BijouBlog

In 1979, Bob Guccione and Penthouse Films cast mainstream actors Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and Peter O’Toole in the hardcore movie Caligula. In 2003, mainstream actress Chloe Sevigny gave a blowjob to Vincent Gallo, complete with a cum shot in the mouth, in the film The Brown Bunny. In 2022, where is gay cinema’s Caligula or Brown Bunny moment?

 

The story behind the making of Centurians of Rome, a 1981 film starring George Payne, Eric Ryan and Scorpio has all the “Red Meat” moments that, if ever pitched to Hollywood, has the potential to draw in first rate mainstream actors, writers and directors. My obsession with this true story led me to seek out and find an extensive report in The Daily Beast.

 

On August 15, 1980, 25 year old George Bosque sat in his Brinks security truck, depressed because his lover Carl ended their relationship. After picking up 7 million dollars from the San Francisco Airport, and taking advantage of the fact that the driver was talking with an airport official, George drove off in the truck, abandoning it at the Airport Hilton. At gunpoint he accosted a hotel chambermaid, loading two bags of money into her car and speeding off. Bosque, who in 1979 ran for sheriff of San Francisco, was now a fugitive.

First stop for George was New York City, where he took on the assumed identity of J.R. Lewis, Philanthropist. Keeping his money in several suitcases that he never let out of his site, he couch surfed on Fire Island for the summer. He bounced around to Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Florida and Peru, always staying at 5 star hotels. He was embraced into society and was invited to fundraisers, balls, and extravagant soirees for the wealthy, attending a $500 per plate fundraiser for Jimmy Carter. He made Greenwich Village his permanent residence, and while out on the town one night met and befriended Chris Covino, aka John Christopher a straight adult film director. The two became close friends and when George suggested they make a lavish all male film together, a partnership was formed. The budget: $100,000, a massive amount for the day, which ended up ballooning to around $170,000. The making of Centurians of Rome could be a central part of this movie idea as the three stars, Scorpio, George Payne and Eric Ryan all have “life stories” just as compelling as the behind the scenes stories of the making and release of the film.

With a $150,000 reward for his arrest, George Bosque returned to San Francisco. He called his friends regularly, trying to get information regarding ex-lover Carl’s whereabouts. One of George’s friends tipped off the police and he was arrested at a Safeway parking lot phone booth on November 22, 1981. He’d been at large for 464 days. The young federal prosecutor assigned to his case was Robert Mueller – yes, him! You can’t make this shit up! Mueller pushed for a strong sentence due to George’s lack of remorse and he got 15 years.

Lloyd's of London, who insured the 1.8 million dollars, tried to sue Bosque but he was basically penniless so they tried to get ownership of Centurians of Rome. The defense attorneys for Hand in Hand Films, the studio that had taken over the completion and distribution of the film, had an idea up their sleeve to try and stop them in their tracks. They displayed photographs from the movie around the courtroom with shots showing anal sex, George Payne fisting Caligula and the gladiators in an oral daisy chain. A red faced Lloyd's of London did not want this publicity and made a hasty retreat.

 

Bosque received early parole in 1986 but sadly passed away from an overdose at the age of 36.

 

Could this true story become gay cinema’s Caligula and go all the way with mainstream actors and hardcore scenes? Or should it take the streaming service limited series approach? However you package it, all the elements are there to become a huge international sensation. But first it needs to be pitched, which takes a layer of flesh in itself. Somebody please pitch this movie! The one with the “balls” to make it, in my opinion, is a certain GLEEful, HOLLYWOOD, AMERCAN STORYteller. (You know who I mean).

You can watch Centurians of Rome's trailer and find the movie on DVD and Streaming through Bijou!

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 so hope I am not outing myself even more as an “eldergay” with the topic of the blog this week, but I do like to think Lucy, especially as Lucy Ricardo on I Love Lucy, will remain always funny, even as broadcasts of that show are now making their way into interstellar space.

Situation comedies, like most art forms that move in time, require suspension of disbelief, but after some inspiration from the inimitable datalounge website (which bills itself as “serving up this steaming pile of Gay celebrity gossip, politics and pointless bitchery since 1995 (were you even born in 1995?) Go ahead. You know you want to..."), this idea really hit me … if one pretty much voids the suspension of disbelief required for Lucy and (in most cases) her accomplice Ethel to get involved in so many zany madcap predicaments, plus interpreting their antics through a fear-ridden mindset characteristic of so many 21st century persons (especially helicopter parents) … Yikes!

