‘A Good Gay Item’

I remember when I first saw a copy of an International Male catalog. It was in the mid-1980s, when I was a senior in high school. My mother, a librarian, found a copy in the library’s catalog bin and brought it home. Most of the family—save my dad, who has no interest in fashion and dresses accordingly—flipped through the catalog, making fun of the clothes, though no one made fun of them more loudly than me. Yet inside I couldn’t wait to get the catalog alone, in the privacy of my room, so I could fully appreciate its contents.

But it wasn’t meant to be. After we all had a laugh at International Male’s expense, my mother promptly tucked the catalog back into her tote bag and returned it to the library the next morning. It was a good decade before I came out, but in retrospect it was clear that even then she had her suspicions. Her allowing only a limited, supervised viewing of that International Male catalog confirmed it. She also inadvertently elevated it from a mere clothing catalog to pornography in my mind.

The 2022 documentary ALL MAN: THE INTERNATIONAL MALE STORY isn’t perfect, but it perfectly encapsulates the clothing brand’s importance to, in the words of the late David Rakoff, “a certain kind of boy,” specifically those who came of age between the latter days of disco and the height of grunge.

Directors Bryan Darling and Jesse Finley Reed, with narrator Matt Bomer’s help, give us a (mostly) breezy tour of International Male’s founding, subsequent success and slow decline, as well as commentary on IM’s cultural impact, which means of course Carson Kressley and Simon Doonan are on hand to give their two cents, with an un-needed assist from stylist and “influencer”🙄 William Graper, to appeal to the kids, I guess. It’s like an episode of VH-1: Behind the Music, except instead of the pressures of recording a new hit single and touring relentlessly while battling drug addition, it’s about the pressures of selling Buns™  underwear and trying to look butch while modeling gold lamé thongs. Call it Behind the Baskets.

Fitness wear or fetish wear? The California Splits shorts allow for easy access when you go to Probe, while the handles of the digital jump rope could easily double as butt plugs. And exactly who was wearing that jock strap pendant on the lower right page? No straight (or gay) man that I know.

Luckily, Darling and Reed were able to get on-camera interviews with IM founder Gene Burkard before his death in December 2020. After a stint in the Air Force during the Korean war, Burkard took a job as a European sales rep for a liquor distributor selling exclusively to American military bases. The job afforded Burkhard, who was gay, an opportunity to not only experience the queer bars of Europe, but European culture as well (“I was always on the prowl,” he says, adding wryly: “learning, of course.”) Though the documentary makes special mention of the fact that men’s underwear design was becoming more daring in 1960s Europe, it was an item spotted in the display window of a medical supply store in London that inspired Burkard.

From left: Gene Burkard in the Air Force in the 1950s; on an appearance on the game show
What’s My Line? in 1974; and being interviewed for All Man: The International Male Story.

“There was this strange garment there. It was called a suspensory,” Burkard recalls. “I said, ‘You know, this would make a good gay item.’ So, I went and bought one.”

It wasn’t until Burkhard returned to the U.S. in the early 1970s, settling in San Diego, Calif., that a lightbulb went off. After reading How to Make $1,000,000 in Mail Order, he designed, with the help of a pattern maker, the product that would ultimately lead to the creation of International Male: the Jock Sock.

From medical garment to sexy underwear to fashion (?) empire: the Jock Sock.

As described by IM’s former Senior Art Director Dennis Mori, the Jock Sock “is a waist band with a cup in front that hooks around your balls.” Or, as a friend of mine described it: a bag for your balls. The initial advertising for the item was restricted to publications like The Advocate (“They’d take any ad,” Burkard says), but Burkard wanted to expand his reach, so he borrowed money from a friend to place an ad in Playboy. That’s when, Burkard says, all hell broke loose. “We had so many orders, and I had one guy helping me, and he was stoned half the time.”

The timing couldn’t have been better. The recent sexual revolution had relaxed attitudes, and Playgirl was sexualizing men for women’s enjoyment (sure). Burkard decided he wanted to launch a clothing company that would, ironically, butch up how it presented men’s sexy fashions, and its catalog would be like a magazine. And so, International Male was born.

The cover and inside pages of an early issue—possibly the debut issue—of the International
Male catalog.

‘PG-13 Porn’ vs. ‘a Fag Magazine’

As portrayed by All Man, International Male, with a staff of predominantly gay men and a few straight women, was a fun, if disorganized, place to work. None of the former employees have any dirt to dish on Gene, and it’s inspiring to hear how this group of people, almost all learning on the job, were able to create such a successful company—so successful that it opened brick and mortar stores in San Diego and West Hollywood. The clientele was predominantly, but not exclusively, gay. Even superstars Cher and Barbra Streisand shopped there (that tracks).

Another one of International Male's signature items, Buns™ underwear.

Yet the patronage divas wanting something sexy for their boyfriends did little to earn International Male much respect. The IM catalog was alternately dismissed as selling sex or, per one former employee, a “fag magazine.” Yet Burkard saw it as neither. The catalog was for all men. As for sex: “You never saw the words ‘hot’ or ‘sexy.’ I didn’t want that emphasis on sex.”

But sex was certainly on the minds of many of us who got the catalog. “The day the International Male catalog would come was on par with the Sears Christmas catalog coming when you were a kid,” says writer, comedian and one-time Daily Show correspondent Frank DeCaro. “You were going to be transported into this gay fantasy. And then you were going to spank one out.”

