GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Sticks and Stones Something
Weird Video, Director Screenplay: Starring: Rated X, 85 minutes The Meatrack Something
Weird Video, Director: Screenplay: Starring: Rated X, 65 Minutes |
Two
From 1969
I've never pretended to have seen every queer film ever made, but it isn't often that I come across an older queer title that I've never heard of. Yet that is what has happened with 1969's Sticks and Stones from one-time director, Stan Lopresto. The film somehow escaped Vito Russo's radar in The Celluloid Closet (1986), and it doesn't have an entry in the comprehensive 1996 guidebook, Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. I discovered the movie while writing about 1974's A Very Natural Thing a couple months ago. I was conducting a little online research for contemporary reviews when I found two that compared A Very Natural Thing to an earlier movie called Sticks and Stones. I had to find it. As always, Netflix came through. Sticks and Stones is the second feature on a DVD, paired with a 1969 movie about a hustler called The Meatrack (more on this title later). |
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The main feature on the DVD is another low budget film from the same year entitled The Meatrack. This one, directed by Richard Stockton, is the home movie remake of Midnight Cowboy, right down to the over-exposed abusive parent flashbacks. J.C. (David Calder) hustles with guys and gals, but mostly with men. He trawls movie theaters, street corners and the baths to make a living. "Ten dollars," he tells a man who grabs his crotch in a movie theater. "I said ten dollars or I'll break your hand." Wearing a sailor suit, he makes dreams come true for a self loathing middle aged man who is dressed like an Old West madam. Afterwards, the old queen complains about how unhappy he is and whimpers, "Gay... what a laugh." The Meatrack is a little heavy on the self pity, typical of its day. Like Sticks and Stones, it does a nice job documenting the era, preserving on celluloid the porn theaters and the baths. I especially liked the movie house that showed "Experimental Homosexual & Lesbian Art Films." |
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Also on the DVD are a series of short nudie films. No biographical information is given but they were undoubtedly peep shows from the period. Most are lame, but historically interesting. One of them features a very young John Holmes, and the very large penis that made him a star, in an early gay-for-pay short. Also included is footage from a 1970 Hollywood Gay Pride Parade.
Also See: |
I
want to be clear from the outset that Sticks
and Stones is not 1969's 
It's
party time on Fire Island and you are invited. Peter and Buddy (Craig
Dudley, Jesse Deane), two bickering lovers, are the hosts. Peter is not
looking forward to the invited guests and calls them a "freak show." Their
first scene together is humorous. It begins rather sweet. The camera pans
from the window to the two lying in bed together and this is presented
without explanation (a rather refreshing diversion from the era's usual
crude fag jokes). The phone rings and it is Peter's mother. Buddy kisses
his partner all over to distract him while he is on the phone. This annoys
Peter - who is still angry because he didn't get any the night before.
He complains that Buddy was out until 5 in the morning and that he ignores
him. Buddy has already started drinking and pays no attention to Peter's
objections. This scene, which features a substantial amount of nudity,
is a good introduction to the characters but, unfortunately, the film
goes downhill from here. 
The
"freak show" includes a queeny middle-aged leather man named George who
is mocked by his pals for his fashion proclivities (to be honest, he manages
to make studded armbands look poufy). He arrives with a few friends in
tow, including a newbie who flees the leather queen's advances. Early
on, there is a painfully un-funny scene featuring two effeminate men who
are clueless how to fix their flat tire. One of them, a blonde who resembles
David McCallum in The Man From Uncle, struggles to fix the flat
while the other, a hippie who looks like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider,
strums his guitar and sings "Oh Tire! Oh Tire! Oh Tire!" at the top of
his lungs. A "guru" at the party babbles incoherently about dreams, death
and sex while stroking the thigh of his young acolyte. We also meet two
lesbians. The butch one wears a captain's cap, drinks beer and fishes
on a pier while her beautiful blonde girlfriend sunbathes nude next to
her.
Most
of the first half introduces the guests and shows them journeying, by
train and by ferry, to Fire Island. The "wild party" that takes up the
remaining running time will look familiar to anyone who has seen a "groovy"
60's film (usually starring Peter Fonda) about sex and drugs. The only
thing missing in this electric kool-aid sex fest is lava lamps and psychedelic
music. A rather hot leather man - think Tom of Finland - has "performance
sex" with a painted man for the guests' amusement. A handsome man plays
guitar and badly lip-synchs the bad song that we heard during the opening
credits. Jimmy the David McCallum clone performs a bad cabaret of the
same song. Buddy openly flirts with the guitarist and then, for the climax,
pisses off Peter further by dancing a long striptease.
Not
enough is known about Peter and Buddy's relationship for the audience
to know for sure whether Peter is the injured party or if he is just a
whiny pain in the ass. (He seems to be a combination of both.) Buddy perhaps
sums it all up when he channels Bette Davis and declares: "I'm a mess
and you're a bore." At one point, Peter confides to a friend that Buddy
hasn't been the same since his play flopped. Because we've seen Buddy
act like a dick, we think we can side with Peter. But any sympathy that
he might have generated goes out the window following his big confessional
soliloquy. During this rambling "babble-logue," delivered to a shellshocked
Jimmy, he recalls his beloved dog who barked too much. When his landlord
ordered him to get rid of his pet, he reacted like anyone would - he put
a rope around the dog's neck, tied the other end to the radiator and,
"with the last of [his] strength," tossed the little dog out the window.
