Hot, Horny and Depressingly Relevant

The 1984 edition of Miami Golden
Boy from British publisher
Granada Publishing.

Though my review of The Movie Maker went a whole year and a half without a single view, I am going to try once again to gin up interest in author Herbert Kastle, this time reviewing his 1969 novel MIAMI GOLDEN BOY.

While The Movie Maker was Kastle’s take on the Harold Robbins/Jacqueline Susann-style showbiz potboiler, Miami Golden Boy has more in common with the works of Arthur (Hotel; Airport) Hailey and Burt Hirschfeld, with multiple characters and their parallel narratives converging at a single location.

In the case of Miami Golden Boy, that single location is the Bal Metropole, a swanky Miami Beach hotel that out-Fontainebleaus the Fontainebleau (the Beach’s three main themes, Kastle writes, are “BIG—ORNATE—MORE.”) Not only is the hotel able to accommodate a thousand(!) guests around its pool, it also features two nightclubs, a bar or three, a variety of restaurants and snack shops, and, on the Arcade Level, a veritable shopping mall.

The Bal Metropole (or the BM, as I’ll refer to it only once) also leases office space to the ad agency Andrew Stein Associates, which is why ad exec Bruce Golden, the titular Golden Boy, is frequently roaming the hotel’s giant halls. Bruce is young and hot, with a smooth confidence that makes panties dissolve almost instantly (“That’s what this hotel’s needed. A work of art,” remarks a horny socialite upon spotting Bruce in the lobby.) But while Bruce isn’t above indulging in some recreational sex, he has ambitions beyond just scoring pussy. He’s on the hunt for rich pussy, and the Bal Metropole is the perfect hunting ground: Where a Golden Boy might wilt and die outside the magic circle in Palm Beach, he could flower and triumph in Miami. The money was arriving. The women with money were arriving. Somewhere among them would be his bride.

The woman he sets his sights on is Ellie DeWyant, a waifish beauty with an even more attractive bank account. What Bruce doesn’t realize when he first hits on her is she’s also the daughter of the Bal Metropole’s owner, and she’s not charmed by Bruce’s come-ons. She’s also a bit of basket case, given to bouts of depression and easily panicked, especially when someone at the hotel begins blackmailing her. Ellie’s vulnerability ultimately works to Bruce’s advantage, allowing him to become, if not her Golden Boy, then at least her perceived White Knight, but he may have gotten himself more than he bargained for. Ellie, in turn, has gotten less than she’s hoped. But, hey, the sex is fantastic!

Avon’s 1971 paperback gives the
impression that Miami Golden
Boy is a romance novel.

Besides Bruce and Ellie, we meet Marjory Fine, the aforementioned horny socialite, who, when her fat husband leaves for business, hosts parties primarily so she can spy on her guests’ sexual dalliances. She even has a two-way mirror installed in her private bathroom so she can watch her guests fuck in the adjoining bedroom (voyeurism sure was a lot of work before the Internet). Among the guests she sees in action are hunky lifeguard Jerry Leech and the wife of men’s shirts magnate Max Prager, Ruthie, who’s got plenty of cushion for pushin’. Marjory sees more than she wants to, however, when swishy decorator Marco brings Democratic up n’ comer Sen. Richard Christopher into that bedroom and things get weird.

Fortunately for the senator, what happens in Marjory’s suite stays in Marjory’s suite. Were people to find out, the scandal would not only ruin Dick Christopher’s presidential aspirations, but it would also positively destroy him in the eyes of his father-in-law, former President—and father-in-law of the book’s current President Jonathan Standers—Michael Wheeler (did you get all that?) The former President is also at the hotel, and though he’s recovering from a stroke his iron grip on his political dynasty is as strong as ever. When Christopher remarks to his father-in-law’s nurse, Eve, that he’d want her as his nurse if he ever needs one, Wheeler says, “You seem to need one right now. Nurse…or nursemaid.” 

Wheeler might also be touchy about anyone eyeing Eve, a shy, sheltered young woman, as he hopes to groom her to be his mistress when he fully recovers. And he recovers quickly, thanks to Eve’s therapeutic hand- and blowjobs. But as awed as Eve is by Wheeler’s money and power, it’s manwhore Jerry Leech who moistens the crotch of her cotton panties.

Other characters include May Krasmer, owner of a successful chain of Chicago jewelry stores, who is in Miami to get some strange since her manipulative, impotent husband has given up even trying to get her off; Dan Berner, Sen. Christopher’s speechwriter, who gets a diagnosis that forces him to choose between the sex he lives for and just living, period; John McKensil, manager of the Bal Metropole, who has a weakness for underage girls and just might not be able to control himself once he discovers his new secretary, Violetta, is much younger than the 18 years she claims to be; and Wally Jones, an entertainer in the Sammy Davis, Jr. vein, whose celebrity provides little protection against America’s racism, especially when he accidentally punches the girlfriend of rival entertainer—and avowed racist—Benny Barker.

Some of these characters aren’t who they present themselves as, however. Some are actually involved in Cuban ex-pat Ivan Cesar Lamas’ plot to kidnap Sen. Christopher. Too bad some of Lamas’ henchmen are only in it for the money, not revolution.

Trash, But Not Disposable

Avon gave Miami Golden Boy a sexy
makeover “in the Harold Robbins
tradition” for its 1976 edition.

 

Miami Golden Boy is the type of novel that gets dismissed by intellectuals as popular fiction, the type of people who say the word “popular” in the same tone of voice one says, “You’re wearing that?” To that end, I’d like to say: fuck them. However, I sometimes wonder if Kastle might not have had a similar opinion of pop lit as those sneering intellectuals. His books may be written to appeal to the unwashed masses (or “deodorized masses,” as Sen. Christopher terms them), but he’s critiquing them, too. In Herbert Kastle’s world, there are no saints. Millionaires, politicians and criminals are all one and the same, they just get what they want through different means.

Beneath all the sex and sleaze in Miami Golden Boy is a scathing social commentary that, depressingly, is as applicable in 2021 as it was in 1969, especially in matters regarding race. There’s even a scene in which Wally Jones is stopped by police for “walking while Black,” though unlike in recent real-life incidents, the cops don’t shoot Jones, content to just humiliate him instead.