Yes, Lucy Ricardo is pretty much a “serial criminal,” with Ethel (usually) as her accomplice. Now, Ricky and Fred were also involved in a some of the business, but Lucy was the mastermind.

Some examples, mostly from memory (oh, I hope, dear reader, you are impressed), which may make you recall some of your favorite episodes:

Lucy often, quite often, commits white collar crime; for example, she purposely wrote a postdated check to pay for the costumes and props for the operetta her women's club is putting on. She does get caught (the check bounces), but not by the cops, but by the company she wrote the check to, who hauls and rips away everything as the performers continue to try and save the show.
 

I do remember her doing the whole postdated check thing in another episode, and even more brazenly, she charges exorbitant amounts at a grocery store (including the neighbor's groceries), after Ricky, weary of her financial crimes, hires a business manager. Lucy thinks the business manager will take care of it at the end of the month when he goes over her monthly grocery allowance (well, not really, it does end well, but not in the way one expects it to).

More variations of white collar crime: And in Monte Carlo, when she is in Europe, she gets in trouble for passing counterfeit money. (And she also tries to get across the France-Italy border without a passport, but that's another category.)

And to get to Europe financially, she and Ethel concoct a raffle for a fake not for profit, Ladies Overseas Aid. The FBI and the cops are really on to her in this one …
 

Lucy is guilty of assault and imprisonment: for example, in one episode, with the typical theme of Lucy trying to get in the show, after losing the required weight under much duress, she ties up the woman who was supposed to be in the chorus line at Ricky's club in a broom closet so she can be in that show.

Lucy is guilty of property damage: ah, so many instances, but I remember one specifically. After a falling out with Fred and Ethel, she and Ricky try and purposely break the lease so as not to have to pay it off. After purposely making noise and even making prank phone calls to Ethel (another crime), they decide to have Ricky's band rehearse in the apartment late at night; the noise and stomping causes the ceiling to collapse on Fred and Ethel.

Lucy is guilty of theft: ah yes, the infamous let's steal (with Ethel) John Wayne's footprints from the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame by Grauman's Chinese Theater. She is pretty much out of control in Hollywood trying to meet celebrities, and her crimes include much breaking and entering, including leaping over a fence to steal a grapefruit from Richard Widmark's yard. She also tried to sneak into Cornel Wilde's hotel room.
 

Lucy is guilty of creating public a public disturbance: many others, but in this case, the act was a stunt to get some money (they landed a job advertising some movie called “Women of Mars”) because she and Ethel lied about the amount of money they could give to a hoity-toity acquaintance's charity, but they go to the top of the Empire State of Building, scream at people in gibberish, and point what looks like stun guns at them … oy veh!
 

Lucy is guilty of threats to safety on public transportation: On the train home from Hollywood, she keeps pulling the emergency brake, for various reasons, but it turns out that this criminal act is not as horrible as the jewel heist going on.
 

Lucy is involved in the Mob (not really but … ): And, right before she and Ricky (and later Fred and Ethel) move to Connecticut, she, Ethel, and Fred disguise themselves as mobsters in order to keep the deal from closing (because Lucy and Ethel don't want to separate) and end up terrorizing the owners of the house to point where the husband gets out a shotgun. Yet it is implied by Lucy at one point earlier that Fred is “packing a rod.”
 

And I am not recounting all, yes, all the episodes where her crimes occur.

Yes, I know it was a comedy show, a parallel universe, but I just wonder if someone in today's angst-ridden culture (I am not denigrating the valid concerns persons possess about gun control, terrorism, property rights, public safety, and white collar crime) watched some of these without knowledge of the show's context and genre, what they might think.

Lucy Ricardo, I do love you, but even in the 1950s, you might have gotten locked up (which did happen a couple times on the series … oh, I could go on and on).

But in that parallel universe where problems become miraculously resolved in half an hour with commercials, the deus ex machina (in Lucy's case, often her husband) descends to make everything kiss and make up/all right/and all manner of things shall be well.

Some of our retro studs in the world of Bijou Video weren't exactly perfect citizens (and not only because they were having gay sex, illegal in many United States jurisdictions when they appeared in their movies)… check out some of our flicks where they, at various levels, bend and break the law, including Drive, Boynapped, Star Trick, Greek Lightning, The American Adventures of Surelick Holmes, and Crime Does Pay.

(For more specific information on the I Love Lucy episodes, I highly recommend The I Love Lucy Book.)