BijouBlog

By Will Seagers

Hi Folks, Will here. As usual, I have yet another strange title for you! The name of this multi-faceted adventure won't be significant until we get to the end of the blog. Like the house that landed in Oz, this story will go through lots of turbulence before getting there. But, with the help of of my friends, it turned out quite well.

In the summer of 1975 in The Pines on Fire Island, a seed was planted by my beau of the time, Roger. He told me that he was moving to San Francisco in the fall. I was taken aback by this as Roger was a quintessential New Yorker, never having lived anywhere else in his thirty-four years. He was born in the Bronx, lived in the West Village, and was also a teacher in the NYC school system. To me, he seemed happily entrenched in his metro lifestyle. But, San Francisco bound, he was.

After an intense but brief affair, our relationship morphed into a really solid friendship. Soon, the idea (adventure) of moving to San Francisco grew on me, as well. Ultimately, this would be a move that I would make on my own. Even though I had never been there before, I was not daunted. And, it was not the first nor last time I would made that kind of move. But first, a rather eventful year would transpire before getting there.

Denis, my brilliant and zany former roommate from San Juan (Eastern Airlines days) had won a scholarship to Arizona State University and needed a "companion." Truth be told, it was really his parents' idea, as they were scared to death of him living alone and so far from their New Jersey home. Although Denis was quite book smart (Fulbright Scholar and MENSA member), his street smarts were lacking. Not having a formal plan nor date for my move to the West Coast, I agreed to be his chaperone and roommate for this truly hysterical adventure!

His parents gave him a car. After loading it to the hilt, we left NJ on Route 80 for the trek to Tempe, AZ. I only wish that we had a video camera to record our antics en route. I don't think I have ever laughed as much in my life! Between our two unconventional outlooks on life, there was never a dull moment. I do remember nearly running the car off various interstates in fits of laughter on several occasions! We arrived in Tempe and took up lodgings at an apartment complex complete with pool!

He went to school and I went to work as a bartender... something I had never done before. I relied heavily on my appearance to keep these gigs afloat! A bartender I am not! I also had some small legit modeling jobs at a local agency. I did manage to land a cattle call and get a small part in a crowd scene in the Barbra Streisand remake of A Star is Born. I was within arm's reach of Kristopherson - not so much Ms. Streisand!

As Denis finished up his school year, I was contacted by a dear friend, Lou Thomas, of Target Studios. I had done some print work for him in NY and in Arizona. Lou asked me if I would be interested in working for John Whyte at the Boatel in Fire Island Pines. I jumped at the opportunity (as I had nothing planned for after Arizona). So, back across the country I zoomed!

My summer of 1976 at the Boatel deserves and will get its own chapter in my upcoming autobiography. Suffice it to say that it was a vivid and fabulous experience that I repeated again in the summers of 1977 and 1978! But, the most important events to happen during that first summer were meeting Chuck Holmes (of Falcon fame) and becoming "family" with my Boatel co-workers. Chuck Holmes offered me a job at his SF restaurant, Trinity Place, as well as modeling work with his studios. And, my Boatel co-workers all wanted to move to SF at the close of the season on the Island. Synchronicity, eh?

So, Denis popped up again. He requested the pleasure of my joining him on a trip to Mazatlan, Mexico as soon as I finished up with my Fire Island duties. Naturally, I joined him... but not before seeing "Irma" in Huachuga City, AZ. I told him about SF. But, he said it would only be a week at Mazatlan's beautiful beaches. After he picked me up at Tucson airport, he drove me to see "Irma," the tiny trailer where he lived in Huachuga City. BTW, this was the rather hilly and very green section of Arizona where the high speed driving scenes were filmed towards the end of A Star Is Born. More synchronicity?

We left for Mazatlan from Nogales, AZ on an ancient but beautifully preserved train - a la Orient Express! It was mid-October... and guess what? That's the height of Mexico's hurricane season. So, we had no sun for that week! This made me even more anxious to set sail for San Francisco! After getting back to the U.S. and to Tucson Airport, I finally departed for the "City by the Bay" with only the clothes on my back and a small duffel to stow overhead.

Arriving in San Francisco but not knowing the workings of the BART system, I paid the hefty cab fare to my Castro and 19th St. destination. Although I was offered only the floor of one of my co-worker's tiny flat... this was my liaison in SF! I wasn't concerned about my accommodations - I was finally here! After a few hugs and putting away my duffel bag, I ventured out.