Then there’s Sen. Christopher’s speech, which originally includes these passages about America addressing its history of slavery and its continued practice of systemic racism. (A heads up, I’m quoting these passages as written and, as the book was written in the late 1960s, they use a dated term for African Americans.)

“What we must do is expand our understanding in terms of history, and also in terms of the human heart, sadly deficient when dealing with our Negro compatriots. These people who were kidnapped from their homes, packed into the bowels of ships like no intelligent cattle shipper would pack his stock, sold like any domestic animal, and bred in the same way. Now, overnight as it were, we expect the recent descendants of these tormented people to accept all middle-class virtues at face value, even when they have no part in middle-class benefits. We expect them to leap into the mainstream of American life, and we speak of our poor-folks’ childhoods to show it can be done easily enough. But our grandparents were not Black and were not slaves, and we are not Black and are not saddled with the malaise of recent slavery.

“Answers, you say, not questions, are what we need. Answers, I’m afraid, are not easily come by. And when offered, not easily accepted. Germany has dug into its pocket to indemnify, massively, the remnants and descendants of those killed in the Nazi holocaust. Not all Germans were Nazis. Not all Germans are, strictly speaking, responsible for what happened to the Jews. Yet all are paying.

“Not all Americans are responsible for what happened to the Negro people. Yet all Americans must dig into their pockets and then into their minds and hearts.”

Considering that the concept of critical race theory currently has the right wing’s collective catheters in a knot, I could imagine the above speech causing Scanners-style explosions of the talking heads at Fox News and NewsMax if delivered by a politician today. (The Internet, always quick to miss the forest for the tweets, would just focus on the use of the word “Negro.”)  But then, no real politician would risk saying these words, and neither does the fictional Sen. Christopher, who cuts them from his speech because to utter them in front of a largely white crowd on live TV would destroy his chances at securing the presidential nomination.

So, yeah, Miami Golden Boy may have all the elements of trash fiction, including a scantily clad woman on its cover, but it’s too well written and has too many pointed observations to be disposable. 

 

Not to be Outdone: Burt Hirschfeld’s ‘Key West’

Burt Hirschfeld wrote his
own Florida-set sex, scandal
and (overthrowing) Castro
novel in 1979, but his heart
just wasn’t in it.

I have no idea if Burt Hirschfeld wrote Key West in response to Miami Golden Boy, or if he in fact ever read Herbert Kastle’s novel. Regardless, his 1979 novel has a lot in common with the novel Kastle published a decade earlier, including a plot to overthrow Fidel Castro as one of its main narrative drivers. 

Unlike Kastle’s novel, however, Hirschfeld’s politics in Key West are more conservative — the man planning an assassination of Castro is an ex-CIA agent who frequently laments the weakening of America’s moral fiber — and his plotting less disciplined. The only instance where the majority of characters cross paths is during a party thrown by that stuffy ex-CIA man. I could believe the described bacchanal, which includes people doing drugs and having gay trysts in the bathroom, taking place at a party thrown by a staunch Republican, but that that said Republican’s guest list includes middle class slobs as well as the town’s elite strained credulity.

As a whole the book reads like the novelization of a Prime Time soap that got canceled after its eighth episode. Narratives are either wrapped up quickly or just dropped, resulting in the book simply petering out without a satisfying conclusion. Key West isn’t a total waste of time — Hirschfeld’s writing is as engaging as always — but only Hirschfeld completists need bother seeking this one out.

At Least She Didn’t Go to Vanderbilt

This fifth installment in Robert Vincent
O’Neil’s Angel franchise is pretty
underwhelming.

In the right hands, the story of Miriam Weeks, the Duke University student who began starring in porn videos as Belle Knox as a means to pay the school’s astronomical tuition, has the potential to serve as a social commentary on soaring education costs, men’s and/or society’s fucked up attitudes towards female sexuality, and how the Internet simultaneously feeds and devours our fame-obsessed culture. It could easily become a biting satire in the vein of Election or I, Tonya.

But the 2017 biopic FROM STRAIGHT A’S TO XXX was in the hands of Lifetime, so it has nothing to say beyond the salacious title they spent all of three minutes coming up with.

In the opening disclaimers, it’s explained that “Miriam Weeks did not authorize this Film and disputes her portrayal in the Film.” No shit. I also dispute its portrayal of Weeks, and my knowledge of her doesn’t go beyond vaguely recalling seeing a few titillating headlines about her while in line at the grocery store. Then again, that’s about all the makers of From Straight A’s to XXX know about her, too.

In the first few minutes of the movie, Miriam (Haley Pullos) learns she’s been accepted into Duke University, though the school is stingy with its aid money. “Vanderbilt offered you a full ride. It’s just as good a school,” says Miriam’s tight-assed older brother Paul (Garrett Black). But Miriam is determined to go to Duke. “If Duke is what you have your heart set on, then we’ll find a way to make the finances work,” says Miriam’s father (Pete Graham). Miriam’s father is a doctor, by the way, but, as we later learn, he has only recently paid off his student loans.

And he still can’t afford to buy lenses for Miriam’s glasses.

And Miriam wants to avoid a similar fate. So when her father, also a military reservist, is called back to Afghanistan — “That’s a huge pay cut,” gasps Miriam’s mother (Imali Perera), worrying about what really matters — jeopardizing the financing of Miriam’s college education, she’s as adamant about not taking out any loans as she is about not going to Vanderbilt. But how else is Daddy’s baby girl going to afford her $60,000-a-year dream college?

Her roommate Jolie (Sasha Clements, who adopts a thick Alabama debutante drawl even though her character is supposed to hail from New Orleans) suggests she take an on-campus job, but Miriam dismisses that idea, correctly reasoning that any job she could get wouldn’t make a dent in her tuition costs. Then she and Jolie make a few joking suggestions, like starting a Ponzi scheme or robbing a bank. When Miriam giggles and suggests she become a porn star (as if!), I half expected an animated lightbulb to appear above her head.

Her women’s studies classes usually don’t teach such things
until a student’s sophomore year.

Sure enough, after thirty seconds of careful consideration Miriam’s submitting her application and scantily clad selfie to Kinky Jobs. She’s immediately contacted by a producer offering to fly Miriam to New York to do a scene for FacialAssault.com for $1,500. In reality, the site was Facial Abuse, which has created a Facial Assault URL [very NSFW] that simultaneously promotes Belle Knox’s scenes for the site and From Straight A’s to XXX, a bit of piggyback marketing I didn’t expect, especially since the Lifetime movie depicts the site as being run by a bunch of rapists.

