Some Semi-Enlightened Enthusiasm for Pat Rocco

 

Even though his filmography includes over 35 titles, filmmaker and activist Pat Rocco often gets a short shrift as a pioneer in gay adult film. At best, he’s treated as a footnote, film historians giving him a brief nod as they rush ahead to discuss Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand or Fred Halsted’s L.A. Plays Itself. I don’t recall hearing about him until a few years ago, when I learned of his existence on the Ask Any Buddy podcast. Once upon a time, Rocco had a fan base so devoted to his work that it spawned a performing arts collective, the Society of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiasts (SPREE), yet as of this writing, Rocco doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, though he is name-checked in Wikipedia’s gay pornography entry.

Pat Rocco introduces himself to gay porn stars Spencer Reed (left) and
 Jasper St. John ahead of the 2010 GAYVN Awards.

Rocco may not get his due, but he’s not entirely forgotten. Two movies, the 2021 documentary PAT ROCCO DARED and the 2024 Blu-ray of Rocco’s 1974 film DRIFTER, provide an ideal introduction to the director’s work and his legacy.

The title of director Morris Chapdelaine and Bob Christie’s documentary is a riff on the title of Rocco’s 1969 film Pat Rocco Dares, though I really wish Chapdelaine and Christie had titled the doc Cock Danglers, which is how gay activist and writer Jim Kepner labeled Rocco’s work. Rest assured, however, that you will see plenty of dangling cocks throughout the documentary.

Some of the cocks, like this one featured in Rocco’s
descriptively titled film Reclining Cowboy, aren't so dangly.

Rocco died in 2018 at age 84, but queer filmmaker and one-time star of Dante’s Cove Charlie David (who’s got a Wikipedia page, BTW) was fortunate to spend a few days with Rocco and his camera-shy partner David Ghee in 2017 at their memento-packed home in Hawaii. Though his health was failing, Rocco, dressed in a requisite Hawaiian shirt and a toupee that doesn’t want to stay glued to his head, is more than happy to let Chapdelaine, Christie and narrator David into his home to talk about his past. Rocco is less interested in discussing his present. When David asks Rocco about recent health problems (a heart attack, three strokes, failing vision), the director gently shuts down this line of questioning. “Oh, I don’t want to go into all of that. Let’s just talk about the good things.”

Filmmaker Charlie David (left) with Pat Rocco (right) and his husband
David Ghee (center) in 2017.

Talking about “the good things” means the documentary primarily focuses on Rocco’s films—the one’s he admits to making, at least. Pat Rocco Dared quickly gets through the filmmaker's biography: Brooklyn born Pasquale Vincent Serrapica, later raised in Los Angeles, initially pursued a singing career, performing on radio shows and musicals in the 1950s under the stage name Pat Rocco, spending three years on The Tennessee Earnie Ford Show. Rocco, who says he realized he was gay as early as 12 or 13 years old, is described as out during this time, though it’s clear there’s a distinction between being out and being open. Rocco talks of his first sexual experience as a teenager being with an older man giving him a ride, and that he had a boyfriend in high school, confessing to David that this documentary might be the first time he’s ever discussed either of these things.

It was in the late 1960s, when he answered an ad for a still photographer, that Rocco made the move into filmmaking. “I took along an 8mm movie camera with me, and I’d shoot a little 8mm film when I shot the stills,” Rocco says. He soon started a mail order business selling short films like Boy on the Run, which was made “just to use up film and use this guy who had one particular attribute that I knew the audience would like.”

The “particular attribute” featured in Boy on the Run, which Rocco
described as “fun nonsense—with a big dong.”

Rocco in the arms of Rev. Troy Perry in the 1970s.

Metropolitan Community Church founder Rev. Troy Perry recounts the first time seeing one of Rocco’s films in 1969. “It was the first time I’d ever seen frontal nudes. People ask me years later, ‘Oh, he made pornography.’ I said he never did. He made erotic movies under his name. Always, love was involved…. Even the bedroom scenes weren’t anything I couldn’t show my mother.”

