has Jake Helgren all over it.

*Thiel has a husband, BTW, though being married isn’t the same as being capable of love, so that question remains unanswered.

Short Takes: ‘Shoulder Dance’ (2023) ★ ½

The actors are given nothing and the
audience gets even less.

In writer-director Jay Arnold’s Shoulder Dance, Josh (Taylor Frey, sporting a splotchy spray tan and prominent package), a stage actor/chorus boy, and Ira (Kyle XY’s Matt Dallas), Josh’s older, uptight talent agent husband of 10 years (sure), learn their time together at their Hamptons home will be interrupted by a visit from Roger (The Flash’s Rick Cosnett), Ira’s childhood friend that he hasn’t seen since Roger moved to the U.K. 24 years ago. Josh is annoyed his and Ira’s limited time together is being intruded upon, while Ira is just agitated, though he won’t say why.

Then Roger and his model/actress girlfriend Lilly (a feisty Maggie Geha) arrive, ready to party. Josh is immediately transfixed by Lilly, the two becoming best girlfriends in less than three minutes. Roger acts like only six months have passed since he and Ira last saw each other, not two-plus decades. Ira has already warned Josh that Roger is “touchy-feely,” and girl, is he ever, though not in the way one would attribute to a straight guy. Rather than bro hugs and playful punches to the shoulder, Roger prefers cuddling. You know, like straight men do. Is there something about their past relationship Ira’s not sharing? Guess we’ll have to wait until Josh and Ira finally agree to do molly with their houseguests to find out.

Viewers might want to dose as well, if only to distract themselves from such questions as: would someone leaving the U.S. for London at age 16 really come back with a British accent? Lilly, who we learn moved from New York to the U.K. at a much younger age, would be the character who’s more likely to have a British accent, yet she sounds very much American. Also, does anyone really believe that Josh, a professional actor, whose best friend is vapid party queen Shawn (Glee’s Samuel Larsen), seldom even smokes weed, but his uptight husband is a total pothead? Guess that’s less of a mystery than two men living fairly conservative lifestyles having a trunk full of wigs and ladies’ evening wear. (Because they’re gay? Because Josh is an actor?) However, perhaps the second biggest question viewers will be asking (How long is this thing? is the first) is: Wasn’t this movie supposed to be a comedy?

My husband wanted to watch this because he’s a Matt Dallas fan, but even his Dallas fandom failed to sustain his interest. The actors try their best to make uninteresting characters engaging, unbelievable interactions ring true, stale dialog sound witty, but Arnold’s script gives them nothing, and the audience gets even less. The movie got a couple chuckles out of us (“I just had the best pee of my life!”), but neither those sparse laughs, nor Frey, Dallas and Cosnett’s nude scenes made up for the very, very long hour-and-43-minutes spent watching Shoulder Dance. For that, the male leads would have had to take off their clothes after the opening credits and never put them on again until the end.

‘I Don’t Understand…This Free Love’

There’s something horribly
wrong with Morgan
Royce’s neck!

The 1970 film SONG OF THE LOON has nothing to do with Thanksgiving beyond depicting a fantasy of how settlers in the New World interacted with Native Americans. Instead of celebrating bountiful harvests/colonization/enslavement of natives, however, Song of the Loon celebrates free love among white men and white men in redface. So…better?

The movie’s central romance is actually between two white dudes in the Old West. We meet one of those dudes at the film’s opening, Cyrus (Jon Iverson, looking like he stepped out of a Winston cigarette ad). The handsome settler, sporting a mustache that’s been sprayed gray, is walking through the woods when he happens upon two nude men on a blanket in a clearing, one white, the other also white but wearing a black wig so, “Native American.” But faux indigenous people aren’t the movie’s biggest break from reality. The Native American knows Cyrus and goes over to greet the older man. Cyrus then turns his attention to the young white guy, Luke (John Drake). “How do you like my partner?” he asks.

“You’re partner?”

“Well, lover if you like.”

Luke apologizes, but Cyrus assures him it’s cool, because in Song of the Loon, life in the 1870s western frontier was like living in the 1970s Castro District. Back at Cyrus’ cabin, while the guys sit around a fire eating stew, the older man tells Luke that he reminds him of a man he once knew, who had blue eyes and “corn-colored hair” (never mind that Luke’s hair is brown).