Which might not be too far from the truth.

Miriam may be traumatized by her intro to sex work, but she’s not dissuaded. She gets the name of a reputable agent and flies out to L.A. to meet with him. The agent, Don, is played by none other than Judd Nelson, so anyone worried that he was no longer getting work can breathe a sigh of relief. Don is significantly more supportive than the pigs in New York, and though she’s a little awkward in her first girl-girl scene, she quickly gets into her weekend alter-ego Belle Knox. 

“No, really. They used to put my name above the title and
everything. God, I miss the ’80s.”

The hottest Zoom call ever.

She forgets, however, that Belle Knox’s existence isn’t confined to weekends and that people also watch the videos. Miriam nearly shits her pants when a classmate, Jeff (Cardi Wong), asks her point blank if she’s in a porn video. She tries to deny it, but finally breaks down and admits she’s Belle Knox, getting Jeff to pinkie swear that he’ll tell no one. 

Free lunch.

And he doesn’t…until he gets a couple drinks in him at a frat party. Soon, Miriam’s the target of online and IRL harassment (in one scene guys pelt her with hot dogs and sodas as she walks by). Miriam’s crush, Josh, who has heretofore snubbed her because her lens-less glasses and cardigans have blinded him to the fact that she looks like Haley Pullos, is now suddenly inviting Miriam back to his place, an offer she almost accepts until she realizes he’s setting her up for a gang bang.

Though she’s at first miffed that her roommate kept her double life a secret from her, Jolie quickly becomes Miriam’s staunchest ally. She encourages Miriam to do an interview with the school paper to tell her side and defend her choice. Though the paper protects Miriam’s identity, Miriam’s nevertheless unsatisfied with the resulting article, complaining it “makes me sound like I contradict myself!” Wait until she sees From Straight A’s to XXX!

All the stress of her campus life starts to take a toll on Miriam’s porn career. She interrupts a scene to complain that the man she’s about to straddle is too old. “I’ve been super clear that I don’t want to book any scene with any co-star over thirty-five,” she whines to Don, as if she’s been paired with Ron Jeremy and not someone who looks like he could play the lead in a prime-time soap. 

You know he can hear you, right?

Also, was Miriam driven to set blindfolded? Even Facial Assault introduced her to her co-star prior to shooting. Anyway, Don warns Miriam that if she refuses to do the scene, she’ll be labeled difficult, which is enough to convince the poor thing to endure fucking a handsome blond DILF.

Between shooting her porn scenes, Miriam tells performer, Dora (Alyson Bath) about the stress she’s been under since being outed on campus. Dora encourages her to come out to her family as well, since they’re bound to find out eventually and it’s better that it comes from her. So, Miriam texts her mom, who calls her back because of course she does. Miriam has already tested the waters in an earlier scene when she told her mother she was paying tuition with money earned from selling pot, which went about as well as you’d expect (“You could get expelled from school! You could get arrested!”) Mom’s not any happier to learn where her daughter’s money is really coming from, telling Miriam, basically, that’s she’s thrown her life away.

Having ripped off that Band-Aid, Miriam decides to come out nationally, agreeing to be interviewed on CNN. She also appears on The View, where Miriam tells of being a porn consumer since she was 12 years old, which was a bit of a surprise given that this movie portrays her as having no prior interest in pornography beyond it being a source of quick cash.

Is sitting across from Piers Morgan more or less dignified
than being spackled with cum? Discuss.

You Go, Whore!

Miriam’s hitting the talk show circuit has mixed results. Her father is heartbroken, her mother scandalized and her brother Paul, who’s got a stick the size of a California Redwood up his ass, refuses to be in the same room with her. The national exposure raises her status as Belle Knox, but also raises the hackles of her porn peers. According to From Straight A’s to XXX, Belle Knox is porn’s biggest star/pariah since Traci Lords. “No one asked you to go on every talk show and blog and speak for us,” Dora hisses during an adult industry awards ceremony after party. “You’ve been in this industry for five minutes and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Mean girls.

By the movie’s end, Miriam is speaking at a feminist rally on campus, proclaiming herself as economically conservative and socially liberal, then espousing her Libertarian views (the real-life Miriam Weeks is reportedly a fan of Ron and Rand Paul), further proving that her story is perfect fodder for satire. After the speech she’s approached by the same school newspaper reporter who first interviewed her. Miriam turns down the reporter’s request for an interview. “I’m trying to keep a low profile,” she says with nary a whiff of irony. She does sorta kinda answer one off the record question: Is she still doing porn? “Let’s just say I’m refocusing my energy on the bigger picture,” she says, forgetting that IMDb is a thing. Now she’s concentrating on politics.

Uber.

As lurid Lifetime ripped-from-the-headlines biopics go, From Straight A’s to XXX isn’t as terrible as I expected, but it’s a far cry from good, not even the “so-bad-it’s…” kind. Considering Anne-Marie Hess’s screenplay isn’t interested in its subject and her motivations so much as it is in recreating/embellishing key events culled from the Belle Knox Wikipedia page, the movie gets far better performances from its cast than it deserves. Pullos’ performance is a bit uneven, but then again, she’s having to navigate the constantly shifting characterization of Miriam. Is she a socially awkward nerd? A resourceful vixen? A victim? A sex positive feminist? A duplicitous slut? The movie’s answer is yes.

Ultimately, From Straight A’s to XXX embodies the attitudes of WAP, both its 1970s meaning and its present meaning. It’s shaking its fingers at the hypocrites shaming Miriam Weeks for her choices while simultaneously doing the same thing, but also covering its ass by adding some half-hearted defenses of sex work and incorporating the word “feminist” in a few lines of dialog. So, in the end, the movie’s message is less You go, girl! and more, You go, whore!

And also: Fuck Vanderbilt!

Welcome to Lifetime TV!

The Sony Walkman Giallo

“The ulitimate hi-tech thriller” only if you think
Pong is the ultimate video game challenge.

A future murder victim; a future sit-com star-turned-Fat Actress-turned-QAnon conspiracist; a future Star Trek counselor; two established actors with rapidly dropping Q Scores grabbing a quick buck and a Greece vacation on their way down— all appearing in one of my favorite genres, the giallo. And all of them brought together by a director whose most notorious film featured, among other things, a man pissing in a wealthy socialite’s face and fucking a goat.

