BijouBlog

By Josh Eliot

Back in 1989, the San Fernando Valley was the hot spot for all things porn, gay or straight. Specifically Chatsworth, CA, where adult film production houses migrated because of low rent and access to the mainstream movie business. Located thirty miles north of Los Angeles, it allowed access to Hollywood directors, as well as talent and crew who moonlighted for some extra income or chose a different career path due to declining productions within L.A. County. Since the 1970s, homes in the Hollywood Hills played host to a majority of the West Coast XXX-rated film productions. A rush of warehouses opened up in the valley, retrofitted as studios, so they could reap their share of the nearly four billion dollars in sales that the San Fernando Valley took in annually. Specifically for gay porn studios in the valley, when I was first working in the industry, there was mainly (VCA) HIS Video, InHand and Vivid Man as our competition.

With all the hardcore content flooding the video stores back in the late 80s and 1990s, it’s no surprise that several movies were made, both mainstream and adult, featuring the story of a small town boy or virginal girl dreaming of going to Hollywood - a story told brilliantly by director Paul Thomas Anderson in Boogie Nights (1997) featuring Mark Wahlberg as adult film sensation Dirk Diggler. Seven years prior to the premiere of Boogie Nights, a newcomer to the industry, Ryan Yeager, played a similar role as a cornfed country boy rising to fame in the adult industry in a movie called The Rise (1990). Iconic director Chi Chi LaRue wrote and directed The Rise as a way to promote what he, himself, calls his first true discovery. Back in 1989, Chi Chi was working for InHand Video gaining experience as a new director, when Vivid Man persuaded him to start working for them in promotions with the opportunity to also direct. Chi Chi was a bit frustrated with InHand at the time because there was a lot of internal drama within the company, so it was an easy yes. Prior to leaving InHand, a potential new star came across Chi Chi’s desk - it was Ryan Yeager. Chi Chi debuted Ryan in Screwing Screw Ups and Flex 2: Pumping Up, which Chi Chi directed prior to jumping ship. In 1989, Chi Chi brought Ryan to Vivid Man, maybe as a bargaining tool, and was allowed to direct him in Buddy System. He was also loaned out to another Vivid director, Patrick Dennis, who starred him in Air Male and Davey and the Cruisers. Patrick Dennis was a pseudonym for adult star and director Jim Steel, who had a tenured history with Vivid Man. Jim Steel and I stood side by side along with John Rutherford and Steven Scarborough when the four of us were inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame in 2002.

In 1990, Chi Chi was invited back to Catalina Video to start directing features, and Ryan was with him all the way! Our first time working together was for The Rise, and the crew and I quickly learned that Ryan had absolutely no problem ejaculating twice for a scene. We made the best use of that by having him cum after oral and then again after anal, and each load looked like a full one! My very first acting performance was in The Rise as the driver of the van that picks Ryan up in the sticks and drives him to Hollywood Blvd. Chi Chi and I were both super pissed when Scott Masters made the editor cut my scene before release because he didn’t think it was wise for the production head to be on camera. The finished version only shows Ryan in the van talking to my voice, but none of the lead up alongside the road where we met. But I am, despite Scott Masters, in a wide shot on the movie set, holding a 16mm camera during the montage. Additionally, my patched up favorite jean jacket is worn by Vic Youngblood in the full scene he has with Scott Bond, because the shirt he was wearing when he showed up to set was too flashy and Studio 54-looking.

In the movie, Ryan gets discovered by Chi Chi in an adult cinema and enters the porn world while, coincidently, his longtime lover from his his home town ends up taking the same path and, in the end, they meet up on a XXX movie set. Ryan could not have been more perfectly cast, all the way down to his natural pubic hair that he didn’t “groom” for set. Total all-American boy to the core, which felt very rare to us. The movie won Best Erotic Scene and, for the very first time, Chi Chi LaRue took home the award for Best Director.

That same year, we also had the pleasure of working with Ryan in Enemies and Lovers (1990). This was our first trip up the mountains for an extended stay with Chi Chi and her brood of boys. Taking Chi Chi up those swirling mountainous roads to Arrowhead Lake was a hoot, as his stomach couldn’t handle it very well. Everyone was a joy to be around – well, maybe except for model Matt Gunther, who was very well known to be a twat on the set. I’ll blog about that movie down the road - I think our trauma deserves its own piece.