Though Rocco’s brand of erotica seems rather quaint at a time when we have porn categories for CBT, gaping and fisting, the director did take chances. In one of his movies (“A Breath of Love,” featured in Pat Rocco Dares), performer Brian Reynolds dances naked across an L.A. freeway, a stunt so outrageous that Rocco was asked to re-stage it for a local TV news station. Another movie, Discovery, a sweet story about two clean-cut young men who meet and fall for each other while at Disneyland, was filmed on location, most assuredly without permission. (“I broke every rule in the place,” Rocco says.) Though the nude scenes were filmed in the woods of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, this distinction was not enough to keep Disney off Rocco’s ass.

Ballet down the freeway: Brian Reynolds makes the morning a whole lot
more interesting for commuters in 1969.

“What eventually happened is they [Disney] didn’t want a bigger thing made out of it by giving great big publicity on this film,” Rocco explains. “So, they say, ‘You take that film out of circulation, never let it be seen again. You’re also banned for life from Disneyland.’” This documentary is likely the only time scenes from Discovery have been seen since the movie was made in 1969.

In the Pat Rocco tradition: The Game (1970), a
 film made by members of SPREE.

The documentary only mentions SPREE in passing. Rocco said he merely gave his blessing to the fan who dreamt up the organization, un-named in the documentary; Dick Winters according to another source. While Rocco downplays his involvement in the group, alternate accounts and online scans of SPREE’s newsletters suggest the group did not operate entirely independent of Rocco during its 10 years of existence.

Rocco didn’t restrict his filmmaking to romantic, nudity-filled fantasies. He used his platform for activism as well, documenting protests, police raids and other events affecting L.A.’s gay community. His 1970 film, Signs of Protest, covers a protest that erupted in front of the West Hollywood restaurant Barney’s Beanery, infamous for its sign “Fagots [sic]–Stay Out!” displayed behind the bar (bigots never proofread). Rocco, acting as news reporter, interviews people participating in the protest (including author Joseph Hansen, a.k.a. James Colton) and patrons in the restaurant, even getting a comment from Barney’s daughter, who doesn’t seem to understand what the fuss is all about. The sign wasn’t taken down permanently until 1984, and then only when activists and the city council stormed the restaurant and removed it themselves.

Rocco documented the LAPD raid of a gay nightclub in his
film Meat Market Arrest (1970). From left: Nude dancer
Bob Philpot, attorney Walter Culpepper and Pat Rocco.

Rocco also filmed L.A.’s first gay Pride parade. “That really set us apart from New York,” Perry says. “New York’s was a march. Ours (Los Angeles’s) was a parade.” Rocco took an even more active role in the mid-1970s when he became president of the Christopher Street West Association, organizing the L.A. Pride parade and adding a carnival as part of the celebration.

An ‘Honest Look’ at a 35-Year-Old Hustler

Rocco didn’t direct many feature length films. Pat Rocco Dared highlights 1977’s Silent No More, about a man’s struggles to get his homophobic father to accept his homosexuality and his boyfriend, isn’t even included on the IMDb pages for Rocco or the movie’s star Michael Kearns and forget finding a copy on Blu-ray. It’s like the movie is locked away with Discovery, with only the few scenes featured in Pat Rocco Dared seeing the light of day. Luckily, one of Rocco’s other feature-length efforts, Drifter (a.k.a. Two-Way Drift), was resurrected on Blu-ray.

Drift sparkles like a teen vampire.

Shot for $50,000 in 1969 and released in 1974 by porn studio Jaguar Productions after it was rejected by the major studios and indie outfits like American International, Drifter is Rocco’s take on Midnight Cowboy, about a bisexual hustler going by—what else?—Drift. As played by Joed Adair, Drift is as once a naïve dreamer, a cynical pro and/or a hapless victim of circumstance. It just depends on the scene. In the opening scene, however, Drift is shown to be kind of rapey, as he tries to force himself onto Steve (David Russell, who may be wearing a wig), a young man who picked up Drift hitchhiking in Arizona. (An alternate read of this scene, and the one I think was intended, is Drift trying to initiate sex only to be violently rejected by a horrified Steve).