The Undergear section (later spun off into a separate catalog) was likely a highlight for many
a horny homosexual. This section here is notable for featuring an Asian model.

Scissor Sisters’ lead singer Jake Shears details his baffling IM jack-off ritual of tearing off tiny bits of toilet paper to cover up the models’ crotches to better imagine them naked. Not judging, but this extra work seems unnecessary, given that one of the appealing aspects of the IM catalog was the models’ bulging crotches, often with the outlines of their junk plainly visible. Well, whatever works for you, Jake. (Also, the strappy bodysuit Jake wears in Scissor Sisters’ “Any Which Way” video looks like it was inspired by one of IM’s creations, if not purchased directly from the company itself.)

Actor Parvesh Cheena recalls the catalog just showing up in the mail one day. “I never signed up for it. I was never that bold. I was never, like, ‘Please, send me PG-13 porn.’”

As, um, inspiring as the models could be, few of the people featured in the documentary were taking style cues from the International Male catalog. Says actor Drew Doerge: “I’d feel ridiculous wearing this stuff, but there’s something really sexy about a model who doesn’t feel ridiculous wearing it.”

To be fair, Dalmatian print boxers with matching robe aren’t the silliest of
International Male’s fashions.

Except, they did. Frequent IM model Brian Buzzini (who also posed for Playgirl) describes IM clothing as “clothes you had to be paid to wear.” Another former model, Robert Goold, says models would often try to trade assigned outfits and describes trying to affect a masculine pose while wearing them as “a professional challenge.” And those smiles on the models’ faces? That was laughter over the silly outfits they were asked to wear. Even the people putting the catalog together express astonishment that people were buying what IM is selling.

Brian Buzzini, then and now, looking just as good.

AIDS, Selling Out and the Puffy Shirt

International Male’s success continued from the hedonistic ’70s into the 1980s, when Miami Vice and MTV dominated pop culture, and people were getting into shape, and paradoxically, cocaine. The ’80s also saw the emergence of HIV and AIDS, and its impact on IM was substantial. The frothy tone of All Man turns bleak as it includes a slide show of all the staff members the company lost to the virus. I counted at least 16 who died. And as the death toll from AIDS increased, so did homophobia, making it more difficult to market IM to straight men.

It was during this time that Burkard, no longer finding the business he started fun, sold the company to Hanover Direct for $25 million. (The specific year of the sale was 1987, something I had to Google as All Man isn’t big on providing specific dates.) The sale to Hanover made IM employees nervous, with good reason. “There was a terrible day in the office where they fired almost everybody,” former art director Maureen Dalton-Wolf recalls.

“One day I was walking past the vice president’s door, and one of the people from Hanover was there,” says Mori. “I heard this gentleman say, ‘So, what are we going to do about the gay problem?’” Mori says he confronted them, asking, “What do you mean, ‘the gay problem?’” Unfortunately, the VP and the Hanover rep’s response is not shared on camera, though it’s clear Mori wasn’t with the company much longer.

IM’s new creative director Peter Karoll brought in a straight photographer and support crew for the catalog shoots to put the models, who were mostly straight, at ease. “There was a big gay crew who worked there, and it made me uncomfortable—it made me uncomfortable for the models.”

David Knight says he was one of two openly gay models when he worked for International Male. Goddamn, do these guys not age like normal people?

I’ll admit I found Karoll’s concern for the straight dudes’ comfort a punchable offense, especially in an age when “Don’t Say Gay” laws are a thing. My gay rage was tempered a bit when the documentary points out that Karoll employed more diverse models (including, per Wikipedia, Shemar Moore). 

Dennis Mori admits that in the six years he was art director for International Male, he only
  used two Black models. The reason: clothes modeled by POC supposedly didn’t sell as well.

As the 1990s progressed, IM faced a more competitive marketplace. The cheesiness of IM’s colorful prints, Baroque designs and synthetic fabrics was amplified when compared to Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein’s more sophisticated designs and artful marketing. Not helping was the Seinfeld episode, “The Puffy Shirt” (sold as “The Ultimate Poet’s Shirt” in the IM catalog), and the 2001 male modeling spoof Zoolander. Having entered the mainstream, IM was now a laughingstock. And yet, as All Man makes plain, so many of us (i.e., gay Boomers and Gen X’ers, with possibly a few older queer Millennials) still have a certain nostalgia for the days when we got a new edition of the catalog. Yeah, we laughed at the clothes, but the bodies that filled them we took very seriously. It wasn’t just PG-13 porn, it was starter porn.

These days, of course, kids have the Internet, so they don't need to bother imagining what treasures are stuffed in an Aussie Rower or what they’d do with the guy modeling the Brawn Bikini. They certainly can’t imagine ordering clothing from a printed catalog that arrives in the mail (what is mail?) It’s a fact that International Male, like so many retailers in the early days of the Internet, was slow to realize, and had to play catch-up when it finally started selling online. Today, the only remnant of the company is online, at undergear.com. The clothes are still cheesy (or just plain hideous), but its PG-13 porn days are clearly far behind it. 

Consider UnderGear when deciding what to wear to your next sex party: the Male Power Hose Thong, the Wicked Web Thong, or the Male Power Mesh Thong. Incidentally, these photos show more dick than you’ll see in All Man, yet the documentary does include full-frontal footage of a nude woman, as well as several pictorials from Playboy, presumably so all the straight guys watching (it’s a possibility!) don’t get too uncomfortable.