As I eased my way down the steep slope of Castro Street towards 18th and Castro (the gay crossroads of the world), I felt like Dorothy swinging open the door to her house that had just crash landed in Oz. Gazing around at all of the men and the "gaiety" that blanketed the area, I could only think: Nope... This Sure Ain't Kansas!

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted careers and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model, film performer, and DJ, just to name a few. 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.

Will Seagers, recent photo

By Will Seagers

Hi folks, Will here. And, here I go again starting off with another obscure blog title. The I.M.H.O is of course "In my humble opinion." I have always liked that phrase because it allows the delivery of a potentially heavy message but buffers it by categorizing it as an opinion and not necessarily a fact. The real meat of this blog is what's sexy and what is not. And, of course what floats one boat does not necessarily float another's!

To be blunt, I have always been a devotee of porn. No... not just because I participated in it. But, from an early age (somewhere in my early adolescence), I have always enjoyed some good dick pics. And, the ones that I have found most stimulating are basic ones. With my age at 73 and the fact that I started to seek out these cheap magazine thrills, we are talking about stuff that was from 60 years ago and then some!

I remember seeing the very first nude body pic even before that. My uncle had a stash of softcore porn under his bed. My first exposure was the famous first Playboy issue with the spread of Marilyn Monroe. I found it both shocking and intriguing in that I had never seen a nude before - male nor female - and I didn't really get the physical reaction that I expected. That was when I became aware that I might be a little different.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I loved hanging out with the boys for a circle jerk throughout my teens. Most of them considered it a "phase" and simply outgrew it. But, that wasn't the case for me! During this time I found it very difficult to come by any naked male porn. And, what did come my way was very primitive. Let me explain. Most pics were B&W cut outs from porn mags. And, some of the pics were actual photos taken by various people. This was where I got my taste for straight-forward porn - no acting, fancy sets, or enhanced facial expressions – unadulterated.

From this, I tried to develop a "practice what you preach" concept when in front of a camera. I tried a minimalist approach to participating in these films and print works in terms of "fluffing up" the sexuality in these adventures. Some good examples of this were the first shots taken and published by Man's Image on the Christopher Street pier back in the mid 70s. Nothing was put on... I just stood there being myself. I will have to admit, I was coaxed - or should I say directed - into creating a rather ridiculous, so called "sexy looking" face for the centerfold of a the first Playguy Magazine. I still blush every time I see it! To me it was too contrived.

Anyway, back to "Matters at Hand." My current tastes haven't changed that much over the years. I love the simple straight-forward approach of straight looking guys being filmed or photographed in a J/O scene - no frills. Consider this: the studios that collected these successful gay models over the years did so because their sexuality was naturally projected - nothing was put on. And please, no plucked eyebrows, totally shaved bodies and heads rolling back with mouths agape expressing gratuitous (and obviously not real) sexual ecstasy. I will go as far to admit that still two of my favorite studios are Old Reliable - talk about raw and unedited - and my home base, Bijou World.

Well, I did name this article "Taxing I.M.H.O." You've read my opinions. The Taxing part of it is the work I go through to find the quintessentially simple sex in the smorgasbord of gay sex porn that is out there. For those like me that don't need a plot, stage setting or anything else theatrical to glom up the fantasy of that hunky guy, who is really is the centre du monde, keep the faith there are plenty of goodies out there to ogle. Oh and BTW, I am plenty good at creating the fantasy part, myself.

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted careers and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model, film performer, and DJ, just to name a few. 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.

Will Seagers, recent photo

By Josh Eliot

A “tight” asshole? Lips wrapped tightly around a hard cock? Or a hand with a tight grip jacking you off to climax? The word tight in the title of this blog has nothing to do with any of those statements. Having said that, I do remember yelling out: “Your ass is so tight” or “Tighten your ass cheeks on my cock” about a million times to the models for them to repeat on camera. I guess the same went for lips. When directing, the moment things got quiet on the set I always felt the need to yell out a line or two for the models to repeat back. It’s not like the majority of actors would do it on their own, so in order to keep things energetic, I had my staple list of one liners to feed them. I also had a staple list of actions, too. For example, the “underneath” sucking shot was simply that. It’s not the most sexy angle of a cock getting sucked, so we always needed something to spice up the look so it wasn’t just a dick going in and out of a mouth, which got boring to watch after a few moments. I’d tell the model to do the “swing thing.” The swing thing would basically be having the model on his knees sucking the dick while the guy getting sucked would pull his dick out of the sucker’s mouth, using only his hips. He would then swing his dick from side to side, every once and a while clipping the bottom guy on his chin. For the most part, the bottom guy would try to catch it with his mouth or I would tell him to get his hand up there and “snap the dick,” which basically meant he would push it down towards the lens and it would bounce back up and down. We’d have him do it a few times to get a good bounce. It always looked great shot from underneath, and overhead too. I was always sure to repeat the swing thing and the snap thing in every other angle I shot: wide shot side, side close-up, side closeup with pan up body to face, etc., etc. It was a formula, for sure, when shooting a scene.

