BijouBlog

By Josh Eliot

When I realized that the movie Wanted (1980) was celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, I decided it was the perfect choice for my “I just watched” series. I knew I wanted to choose an Al Parker movie this time around, but the fact that my co-blogger Will Seagers (L.A. Tool & Die) also starred in the movie sealed the deal.

Frank Ross was the producer of Wanted, and it was directed by Steve Scott. This movie was somewhat early in Steve Scott’s career, and he would go on to direct many fabulous movies, including my favorite, which I previously blogged about: Screenplay. In my second blog for Bijou - “Frank Ross: The Boss” - I wrote about my time working at the gay adult theater, The Screening Room, in San Francisco, which producer Frank Ross managed. I remember renting Wanted on VHS when I lived in the Castro, because I was so curious to see the scene shot at the Turk Street Bathhouse in their jailhouse set. This was the scene Frank invited me to go to the shooting of, but I had just turned 18 and was a bit too nervous to accept. Director Steve Scott did not disappoint with his fantastic camerawork and storyline loosely based on Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones (1958). In the 1958 version, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis played members of a chain gang who found the opportunity to escape. The men were opposites in every way, similar to the 1980 movie Wanted, where Al Parker plays a gay convict chained to a straight convict (Will Seagers) as they flee across the countryside. In both movies, the men work through their differences and in the end form a deep bond. In Defiant, it was the prejudice of skin color and in Wanted, it was the prejudice of sexual orientation. It should be noted that The Defiant Ones garnered a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama, and two Academy Awards for Screenplay and Cinematography, among others.

In the opening scene of Wanted, Al Parker and Will Seagers are sleeping in their jail cell as an abusive guard, played perfectly by Jack Wrangler, approaches another inmate, played by R.W. Stone. The guard points his rifle towards Stone’s crotch and threatens to blow it to bits if he doesn’t suck him off there and then. R.W. Stone, aka Ray Medina, is the epitome of a hot macho daddy, with a rough and sexy face, that at first glance you would be shocked to imagine him sucking dick. But he does, and with some real gusto. Director Steve Scott knew some hot action when it was in front of his face and ordered the camera to stay on this one shot of Stone working it like nobody’s business. Literally a perfectly shot and executed “suck off” scene. The fact that Stone looks pissed and vengeful after the guard covers his face with a thick load adds to the fantasy. Al and Will witness the whole event and plan their escape for the following day, before the guard can turn his sights towards them.

The next morning, the prisoners are transported to the fields for some hard labor, with some really awesome shots of the chain gang crew in the back of the truck. Once the chain gang is in the rock yard, you really get to appreciate their uniforms, denim forward with “boot-black” style footwear - a very hot look! It doesn’t take long for the abusive guard, Jack Wrangler, to pull convict Sam Benson from the group of men and order him over to a private area for some head. Benson is in on the escape plan and, while surrendering his ass to Wrangler, he is able to use his ass cheeks to hold the guard's penis captive while the chain gang makes a run for it and heads for the hills.

The movie focuses on the chained together pair of Parker and Seagers as they run through the hills and break into a desolate cabin. In the cabin, they run into Duff Paxton, overpower him and tie him up. In the middle of the night, straight boy Seagers wakes up and discovers Parker feeding his fat, phenomenal piece to Paxton while simultaneously sucking Paxton’s piece with a vengeance. Seagers, who also at the time of filming went by the stage name Matt Harper, is pissed off and makes it known to Parker that he is disgusted by his homosexuality. Once back on the run, Seagers breaks the chain that bonded the pair and takes off on his own. Parker eventually finds Seagers lying injured on the trail and frees his leg from a bear trap.