These were the ingredients that drew me to Nico Mastorakis’ 1984 thriller BLIND DATE (a.k.a. Deadly Seduction). So, why was I so bored watching it?

Things start off well enough. A young woman in serious need of some dental work leaves her amusement park date and takes a cab home. We already know before she closes the car door that the cab driver has sinister intentions as the camera is careful—in the beginning, at least—to only show his hands and feet. And, sure enough, as our young woman is showering (tits at three and a half minutes in; Nico doesn’t waste time) the cab driver is letting himself into her darkened apartment because his victim—like so many characters in thrillers and horror movies—hasn’t bothered to turn on any lights for the sake of maintaining a spooky atmosphere. When she steps into the living room, certain she’s heard something but still not switching on a single lamp, she’s grabbed from behind, her mouth covered by a chloroform-soaked cotton pad. A second later she’s in the cabbie’s makeshift operating theater, about to get dissected. If only she’d thought to flip a light switch.

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk.

Suddenly we’re watching Joseph (The Black Hole) Bottoms strutting through the streets of Athens, dressed in a tan suit and a white t-shirt reading “I ❤ My Dentist” (your guess is as good as mine). Bottoms plays Jonathon, an American marketing executive whose job seems to consist of boning his assistant, Claire (a pre-Cheers, pre-weight-gain and, presumably, pre-batshit Kirstie Alley) and watching commercial photo shoots. It’s during one such photo shoot for a travel company promotion that Jonathon thinks he recognizes one of the models, Mary Ann (the late Lana Clarkson, who gets an “introducing” credit even though she had already been in a few films prior), his former girlfriend from the U.S. Except the model’s name is Rachel, and the U.S. Embassy has no information about her under either identity. 

“My E-meter is all warmed up and ready for you.”

So, what’s a guy to do? Maybe approach her and ask? Something as simple as, “Excuse me, you look like someone I knew in the States. Are you…?” should do the trick. Worst case scenario, she misreads this as a lame pick-up line—and most likely would, given Jonathon comes across as a smug asshole—and tells him to fuck off.

Or he could stalk her, which is exactly what Jonathon chooses to do. The movie tries to explain away Jonathon’s decision with a few quick flashbacks to when Jonathon and Mary Ann were attacked on the beach by a group of thugs, who beat the shit out of Jonathon and raped Mary Ann. The incident resulted in Mary Ann landing in a psychiatric hospital and Jonathon barred from seeing her lest his presence trigger memories of that night. Yes, this is the movie’s logic: approaching Mary Ann/Rachel directly could traumatize her; better to stand outside her apartment building with a pair of binoculars and spy on her instead.

Lana Clarkson has a Nice Guy looking out for her.

Meanwhile, a hooker (Marina Sirtis) turns her last trick when she takes the scalpel-wielding cabbie back to her place. 

Counselor Troi in more traditional Betazoid wedding attire.

Jonathon’s stalking blows up in his face when Rachel’s boyfriend Dave (James Daughton of Animal House fame) catches him watching them at a mountainside make-out spot. Jonathon eludes Dave in a chase only to run face-first into a tree branch, which may not have been intentionally funny, but I laughed anyway.

Somehow, this collision with a tree blinds Jonathon even though, as his doctors stress, there is no damage to his optic nerves. “You should not be blind,” says specialist Dr. Steiger. Dr. Steiger is played by Keir Dullea, perhaps best known for starring in the sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, so it’s only fitting that his appearance marks Blind Date’s hard left into sci-fi territory, if “sci-fi” were short for “Science? Fuck it!”

The doctor has invented a way for Jonathon to “see” that bypasses the eyes, implanting a “minute, platinum electrode plate” in his skull that interprets Sonar-like signals sent to his brain as images, something he calls CompuVision. (Isn’t interesting the number of sci-tropes that hinge on an ableist mindset?) And how are these Sonar-like signals received? Perhaps with a small device that’s worn like a hearing aid. Or maybe Dr. Steiger must remove one of Jonathan’s eyes and replace it with a glass one that contains all the necessary technology for receiving the necessary signals. Or, if you’re Nico Mastorakis, you could just give Johnny a Sony Walkman and a bunch of bullshit and hope nobody notices.

“And after we hook up your CompuVision device we’ll get
you a Swatch watch for the pain.”

Seriously. There isn’t even an attempt to disguise the Walkman and headphones with different casing or decals or just wrapping the fucker in tin foil. Nope, it’s just a Sony Walkman with all its branding in place. Though Dullea is clearly phoning it in, he deserves an honorary Oscar® for maintaining a straight face as he explains how the fast forward button activates the device and the rewind button activates the cassette inside the unit. Despite Dullea’s efforts, his explaining how this Sony Walkman is really a CompuVision device was the moment I gave up on this movie.

Vision restored!

Joseph Bottoms, the Not-Quite-Blind Avenger.

Alas, there’s a lot more movie to go as we watch Jonathon try out his new “eyes,” starting with his resuming his creeping on Rachel, going so far as breaking into her apartment and watching her nude slumber (just a reminder, he’s our protagonist). Then he heads to the subway avenge his beating and robbery by three sexually ambiguous hoodlums prior to his being outfitted with the magical Walkman. He handily beats the shit out of them with a lead-filled cane. He also plugs his, um, CompuVision device into his video game console, apropos of nothing, nearly giving himself a brain hemorrhage in the process.

In case you’re wondering, the movie hasn’t forgotten about its killer. While Jonathon is taking his special Walkman for a test drive, the homicidal hack is still killing his fares, including a young couple on a date, whom he politely allows to enjoy one last orgasm before slicing them up. The cabbie has to get in line before he can attack his next victim, who comes home to discover doddering old man hiding in her bathroom hoping to sneak a peek, something that’s played off as harmless fun instead of a dial 112 situation (seriously, movie, what is wrong with you?) As always, our killer waits until the victim gets in a gratuitous nude scene before whipping out his scalpel.

It’s OK, he’s just a pervert, not a killer.