It was 1990 and I was in my second year of directing for Catalina and still getting the formula down, when our new GM decided to put my skills as a videographer to the test. He was always smoking weed and coming up with out of the ordinary ideas for me to execute. This was the first time, but not the last. Cat Men Do! was one of those later movies that came from his sativa filled brain and I hated every last minute I spent making that movie! He had a very specific idea for this one, and I guess because I was smoking a lot of weed at the time too, I absolutely loved it! The name came first – Sex In Tight Places – and his idea was that the actors would be in small, hard to shoot spaces while having sex. This project would basically throw “the formula” I was still learning out the window and force me to come up with solutions on how to shoot in tiny, cramped spaces. Since this idea stemmed from the GM, he threw in a little extra money for me to spend on the sets. I was off to Warner Brothers Studio in the valley, because they had the best set props anywhere. It was there that I rented two of my sets for shooting: the bus bathroom set, complete with hinges so you could open up one of the walls for shooting, and the graffiti covered phone booth, which had a pop off top for overhead shots. Those folding doors that phone booths had were not removable, making it a real pain in the ass to shoot. The other two sets I built myself were an air conditioning duct and an elevator interior.

We were able to load the phone booth in our van and take it to the set where we built a brick alleyway, which we filled with a bunch of litter. Danny Sommers is a city worker painting over the graffiti on the brick wall, while pedestrian Steve Kennedy drops a dime in the pay phone, hoping it will dial him up some action. The two stars were very helpful in coming up with positions in that tight ass booth – one with Danny holding the top of the booth doing pull ups while Steve Kennedy fucked him all the while using his foot to keep the accordion doors open. Aside from that position, the poor still photographer, Jeff Burton, was fucked and I felt really bad for him. For the bus bathroom scene, we brought the large unit over on a flatbed truck, then set it up in the Catalina warehouse where we shipped all the VHS tapes from. Doug Niles and Dean Pike really were troopers for that shoot, because the temperature in that warehouse got very hot, making things ten times harder. For the finished movie, we stole some stock shots from My Best Buddy, where we had interior and exterior shots of a real bus.

The air duct shoot was a breeze, as we had a studio with visible air ducts for the lead in storyline. Cole Phillips and Damien looked pretty damn good in their hard hats, and once inside the air duct, set the intimacy of the small space helped them connect more sexually. Yes, in case you are wondering, I ripped off the idea from Warner Brothers' set rental department by adding hinges to the wall panels of my air conditioning duct, making it super easy to get shots from every angle.

The final setting, the elevator, was a breeze. We made an elevator before for The Big One, Chet Thomas’ earthquake themed movie, when we were in San Francisco. You basically build a three walled set out of wood paneling, throw some carpet on the floor, and frame some lighting panels on the “removable” ceiling… done. What was the most satisfying about shooting that elevator scene was the surprise Steve Regis brought with him to the set. At the last minute, Steve’s co-star, “what’s his name,” dropped out. We thought we had to cancel the shoot, but Steve said he had a friend who would do the scene with him and assured me I would love this guy. I agreed, sight unseen, so as not to cancel the shoot. When the studio doors opened and Steve walked in with his big, studly, raunchy redhead friend, everyone on the crew felt their heart skip a beat. This guy was handsome, but not overly so in the traditional sense. It was just his overall look and the way he carried himself which was very sexy to us 20-somethings!