Parker helping out the injured Seagers starts a domino effect of mutual respect. Seagers' curiosity about gay sexuality leads to Parker telling a couple of tales addressing his coming out as a homosexual. Parker tells the story of his first encounter while taking a shower in the Army barracks. Two soldiers, played by Dan Noble and Rob Stevens, have their way with Parker in a shorter than normal scene, mostly shot in close-up, which I personally was on the fence about, strictly because of the way it was shot. Another example Parker shares is his affair with ranch hand and real life lover, Steve Taylor. There is some great coverage here, with Parker’s big nut sack making its way into Taylor’s ass. Of course, no Steve Taylor scene would be complete without him completely nourishing every drop of Parker’s load in this really well shot scene. Will Seagers' acting in this movie is really good, some might say exceptional. He plays the straight guy role to the T, really pulling it off, which is difficult to do. His character allows Al Parker to really fine-tune his role of a gay convict, which again, try to pull that off realistically. Parker’s newly found friendship with Seagers opens the door for Al to do what he does best, seduce. While asleep on a mountainside boulder, Al slowly and meticulously uses his mouth to awaken Will’s dick and make it rock hard. As Will wakes up from his nap and discovers Al Parker rimming his ass, he gives into the pleasure with a slight smile coming across his face, showing the audience that he is enjoying what is happening to him. The movie ends ambiguously. Are they caught? Do they get away? Does it matter? All is right in the world, the straight man gave into his gay side.

I know Frank Ross as the producer of this movie was very excited about it while they were involved with the filming. I have great memories of him sitting with me in the ticket booth at the theater and telling me all about the different specifics of the movie and how things went on the set. I was in film school back then at The San Francisco Art Institute, and the real life stories on the set were so enticing to me. It might have even influenced me to enter the adult film Industry years later. I think everyone involved with this movie was incredibly ambitious to take on this project back in 1980, and it’s a testament to the cast and crew that it came out as authentic and visually stunning as it is.

I cut a special 45th anniversary tribute trailer for Wanted to celebrate its special accomplishment, and as a homage to Frank Ross, who was a wonderful man and a great boss!

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. 

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I get asked about fluffers on the set. It seems once someone found out what I did for a living, their first words were, “Do you need a fluffer?” or “Are there really fluffers for the actors?” It’s almost like the impression of a fluffer is a cool and positive one. Well, let me tell you, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the only thing worse than needing a fluffer on the set is when you need to hire a stunt dick (yes, that’s a real thing). I’d like to think that when I hear the word fluffer, it takes me back to the time when my mother packed our school lunches with a fluffernutter sandwich. A peanut butter and fluff sandwich on Wonder white bread, a true American classic and staple of the East Coast. The only place you can buy fluff in California is at a specialty market, and every year or so I have a craving for it. The sandwich is dripping with white creamy marshmallow fluff, the complete opposite of what we want to happen when a fluffer goes to work.

I’ve said “fluffer” so many times in the last paragraph that I’m starting to have anxiety, so let’s just change the word to Mr. F. As a director of gay porn movies, when a model needs the services of Mr. F, we know our shoot day will extend from 5 to 6 hours for a full scene to anywhere from 8 to 10 hours. Your heart drops and you realize that all your hopes and dreams of a hot sexy scene have gone right out the window in an instant. The worst part of shooting porn is when there are erection problems, especially in gay porn where there is not a cute “vag” you can shoot to take up some screen time. You cannot move forward without a hard on, and all the momentum is lost. There is a place and purpose for flaccid dicks to be photographed and a porn movie is not that place.

 

In the late 1980's when I started with Catalina Video, William Higgins' vision for the company was to cast young collegiate men with fit bodies and All-American looks. The model pool in the late 80’s with Scott Masters (Nova Video) as our producer and sometimes director was mostly made up of guys who were gay for pay. This made the chemistry on the set between the models very wooden. If we matched a gay guy with a straight guy, sometimes things would work out, but straight with straight... forget it. Because of this dynamic, our sets had no similarity to what I (and probably everyone else) thought a porn set would be like. I’d always envisioned Joe Gage’s Closed Set as the epitome of a California gay porn shoot. Or even 1984’s Best Picture Winner, Steve Scott’s classic Screenplay, with hot sexy gay actors portraying directors and casting agents. Our sets did not have that sexual energy.

