The Making of FULL SERVICE (1989)

By Josh Eliot

In my previous blog, I talked about the making of Runaways, my first movie for Catalina Video. My second movie, which we shot in our San Francisco studio in 1989, was Full Service. That movie caused me a lot of grief after it was released nationally, as I discussed in my blog, “DOWN BY LAW: My 1 Million Dollar Mistake.” Despite that nightmare, I still do have some great memories about making it.  

For Full Service, I had the idea floating around in my head to make a movie based on the 1978 film Grease Monkeys starring Kip Noll, Nick Rogers, Lee Marlin and Derrick Stanton. I hadn’t even viewed the movie at the time, so I wasn’t sure of its content other than what I saw on the movie poster.  Both the Grease Monkeys and Wet Shorts movie posters were burned into my brain from constantly walking past the Century Cinema when I lived in the Tenderloin.

For this venture, unlike Runaways, I was able to build my own sets and use them exclusively, and even though I shared quite a few cast members with John Travis for his movie Undercover, I did get to make a couple requests of my own.  Scott Masters had a hot new pair of models he assigned to me as the leads - Brad Phillips and Butch Taylor - who posed together on the box cover.  Both were hot studs but, by the time Full Service was released on VHS, Brad and Butch were so over-exposed in the industry that it affected the sales.  I think I remember Chris Mann telling me that Full Service only sold a little over 2,500 copies on its initial release, compared to much higher numbers for past new releases. I was totally bummed, because it ended up being a solid movie.  The reality was, and little did we know at the time, that new release sales numbers would mirror that of Full Service from that point on.  It was due to the fact that the industry now had too many players and everyone and their brother started pumping out product!  It took a while for management to see that it was not a fluke, but in fact how the industry was evolving.  

One of the stars I was able to request for my cast was Jake Corbin, who I bonded with while making Runaways.  We were both Rhode Islanders and less than a year apart in age. We hit it off and spent some time off the set partying in the Folsom District!  Luckily, John Travis agreed to cast him, as well, and paid to fly him in for his movie Undercover, since his budget was double that of mine.  Jake worked in a three-way with Tim Lowe and George Madera (who also played the hooded leatherman in Undercover).  I do remember struggling a little bit trying to think of a good position for their three-way sucking.  I remembered a Higgins movie where he had a bunch of guys lay on the floor in a circle and suck each other simultaneously, so I tried that and it was not attractive.  The body positions and angle of the dicks all looked so wrong.  I can honestly say that, in any of my future movies, I never, ever put models in that position again!  One and done - that positioning sucked, literally!

Before I move onto the other scenes, I feel I really should talk a bit more about Jake Corbin. A few months before we started shooting Jake in Runaways, Christopher Rage shot him for a solo, followed by William Higgins, who also videotaped him for William Higgins' Screentest 2.  Screentest 2 was the same movie in which Jake’s co-star in Full Service, Tim Lowe, was introduced.  You can read a really great Bijou Blog called “Arrested For Murder!” by Madame Bubby for more on Tim Lowe.

Jake made his first full feature debut in Cruisin: Men on the Make for Falcon Studios. He went on to perform in nineteen more movies between 1989-1991. Features that include: Boys On Fire (HIS), plus Mystic Museum (Bijou Classics) in 1990 and The Night Boys (Cinderfella) in 1991 for Gino Colbert.  Jake even worked with my ex-boss Frank Ross (read the blog, “Frank Ross: The Boss”) in 1990 in a movie called Legend Asian Man.  Born in Pawtucket, RI, and raised in Providence, he joined the Army after high school, having his first sexual experience in the army barracks with his roommate.  He had some troubles while enlisted, including fighting with and punching a Sergeant. The story gets stranger, with Jake stating that he slept with a colonel to get his discharge.   He moved to New York City in 1988 and toured the country in gay and straight clubs as a stripper. Jake made frequent appearances on The Robin Byrd Show and told funny stories about the porn industry and his adventures working as a hustler. He had an endearing, oddball wit which, combined with his street-tough New England accent, really made him stand out. Jake participated in many demonstrations with Act Up New York at the state capitol in Albany, as well as at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal and St. Patrick's Cathedral. He stripped at many AIDS fundraisers, showing off his lightning bolt butt tattoo and matching nipple ring, which were his trademarks.  In January of 1992, Jake Corbin moved from New York City back home to be with his family after a severe bout of pneumonia. On September 27, 1992, Jake passed away at his family home. Shooting Full Service was my last time seeing and working with Jake until we got word of his passing a few years later.

Other scenes in Full Service... Butch Taylor as the banker foreclosing on the auto-shop’s loan.  He seduces grease monkey Michael Britton under the pretenses of letting the late payments slide.  Once he’s done sliding into Michael’s tight hole, he goes back on his word.  It’s okay, the boys come up with a plan to win a drag race and the banker gets it in the end courtesy of Brad Phillips and Lou Cass, aka Sexy Billy Blue (Bijou Classics).  Chris Dano, very early in his career, has a great scene with Brad Carlton, who seduces him (their competitor) into missing the race.  I did want more exterior shots in this movie, but by the time we shot them night was falling, so we had to keep it short.  I did, however, have one of the best sets ever: behind the gas station, where we created an alleyway with a pile of old tires that motorist Chris Ladd gets pounded on.  Chris Ladd came to us from Houston and did a number of movies, including Main Attraction and Head of the Class 2, between 1989-1990. Unfortunately, Chris passed away on November 14, 1990, at a very young age.

Upon the release of the VHS, I was very excited to watch the edited cut of Full Service. My excitement quickly turned to anger, as this was the first time that I knew something wasn’t quite right in the editing department back in L.A.  I first suspected it with the edit of Runaways, as there were deliberate choices made to create choppiness, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it at the time.  Eventually, I knew I had to cozy up to Chet Thomas (read “SCANDAL at the Coral Sands Motel” and “There’s a Gloryhole WHERE?”), as he was in charge of the editing department and was slightly pissed off that I was directing so shortly after being hired.  It was so obvious to me that he was deliberately sabotaging my movie.  Strangely enough, we became fast friends when he flew up to San Francisco to shoot his movie The Big One, and that choppiness didn’t show its ugly face on a number of my future movies - that is, until it again appeared and I insisted on cutting my own movies.  Content within Full Service caused Catalina Video to be sued for one million dollars. My poor little movie felt cursed. Only my second directorial effort and I thought it was all over for me!  Luckily, it wasn’t.

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.