They’re practically twins: Luke (left) and Ephraim.

The movie then segues into a flashback that makes up the rest of the film, when the young man with corn-colored hair, Ephraim (Morgan Royce, who is indeed blond), arrived in the western frontier. “Ephraim was different….He knew nothing,” observes Cyrus in a voice over, adding: “Ephraim wanted to learn, and I wanted to teach him.”

Huh?

We have a pretty good idea of what’s included on Cyrus’ syllabus, but it’ll be a minute before he can begin instructing Ephraim in Penis Appreciation and Rectal Relaxation 101. When Ephraim paddles his canoe into the wilderness of the West (Big Pines, Calif., specifically), he is greeted by Singing Heron (John Kalfas). Singing Heron offers the blond himbo a meal and a place to rest, listening as Ephraim tells him about how his friend and traveling partner Montgomery fell for a Mr. Calvin, a spiteful preacher who turned Montgomery against Ephraim. Not that Montgomery was much of a friend/fuck buddy to begin with. “Whenever he wanted to sleep with me, he’d get drunk and say I’d forced him into it,” Ephraim says.

The Redface Tribe of Song of the Loon.

“I would show you happiness,” Singing Heron offers helpfully. Alas, despite the scene being shot like it’s for a porno film, with lots of close-up shots of Kalfas gazing seductively at Royce, nothing dirty happens.

Jon Iverson’s au naturale nature walk.

Cyrus (Jon Iverson) getting wet for Ephraim.

Nothing dirty happens when Ephraim finally meets Cyrus, either, even though the older man, now clean shaven, wastes little time encouraging Ephraim to bathe in a nearby lake (Ephraim may be cute, but he stanky), telling him he’ll join him later. Despite the set-up, the men do nothing more daring than go skinny dipping. It’s here that I should break the news that despite its original X-rating, despite its copious nudity, and despite the fact the movie is usually streaming on adult sites (I rented it through GayHotMovies.com), Song of the Loon is not pornographic. It has more in common with a genre from the previous decade, the Nudie Cutie, except the Nudie Cuties usually tip-toed around the existence of sex. Song of the Loon does include a couple sex scenes, but they’re shot in such a way as to show fuck all of the fucking.

Hot.

The romance between Cyrus and Ephraim is kind of sweet if superficial. It’s also not exclusive, but that’s just the Old West way. Singing Heron has already chided Ephraim about his puritanical adherence to monogamy, telling him he suffers from “the white man’s disease. It’s called jealousy, sometimes selfishness.” During a tender campfire conversation with Cyrus, Ephraim says: “I don’t understand, about you, and Singing Heron, and this…free love.”

Cyrus explains free love to Ephraim.

“What free love means to you and me, it’s different to these people. It’s more of a spiritual nature. For instance, if I love someone, that doesn’t mean I can’t be with someone else,” explains Cyrus. “You have to forget your fears and jealousies.”

Cyrus silences Ephraim’s questions
about polyamory.

It’s a pitch familiar to anyone whose partner suggests opening a relationship, though I think Cyrus might be the first to attribute it to the wisdom of Native Americans (a.k.a. “these people”). To his credit, Ephraim, who is not a greenhorn so much as just plain dumb, doesn’t immediately buy into this reasoning. Cyrus’ rebuttal: “Would it make any sense if I said I was in love with you?” This brings a glycerin tear to Ephraim’s eyes—and some painful attempts at emoting to Royce’s face—and the two men kiss.

Ephraim isn’t quite ready to settle down just yet, however. He’s still on a journey, and next on the itinerary is a meeting with Bear-Who-Dreams (Lucky Manning), another member of the Redface Tribe. BWD gives Ephraim a magic mushroom and sends him naked into the woods to experience his “medicine dream” and become enlightened to the concept of free love. Stumbling around in the woods, tripping balls and with bugs biting your dick doesn’t seem like it would persuade anyone to embrace polyamory, but I’ve never done ’shooms so what do I know?

Though Ephraim is tripping solo, his mind conjures up plenty of company: Singing Heron, Cyrus and some random hot bodied Native American (possibly BWD, or maybe Iverson in a wig). Ephraim and the “Native American” get busy on the rocky shore of a river, and while this sex scene is more explicit, it’s also filmed in boner killing negative.