Stills from Closed Set (DVD | Streaming)

With our gay for pay models, Mr. F was not a man but a VCR, unless one of the model’s girlfriends happened to be on the set (I can count on one hand the number of times that happened). A man’s mouth would not do the trick, so we would wheel out the TV/VCR combo from the make-up room onto the set. We would shut off the 1k soundstage lights to make the model comfortable and let him watch a porn scene to get hard. Oh the hideous memories of models rewinding and fast forwarding the tape, trying to find their “perfect shots to watch.” The clock is ticking! Take your hand off that fucking remote and put it on your dick already! Once the model was fully erect, we would turn the lights back on and run to our cameras as the model jumped into the set, stuck his dick in his co-star’s mouth or ass, while we'd shoot for 10 to 15 seconds until it was flaccid again. Over and over and over, angle, after angle, after angle. Torture.

As time progressed, more gay guys with the All-American look got into the model pool. Sexy passionate sex was now a regular occurrence on our sets because the guys were actually into each other. That’s not so say that Mr. F wouldn’t show his ugly face, but that was usually in the form of a magazine to help a hard dick get rock hard or, on the rare occasion, a crew member’s mouth (or piece) would come in handy. Then on March 27th, 1998, a miracle happened in the form of a little blue pill. This was awesome! The cob web covered TV/VCR combo was thrown right into the trash and we could make real plans for the evening because we knew we would get out of work on time. Hell, we could even add a third fuck position into the scene we were shooting, just because we knew we could! Mr. F simply faded away out of our lives and took all that anxiety with it.

 

Fluff now has it’s good name back and Mr. F is more than welcome on the set... as a sandwich.
 

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. 

To say that I "worked" with Al Parker and his lover Richard (also known as Steve Taylor) in Wanted and Weekend Lockup is really not using the right word. I think the word pleasure better sums it up on all fronts!

My two film experiences with these two beautiful men occurred near the very beginning of the San Francisco stage of my film work. I was still sort of new to the whole "industry" of porn and all of its celebrities. I had never met or seen either of them. Boy, was I in for a surprise!

I remember meeting the production crew at a studio to be fitted for the police uniforms that Richard and I wore in Weekend Lockup. That first contact was when the magic started to happen. I could hardly wait to get into and then out of those uniforms so the real fun could start.

We were taken to the outdoor location where our police car and arrest scene was shot. This was Al's J/O scene and where Richard and I arrested him and carted him off to the "jail cell" location back in the South of Market studio location. It didn't take long for the action and heat to start between the three of us. Clothes and uniforms were scattered all over that cell! Despite the inferno going on between us, I couldn't help but notice and admire the professional attitude in the performance... I knew I was with PROS. The film and magazine version enjoyed good press and reviews, as well.

After the shoot and much to my pleasure, Al and his partner invited me to come to their home in Hermosa Beach, CA. They picked me up at the L.A. airport in Al's new Cadillac Biarritz! He was so proud of that car. He and Richard were doing well in the porn biz and called it "The Company Car!" Once we arrived at their splendid beach house, most of the visit was in their bedroom... which was cleverly appointed with a sling! With very few breaks over that weekend, it was everybody taking turns in and out of that sling. IMHO, every home should have one. Lol. To my recollection, this was one of only two times something like that happened to me after a film shooting!

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted career and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model and film performer. He made iconic appearances in releases from Falcon, Hand in Hand, Joe Gage, Target (Bullet), J. Brian, Steve Scott, and more, including in lead roles in major classics like Gage's L.A. Tool & Die (1979) and Scott's Wanted (1980). He brought strong screen presence and exceptional acting to his roles and was scene partners with many fellow legends of classic porn.