Except, this time the Jonathon happens to be strolling by the victim’s apartment building when she screams. Jonathon runs inside to investigate, but he’s not in time to prevent the woman’s murder, and he nearly gets killed himself trying to escape the killer. However, he does inadvertently get some clues to the killer’s identity, and the audience does, too, when the camera shows the back of the murderer’s head and his distinctive hair color.

Prepare for more bullshit: It turns out that when Jonathon nearly fried his brain plugging into his game console, he gained some extra abilities, like being able to hear voices from within the passing cab and get more detailed images when he rewinds the tape in his Walkman/CompuVision. Yeah, the movie is pulling more things out of its ass than a Club Inferno Dungeon video, but I still found Jonathon’s sudden development of special abilities easier to believe than that goddamn seeing-eye Walkman.

Jonathon is also able to determine—via the special ability of knowing his thriller tropes— that the killer cabbie’s next victim will be none other than Rachel. If only he can get to her apartment without killing himself or anyone else as he speeds through the streets of Athens in his Renault Farma.

The Renault Farma: Giving the small pickup the meter maid
cart makeover drivers didn’t know they wanted.

Eager to Sleaze

On the surface, Blind Date seems like promising trash. As always, Mastorakis is eager to sleaze. Though the murder scenes are fairly restrained, the movie makes up for the scant amount of blood with liberal amounts of skin and misogyny, with the camera lingering over a victim’s bare breasts while the killer prepares to cut into them. There is also plenty of what-the-fuckery, such as when Claire plans a surprise birthday party for Jonathon, arranging for guests to arrive while she and Jonathon are fucking, which, “Surprise!”

Also, get the fuck out!

Lana Clarkson (right) wears the finest
’80s street(walker) wear.

And then there’s the cast. At the time Blind Date was released, Joseph Bottoms and Kier Dullea were the “big” names in the cast, but viewers today will likely be more interested in getting a peek at Kirstie Alley and Marina Sirtis before they became TV stars and Lana Clarkson before she became a tragedy. Unfortunately, none of the women get much to do. Sirtis doesn’t do much beyond stripping down to a pair of bikini panties and screaming, but if you’ve been wanting to see Counselor Troi topless, I guess that could be enough. I’d like to say that Clarkson, who achieved greater fame when she was murdered by Phil Specter in 2003 than she had for any of her film and TV roles, is a standout as Mary Ann/Rachel, but her role is largely decorative, most of her time on screen spent modeling swimwear and some of the worst of early 1980s fashions (the clothes in this movie are so atrocious I suspected actresses requested nude scenes to limit the amount of time they had to spend wearing them). She was undeniably attractive, but she showed more acting chops in Barbarian Queen.

Only Alley gets much to do, and she does it fairly well, though her character is largely on the sidelines (and not really necessary to the story, in all honesty). For the past couple decades Alley has gotten more attention for her struggles with her weight, her devotion to Scientology, and being someone next to whom Sean Young stands to appear sane by comparison, so it was nice to be reminded that she was once a gifted comic actress, something Mastorakis must have picked up on as Claire is often this movie’s comic relief.

A pre-fame Valeria Golina also makes an
appearance, and this is as much of her that appears.

But for all its WTF storytelling and pre-fame celebrity titties, Blind Date is only intermittently entertaining. Like Mastorakis’ 1990 erotic thriller, In the Cold of the Night, Blind Date wastes too much time on extraneous scenes that only bloat the runtime and slow the movie’s momentum, while completely ignoring other story points introduced earlier (i.e., it’s not entirely clear if Rachel is Jonathon’s ex Mary Ann). At 90 minutes, Blind Date would be a trashy good time, but it’s 103 minutes and by the time you hit the 40-minute mark you’ll feel every one of them. In the end, watching Blind Date is better than going on one, but like a real blind date, you’ll be wishing it ends much earlier than it does.

RANDOM TRIVIA: The end credits tease a sequel to Blind Date — Run, Stumble, Fall — that never materialized. However, I’d argue that In the Cold of the Night, with its mix of tits and cheap sci-fi, is its spiritual sequel. Further bolstering that argument is that Cold star Shannon Tweed was originally cast in the role of Claire.

Queer and Loathing in the San Joaquin Valley

The original cover of Lost on Twilight
Road is as misleading as it is tacky.

I really intended this to be my second Pride Month post, but work, life and shit got in the way of me meeting my self-imposed deadline. But then, shouldn't Pride be celebrated all year long?

With that in mind, let’s get back in the closet! Let’s get LOST ON TWILIGHT ROAD.

I first learned of this 1964 novel, written by the late Joseph Hansen under the pseudonym James Colton, in the early 2000s when I read about it in Susan Stryker’s Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback. While there were many titles discussed in Queer Pulp that piqued my interest, only Styker’s overview of Lost on Twilight Road, which she described as a “white trash epic,” sparked an obsession. I didn’t just want to read Lost on Twilight Road, I had to. 

Of course, Twilight Road was long out of print and difficult to find. I discovered a copy on Alibris shortly after reading about it in Queer Pulp but was put off by the nearly $60 price tag. Turned out, $60 was a bargain. The next time I found the book for sale online, the price was over $200, and it just went up from there. I gave up when I saw it listed for over $450 on Amazon. But then, in the mid-2010s, it popped up on eBay with a relatively modest opening bid. The price didn’t stay modest for long, but I managed to stay one step ahead of the escalating bids, until I finally got the news I’d hoped for: I had won Lost on Twilight Road! I won’t reveal how much I paid for it, but it was worth every penny.

The protagonist of Lost on Twilight Road is Lonny Harms, who, contrary to what the cover illustration would have readers believe, is a cute, blond 16-year-old boy, not a 38-year-old alcoholic man.

The cover painting appears to be modeled on B-movie
actor Sonny Tufts.

For Lonny, home is wherever his drunken slut of a mother parks their trailer. At the book’s opening, said trailer is parked in a dusty trailer camp in California’s San Joaquin Valley, baking in April sun, turning its interior into an oven. No wonder Lonny gets naked the moment he returns from school. If only his own nakedness didn’t awaken all these confusing urges.

It was crazy to get this way when you took your clothes off. Did it happen to everybody? … Did the rest of it happen, too — the part of you that was supposed to ride quiet and harmless in your pants — did that do this, stretch out, stand hard like this, for other guys? And was there no controlling what you did about it, what your hands did, how your body shouted to be released out of itself, and nothing you could do to stop it?