In 1991, Chi Chi directed a star vehicle movie for Ryan called Jumper for (VCA) HIS Video, written by Stan Ward. This was Ryan’s moment for sure, and Chi Chi’s as well, because Jumper won Best Picture, Best Actor (Ryan Yeager) and Best Newcomer (Danny Sommers) at the 1992 AVN Awards. It also won Best Screenplay at the Gay Erotic Video Awards and the Grabby Awards. In addition to making Ryan a household name, it projected Chi Chi LaRue’s career as director into the stratosphere. Even though Ryan was super angelic in real life, he did stretch his acting abilities to play an actual angel in Jumper. His role was that of a soldier in the Revolutionary War who is killed at Yorktown and becomes an angel. Angels have missions in Jumper, and Ryan’s is to influence the lives of men in, of all places, West Hollywood. When the movie was released, critic Dave Kinnick called it “VCA’s strongest gay title in years.”

At Catalina Video in 1991, we shot Ryan in King of the Mountain, Powertool 2, Head Struck and In Your Face. After that, we never saw Ryan on our schedule again, even though he continued working. Ryan Yeager had a short but impressive career, when he suddenly made a quick exit after he met and fell in love with a mystery man outside of the industry. In the late 1990s, Sabin, the producer of the Gay Erotic Video Awards, reached out to Ryan asking him to be a presenter at an upcoming awards show. Ryan made it very clear that his time in the industry was in the past and he had no desire be connected to it any further. Regardless his legacy speaks for itself, and I have to add that while he was working with us, I was impressed with how incredibly down to earth and non-pretentious he was. There is very little content online, so I was able to gather a lot of my information about Ryan Yeager from Chi Chi LaRue’s excellent book, Making It Big, Sex Stars, Porn Films and Me. 

The industry itself has changed over the years. Gone are the valley studios in Chatsworth for gay porn, and it seems that the newest semi-capital of gay porn is San Francisco, with most of the top companies residing there: Colt Studios (founded 1967), Falcon (founded 1971), Hot House (founded 1993), Titan Men (founded 1995), Treasure Island (founded 1998) and Raging Stallion (founded 1998), all of which contain outstanding libraries of content, making them modern day powerhouses.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002. 

By Josh Eliot

[Originally published 01/31/25]

It might seem odd for me to pick Cruisin’ the Castro as my second choice in the “I Just Watched” series of blogs, but you’ll discover, as I did, that there is much more to this movie than meets the eye. Certainly Cruisin’ did not have the polish, notoriety or deeply layered storyline of Steve Scott’s Screenplay, my first blog in the series, but it did have a desirability factor for me, so I chose to view it. After all, I did live in the heart of the Castro from 1983 - 1988 on the corner of Castro & 19th, a mere block away from the epicenter. So when I stumbled upon it while scanning through the Bijou Video On Demand list of titles, I was sold even before looking at one frame of the movie, and that was for a couple of reasons. The first of which was that I saw Dick Fisk’s name in the partial credits listed on the page. The second was when I started thinking about the joint venture Will Seagers and I worked on together where we each contributed three blogs about the Castro District in San Francisco during the 1970’s and 1980’s. I’ll link those blogs at the end of this one, just in case you want to read them.

I have to admit, I never met Dick Fisk or even remembered, until researching for this blog, that I saw him in the movie Spokes. My 1980’s San Francisco friend Fred Fazzina from the blog "Everybody’s Free to Feel Good!" would always talk about “little Dickie Fisk,” a good friend of his and his partner. He often told stories about the group of friends which included Fisk, the shit they would get into and just how much they all missed him. Seeing his name in the credits sparked my interest to watch Cruisin’. I wouldn’t exactly refer to Dick Fisk as Little Dickie Fisk, girth-wise - maybe height-wise, but that’s how he was endeared to Fred. In a tragic turn of events, on Halloween evening 1983, Dick Fisk (Frank Ricky Fitts, 28 years old) lost his life along with that of his lover, Joe Howard, in a car accident. He is best known for gracing the cover of Falcon Studio’s The Other Side of Aspen alongside Al Parker and Casey Donovan, an iconic photo for sure.