Transitioning Into 1970: 'Christine' vs. 'Myra'

Though the U.S. QAnon party would have its base believe that trans people are a recent phenomenon, dating back to when the Obama administration, colluding with Hollywood elites and woke millennials, performed gender reassignment surgeries on unsuspecting preschoolers as part of a sinister plot to send them into our nation’s schools as trans adults to read books to kids and compete on varsity swim teams, it turns out that they have been around significantly longer than the 2010s. 

In fact, way back in 1970—a good 53 years after the first gender affirming surgery was performed in the U.S.—Hollywood released two very different films centering on trans women (but played by cis-gendered actors): the turgid biopic THE CHRISTINE JORGENSEN STORY, and the botched adaptation of Gore Vidal’s 1968 satirical novel, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE.

Christine Jorgensen in the 1950s.

It should go without saying that neither film would be considered politically correct today, though The Christine Jorgensen Story, about the United States’ first celebrity trans woman (Dora Richter was the actual first, completing her transition in 1931), comes closer than expected. I remember seeing the movie in the early ’90s, when it aired on AMC, back when the channel was TCM with ad breaks rather than the home of mad men, meth cooks and walking dead. At that time, my attitude towards the trans community could be summarized thusly: To each their own, but it’s kinda’ funny, though. Consequently, I viewed the movie like it was an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, minus Joel (or Mike) and the ’bots. When I decided to rewatch the film, I was prepared to judge it harshly now that I’m more enlightened—woke, if you will (but please don’t).

But despite the crass exploitation of the movie’s marketing (“Did the surgeon’s knife make me a woman or a freak?” reads the poster), the actual film shows far more sensitivity in its handling of Jorgensen’s story (Jorgensen herself is credited as the movie’s technical advisor). That story begins, predictably, with Jorgensen’s unhappy childhood as George, Jr. (Trent Lehman), a boy more inclined to play with his sister’s dolls and his mother’s makeup than play football. His concerned mother tries to steer George, Jr. toward more traditionally masculine pastimes, while George, Jr.’s father does his level best to convince himself his boy is just going through a phase. He’s encouraged—overjoyed, even—when George, Jr., having taken on some school bullies, comes home with a black eye. “You’re going to remember that black eye as one of the proudest moments of your life,” he tells his son, going so far as to take a photo of George, Jr.’s shiner.

Is this fucked up or what?

Loretta, the cunty model.

Adulthood isn’t any happier for George, Jr. (now played by John Hansen). Though he finds some success as a photographer for an advertising agency, he’s still the target of bullying. “One thing I can’t stand is a damn fag photographer,” sneers Loretta (Elaine Joyce), a model so cunty that she causses George to flee the photo shoot in tears. His boss, Jess Warner (Rod McCrary), offers a shoulder to cry on, and his dick to suck. George, Jr., is horrified (“Good God, you don’t think I’m one of those?”) Jess thinks he just needs to lighten up, telling him lots of artists are queer, “You think Shakespeare wrote all those sonnets to a dame?” Jess goes in for a kiss, but George ain’t having it and, for the second time that day, flees in tears. (One of the issues I had with this movie when I first saw it, and still do, is it seems to be making the argument that Jorgensen’s reason for transitioning was born out of homophobia, and that the audience should appreciate that, if nothing else, at least she chose to live as a hetero woman rather than a gay man.)

Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Warner?

George, Jr., heads to the library, where he discovers the book Sex and the Glands by Dr. Stephen Estabrook. The book proves so enlightening that George enrolls in the doctor’s college course just to speak to him about his theories. After explaining to the endocrinologist that he’s always felt his instincts and impulses are female, Estabrook (Will Kuluva, who really could’ve benefitted from a Klipette) takes some blood for testing. The test results confirm that George has a chemical imbalance. “Your glands are secreting more female hormones than male—three times higher than expected in a normal man.”

A penectomy is exactly what you think it is.

Under the pretense of shooting photos for a travel book, George, Jr. goes to Copenhagen, where a sympathetic Dr. Dahlman (Oscar Beregi, Jr.) offers him a chance to be his true self. “You Americans, you’re advanced in so many ways, but when it comes to sex, you’re childish. Operate on the brain, perform a lobotomy? Fine. But take a pair of testicles and everybody explodes.” Before George signs the one-page application for gender reassignment surgery (yet I must fill out at least six pages before an annual physical), Dahlman explains what the surgery entails, then warns George there exists a chance for failure. None of this dissuades George, who quickly signs the application.

A couple montages later, Christine is born, her name selected in honor of the late daughter of her Aunt Thora, with whom she’s been staying (in actuality, the name was chosen in honor of endocrinologist Christian Hamburger). While Christine, now looking like a young Rosie O’Donnell in Doris Day drag, is pleased with the superficial aspects of her transition—there are lots of shots of her modeling the dresses her aunt’s made for her and patting her hair—she’s remains hesitant to fully live as a woman, which, as far as this movie goes, means she needs a man. 

From man to matron.

Christine Jorgensen's transition
is front page news.

But romance is the furthest thing from her mind when the media—and her family—learn of her transition. Her family gets counseled by a surprising voice of reason: their minister, who tells Christine’s anguished parents that if their new daughter is happy, they should be thankful. “Remember, she’s still the same person.” The media is less reasonable. “These days a fella never knows what he’s going to get on a blind date,” snorts a newscaster, who could be mistaken for a 2023 Fox News pundit were it not for his use of the word “fella.”