Gino (Joseph Caruso) has a proposition.

So it’s back on the road for Drift, who, after a bite to eat at Roy & Lorene’s Diner, hitches a ride by Gino (Joseph Caruso, a.k.a. porn director Gorton Hall). Gino is more than happy to give Drift a lift to Los Angeles, provided the lanky hitchhiker understands it’s not a free ride. Drift spends the night with the portly Gino at a motel without protest or enthusiasm. As filmed, however, it looks like the two men literally just sleep together. Maybe the guys got the sex out of the way off camera earlier?

Once dropped off in L.A., Drift goes from one encounter to the next—drifting, if you will. After a brief detour into an adult bookstore, owned by Woody Daniel, who co-founded Jaguar Films, Drift is chatted up by Wagner (Dean Shah-kee), who sort of resembles the late Julian MacMahon during his Charmed era. Wagner doesn’t waste time offering Drift a place to stay, at least for tonight. Wagner has a roommate but assures Drift it’s not a problem. The roommate works nights, while Wagner remains scarce during the day. Though Wagner is an upgrade from Gino—physically, at least—Drift is surprisingly reluctant to whore himself out for shelter. Then again, Drift’s resistance might have nothing to do with Wagner and more to do with the fact that Wagner’s apartment is a depressing shithole.

“C’mon Drift, join me. It’s more fun when there’s two.”: Drift about to
make his rent payment. Notice Dean Shah-kee’s shadow on the left.

Drift meets Wagner's roommate,
Klamath (Bambi Allen).

Other encounters include meeting Wagner’s roommate; having a meeting with Maxine (Ann Collins), a bitchy “agent” Drift was referred to by Gino; and meeting Karen (Inga-Marie Pinson), a pretty, young German woman he first encounters while on his way to Maxine’s office and again at the bus stop. Drift and Karen spend the rest of the day together, and plan to get together again, after Karen is free from a mysterious work obligation.

Throughout the movie there are flashbacks to Drift’s past with Steven, scenes that further confuse the nature of their relationship. The character of Steven seems to have a crush on Drift, while also being oblivious to Drift’s sexual signals. I'm usually slow on the uptake, but if one of my friends got naked and initiated a tickle fight, I think I would suspect he had something other than platonic rough housing in mind. The intention may be to portray Steven is a sheltered and inexperienced, but he often just comes across as stupid.

Not what it looks like.

Perhaps Drift’s most startling encounter—and the movie’s most cringeworthy scene—is with Dana (Gerald Strickland, who would be right at home in a John Waters movie), on a date that was arranged by Maxine. “Do you find me…attractive?” Dana asks in a gravelly purr, not realizing that this isn’t a question you should ask if you’re not prepared for a negative answer. (“You’re OK,” Drift replies tactfully.)

And then Dana changes clothes.

Drift’s response: “What the hell?”

As squirm-inducing as Strickland’s performance is, it’s ultimately heartbreaking when Dana reveals he plans to undergo gender reassignment surgery for reasons that seem only partially rooted in gender dysphoria. In an unsettling close-up, Dana laments: “In my world—the gay world—when you reach 50, love is not so easy to find. You’re pretty much washed up. Through those young years, when so many are willing to give, I kept myself hidden. I never let anyone know me. Well, I’ve stopped hiding now. So, come on Drift, help me say good-by as a man and make me feel like a woman.”

Who is Drift’s sex show partner? You
 get one guess.

The job that sends Drift over the edge, however, is near the movie’s end, when Gino hires him as entertainment for an all-male party. My first thought was Drift was being set-up as a bottom for a gangbang, but Gino had something more refined in mind: a live sex show. Drift is resigned to the job, until he sees his performance partner. It turns out Drift is more than just kind of rapey, after all.