Before landing upon Cruisin’ the Castro, I was leaning toward something from NOVA Studio directed by my previous producer, Robert Walters (Scott Masters). I thought it would be a challenge to pick something that was more music-enhanced and in line with the Brentwood/John Travis movies, to switch things up from my first blog in the series, where Steve Scott’s Screenplay had a heavy script and character development. Cruisin’ has a combination of both music-enhanced scenes and live action sound. All that was left now was to get comfortable, so I sat my butt down and started streaming, noticing a few things that stood out to me right away. First and foremost was the title itself, which was the same image as on the movie poster I remembered seeing, probably at the Screening Room Theater back when I worked there in the early 1980’s. The title was written alongside a Victorian building, as is reflected in the original movie poster. The second was the cast; I was like, really? The cast was very impressive. What was this movie I never saw that had all these headliners? Stars include Richard Locke, Will Seagers, Dick Fisk and Johnny Harden, who honestly looks the best he’s ever looked in this film and graces the newer DVD box cover on the Bijou restored version. Supporting cast includes Don Talon, Jack Holtz, Mark Majors, Tom Manley and Tony Natali.

Before getting into it, I’ll just say one thing: the guys in this movie all have big fat rock hard pieces and they all seem to be very cock-hungry and overly horned up. Granted, it has a paper-thin storyline connecting all the scenes, but this is one of those movies that makes you not care, because of the quality of the good looking, well-built and toned cast. They are hot, handsome, hung and hungry. They are into it and it shows, thanks to the direction of Michael R. Newman. Who? Has anyone heard of Michael R. Newman? IMDB shows Mr. Newman as only having one directorial credit to his name, and that is for Cruisin’. When coming across this information regarding the director, I emailed co-blogger Will Seagers to see if he had any more information about this guy. A stage-name, for sure, but could he be someone who didn’t want to be known? Well, get this, even more interesting is the fact that this movie was credited as a CinArt production. CinArt is the production company of the notorious Mitchell Brothers, who broke box office records with Marilyn Chambers in Behind the Green Door (1972). Was this them dipping their feet in the all-male market? Was Michael R. Newman a Mitchell Brother? The chances of that being reality are probably a million to one; it’s more likely the fact that CinArt simply produced and distributed this movie. CinArt and the Mitchell Brothers had never released an all-male movie before or after this one. By emailing Will, I was hoping to see if he remembered shooting his scene with Don Talon and Richard Locke, and more importantly, who directed them? There is no actual shoot date information, but evidently it was shot in the late 1970’s and released in 1981. Why the hold up? More questions than answers, for sure.

The first scene with Mark Majors and Tony Natali is, in my opinion, the very best. The two guys, virtual unknowns, meet on the street and end up climbing through a rooftop enclosure. Rock hard fat pieces from both, and they are all over each other, adding to the sexiness of it. Not to mention they both have great bodies and are really handsome. In scene two, the Tom Manley (aka Chad Scott, the scene-stealer from NOVA's Little Brother’s Coming Out) again commands the audience with his good looks and hungry boy sexiness with co-star Jack Holtz. Jack Holtz, in the one and only “live-sound” scene of his career, brings his crazy-hick energy, especially when eating handsome Tom Manley’s cum-covered ass. In scene number three, Johnny Harden, looking G-G-G-Great, performs what I think is one of his very best signature load-on-the-face J/Os, keeping it interesting to watch the entire time. Not-so-little Dick Fisk is paired with Mark Majors (from scene one) and gives a great performance, both topping and bottoming for his well-hung co-star. Mark does feel the burn when taking Fisk’s fat dick up the ass moments after finishing up topping.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002. 