However, one reporter, Tom Crawford (Quinn K. Redeker, who would later have a hand in writing The Deer Hunter), approaches Christine as a person, not a freak. Christine works with Tom, allowing him daily interviews for an in-depth magazine story, only to back out before the article’s completion when she suspects Tom has feelings for her. This is for Tom’s protection; sooner or later, he’ll see her as an oddity. “Are you going to stop reading the newspapers? Or listening to the radio? Or watching television? Will they ever stop making jokes? They’ll never stop laughing.” Tom is undeterred, and urges “Chris” to stop being afraid. The pair kiss, then slowly sink onto the sofa in a love scene that could be right out of a 1950s Douglas Sirk film.

In fact, except for its subject matter and featuring some nudity, The Christine Jorgensen Story could easily be a product of the 1950s. This is likely attributable to director Irving Rapper, who helmed several Bette Davis movies, including Now, Voyager and Another Man’s Poison. In Rapper’s hands, The Christine Jorgensen Story is just an old-fashioned melodrama with a twist. Rapper’s approach keeps the movie from becoming exploitative, but it also heightens its campiness.

When Christine dreamed of doll murder.

That campiness is heightened further by the acting. Trent Lehman—yet another child actor who came to a sad end—portrays George, Jr., not as a child wrestling with gender dysphoria but as a future school shooter (when George, Jr.’s mother takes a doll away from him, we suspect she’s more concerned that he might dismember it than she is about her son conforming to gender roles). John Hansen’s performance, while earnest, often becomes parodic, the actor’s pearl-clutching rendering Jorgensen an object of pity rather than someone driven to live her life on her terms. 

Ultimately, it’s this portrayal of Jorgensen as a delicate flower in need of a hand to hold as she faces the big, bad world that is the movie’s downfall. The real Jorgensen was an outspoken trans activist, described on her Wikipedia page as having been known for her “directness and polished wit,” qualities you can see in her TV interviews (you can also see some of the shit she had to put up with in this clip). Where you won’t see those qualities is in The Christine Jorgensen Story.

‘The Most Extraordinary Woman in the World’

There is no political correctness to be found in Myra Breckinridge, which not only treats the very concept of sexual reassignment surgery as a joke, but is peppered with casual homophobia and racism, and features a scene of female-on-male rape played for laughs. Even more horrifying, it not only includes Rex Reed (yes, the very same) in its cast, it features a scene of him masturbating. I’ll take the rape scene, thank you.

Gore Vidal's novel is great.
Its film adaptation less so.

Before it became an infamous bomb, Myra Breckinridge was a bestselling novel by Gore Vidal. The book, about a trans woman who comes to Hollywood to challenge sexual and gender norms, isn’t politically correct, either, but then political correctness would rob the book of its bite. Also, it was published in the 1960s, when people didn’t worry about such things. What the book is, is riotously funny, and well worth reading (seriously, get yourself a copy). And there was potential for the movie adaptation to be just as hilarious. 

And then 20th Century Fox gave the job of writing and directing to Michael Sarne.

In Sarne’s hands, Myra Breckinridge went from being a biting satire on sexual mores to a mashup of the “hip” movies of the late ’60s with the comic sensibilities of the stupid softcore sex comedies found later in the ’70s (think I Love You, Alice B. Toklas crossed with Dagmar’s Hot Pants, Inc.) and edited by monkeys on Adderall. In short, it’s a hot mess (with an even messier production). Yet, despite Sarne’s best efforts to rob the film of any entertainment value whatsoever, there is still some fun to be had here.

At the film’s opening, film fanatic Myron Breckinridge (Reed) is about to undergo gender reassignment surgery, performed by a chain-smoking John Carradine in an operating theater that resembles a partially struck set from Barbarella. There’s also a seated audience and a young woman who spends the entire scene cracking a big, fat whip because…1960s wackiness? “You know, once we cut it off, it won’t grow back,” the doctor warns Myron. “How about circumcision? It’s cheaper.”

Nevertheless, Myron is transformed into Myra (Raquel Welch). Before you let out a sigh of relief that Rex Reed has been transformed into someone else, be warned that he pops up throughout the movie as Myra’s ghostly alter ego with whom she discusses her plans. 

And sometimes Rex Reed is just there to masturbate while dreaming of a young Farrah Fawcett presenting a table full of food, a scene that will make no more sense when viewed in context.

Her primary agenda, Myra explains, is “the destruction of the American male in all of its particulars.” As grand as that goal is, her battlefront is the much more modest acting school owned and operated by her uncle, ex-movie cowboy Buck Loner (John Huston, in what would ordinarily be a Slim Pickens role). Myra shows up at the school claiming to be Myron’s widow, and as such, she wishes to claim Myron’s half of the school, or $500,000. Buck balks, but reluctantly gives her a teaching job at the academy while he investigates Myra’s claims.

Roger Herren as Rusty. No wonder Myra
was smitten.

Uncle Buck isn’t the only man Myra hopes to destroy. “I was particularly struck by one of the students, a boy with a Polish name. From a certain unevenly rounded thickness in the crotch of his blue jeans it is safe to assume he’s marvelously hung,” Myra observes in a breathy V.O. The well-hung student in question is country bumpkin Rusty Godowski (Roger Herren, inadvertently killing his career), and he is quite intriguing indeed, though it should be noted that while Myra makes the observations about the bulge in his jeans Rusty is wearing slacks that do little to emphasize said bulge. 