I’ll admit I went into this one expecting to have a lot of fun at its expense, surprised to discover that Drifter was not so easy to ridicule. While it shares many similarities to The Light from the Second Story Window (also released by Jaguar), such as a cast of SPREE members and clumsily trying to milk pathos from its lurid story about a sex worker, Drifter is significantly less ridiculous. Rocco’s movie is rough around the edges, hindered by its low-low budget and a cast who, by and large, have calibrated their performances for the stage instead of film, but the director’s technical proficiency and grasp of storytelling make Drifter almost seem like a real movie.

Heterosexual mating rituals: Drift and Karen (Inga-Marie Pinson)
 have fun in the park.

Drifter’s biggest weakness is its star and writer Adair. Adair’s script, written under the name Edward Middleton, based on his (unpublished) novel, might be Oscar-worthy in comparison to David Allen’s Second Story Window, but it’s just as self-serious, with an over-reliance on melodramatic—and often self-pitying—monologues to sell us on the plight of its characters. As an actor, Adair isn’t bad, he’s just miscast. He is a decent-looking guy, but Adair is too old for the part he wrote for himself. It’s hard to belief Drift as a hot young innocent reluctantly selling his body when he looks 35.

The Parts Pat Rocco Dared Left Out

The cover for Kino Cult’s
 Blu-ray release of Drifter.

Making the Drifter Blu-ray an even greater value are its bonus features, which include four of Rocco’s “cock danglers,” the Adair-starring A Matter of Life among them. Those wanting to learn more about Rocco will appreciate the commentary track from film historian Finley Freibert, dry though it may be. While Pat Rocco Dared is a pleasant introduction to Rocco’s life and work, it’s too beholden to the narrative Rocco wants to tell (Rocco also produced the documentary). It’s not a comprehensive documentary. Among the parts Pat Rocco Dared left out:

•  Before Rocco began taking photos and filming naked men, he ran a theater in Moorpark, Calif. Joed Adair was one of his employees at this time and the two became close friends (possibly more than that), collaborating with Rocco on theater productions.

•  Rocco later owned a coffeehouse/head shop called Bizarre Bazaar that also showed campy old movies like Johnny Guitar.

•  Though Pat Rocco Dared leaves viewers with the impression that Pat Rocco never directed hardcore porn, he most certainly did. Under the name Brad Kingston, Rocco directed several movies for gay porn studio Jaguar Productions, including A Deep Compassion and A Dream of Body. Freibert explains these movies attracted the attention of law enforcement, with Rocco’s home being raided several times and he and his business partners being charged with conspiracy to commit oral copulation and sodomy (the charges were later dropped). Rocco, not wanting to draw any more police or FBI attention, later downplayed his hardcore work.

Some random facts about Drifter and its cast:

• Joed Adair was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, where he showed promise as an actor and dancer. In addition to Drifter, he wrote scripts for the shorts A Matter of Life and Autumn Nocturne and the feature Someone. He died in 2001.

• In addition to his part in Drifter, Dean Shah-kee, who also went by the name Dean Chambers, worked as a crew member on Rocco’s movies. His resume includes stints as a model, a dance instructor and a cashier at a gay porn theater.

• Like Shah-kee, Gerald Strickland was in the porn peddling business, working as a cashier for Woody’s Adult Books, owned by Jaguar Films co-founder Woody Daniel (the store is featured in a scene in Drifter). He was later second in command at Jaguar. Strickland died the same year Drifter was released.

Product placement.

• SPREE member Bambi Allen, who plays Klamath, was also in Pat Rocco Dared. She had small parts in numerous grindhouse movies, including The Fabulous Bastard from Chicago, Terror at Orgy Castle and Hell’s Bloody Devils. She died of cancer before Drifter was released.

• Drifter was supposed to be Jaguar Films’ crossover into the mainstream (?), but the film, which barely counts as softcore, was only shown at gay porn theaters alongside decidedly hardcore movies like Fred Halsted’s Sextool. As one might imagine, Drifter failed to reach a mainstream audience and was a box office failure.