Steve played a businessman stuck in an elevator with a hot blue collar delivery guy, whose coke-can, rock hard cock gave us all goosebumps when he opened his fly and pulled it out for the first time. I remember making eye contact with our still photographer, Jeff Burton, and we made a silly face at each other, acknowledging our approval of this hot new model to the set. Since Jeff had such a hard time getting good shots in the phone booth scene, we let him take his time with the new stud to get lots of great hard-shots. The crew and I just sat back and enjoyed the show. We really were like a bunch of oversexed kids in a candy store on that shoot, which never happens! It felt like the fastest scene we ever shot. His dick came out hard, stayed hard even during re-lighting and camera angle changes, and he even came on cue! Now remember, this was years before Viagra; we were not used to this on the set. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and damn! We didn’t name him until after the shoot, and struggled to find a really hot, masculine name to match his looks and the vibe he gave off. On the drive home after the shoot, Steve and his friend/co-star, who cabbed it to the set, rode with us in the van. We were determined to come up with the perfect stage name for him. We wanted something macho and I remembered Tom Brock from the 1988 Catalina movie, They Grow ‘Em Big. He was an ultra-masculine stud who worked for Falcon, Matt Sterling and Catalina from 1985 - 1988. Tom Brock was in some of the most popular movies of the time, including Inch By Inch (1985), Bigger Than Life (1986), Bulge: Mass Appeal (1988) and In Your Wildest Dreams (1988). We decided Brock would be a great first name, then suddenly a Maxon brand truck pulled in front of us on the freeway and I said, “That’s it: Brock Maxon.”

Literally the very next day, I reached out to Brock Maxon and started offering him EVERYTHING. We set up and shot a couple hard photo layouts of him, which graced the cover of Honcho Magazine. We quickly cast him in Chet Thomas’ Cruise Control, starring Derek Cruise, and The Taste of Leather, starring Joe Magnum, the winner of the 1988 International Mr. Leather contest. Brock, Joe Magnum and Donnie Russo worked together in the stand-out scene. Then, just like that… boop. The hottest new stud on the scene got hitched, “married,” to some lucky fucker and removed from the porn star pool, never making another movie again. Now this was a real, “What the fuck!” moment, even though it had nothing to do with my producer, Scott Masters!

Making Sex In Tight Places was good for me as a director and even more so as a videographer, teaching me tricks to use on future projects. Even though Doug Niles was ready to kill me, because we had two crew members shaking the bathroom set constantly to emulate a bus driving, the great group of guys in the cast were all on board for the challenge. But best of all, it's one of only three movies where Brock Maxon ripped the screen apart with his presence. Can you imagine if “what’s his name” didn’t cancel and we never got to meet Brock Maxon in the first place? That would have been as much of a “bummer” as it was having to make Cat Men Do!

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 remember my first Tom DeSimone movie: Reform School Girls. A large group of us were going on a Friday night and the film was a lot of fun, especially when Wendy O. Williams rode on top of a bus after barreling through the gates. In San Francisco, 1980s, when you had moments like that on film, the whole audience would scream and applaud in delight. My friends and I were constantly at the Castro or Market Street movie houses that would regularly show John Waters, Andy Warhol and other cult movies. When I saw actress Pat Ast was in Reform School Girls, I knew we were in for a good time. I remembered her from Andy Warhol’s movie Heat, shot mostly at the old Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood, where my friends and I stayed on previous visits to L.A. Tom made many popular mainstream movies including The Concrete Jungle, Hell Night, Prison Girls and the cult classic Chatterbox, to name a few.

Once I moved from San Francisco to West Hollywood and got settled into the Catalina offices, it was a fun surprise to find out that Catalina released and distributed gay adult movies made by Tom DeSimone, under the name Lancer Brooks. In my first blog: “Coming Out Of My Wet Shorts” I wrote about how much that movie poster influenced me. Wet Shorts, Flesh & Fantasy, The Dirty Picture Show, Skin Deep, NightCrawler and Bi Bi Love (with one of my favorite scenes ever in a bisexual movie, featuring Crystal Evans) were all sold by Catalina. I would say my VHS tapes of Tom’s movies were like a “video tutorial” on how to make a great adult movie. His movies had just the right combination of comedy, drama, and titillation, seamlessly edited to create these gems. In Wet Shorts it was the traveling salesman scene, Flesh & Fantasy the jacuzzi scene and Skin Deep’s minimalist yet multilayered story of a writer who befriends a sex worker spoke volumes about his internal thought process. It goes without saying that I was truly inspired. Where John Travis taught me the value of lighting and cinematography, Tom DeSimone’s movies inspired me to write and direct stories with a quirky flair to them. I know the adult movies of today don’t really embrace the “storyline” concept, but we did back then and I always tried to make the most of it.