No sooner has Lonny shot his load than his mother comes home, drunk after having spent her day at “some cheap bar” rather than at work. The mortified teenager waits for the full force of her rage. Instead, she grins and says, “My God, little Lonny’s growing up.” 

A couple days later Lonny returns from school to discover Mildred, a friend of his mother’s, waiting for him inside the trailer. Mildred is described as dark (“maybe part Mexican or something”), younger than Lonny’s mother (“maybe somewhere around twenty-five”) and dressed in a halter top and flimsy gingham shorts. Mildred claims she’s just stopped by for a friendly visit, but it’s clear she’s not there to just to chat. After serving Lonny spiked lemonade, Mildred’s undoing the buttons of his Levi’s (“Don’t you know that’s what a woman’s for?”) Only when Mildred is in a post-orgasmic haze is Lonny able to get away “from her [... ] and from his mother, from the men with big cars, from the constant drunks, the early morning escapes, the old Chevy, the dirty trailer, all of it. Forever.” 

So begins Lonny’s journey down “Twilight Road.” He’s first taken in by Linus and Martha Brucker, helping the elderly couple on their small farm. The Bruckers are the family Lonny always wished he had, but his happiness is threatened by a visiting nephew, Hal. Though the boys are around the same age, Hal has little interest in being Lonny’s friend — except at night, when he and Lonny are alone in the guest room. But Hal is no queer, as he makes clear the next day. Lonny can suck Hal’s dick (or jerk him off or whatever — the sex isn’t graphically described), but during daylight hours he’d better keep his faggot ass away from him. This doesn’t sit too well with Lonny, though he doesn’t put his foot down until the last night of Hal’s visit. As revenge for being denied a farewell nut, Hal outs Lonny to Uncle Linus, and the old man sends Lonny packing.

He attempts to settle down in another town, taking a job as a dishwasher at a drive-in restaurant, but loses that gig when he refuses to be kept by Mr. Porter, the fat queen who owns the restaurant—and half the other businesses in town. Time for Lonny to hit the road again.

Things improve for Lonny considerably in Lordsburg, where he lands a job as an assistant at the town’s weekly paper, the Standard, owned and edited by handsome, 35-year-old Gene Styles. Lonny throws himself into his work, thankful to have Gene as a mentor and relieved to have such a demanding job to distract him from his homo desires.

An emergency at work returns Lonny’s thoughts to his sexuality. A local judge and the sheriff barge into the Standard office when Gene’s away, demanding an unflattering story about the pair being cruel to out-of-work migrants be pulled (this was over five decades before “being cruel to out-of-work migrants” would be a GOP flex). Lonny calls Gene as soon as the two men leave, surprised when another man answers. The man tells Lonny to come over to Gene’s house, instructing him to come around to the side patio instead of the front door. Lonny does as he’s told, and discovers what most readers will have already guessed:

French doors stood open, and beyond them, inside the room, Lonny saw a rumpled white bed, its blankets fallen to the floor. And on the bed sprawled two naked figures. The back of one was turned, but Lonny recognized Gene Styles. And tangled with his lean, brown arms and legs were paler ones. But not those of any woman, of any wife.

It was a man that was with Gene, another man. What went on? For a crazy instant, Lonny thought it was a fight he saw, a beating, an attempt to choke, to kill. He almost yelled. Then he realized what was happening. His knees went weak. He felt dizzy. He turned and ran.

What I love about the above passage is how Lonny, who, though bit confused about sex, is clearly sexually aware, thinks Gene and his lover are fighting, like he’s an 8-year-old walking in on his parents fucking. (Then again, over half the content on RFC looks like assault to me, so maybe Lonny’s confusion stems from Gene liking it rough.) Lonny’s innocence is further belied when, after getting caught by Gene and assuring the editor he’s not repulsed by his homosexuality and has no intention of quitting, he goes to a diner, cruises a sexy Mexican teen named Pablo and takes him back to his place. Seeing Gene in flagrante-delicto may have made Lonny’s knees go weak, but it also made his cock rock hard.

Anyway, Gene refuses to pull the story, putting him on the sheriff’s and judge’s respective shit lists. But unhappy local officials are nothing compared to his scheming bitch of a boyfriend, Max. Max had set Lonny up to discover the two men fucking in hopes of scaring away Gene’s cute assistant. When that plan backfires, Max just becomes more vicious and pettier. 

Though Lonny has assured Gene he’s accepting of the older man’s queerness, he is tight-lipped about his own sexuality — and his relationship with Pablo.When Lonny does finally come out to Gene, the older man’s response is fear that he’s unduly influenced his fair-haired employee (“This is not hero-worship, surely?”) Perhaps most telling of the time this book is written is Gene’s response to Lonny asking if it’s OK to be gay:

“I don’t know,” Styles sighed wearily. “It’s complicated, Lonny. But even if I believed it’s all right, I don’t think I’d tell you. A decent man has obligations, especially to younger men who trust him and look up to him.”

So, in the name of “decency” Lonny must deal with his sexuality in his own way, and secretly. That secret gets out amongst Pablo’s peers, however, and they jump him and stab him several times for being a joto. Pablo’s mother is also aware of her son’s relationship with Lonny and she makes no attempt to hide her contempt when Lonny appears in Pablo’s hospital room. But the sight of his boyfriend brings a smile to Pablo’s face, so of course Pablo’s family and his confessor, Padre Guzman, must do all they can to wipe it off. Pablo, powerless against the relentless Catholic guilt, agrees to move to Mexico, where he’ll finish his education and become a priest.   

A heartbroken Lonny later visits Gene Styles at his home. Max has left for the evening — taking all the fuses from the fuse box with him. Once Gene and Lonny restore the power, Gene discovers that Max has gouged deep scratches across all the albums in his collection, rendering them unplayable. Gene’s record collection may be ruined, but the evening isn’t. 

Yep, in a turn that’s as surprising as the revelation that Gene’s “family,” the 35-year-old newspaperman and his assistant, now 18, end up spiriting away to a coastal motel for a weekend-long fuck-a-thon. Some might argue that Gene — who has been schooling Lonny on art, literature, and music — has been grooming Lonny all along, but it doesn’t really read that way. Also, Lonny seems to be genuinely in love with Gene (so, fuck off Pablo). They’re more Chris & Don: A Love Story than a SayUncle.com video.