By Josh Eliot

[Originally published 01/17/25]

Santa Clarita Studios
By far the most expensive studio location in Catalina history was when we booked the Santa Clarita Studios, but the management there made it all possible by throwing in Sunday for free if we paid for Friday and Saturday. This helped make the cost “doable.” The Santa Clarita Studios was the real deal, catering to big Hollywood productions, most recently including: Mayans, CSI: Vegas, Your Honor and Westworld. I searched all over the valley to find a studio with a jailhouse set and told Scott Masters about it. I have no idea how he was able to secure this place for us to shoot a gay porno in, but he did.

A side note here: Scott Masters is not credited on Jawbreaker as producer, even though he was. The reason was kind of a “twat-ish” move from our GM, because of his dislike for Masters. Masters and John Travis parted ways with the company midway through the production, so I took over the producing duties to complete the movie. The right thing to do was to credit Scott Masters and myself as co-producers, but our GM wouldn’t have it. When I re-cut the full feature PG version of Jawbreaker for my YouTube channel (here’s the link), I added Scott Master’s name back into the opening credits, like it should have been all along.

The studio was massive and featured several sound stages, with some having pre-built sets. There was a courtroom set, jailhouse set, sheriff’s station and even a 1950’s-style diner. I wasn’t about to let any of them go to waste, so I wrote dialogue for all of them. We started in the jailhouse set with models Chris Champion, Alex Stone, Bo Summers and Jeff Mitchell. The sheriff (Mitchell) and his deputy (Champion) end up in a fourway with Stone and Summers inside the jail cell. It starts with Champion shoving his ginormous cock through the bars, which Summers and Stone work on like two hungry junkyard dogs. We took our time and covered the oral extensively and then set up for everyone’s cum shot. After that, we set up in the sheriff’s office to shoot all of the dialogue associated with the scene. The next day, we started with Chris Champion’s box cover photo shoot and then went into the anal part of the fourway scene, which went very smoothly and ended up being a scorcher!

Our day wasn’t over, however, because three more models arrived to shoot the oral portion of their scene. The three models playing FBI agents were Anthony Gallo, Mark West and Sean Diamond. The hallway outside the sheriff’s office had a faux elevator that the boys walked out of and into a hallway that led to the offices. Everything was so well thought out with these existing sets that it made them feel so real! After shooting their oral, we were cleaning up when Brad Austin found something on the desk and brought it over to me. It was a shooting script call sheet for Melrose Place, one of the biggest shows at that time, and my personal favorite. The script was for a scene with red-headed vixen Sydney Andrews, played by Laura Leighton. They shot the scene a few days earlier where Sydney was taken into custody in the very same jailhouse set, before she was tied up in a straight jacket and dragged down the hall. Being an avid Melrose Place watcher, I waited patiently for months until the show finally broadcast that scene! I’ve kept that call sheet all these years, tucked away with other meaningful memorabilia!

On Sunday, our last (and free) day, we shot the fucking for the FBI agents and then took advantage of the courthouse set (frequently seen on L.A. Law), capturing some shots of the FBI agents walking through the courthouse prior to getting to the sheriff’s offices. I might mention that Sydney and the Melrose Place team also shot some scenes in front of the judge in that very same courtroom, as well, later in the season. I wasn’t about to let the only remaining set, the 1950’s diner, go unused, so I whipped up a scene where the FBI agents go there for lunch, only to have smoke blown in their faces by the country bumpkin chain-smoking waiter, who they refer to as a “fucking hick.” That studio was awesome, and as I am checking out their website today, I see they now have a real back lot, set up to look like New York streets. If only!! I would have done anything to have been able to shoot on a back lot!
 

Malibu Canyon
Chris Champion’s other scene in the movie was with Jake Andrews. It’s the final scene of the movie where Jake, the escaped convict, shows up to deputy Chris’ cabin on a mountain top shot in Malibu. It was a multi-million dollar view, for sure, and we took advantage of shooting the entire scene outside the home with all the gorgeous mountains surrounding them. Tragically, the property succumbed to a massive wildfire a few years later.
 