Myra’s goal of bringing down the American male also includes women, apparently. Viewing Rusty’s girlfriend Mary Ann (Fawcett) as an embodiment of traditional gender norms, Myra also seeks to seduce—and therefore “destroy”—her as well. However, Mary Ann is not as easily conquered as Myra first suspects. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. If only there was some man like you.”

Sorry, guys. No Raquel-on-Farrah action ever happens.

Then there is Hollywood agent Leticia Van Allen. In the book, Leticia is a brassy, horny older woman who joins forces with Myra. The producers of the movie were on the right track when they sought out a veteran of Golden Age Hollywood for the role, except Golden Age stars weren’t too eager to star in what was believed to be a dirty movie (Bette Davis was approached about the role and adamantly refused, and yet she agreed to star in Bunny O’Hare). Not Mae West, who was a spry 77 years old at the time. West hadn’t appeared in a film since 1943’s The Heat’s On, and it’s clear from her first appearance in Myra Breckinridge that she hadn’t updated her schtick in the intervening decades. “I don’t care about your credits as long as you’re oversexed,” she tells one young actor, played by a pre-fame Tom Selleck (“That’s one of my credits!” he gleefully replies). Another young hopeful tells Leticia that he’s 6'7". “Never mind about the six feet. Let’s talk about the seven inches.” It goes without saying that West wrote her own dialog.

So, is this a stand-in?

Though West’s performance makes for fascinating viewing, her casting reduces Leticia to a sideshow distraction rather than a character in the movie’s story. Case in point: West insisted on singing a few songs in the film, for no reason other than she is Mae West. So, apropos of nothing, we get a nightclub scene in which West, who even in her prime couldn’t really sing, warbles her way through a couple songs, including this one that was covered far more successfully in 1990 by the Black Crowes. West complicated things further by refusing to share any scenes with Welch (according to Welch, the few scenes in which she and West appear to be interacting were shot separately and then spliced together*), which only serves to make character of Leticia more superfluous. Sarne could’ve just as well spliced in random scenes from She Done Him Wrong and My Little Chickadee as involve West herself.

Mae West and Raquel Welch, hiding their mutual
hostility, though it appears only Mae is succeeding.

Speaking of scenes from old movies, they are used throughout Myra Breckinridge either as commentary, a gag, or to punctuate a scene in the movie proper, and often to the chagrin of their stars (Loretta Young sued; Shirley Temple, having served as a U.S. ambassador, got the White House involved). Sometimes the clips are used cleverly, but mostly they are overused. Like Mae West, they only serve to distract from an already fractured narrative. (For someone who reportedly once wasted several days filming a table of food for this movie [see above], Sarne can’t seem to stay with one scene long enough for anyone to figure out what the fuck is going on.)

Myra takes Rusty's temperature.

There’s no mistaking what’s going on when Myra, under the pretense of getting some medical data, dons a strap-on and rapes Rusty (though the movie initially received an X rating, the dildo is never once shown on camera). And this is in the name of comedy, no less, though most of the laughs come from the bizarre sight of Raquel Welch, one of the premier sex symbols of the 1960s, pegging a stunned stud. This rape scene is in the book as well, and there the humor is a bit meaner, and highlights how the character of Myra Breckinridge isn’t really a trans woman so much as she is a gay man who has gone to extremes to put cis-het men (and their girlfriends) in their place. (In the book, Myra is impressed by Rusty’s rectal hygiene, noting most straight men don’t clean their asses properly.) Back when I first read the book as a closeted teen-ager, I felt Myron had been surgically transformed into a beautiful woman for the same reason Charles Bronson got a gun in Death Wish: retribution. Though it would seem Rusty is hardly worthy a target for said vengeance, he represents, to borrow a line from the movie, “the last stronghold of masculinity in this Disneyland of perversion.” Consequently, Myra wants to destroy him as much as she wants to fuck him, so consider this scene as killing two birds with one dildo. Still, it might have worked better if Rusty were more of a toxic masc asshole instead of just kind of dumb.

Myra Breckinridge prepares to destroy Rusty (and dat ass).

Incidentally, critics at the time of the film’s release seemed more concerned with issues of taste than consent. They were also more than a little homophobic. Here’s a quote from Time magazine’s review, which is more upset about the tarnishing of the images of Laurel and Hardy and Marilyn Monroe than the actual rape: “Michael Same… deserves special discredit for the repulsive dildo rape scene and the obscene device of interspersing the film with clips from movies of favorite old stars. Thus, in the context of Myra, Laurel and Hardy are made to look like fags. Even more outrageous is the use of Marilyn Monroe sequences during the rape.” Gene Siskel’s review didn’t age much better, the late Chicago Tribune critic repeatedly referring to Myra as “she-he.”

A perplexed Raquel Welch tries to
make sense of Myra Breckinridge.

Critics at the time also didn’t have kind things to say about the cast’s performances, especially Raquel Welch’s, yet I think her performance is one of the movie’s strengths. (Yes, a trans actress would make more sense for both Myra Breckinridge and The Christine Jorgensen Story, but that’s just expecting too much from 1970.)  Welch’s range may have been limited—she certainly didn’t have the chops to play Myron (yikes!)—but she’s effective as Myra, a role that is as much a self-parody as it is a gay male avatar. Though she doesn’t grasp all her character’s nuances, she perfectly embodies the spirit of Myra, a spirit that’s on full display when Uncle Buck confronts her with the fact that there is no proof that she and Myron were ever married or that Myron ever died. “Uncle Buck, your fag nephew became your niece two years ago in Copenhagen,” she informs him, standing atop her uncle’s desk and removing her panties, “and now is free as a bird and happy in being the most extraordinary woman in the world!” That final announcement is punctuated by Myra hiking up her skirt to show off(-screen) the surgeon’s handiwork. 