It’s easier to accept Gene and Lonny together if you imagine
them looking like a pre-car wreck Montgomery Clift
and a young Tab Hunter.

But blowing a teenager (presumably) isn’t the worst thing Gene does with his mouth. When Gene isn’t teaching Lonny the many ways to love a man, he’s sharing some more questionable thoughts on what it means to be gay in the early 1960s, such as this tidbit:

“Maybe we always come with the dying of a civilization. I don’t think anybody who took a hard look at the past would tell you differently. When civilizations start to decline, homosexuality not only booms, but gets tolerated.”

He then adds: 

“I only know what I like. And I also feel pretty sure you can’t make a crusade out of it, start clubs, wave banners, or lobby for legislation. When tolerance comes, it comes spontaneously. It’s coming now, by the way. Which now I don’t think bodes well for western civilization.” 

And finally:

“Being born queer is like being born with any other handicap. You have to make the best of it. But as you get around, you’ll notice a lot of boys and men who seem out to make a show, who wave it in everybody’s face, and then feel hurt when the normal world calls them dirty names. These guys are asking for it—camping it up, flouncing around in drag[.]”

Author Joseph Hansen, in addition to being a trailblazer in gay fiction with his series of mystery novels featuring gay private investigator Dave Brandstetter, helped found the Hollywood Gay Pride Parade, so I don’t think Gene represented Hansen’s views so much as the internalized homophobia of men in his generation. Then again, Hansen was married to a woman for 51 years, so what do I know about his real views?

Mad Max and the Search for El Fumador

Gene and Lonny’s weekend of hot sex is short-lived. When they return to Lordsburg, Gene buys Max off, paying the evil queen a total of $5,000 to get out of his life. Max, however, costs Gene significantly more, tipping off local law enforcement about Gene possessing illicit drugs and pornography, then planting plenty of evidence for the sheriff and his deputies to find when they execute a search warrant on Gene’s house. 

Gene is arrested, but, to Lonny’s dismay, doesn’t really try to defend himself during his preliminary hearing (presided over by the same judge featured in the news story Gene refused to pull). It’s better to be convicted on trumped-up drug and pornography charges than reveal the truth about him and Max, whom the prosecuting attorney has already declared “a proven and notorious degenerate. A homosexual.” Worse, the true nature of Gene’s relationship with Lonny could get exposed in open court.

Lonny makes it his mission to prove Gene’s innocence. Max is long gone, so while his daddy boyfriend awaits trial, Lonny goes searching for the only other man who could clear Gene’s name, the ridiculously named El Fumador, a notorious area drug dealer known for his small stature, wearing wide-striped suits, and driving a pink Cadillac. So during the two weeks before Gene goes to trial, Lonny takes the editor’s car and embarks on a search of the San Joaquin Valley for the pink Cadillac.

His search is a failure. At the end of the two weeks Lonny winds up back in the motel suite of Mr. Porter, the predatory queen who propositioned him a year earlier. Broke, defeated, and desperate, Lonny offers himself to Porter, and the hefty homo happily seizes the opportunity (Hansen describes their coupling as a “sad, flabby business”). Yet Porter already has a full-time fluffer, and he’s not about to share his sugar daddy, ordering Lonny to leave or he’ll “cut [his] precious cock off!”

Lost on Twilight Road’s
alternate cover design, which
is...better?

Just when it looks like Lonny’s story is about to end as it began, with him wandering aimlessly down “Twilight Road,” he spots El Fumador’s pink Cadillac in Lordsburg. He confronts the drug dealing runt, and though he gets El Fumador to admit he planted the pills and porn in Gene’s house, Lonny also gets the shit beaten out of him, then shot at, the bullet grazing his skull. El Fumador runs away as Lonny’s begins slipping toward the downer ending that was required of so many queer pulps.

But not Lost on Twilight Road! Lonny’s skirmish with El Fumador occurred right outside the rectory of the Santa Teresa church, and Padre Guzman, of all people, overhead the whole thing and called the sheriff. El Fumador is arrested, and Gene Styles is released into Lonny’s arms. “I want you whole and with me, now,” Gene says while visiting Lonny in the hospital. “I’ve got so very much to learn from you.”

When I first got this book, I expected it to be campy fun. I mean, you saw the cover. How could anyone expect to take this book seriously? Yet Hansen took it seriously when he wrote it under its original title, Valley Boy. (He didn’t care for the publisher’s re-titling, and he described the cover as the “world’s worst cover illustration.” I disagree with him about the publisher’s title, which I find wonderfully lurid, but he’s right about the cover, though I don’t think the boring cover painting of the second edition, which Hansen preferred, was much of an improvement).

Bad cover images seem to have plagued Mr. Hansen
throughout his writing career.

Though there are plenty of moments in the book that make it read like a novelization of a sweaty sexploitation movie, and the name “Lonny Harms” sounds like a character in a John Waters film, Lost on Twilight Road is more heartfelt than campy. Beneath the titillation of Lonny stumbling from one sexual misadventure to the next is a is an honest exposé of what gay men endure just to get along in the world. Lonny’s transformation from wide-eyed innocent to proud — but not quite out — homosexual may be far-fetched, but it’s also revolutionary for the pre-Stonewall ’60s. Gene Styles’ self-loathing is an unhealthy, hetero-normative way of thinking; Lonny’s self-acceptance is the ideal. Gene Styles is right: he does have so much to learn from his barely legal lover.

Goddamn, this was a long one. (Reader: You’re telling me!) But I really do adore this book, despite its problematic passages. Unfortunately, a more-detailed-than-necessary synopsis might be the closest most readers will get to actually experiencing it. Though Hansen went on to be a successful and acclaimed novelist, his early “James Colton” pulps never got reprinted. I hold out hope that one day these books will find their way into digital markets, like some of Hansen’s mystery novels, but until that day happens, my obsessive review will have to suffice. If that doesn’t get the Hansen estate’s ass in gear to re-release the author’s early pulps, I don’t know what will.

Hot Mustache-on-Mustache Action

Come for the gay sex, stay for the fucked-
up straight marriage.

To celebrate Pride Month this year, I decided to go back, via Netflix, to the late 19th century, when homosexuals remained in the closet if they knew what was good for them and when men could really rock handlebar mustaches.