After completing my final movie for Catalina Video called Hot Buttered Cop Porn in 2006, my partner Tony and I moved to Palm Desert and continued editing and remastering Catalina movies for release on DVD, until the company was sold to Channel 1. One random afternoon, I spoke to my friend Kurt about how I was remastering Skin Deep for DVD release and out of the blue he told me that he knew Tom DeSimone from The Desert Film Society, as Tom was a founding member and served on the board. I was shocked and elated when Kurt followed up to tell me that Tom said I could contact him. The order of things is a little fuzzy but meeting Tom was so exciting for me, and Chi Chi LaRue (who of course I told immediately when this all came about). I was working for Channel 1 Releasing at this point and Chi Chi was part owner. In addition to being a warm and wonderful guy, Tom was very generous in sharing his experiences within the adult and mainstream industry. Channel 1 gave me the go ahead to set up video interviews with Tom discussing the behind the scenes working of his movies released by Catalina. We shot four interviews, one for each movie - Wet Shorts, Flesh & Fantasy, The Dirty Picture Show and Skin Deep - which were added to the DVD releases of each movie as “Bonus Extras.” Chi Chi and Tom sat on my couch and we recorded them conversing with each other while watching NightCrawler, which then became a “Bonus Director’s Commentary” on that DVD. It was all very exciting to have our Idol (excuse the pun) spending time with us. Tom even invited us to a party at his house where he projected a classic old movie on the big screen in his backyard to a large group of partygoers. I have both the Skin Deep interview and full interview on my YouTube channel if you would like to view them.

Having access to Bijou Video's amazing streaming service, I recently watched the restored and remastered version of The Idol, and now I know what all the hype is about. This is one great, timeless classic which felt very much like a mainstream movie. Bijou’s streaming catalog also includes many other Tom DeSimone movies like: Dust unto Dust, Confessions of a Male Groupie, The Frenchman & The Lovers (formally titled: The Harder They Fall), Station to Station, and of course my personal favorite Hot Truckin', with Gordon Grant! The Bijou catalog’s vast number of movies never ceases to amaze me! So much content! I’ve heard through the grape-vine that Tom DeSimone’s Catching Up is a real crowd pleaser as well. That is the next one on my list to stream this weekend. Look at this, here I am retired from adult video making and yet I am still obsessed with watching more Tom DeSimone movies to see if I can still learn more from one of the best!

For more on Tom DeSimone's career, see also Bijou's 2019 interview with him: Part 1 and Part 2

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. 

It was not super simple for me to pick one Jack Wrangler movie to watch for my “I Just Watched” series. He had an iconic career with many great movies to his credit, but they are so well known that I searched for one that was a bit more obscure.

I remember Jack being a household name ever since I was a young teenager. Of course, I didn’t exactly realize that he started in gay porn at that time; I always associated him with straight porn, as that was my only resource. I remember seeing him on the big screen at the Rustic Drive-in back when I was sixteen and seventeen, when my friends and I would hide in the trunk of my Maverick to watch the triple XXX triple feature weekend nights in the late 1970’s. MisBehavin (1978) with Lesllie Bovee and Jack and Jill (1979) with Samantha Fox (Best Actress Winner, 1980) were a couple of films that I recall seeing during that time period.

I quickly learned, when I moved to San Francisco in 1980, that Jack Wrangler starred in many more all-male gay films than straight ones. Jack was introduced in his first hardcore movie Eyes of a Gay Stranger in 1970, followed by High Rider (1974), but his career took a fast-pass forward in 1976 with his appearance in Joe Gage’s Kansas City Trucking Co. On the heels of that classic, he was front and center with a hot-'n'-hairy, sexy co-star named Roger in both Hot House and Sex Magic in 1977 for filmmaker Jack Deveau at Hand in Hand Films. The years of 1978 – 1979, he really exploded on the scene with movies like Arch Brown's Dynamite (1978), Deveau's A Night at the Adonis and The Boys from Riverside Drive (1978), the William Higgins-produced Jocks (1979) and Steve Scott's Wanted (1979) and Gemini (1979).

If I were to compare the movie Killing Me Softly (originally released as Killing Me Gently) to any of those films, it’s a completely different animal. According to internet records, the official release date was 1979, but could it be that in light of the title change it was actually shot earlier and then re-titled and released as Killing Me Softly in 1979? That ole twat Anita Bryant was smacked in the face with a cream pie in 1977 for being a homophobe and a shot in the movie shows a man holding up a “Anita Sucks” sign. In addition, I did see some photos online from the 1977 protests in Atlanta and Louisiana with pictures of people with “Fuck Anita Bryant” and “Anita Sucks” t-shirts. (You know, simply typing those phrases feels really good to me, for some reason!) In any event, no matter when it was shot, what Killing Me Softly does have is a very realistic, and a bit frightening, portrayal of the cruising scene in New York City in the late 70’s.