Arabian Horse Ranch in Garner Valley
This is where we shot the award-winning group scene with Ty Russell, Chip Daniels, Rod Majors, Daryl Brock, and Scott Russell. A gay couple owned this amazing property near Idyllwild, CA, with a huge barn full of Arabian horses, rugged mountainous acreage and small pond. Performer of the year awards go to Rod Majors and Daryl Brock for submerging themselves into that pond to shed their prisoner uniforms, take a bath and change into stolen clothes. The pair walk up onto the ranch and smart-talk their way into jobs working on the ranch with cowpokes Chip Daniels and the (two) Russells. Chip Daniels was definitely the hungry homeboy of the group and was all over every one of them with so much vigor that it was impossible for me to fuck this scene up. Chip’s versatility allowed me to shoot some great footage of him fucking while getting fucked himself, something always difficult to pull off.

The location was just over the mountain from Palm Springs, where we stayed overnight. The following morning, we drove back over Highway 74 to get to the ranch, which was about forty-five minutes away. Our route on Highway 74 is took us on a section of road that was used in the opening scenes of the classic movie Its A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (1963).
 

The PONDEROSA Ranch Replica
Fans of the TV show Bonanza were able to rent out a replica of the Ponderosa Ranch in Lake Elsinore, CA. We rented the property for Jawbreaker, as well as for Brad Austin’s Hung Riders 1 and 2. Brad shot extensively for Hung Riders in and outside the Ponderosa replica, but I decided to use an outlying building on the property near a faux Saloon. It was more nondescript for this project, and the perfect place for cutie pie Tony Idol to hide out from the law (Vince Rockland and Hunter Scott). This set really came alive at night, and the two-story building was perfect for us to film some amazing aerial shots of the sucking and fucking.
 

Scott Masters left the company with one scene remaining to shoot, which took place at the bounty hunters' campsite. I wish I had a fabulous shooting location to mention for that scene, but it was literally shot in someone’s back yard just up from Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills. The bounty hunters were played by Dave Logan, JT Sloan and Doug Perry, who all looked very cute in their “Duck Dynasty” outfits. We shot a lot of that scene inside a tent, which was giving me flashbacks to one of the very first scenes I worked on in 1987, for the movie The Young Cadets. Cameron Leight was doing the videography while I was holding the fill-light, trying not to burn Derek Jensen or Eric Lange with it or set the tent on fire. Fourteen years later, here I was shooting this massive movie with the added pressure of having just accepted the position of producer for all of Catalina’s productions. Again, on my birthday, just like when I was hired, the GM offered me the position while I was celebrating my big day at the Gold Coast Bar in West Hollywood. I didn’t let the pressure of it all enter my mind, at least not until this movie was in the can.

The larger than life scale of Jawbreaker was something I embraced instead of allowing it to intimidate me. Walking around the locations prior to writing the script really flooded my mind with possibilities instead of the limitations normally associated with our productions. The GM even honored my wish as the new producer to include an actual pack of jawbreakers with each and every copy of the movie sold through mail order, as a promotional tool. Jawbreaker was a standout movie in my career for many reasons, and would have been a great catalyst for Chris Champion’s career. I really think, as the new producer, I could have tailored some interesting roles for him, and I’m confident that would have happened, had he not been hastily released from his contract.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002. 

By Josh Eliot

[Originally published 01/03/25]

My first blog of 2025 is celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the second biggest movie I ever directed. The movie was called Jawbreaker (1995) and the title was directly related to the giant cock of the lead actor, Chris Champion. The Grabby Awards of 1996 gave Jawbreaker the Best Supporting Actor award to Jeff Mitchell, who tied with Tim Lowe from Michael Zen’s movie Bulls Eye (1995), and the Best Cumshot award to Chip Daniels. Additionally, the 1995 GayVN Awards honored Jawbreaker with the Best Editing award (Josh Eliot) and the Best Group Scene award for actors Daryl Brock, Ty Russell, Chip Daniels, Rod Majors, and Scott Russell. If it sounds like I am name dropping some really big players in the industry at the time, I sure as fuck am.