By Josh Eliot

I spent hours at a time staring across the street at a filthy looking restaurant called the Go-Go Kitchen. It wasn’t the restaurant that caught my attention so much, but the exterior door next to it. A door leading to an upstairs apartment where every shade of rabbit fur coat was walking through it, sometimes with a man, sometimes without. It couldn’t have been more obvious. I’m no fool, I saw Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway starring “Jan Brady” on NBC in 1976. In that movie, Dawn became a sex worker, and she always wore a rabbit fur coat while walking the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. I’m not sure whose name was on the lease for that apartment, but he must have had a lot of “daughters” with a suspiciously similar dress code.

It was 1980 and I was working in the ticket booth at the Screening Room Theater, a place with quite a history. The first full-length adult hardcore feature legally shown in the United States premiered there in 1970, and today there’s a plaque on the building stating so. The film was Alex de Renzy’s Pornography in Denmark: A New Approach. It was billed as a documentary, which helped it avoid legal troubles.

In the 1980s, the Screening Room was a XXX Gay Cinema with live shows on stage. As I sat there analyzing the sex workers' behaviors, I felt two hands begin to rub my shoulders; it was my boss, Frank Ross. In addition to managing the theater, Frank became well known as an actor, producer and director. Some of his features include: Face to Face (aka San Francisco), Black Pack, Black and Bi and Made in the Shade and its sequel. He was a true New Yorker, a bit intimidating, with handsome looks and a tattooed muscular body.

When he interviewed me for the job, he struggled with the idea of whether or not to hire me, because I had just turned 18 the week before. He was very protective of my naivete and took time before exposing me to all the different areas of the theater and its playrooms. As weeks passed and we became more comfortable with each other, he started sharing stories of his sexual adventures. His trysts blew my mind but helped me get more comfortable with accepting myself. I envied my co-worker who was already comfortable in his own skin and would go up to the projection booth and play around with Frank regularly. A dancer named TK, who would talk with me in the booth after the live shows, invited me to go to the Trocadero Transfer with all the dancers. He knew the doorman, so I got in no problem.

It was my first time seeing fan dancers, being in a club this size and bonding through party favors with the dancers. At sunrise, we were all at the beach where TK and I went into a cave by the Sutro Baths and played around. Sutro Baths and Lands End Beach are notorious gay cruising spots. When I came into work the next day, Frank had this shit eating grin on his face, like a proud papa. I guess strippers do kiss and tell. Frank totally patted himself on the back for kicking my ass out of the closet, and I guess after months of his influence, he did.

Frank’s most infamous film as producer was made while I worked for him. He was excited to tell me the details, about a prison guard and convict who are handcuffed together during an escape. “Oh, like The Defiant Ones,” I said, “I love that movie.” He was impressed that I made the connection and invited me to watch them film on the movie set. The shoot was the next day, around the corner at the Bulldog Baths on Turk Street.

 

The infamous bathhouse had a real prison cell set, and he was very excited about it. It was too nerve-wracking for me, so I never went to the set. What a huge mistake! The feature turned out to be Wanted, starring Al Parker and Jack Wrangler. Frank Ross was producing and Steve Scott (Inches, Performance, A Few Good Men, Screenplay) was directing! Let me put this in perspective… this is how I see it: you have Steve Scott who is like the Martin Scorsese of gay porn, Al Parker is the Robert De Niro, and Jack Wrangler is Leonardo DiCaprio. The best of the best for that era, there is no topping that cast or crew. A huge regret not going to that set! FUCK!

I don’t know if my life would have taken a different direction had I gone to that set or not, but after leaving my Screening Room job in 1981, I wasn’t exposed to the Adult Film Industry again until I was hired at Catalina Video in 1987. Sadly, I recently found out that Frank Ross passed away on May 20th 2021, which made me think back about our time working together. Because we worked on different coasts, he never knew that I ended up working in the same industry as him. I wonder how he would have reacted.

But do you know what the real burning question in my mind is?

Are there still girls going in and out of that door next to the Go-Go Kitchen?

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.