I was attracted to watching this movie when I saw Bijou’s Instagram story announcing it as their new, freshly restored release. Having worked on all my movies in the Southern California adult film atmosphere I was intrigued by the fact that this 70’s sexual shocker would bring the grit missing from the California Boys theme I was accustomed to. The movie is shot on film and features live audio and music-enhanced sequences, along with interesting narration familiar with that time period of filmmaking. It also features some great locations, including the Brooklyn Bridge, an abandoned pier and the Christopher Street Fair, with Wrangler and co-star Stanley Richards smack dab in the middle of it. The cast, while not immediately noticeable, features Giuseppe Welch of Centurians of Rome fame, along with John Kovacs and David King from NYC Inferno (aka From Paris to New York). Jack Wrangler’s name above the title is significant, because even though he doesn’t have the most screen time, what scenes he does have he “eats up.” Born in Beverly Hills and the son of a Hollywood producer, Jack was in front of the cameras for a TV Series called The Faith of Our Children in 1953 at age seven, and played a medical student on the TV series Medical Center in 1969 at age 23. It's no wonder he took the porn world by storm with his natural acting ability and very well-endowed package.

I personally had never heard of the director Francis Ellie, and there’s a twist I discovered about him. Francis Ellie's directorial work also includes Death of Scorpio (1979), Kiss Today Goodbye (1976), Michael Angelo and David (1976), Men Come First (1979) and Navy Blue (1975), the latter of which also starred Jack Wrangler alongside George Payne (also of Centurians and much more). Francis Ellie was a chosen stage name for “gay themed pornos” for John Amero, a well-known producer and director of straight porn, with both Amero and fellow straight porn/sexploitation director Michael Findlay together credited as “Francis Ellie” for their earlier collaborative releases under the pseudonym. Amero is credited with such straight classics as Every Inch a Lady (1975) and Blonde Ambition (1981) and is the focus of the book American Exxxstasy: My 30-Year Search for a Happy Ending, in which he also discusses Jack Wrangler.

Early in his career, Amero worked for CBS and ABC as an editor, which is evident in the final cut of Killing Me Softly, especially the jarring murder-by-strangulation scenes. While disturbing, one in particular is almost brilliant: as Giuseppe Welch dies from strangulation, his head falls to the side as a huge load of cum drips out of his mouth. One might call that “over the top,” but I, as a director, call that “pure cinema magic”. Not to put out the wrong vibe – yes, there is violence in this movie, a la Cruising with Al Pacino, but there is also a lot of sexuality and sexual tension. Amero (Ellie) was in this business at the very beginning, and his desire for having his work emulate mainstream Hollywood movies is evident in all of his films. The camerawork also deserves a shout out as being very advanced for its time, with angles that have been emulated by others in movies even to this day, particularly the underneath fucking shots on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Wrangler plays Phillip Jordan, an accomplished actor, while Stanley Richards plays Charles Mandrel (are you sure it’s not Manson?). The couple meet on the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC and immediately head to Jordan’s home for a high energy fuck, with Wrangler taking it up the ass, and start a whirlwind relationship. When Phillips is sent out of town on an acting gig, Mandrel is in his own head and in need of a release. Mandrel pounds the pavement of New York, looking for horny guys on the streets searching for immediate pleasure. Unfortunately for his tricks, Mandrel gets a little bit too crazy at the point of their climax and let's just say they won’t be shooting any more loads in the future. One scene in particular with David King playing a construction worker is a standout, featuring great rimming, fucking and creative camerawork. The movie also includes an incredible location for sex: the Brooklyn Bridge. They must have been there at the crack of dawn to shoot the shots at the bridge for the sex scene between Richards and John Kovacs, because its nearly empty of bystanders. However, the bridge in the backdrop and the cars racing beneath the pair while they fuck is pretty incredible to see on screen. Without giving away the ending, Jack Wrangler returns home, discovers the truth about his lover and opens up about it. Opens his hole, that is. Jack takes Stanley Richards' rock hard dick like a champion, with a raging boner the whole time he gets plowed in missionary position.

There’s a lot to unpack in this movie on and off the screen and I am happy to have been able to explore it, especially since it is celebrating its 45th Anniversary. It inspired me so much, I decided to cut a special “PG” version special anniversary trailer to honor it. Watch it now on my YouTube Channel.

And find Bijou's new release of Killing Me Softly on DVD and Streaming.

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.