First and foremost, when we sat down to plan out the making of Jawbreaker, one of the main things I wanted was to fill the cast with the top box office boys of the day - headliners who were in demand and could sell a movie on their name alone. It really had an open budget, because we came across a talent so big and exciting that our GM told me to pretty much remove all budget restrictions I had in my head and devise a plan to make this new discovery a star. The new discovery was Chris Champion, a guy who certainly had the goods, with nearly twelve hard and thick inches. When I first met Chris, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, we’ve got our own John F. Kennedy Jr. porn star.” With his widely spaced eyes, yuppy-preppy persona and the hair to match, I immediately got JFK Jr. vibes. He was really down-to-earth, with no typical L.A. attitude - just a cool guy who would go with the flow. I saw the Polaroids first so I knew what to expect, but when he flopped it out in front of the GM and myself, I was like, “Okay, now… we need to star him in Powertool 3, but make it Powertool 3D and really put on a show.” The GM wasn’t really feeling that idea, maybe because when Powertool 2 was in production it turned into a real shit show.

Chris Champion had only worked in one other movie called All American (1994), directed by Matt Sterling. Matt Sterling had the opportunity to offer Chris an exclusive deal, but declined. Catalina’s GM immediately jumped at the opportunity and signed him to an exclusive multi -picture contract. Chet Thomas shot Chris Champion first for his movie Too Damn Big! (1994) to kind of break him in. I did videography on that one, so I got to get familiar with Champion before developing his character for the lead role in Jawbreaker. Alongside Chris was a real who’s who of talent who were mostly all gracing the box covers of hits releasing weekly. Vince Rockland (brother to Hal and Shane - the famous Rockland Brothers) worked as a sheriff’s deputy alongside Hunter Scott when they come across escaped convict Tony Idol. Vince Rockland worked for mostly Falcon and Mustang studios in about nineteen movies, sometimes alongside his brother(s). Tony Idol’s debut in Idol Dreams was the first of many movies as an exclusive star for Catalina Video. His uncanny looks mirrored that of mega-star Ryan Idol, making the “younger brother” marketing ploy for Tony Idol’s career an obvious choice. Tony Idol excelled from that bubble and became a very popular Catalina star, with leading roles in twelve movies before leaving the industry. Hunter Scott, to some, was the bridesmaid and never the bride - but what a bridesmaid. Even though he didn’t grace the cover of a lot of movies, he was a solid performer with a large fan base, working in nearly thirty movies.

The actors from the award-winning group scene mentioned above were all A-list performers. Making an immediate impression when he stepped onto the scene in 1993, Ty Russell became an instant sensation for mostly Falcon Studios. With star vehicle hits like Abduction 2 & 3, Billy’s Tale, Tony’s Big Brother and Oasis, Ty’s unique image of the clean-cut Midwest boy added to his popularity. Scott Russell, by contrast, was a corn-fed Colorado rancher type, a bit older, with blond hair and very masculine. He plays the head rancher in Jawbreaker, ordering all the young bucks around, perfect casting. Rod Majors' career started in 1992 for director Kristen Bjorn in Call of the Wild, and he worked non-stop in movies through 1998. With over fifty movies to his name, Rod was a tried and true performer and someone I personally would cast over and over again, always giving a stellar performance. Some of his movies include Lunch Hour 2, Montreal Men, Idol Country and Come and Get It. Daryl Brock, a hot Canadian model and Best Performer winner in 1995 for Grease Guns, is best known for the Secret Sex series, Every Inch a Man, Other Side of Aspen 3 & 4 and Link 2 Link. That’s just a few of the over fifty productions Brock has worked in. He had a fat cock that would never quit, I’ll tell you that! Then we come to Chip Daniels. With over forty titles to his name, he was also an award winner in the movie Grease Guns, earning Best Supporting Actor. Young, manic and always up and ready for action, his great spirit is what I remember most when shooting this five-way scene. His big hits include Big as They Come, Fast Idle, Man Country and Scorcher, a Matt Sterling movie.