Presenting the most extraordinary woman in the world.

The Christine Jorgensen Story may be a better movie by comparison, but Myra Breckinridge, with its lead character written as a strong woman/fierce gay man rather than a self-loathing closet case/fragile wallflower, is more empowering (provided you don’t get too hung up on the rape scene, of course). It’s still a trainwreck, but that just makes it worth seeing all the more. You can do so here.

BONUS MATERIAL: People often have as much fun, if not more, discussing a notorious bomb than viewing it, especially when said bomb goes on to attain cult status. Consequently, there are an abundance of articles, reviews and think-pieces about Myra Breckinridge. Here are a few worth checking out:

Dreams Are What Le Cinema is For… has a very thorough review that includes all the gory details about Myra Breckinridge’s production, as well as much higher quality stills from the movie (that’s what I get for not investing in the DVD).

My Year of Flops Case File #19: Though I disagree with his assessment of Reed’s performance as an “unexpected highlight of the film” (it’s a not-terrible performance by an otherwise terrible person, and that’s the extent of praise I can allow), Nathan Rabin’s review of this film—indeed, the whole My Year/World of Flops series—is not only a fun read, but a reminder of how good the A.V. Club site used to be.

Myra Breckinridge and Trans Roles on Film: James Gent takes a more serious look at the film and its place regarding trans representation in film.

2012 Q&A with Raquel Welch: Though Welch initially tried to distance herself from this career disappointment, she eventually lightened up and laughed along with everyone else. In this Q&A with a starstruck Simon Doonan she talks about her experience in making the film, with a good portion spent dishing on Mae West. R.I.P., Raquel.

*Welch herself wasn’t exactly known for being a delight on set.

Short Takes: ‘Jobriath A.D.’ (2012) ★★★ 1/2

I first learned about Jobriath in the 1980s, when I checked out the book Kitsch from my local library. One of the chapters featured the cover to Jobriath’s failed self-titled debut album, which depicted the singer in profile, face down on the ground, nude, with his legs crumbling away like he was a classic sculpture being chipped away by the ravages of time. The book presented the album cover as an example of bad taste, but I thought it was cool. From what I recall, author Gillo Dorfles’ accompanying text about Jobriath was kind of dismissive: he was an openly gay David Bowie wannabe who never lived up to his hype.

However, Jobriath was more than a glam rock no hit wonder, as director Kieran Turner’s 2012 documentary Jobriath A.D. proves, with interviews from people who knew him as Bruce Wayne Campbell, a child prodigy growing up in Pennsylvania; as Jobriath Salisbury, the wildly talented (and just plain wild) cast member of the Los Angeles production of Hair; and, of course, as his most famous incarnation, Jobriath Boone—or simply Jobriath—“the true fairy of rock and roll.”

One thing that becomes clear as Jobriath A.D. goes along is that as badly as the musician wanted to be famous, he did not want to be known, making an intimate portrait a bit of a challenge. Most of the people interviewed are people who worked with him, or who are fans, like Ann Magnuson, who released a Jobriath tribute EP the same year as this doc, and Scissor Sisters’ lead singer Jake Shears. The recollections shared by Jobriath’s younger brother, Willie Fogle, give us a sense of what life with their emotionally distant mother was like, but he hardly knew his brother any better than anyone else. 

Much of the documentary is dedicated to exploring how this musician who, per Rolling Stone, had “talent to burn,” failed to make a spark on the 1970s music scene. Homophobia is brought up, but fingers are also pointed at the gay community, which at the time, according to Jayne County, “was very, very negative against the whole androgynous, gender-glitter movement of the ’70s.” Most of the blame for fucking up Jobriath’s career is directed toward his manager, promoter and club owner Jerry Brandt, who once upon a time also managed Carly Simon. Brandt has a lot to say on the subject of Jobriath in the documentary, which isn't surprising. One of the criticisms lobbed at Brandt is that he often commandeered interviews with Jobriath, with the singer barely given a chance to answer a question, and Turner provides the receipts. (Brandt argues that Jobriath wasn't comfortable giving answers, and some of the clips showing a somewhat stiff Jobriath responding to an interviewer’s questions suggest there’s some truth to that, as well.) What comes out is that Brandt seemed more enthusiastic about promoting the persona Jobriath had created than building an audience for his music, so by the time his debut album dropped people were more familiar with its cover than the music contained therein. It was like Jobriath was a vanity project, only it was Brandt’s vanity being served.

For all the finger pointing, I think timing might have been Jobriath’s biggest enemy. I don’t think he’d have fared much better if he had beat Bowie to the punch, but maybe, with some tweaking of his sound, he could’ve made a bigger splash in the New Wave era. Instead, Jobriath found success in the Manhattan cabaret scene, performing as Cole Berlin or Bryce Campbell, though he did sex work on the side when money was tight. But his second act was short-lived: Jobriath died from AIDS complications August 3, 1983. Singer Will Sheff summarizes Jobriath's career—and the arc of this documentary—thusly: “He got to be the mega star, then he got to be the joke, and then he got to be forgotten. And now he gets to be the beacon for so many great artists out there who didn’t get their due.” 