Artsy.

Better! Also, uncomfortable! Seriously, on the rocks? Ouch.

Jon Evans as Montgomery, strategically posed.

Another man Ephraim encounters during his medicine dream is Montgomery (beefy Jon Evans, also in Vixen!), sitting naked on rock in a position that carefully hides the good parts, pointing a gun at him. “I’m gonna kill you, you damn queer,” Montgomery snarls. But not-real Cyrus shoots an arrow into not-real Montgomery’s chest before the hirsute hunk can pull the trigger. Ephraim then wraps his arms around a tree and sobs. “You have seen many things a white man would see only in the Indian way,” BWD later pronounces, before urging the air-headed twunk to “go walk in beauty and happiness.” That walk, unsurprisingly, leads Ephraim right back to Cyrus.

Tree fucker.

A Landmark in Queer Cinema. Also, Kinda’ Boring.

Richard Amory’s gay pastoral
novel became a classic.

Song of the Loon was adapted from Richard Amory’s 1966 novel of the same name. The closest I’ve come to reading the book was attempting to buy an original paperback copy from an online queer bookseller a decade ago, only to get the disappointing news that the book had already been sold. Since then, the price of the original paperback has only gone up (it was reprinted with a don’t-give-a-shit cover design by Arsenal PulpPress in 2005). I did find this review on the Speak Its Name blog, which reports that despite the book including some cringe poetry (My hardened penis downward dips / Into your asshole darkly tight / Warmly endlessly lost from sight), it has “a tone of earnest sweetness that overcomes the camp factor.”

I found two contradictory stories regarding Amory’s involvement in the movie adaptation. According to one source, Amory wrote the movie’s screenplay (there is no screenwriter credit given in the movie, but Amory’s name is prominently featured in the opening credits as the author of the source novel). The more common story I found, and the one I more inclined to believe, is the author had nothing to do with the movie adaptation and was in fact disgusted by the film. All that said, the movie does strive to evoke the same “earnest sweetness” of Amory’s novel, and it often overcomes that camp factor. Unfortunately, what that means is the movie is often too inane to be taken seriously yet too well-meaning to laugh at. Also, it’s kinda’ boring.

Song of the Loon has not yet been
 released on Blu-ray, but if you have
a high tolerance of low-resolution
penises you can get a DVD
from BijouWorld.com

Though filmmaking is more competent than expected, Song of the Loon suffers the same issues of many low budget productions: the pacing is sluggish, the script unengaging, the performances community theater level—though that’s better than one would expect for a movie where the cast’s physical appearance and willingness to get naked on camera were likely given more weight than acting talent. Iverson gives the movie’s best performance while Royce gives the worst, though to be fair, I completely believed him as a man who knew nothing.

All these shortcomings might’ve been forgiven had the movie been at least titillating, yet Song of the Loon: The Movie is almost devoid of eroticism. Supposedly the novel is much more graphic (I just might have to get over my graphic design snobbery and buy that Arsenal Pulp reprint…), but the sexy content was significantly watered down for the film. One might blame this on the movie being filmed in 1969, but even at that time exploitation movies were pushing the envelope. Though Song of the Loon was lauded for being the first softcore film to portray gay love, harder fare was becoming more common when it was released in 1970. Naked men paying lip service to free love in a fantasy gay western is all well and good but personally, I prefer Tom DeSimone’s show-don’t-tell approach in Dust Unto Dust (if only the bearded blond settler could maintain wood…).

According to IMDb, Scott Hanson and Joe Tiffenbach* were hired as Song of the Loon’s director and cinematographer, respectively, but were fired when filming was nearly complete. Directing credit was given to editor Andrew Herbert, who assembled Hanson and Tiffanbach’s footage into a releasable movie. This might account for the movie’s unsatisfying conclusion, wrapping up with a montage of previous scenes and a title card summarizing “What happened to Ephraim?” The answer: he left Cyrus after a while to continue his journey. It’s a toss-up as to whether this was intended as sequel bait (Amory did write two sequels to Song of the Loon) or the filmmakers simply running out of ideas, though I’m leaning towards the latter. It might have been better if they instead ended it with some poetry about butt fucking.

Asses up!

*FUN FACT: Joe Tiffenbach went on to direct gay porn movies throughout the 1980s before his death in 1992.