Now mind you, Jawbreaker had a cast of nineteen hot hung studs, so I can’t get to them all. I could say a ton about our personal crew favorite, Anthony Gallo, who is fantastic in Jawbreaker as one of the FBI agents on the case, but I’ve got more guys to cover. Two real work horses in the industry who took part in the jailhouse scene with Chris Champion and award winner Jeff Mitchell were Alex Stone and Bo Summers. With well over one hundred and eight credits to his name, Bo Summers' California boy good looks took him a very long way in the industry. Bo, who I’ve worked with many times over the years, is a true bisexual, but always gave just as much energy to the boy/boy scenes as he did the bisexual ones. He’s been on my sets since 1992, when he was cast in my movie Body Masters. From 1992 – 2001, we continued working together on Single White Male, Cat Men Do!, Idol Universe and Down Bi Law. I first worked with Alex Stone in 1992 in the original Lunch Hour, where he really used his experience to help Matt Powers excel in the threeway scene they had together. He worked from 1988 to 2003 for nearly every studio in the business, with Rites of Winter becoming one of his standouts among his fifty or so movies. Jake Andrews worked with Chris Champion in the final scene of Jawbreaker as a rugged and masculine escaped convict who comes upon his old friend, the sheriff’s deputy. With over sixty movies to his credit, Jake Andrews should have and deserved to be on more box covers than he was, which surprises me. He was a great partner for Chris Champion; their bodies really complemented each other’s when we shot them on that desolate mountain in Malibu.

After wrapping Jawbreaker, we actually decided to make Powertool 3 with Chris Champion (not in 3D though, unfortunately). Needless to say, that movie never happened, because Chris Champion’s manager talked him into working in a film for a European company while under contract with us, telling him no one would find out. When it did come to our attention, Catalina’s GM freaked out and canceled Chris Champion’s contract, forbidding us from ever using that agent again. It was a real overreaction, for sure, and a bad business decision. This model had the goods, and I was certain we could showcase him and turn him into a big star. My words fell on deaf ears and Chris Champion was no longer a bookable Catalina model. I think he made a movie for Falcon’s Jocks line in 1996 and then faded away. What a waste. Shooting him for Jawbreaker, however, was an exciting time, to say the least. I will write more in Part 2 of this blog about all the effort from the cast and crew that went into making this movie.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002. 

By Josh Eliot

[Originally published 12/20/24]

I’ve made a few “humdingers” - especially in my early years as a director for Catalina Video. In 1990, I was finally adjusting to life in Los Angeles and easing into the idea of shooting most of our movies in people’s homes or, once in a rare while, on a rented movie set. One day out of the blue, my producer Scott Masters called me and said we had a possible new location to go look at out in the valley. I remember him picking me up but not telling me where we were going, and I didn’t ask, but I became very excited when we pulled up to what appeared to be a very dated-looking, somewhat run-down building. It turned out to be the back entrance to the Sherman Square Roller Rink in the city of Reseda. I couldn’t control my excitement and Scott Masters could see it. The owner walked us through the facility and I immediately started imagining scenarios for sex scenes in the different sections of the rink. The public bathrooms, the roller skate rental room, the rink itself and, my biggest thrill, the snack bar restaurant. The whole place smelled very musty and looked like it had not been updated in decades, but that made it really enticing to me.

The owner was going to charge a lot more than we ever spent for a day of filming, so Scott Masters said it wouldn’t work for his upcoming movie, but if I agreed to shoot an entire movie in one day he could book it for me. I didn’t hesitate and said yes right away without even thinking about the logistics. This was the most exciting location since shooting Lunch Hour: When The Big Boys Eat in 1989 (read the blog). In Lunch Hour, we shot in a very cool sheet metal machine shop, also in one day. Chi Chi LaRue simultaneously directed that one with me, but this time it would be all on my shoulders to complete shooting of an entire movie in about ten hours. We would arrive at 8 am and had a “hard out” at 5:45, as the rink would open for business at 6 pm sharp. I agreed to this and threw caution to the wind, because I was not about to let this classic location slip through my fingers.