The movie in question is the 2020 Mexico-Brazil co-production DANCE OF THE 41 (El baile de los 41), a biopic about Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, a wealthy Mexican businessman and politician in the late 1800s. When we first meet Ignacio (Alfonso Herrera), he’s late for his engagement party, which does not go unnoticed by his future father-in-law, Porfirio Díaz (Fernando Becerril), Mexico’s president. Ignacio’s tardiness doesn’t bother his fiancée, Amada (Mabel Cadena), who’s too in love to believe her rich, handsome future husband has any flaws, or to see that Ignacio is just using her to gain leverage in Mexico’s government. 

Amada’s father has already appointed Ignacio a position on Mexico’s Congress, the President Díaz reminding him that “what is given can be taken away.” But there should be no danger of Ignacio losing favor with his father-in-law as long as he makes Amada happy … and as long as he keeps his love of cock on the downlow. 

It won’t be easy, however. As Dance of the 41 makes clear, Ignacio really loves cock, like, a whole bunch. So much so that he struggles to go through the motions on his wedding night (that he guzzles champagne beforehand doesn’t help matters). 

Ignacio prepares to introduce Amada to the concept of
“champagne dick.”

Ignacio seems to think living in a fully staffed mansion is enough to distract Amada but is horrified to discover that his young bride would also like the occasional orgasm.

Amada barks up the wrong tree.

 

The more things change...: Eva cruises Ignacio.

But the wealthy politician can’t be bothered, not when he’s found himself a hot side piece, Evaristo “Eva” Rivas (Emiliano Zarito, who really had me re-examining my resistance to handlebar mustaches), a young government attorney. The two first cruise each other in the halls of the administrative building, then later are making out in Ignacio’s office. It’s not until Ignacio sponsors Eva’s membership into the 41, a secret society of elite homosexuals (including several members of government). Eva makes the 41 the 42, he and Ignacio begin a full-fledged affair.

Eva presents himself to the members of the 41, a ritual
that’s not too dissimilar to what today’s gay man must do
to gain acceptance at the Miami White Party

Also similar to the Miami White Party, minus the
GHB and molly.

As Ignacio’s and Eva’s affair intensifies, Ignacio’s marriage deteriorates, with Ignacio moving to a separate bedroom and angrily rejecting Amada’s sexual advances. I’ll admit my sympathies were torn. Ignacio, clearly, is in hell, chafing at having to keep up appearances and only able to feel alive when he’s in Eva’s company. At the same time, his privilege as a man allows him stifle Amada’s complaints with impunity. He may be leading a double life, but Amada, so depressed that she’s taken to treating a goat kid as if it were her own baby, isn’t even living one life.

Amada meets her competition.

But Amada isn’t a total doormat. During one of Ignacio’s many absences, she searches his office and finds a love note from Eva. So, like any aggrieved wife, she invites Eva over for a drink. Ignacio is understandably mortified — and incensed at Amada’s snooping. The movie not-so-subtly implies that Amada might be willing to let Ignacio have his fun with Eva, so long as he gives her children. Ignacio attempts to impregnate her, showing all the passion that the phrase “attempts to impregnate” implies.

Yet still more tender than most internet porn.

His seed fails to find purchase, however, and when it comes to getting his wife knocked-up, Ignacio’s attitude is clearly, if at first you don’t succeed… tough shit, ’cause I’m not going anywhere near that pussy again if I can help it.

But Ignacio can’t ignore his father-in-law so easily. Porfirio Díaz makes it clear that he wants grandchildren, then assigns bodyguards to protect (i.e., spy on) Ignacio. It will take more than the president’s espías to keep Ignacio from attending the 42’s drag ball, however. Rocking an emerald gown as he and Eva swing around the dance floor, it’s one of the happiest nights of Ignacio’s life — until the police show up.

Ignacio drags Eva onto the dance floor.

Dysfunctional Marriage Overshadows Gay Love

It doesn’t get better for Ignacio.

I read one review that described the first two-thirds of Dance of the 41 as slow, but I found it thoroughly engrossing. However, I thought Ignacio’s and Amada’s unhappy marriage was more compelling than Ignacio’s and Eva’s romance. Much of this was owed largely to the character Amada, and Mabel Cadena’s portrayal of her. Amada could easily have been relegated to weeping in the background while Ignacio has fun with the boys. Instead, she’s given a greater arc, and the audience is allowed to see her transform from a naïve girl to a steely manipulator (she’s casually brutal in her final scene), and it’s fascinating to behold.

Ignacio and Eva lock handlebars.

This isn’t to say the guys disappoint. Alfonso Herrera and Emiliano Zarito generate a lot of heat together as Ignacio and Eva. However, Monika Revilla’s script doesn’t fully develop them as men. Eva seems almost solely defined as Ignacio’s hot lover; we don’t really get to fully know him beyond his affection for Ignacio. Ignacio is shaded in a bit more, but only lightly. There are only a few superficial nods given to Ignacio’s political career, although that might have as much to do with him not being much of a force in Mexican politics as a storytelling choice. Still, a little more detail about his politics might have given a more complete picture of Ignacio beyond his (alleged) homosexuality. 

Sword fight!

By choosing a subject whose notoriety is based on rumors rather than verifiable fact (not to mention all involved are long dead) Revilla and director David (Las elegidas) Pablos have considerable leeway to embellish Ignacio’s story, yet they make the same mistakes of so many biopics: depicting a series of events in their subjects’ lives without ever really getting to the heart what made them tick. Dance of the 41 tackles the story of Ignacio de la Torre y Mier with a lot of finesse yet it still doesn’t provide much deeper insight beyond “it sure sucks to be gay in late 19th century Mexico” and “don’t assume your wife is stupid, especially if her father is the president of Mexico.” 

At least Pablos doesn’t shy away from imagining the more lurid aspects of the 41, including a fairly explicit orgy sequence. Yet Dance of the 41 never crosses the line into sleazy (not that I’d complain if it did). On the other hand, the movie is so stately that even at its most tragic Dance of the 41 never quite packs the emotional gut-punch expected from it. It’s more akin to a lustier Merchant-Ivory production than Brokeback Mountain.

Dance of the 41 is still very good, it’s just that, despite all the Big Mustache Energy of the two male leads, the movie’s doomed gay romance isn’t as interesting as Ignacio’s unhealthy beard marriage.

Ignacio’s and Eva’s story has its moments, though.