Joan Says ‘Fuck,’ Pauline Says ‘Sorry,’ Franco Shows His Dick

I have a weakness for both Joan Collins and Franco Nero, so as soon as I discovered they were in a movie together I knew I had to see it.

Unfortunately, that movie was THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES, a 2017 entry in the Senior Citizens Are People Too comedy sub-genre, the alternative to the Geezers with Guns action genre currently owned by Liam Neeson. These comedies usually exist to (a) give jobs to elderly stars who aren’t Liam Neeson; (b) give elderly audiences not into action (read: women) something to watch; and (c) remind audiences that senior citizens still want to fuck. Though there’s a subset of these films that try to be as raunchy as the stuff made for the kids, like Dirty Grandpa (better to stick to Bad Grandpa, even if it doesn’t star an actual old person), most of them are far gentler, usually staying on the PG-13 side of naughtiness, and usually starring Diane Keaton (Book Club, 5 Flights Up, And So It Goes), Shirley MacLaine (Wild Oats, Elsa & Fred), and/or Morgan Freeman (5 Flights Up, Going in Style, Last Vegas).

Though it’s decidedly R-rated, writer-director Roger Goldby’s The Time of Their Lives is an even gentler SCAPT comedy, so gentle that it’s easy to forget it’s a comedy at all. 

Joan Collins plays Helen Shelly, a one-time movie star, now a penniless kleptomaniac living in a London retirement home where the manager (Allene Quincy) orders her charges about like a general in the Wehrmacht. Pauline Collins plays Priscilla, a doormat of a housewife upon whom her asshole husband Frank (Ronald Pickup) metaphorically wipes his feet. Thanks to a script contrivance, Priscilla accidentally gets included in Helen’s retirement home’s day trip to the beach, kicking off the pair’s madcap adventures. Helen persuades/bullies Priscilla into helping her ditch Ilsa, Wrangler of the Wizened, and abscond to France so she can attend the funeral of an ex-lover. Hilarity Wan smiles ensue.

“Perhaps you remember me?”

“I’m sorry.”

Among their adventures is an encounter with Alberto (Franco Nero, sporting a mullet that earns this movie a place on his bad hair filmography, just after The Visitor and Shark Hunter) after their stolen car runs out of gas. (Yes, they steal a car, a scene that’s not nearly as rib tickling as the movie thinks it is.) Alberto is a painter so famous he can’t walk down the street without being stopped by autograph hounds every few feet. (Quick, filmmakers, name a current living painter or poet who exists on the same strata of celebrity as Robert Downey, Jr. or Cardi B. Can’t think of any? Exactly.) For his first few minutes onscreen we suspect he might also be mute as Alberto does little more than grunt when he encounters Helen and Priscilla stranded on the side of the road. He takes them back to his mansion and, over the protests of his bitchy young nurse (this movie uniformly presents caretakers as forces of evil), invites them to stay the night. Helen all but offers the elderly painter a hand job during dinner, but it’s the shy Priscilla who captures Alberto’s (weak) heart.

“. . .”

The movie continues to follow the well-traveled map of tropes, including old people smoking pot, exposed secrets, a third act break-up, learned lessons and making-up in the finale. The movie’s only surprise is some full-frontal Franco. (I would’ve preferred seeing Franco from 40-years ago, but septuagenarian Franco—who also shows the goods in the series Delicious—makes an impressive daddy bear.)

If only we got the Full Franco when he appeared in
The Third Eye in 1966.

Some might consider Joan’s performance in this movie brave. The role of Helen requires the actress to acknowledge her true age and parody her glamorous image, but this doesn’t make her brave so much as a realist (well, as much as a woman who owns four homes yet denies she’s rich can be) and a good sport, respectively. Joan does get to sing a song, penned by her ex, Anthony Newley, and she sings it well, a pleasant surprise, but otherwise there’s not much here for her to sink her teeth into. Maybe some would find it amusing to hear a woman in her 80s drop a few f-bombs, but most would wish she was wittier lines. She had sharper dialog in The Bitch.

Pauline Collins is equally wasted, her comedic gifts squandered on a character who does little more than apologize for her existence the majority of the movie’s runtime. She does get to show some pluck when she rescues a boy who has fallen into Pertuis d’Antioche strait (Priscilla is an avid swimmer, a detail tied to her not-so-well-kept secret) and bawls out the mother of the boy for being negligent. Yet when she inevitably confronts her prick husband—a scene that really could’ve benefited from giving Priscilla at least one f-bomb—she does so with timidity of a salesclerk informing you your credit card has been declined.

Priscilla’s reticence extends to Goldby’s script and direction as well. You can tell what kind of movie The Time of Their Lives aspires to be, yet too often it pulls its punches as if Goldby is afraid to ask too much of his cast or his audience. The end result is a movie that won’t offend Nana (though seeing Nero’s dick might give her a jolt), but it won’t make her laugh, either.