I had no idea about the amazing history this dumpy little rink had in its hey-day until I decided to write this blog. Around 1971, avid skater Helena Kallianiotes, a Greek immigrant, belly dancer and actress from Five Easy Pieces, discovered the Sherman Square Roller Rink when her friend Michelle Phillips asked if she’d give her skating lessons. Michelle (the Mamas and the Papas) was going to audition for a role in a roller derby-themed movie. The film ended up being Kansas City Bomber starring Raquel Welch, and also featured Helena, who got the role over her friend Michelle. Helena garnered a Golden Globe nomination for her performance and the movie became a cult favorite. Flash forward to the late 1970’s, Helena was listening to friend Ringo Starr complain about Los Angeles not having any fun places to take his son. It was through this conversation that she came up with the idea for Skateaway. She called up friends and invited them to a mystery location - was the Sherman Square Roller Rink, which she rented out. She made it a weekly event, which became so popular for the celebrities and their kids that Skateaway Mondays had an A-list of regulars including Jack Nicholson, Jeff Bridges, Angelica Huston, Rebecca De Mornay, Francis Ford Coppola, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Joni Mitchell, Penny Marshall and Cher. No Cameras, No Drugs, No Press was one of the few rules, and it was in full swing for four years. Helena pulled the plug on the event after there was a shooting outside the rink, albeit not on her Monday night booking.

Flash forward to 1990 as we showed up to this amazing location to shoot what would be called Secret Boys Club, released in 1991. Scott Masters was playing chauffeur all day by bringing models in for their scenes and then taking them home afterwards, while dropping off others. There was one point during the middle of the day where all the models were on set at the same time and that is when we shot the main portion of dialogue. It was basically a pledges vs pledge masters set up - on wheels. No one was really that good at skating, so there were a lot of falls and slams into railings, but everyone was having fun with it. Shooting moving shots while on skates wasn’t too much of a challenge for me, from my experience rollerskating as a child. I did, however, go to a celebrity birthday party at a roller rink a few years later with co- worker Peter Romero and had a hard fall, breaking both my wrists! The GM of Catalina let me fly home to Rhode Island for six weeks to stay with my parents, gifting me a great summer vacation in New England. Today was all business, though.

My first scene was Charlie Warner and Rod Abbott in the men’s public bathroom. Rod skated himself into a stall and found a secret note waiting for him, basically telling him to feed his really fat cock to a pledge master under the bathroom stall. They eventually fucked over the sinks. I remember thinking how cool it was to be shooting sex in an actual public bathroom without worrying about the cops coming in. Cum and run to the second set-up, which was in the skate rental storage room. Sean Hunter rolls up to find Ross Lambert working there and complains that his skates are hurting his feet. Bada-bing, bada-boom, Ross removes the skates, massages the pledge master's feet and then, per the secret note instructions, works his hands up the leg and directly to the crotch, featuring - you guessed it - an erect boner.

The movie only has four sex scenes, as opposed to five, because we thought that was what I could pull off. Scene three was my absolute favorite, starring Tony Erickson (aka Tony Sinatra) as the handsome pledge and waiter on wheels. In the snack bar restaurant, he is ordered by “bitchy” (in the movie and in real life - If I remember correctly) pledge master Chip Matthews to bring him a wiener on a bun. One of my favorite camera shots ever is when Tony Erickson pulls up on his skates and says, “Your wiener, sir,” as the camera pans down his body to show his rock hard cock filling the soft and delicious hot dog bun. Scott Masters, after viewing the movie for release, didn’t get the charm, but whatever! I always felt that particular shot and set up were pure cinema magic! I am from the Porky’s (1981) generation, after all. By the time scene four was ready to shoot with Marcus Braun and Robbie Anderson, I was ready to drop and the crew was already exhausted. We had to finish quickly, which Scott Masters kept telling me, as the rink was opening for business soon. We set up on this little stage alongside the rink, which wasn’t the greatest setting, but it had a table we could use for fucking. One of the models - I truly don’t remember which one - had hard-on troubles and the inability to cum. That was truly the icing on the cake, as the clock kept ticking. When we finally did wrap and started moving our equipment out the back door, skaters were arriving into the area!

I was so grateful for this cool location and the ability to film there. If money wasn’t always the issue and I didn’t have to rush, we could have really made this movie special with five full scenes and a more focused vision. This history-filled roller rink really deserved it. But, as life and reality would have it, Secret Boys Club was the epitome of a “rush-job” and the fabulous Sherman Square Roller Rink, home of celebrity-filled Skateaway, is now a fucking Walgreens Drug Store.

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002.