The Divas’ Whore Complex

On the surface, NUTS and RENT-A-COP couldn’t be more different. One is a courtroom melodrama; the other a craptastic cop movie. One was meant to earn its star awards; the other exists to give its stars jobs. One was directed by Martin Ritt, director of such classics as Hud and Norma Rae; the other directed by Jerry London, director of the TV mini-series Shogun, as well as several episodes of Hogan’s Heroes, The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch. One was based on an acclaimed play written by Tom Topor, who also wrote the screenplay for The Accused; the other has a screenplay co-written by Michael Blodgett, who rocked leopard-print bikini briefs in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

But the movies have some distinct similarities. Both were made in 1987 and star Oscar®-winning gay icons playing hookers with incredibly irritating personalities. These divas are also the least convincing prostitutes in movie history, no mean feat given that Hollywood’s portrayal of sex work seldom represents reality.

Nuts stars Barbra Streisand, which, if you’re a hardcore Streisand fan, as I was in 1987, is pretty much all you need to know to be sold on the film. For those needing more of a plot synopsis, here goes: Claudia Draper (guess who?) is a call girl accused of murdering a john, but the issue isn’t proving her innocence, but rather proving Claudia’s mental fitness to stand trial. Her parents think it’s best that Claudia accept confinement to a mental institution rather than risk going to prison. Claudia wants her day in court, and with the help of her public defender (Richard Dreyfuss), she fights to prove she’s not crazy, she’s just a bitch.

Being a hardcore Streisand fan when this movie was released, I went to see it the weekend it opened, or possibly the weekend after (my early twenties are a bit of a repressed memory). The point is, I didn’t dawdle. And at the time I thought Nuts was excellent, one of the best, if not THE BEST, movies of 1987, and that Barbra should clear a space on her awards shelf for her inevitable Oscar® win. (Ultimately, she’d have to be content with a Golden Globe nomination.)

Though I still consider myself a Streisand fan, I’m well past my blind adoration of her. I re-watched Nuts recently and found it to be… OK. Just OK. Though attempts are made to open it up, it’s quite obviously based on a play, and a very dated one at that. Topor wrote his play in 1979, but the movie adaptation had me thinking of movies from an earlier time: the 1940s. Seriously, remove the profanity and references to overpriced blowjobs and Nuts would’ve been the perfect vehicle for Joan Crawford in 1948. Not only that, 1948 audiences might actually believe Joan as a hooker. Not so for Barbra in 1987.

Nuts wasn’t the first time Streisand was turned out. She played a hooker in the 1970 comedy The Owl and the Pussycat, and did so convincingly. In Pussycat, Streisand happily gets in touch with her trashy side in portraying prostitute/porn actress Doris, and she sells it. Streisand had starred in a string of G-rated musicals prior to being cast in the then R-rated Pussycat, so she was eager to get down and dirty, to show the world that the star of Funny Girl could wear lewd lingerie and drop f-bombs with the best of them.

Sometimes cheaper is better: Barbra in The Owl and the Pussycat
(left) and Barbra in Nuts.

In Nuts, however, Streisand has to Streisand. Claudia is a high-class call girl, not some sleazy ’ho. As shown in flashbacks, Claudia, tastefully and expensively dressed, joins her soon-to-be-murdered john (Leslie Nielsen!) for cocktails and suggestive repartee at a chic Manhattan restaurant before they go back to her place for (off camera) sex. It’s the Second Wife Experience. Claudia may flash her cooch to her attorney and graphically detail her services from the stand, but she’s still a lady, and a well-paid one at that. Which begs the question: Would a woman in her forties, who, though striking, is not conventionally attractive, and who I’m pretty confident would refuse to do anal, really command such a high price that she could afford the large, exquisitely decorated New York apartment she has in Nuts? Only if Barbra herself were turning tricks.

I’m also pretty confident Della, the hooker character Liza Minnelli plays in Rent-A-Cop, wouldn’t do anal, either, though, unlike Barbra’s Claudia, she’s a lot more flippant about her profession.

“Hey, Della, what’s happening?” asks a hotel desk clerk as she enters the lobby, dressed in a beaded red dress with a white fur boa around her neck. (An Amazon reviewer observed that Liza looks like she’s about to perform at the Sands.)

“Well, I don’t know yet,” Della replies. “That depends on if my date wants his mommy, Little Bo Peep or Helga the Bitch Goddess.” That’s right, kids: prostitution is just like playing dress-up!

 Liza-with-a-Z out to get some D.

Though made in 1987, the Burt Reynolds vehicle Rent-A-Cop wasn’t released until January 1988, lasting in theaters just long enough to be panned by critics before slinking off to collect dust on video store shelves. I watched it ironically last year, surprised to find that it wasn’t nearly as godawful as expected. It’s bad, yes, a flatly-directed jumble of clunky comedy, gritty action and straight-up camp, but it’s not unwatchable.

Reynolds, as the disgraced cop Tony “Churchy” Church, hired by Della to protect her from a ruthless killer, gives the performance of a man who’s just beginning to realize his leading man days are coming to a close. Minnelli, breathless and jittery, gives the performance of someone who likes a little coffee with her cocaine. (Minnelli had gone through rehab in 1984, but if any movie would cause a relapse, Rent-A-Cop is that movie.) In Minnelli’s defense, her jangly performance fits the character. She isn’t bad. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Minnelli gives a better performance in this shitty movie than Barbra gives in her Oscar® bait role. But never once did I believe Liza as a woman who is paid for sex.

That said, if I had to choose between hiring either diva for the evening, I’d go with Liza. I’m not really a Liza fan, but she seems like she’d be more pleasant company, or at least less likely to make me cry. And, besides, Liza’s used to dating gay men.