"I loved that dog" he whimpers, giving out a little laugh. This unintentionally
hilarious monologue is up there with Phoebe Cates' ridiculous confession
about why she hates Christmas in Joe Dante's Gremlins.
The
final scene is a display of histrionics worthy of Valley of the Dolls.
Both men are shirtless because the film is obviously designed
to titillate. Again, the drama induces laughter as Peter channels Patty
Duke's Neely O'Hara by having a hissy fit and throwing candy at his drunk
partner. "I'm re-decorating," he snarls. Buddy, who just wants to go to
bed and instead finds his chest covered with candy, tells him he's been
reading too much 
It
would be easy to dismiss Sticks and Stones
as junky trash, but there is a lot going on that is interesting, even
if it's not always successfully realized. (And it usually isn't.) The
film opens with home movies of two young boys building
a sandcastle on the beach, and chasing away a girl who wants to play with them. Are
we supposed to surmise that these boys grow up to be gay? The next beach
we see is on Fire Island and so you can draw your own conclusions. A little
social commentary is thrown in. Our boys draw stares on the street. The
dynamic duo with the flat tire watch at least two cars go by. The drivers
look at them, disgusted, and speed away without stopping to help. Peter
has a conservative image to keep up for his clients because they judge
him by his taste in art and by the friends he keeps. His concerns that
this party could compromise his standing fall on deaf ears. This would
be politically incorrect now, but the circle of gay friends bandy the
word "faggot" about constantly.
The
film is rated X and is soft core explicit. What do we make of Sticks
and Stones? One is tempted to think of it as porn from
the period but there is too much plot in the movie for it to be porn.
Even so, there's a lot of flesh and a lot of sexual coupling. No XXX rated
close-ups but it's pretty clear what is going on. The leather performance
guy at the party offers a close-up of his Prince Albert. Buddy's striptease
goes the full monty.
This
may have been quite the "family affair" because the co-producers are also
the cameraman and the writer. They, and the director, attempt to be artsy
with stuff like shots in mirrors and through windows. Some of it is effective,
but a lot of the cinematography screams late 60s - early 70s. This
is especially true during scene transitions that point the camera at out-of-focus,
glittering objects. There are lots of bad zooms and quick pans. A lot
of the dialogue is unintelligible. The acting is stilted. The film is
primitive but, you know, it adds to its charm. At the very least it becomes
documentary; in the same way that a few other movies from the 70s did
(
This
movie corners the market on screaming queens but they appear to be actors
who are just being themselves - as opposed to, say, Cliff Gorman's over-the-top
portrayal of Emory in 
Quite
honestly, the basic plot (a party with an assortment of butch and queeny
men - strangely no drag queens - and a philandering husband and his put-upon
partner) really hasn't dated in the least. Only the setting, the clothing
and the hairstyles fix this film in 1969. (Okay, and the photography.)
You can argue that the film features a pile of maladjusted, promiscuous
gay men or you can revel in the fact that the movie neither judges or
ridicules them. It's just a bunch of guys who happen to be gay appearing
in a film that was no better or worse than the other low budget midnight
shows of the era. If this was meant to be shocking, John Waters was next
on the horizon - making Sticks and Stones
almost seem quaint. 
This
is another film that tries. It's not completely terrible but it
isn't very good either. The cinematography is a mix of too-dark night
scenes and washed out black and white interludes. The acting is pretty
bad, as is the dialogue. Calder, as J.C, is easy on the eyes. He is naked
frequently and the camera lingers on his hands washing his crotch in the
shower on two occasions. Aside from the guy in the Can Can dress mentioned
earlier, most of this johns are ordinary looking men rather than the degenerate
types who usually populate hustler movies.
Our
main character is barely a cipher - from the persistant flashbacks we
learn that his mother has taught him that money is more important than
love. For a brief time, he enjoys a relationship with Jean (Donna Troy),
a lost young woman. He rescues her from being raped by a sleezy man who
was photographing her in the nude and then turned nasty. J.C. appears
to kill her assailant. She almost pulls him up from the abyss but he continues
to hustle behind her back. During the film's most bizarre scene, a pair
of knife wielding "trannies" (a distant precurser of last year's Ticked
Off Trannies With Knives?) force the young couple to make a porn film.
Calling
the ending overdone and melodramatic is an understatement. (Skip this
paragaraph if you don't want to read a spoiler.) Jean comes home early
to find her new beau with one of his male clients and flees in shock and
disgust. J.C. chases after her but is unable to catch her before she is
hit by a car. Distraught, he runs into a movie theater that is showing
an old 1950s Sci-Fi flick. He is soon beset by a tableau straight out
of Night of the Living Dead as he finds himself surrounded by horny
men wanting to have sex with him. Running away out the back door into
an alley, he encounters a religious zealot who attacks him and screams,
"You sinner! God will punish you!" The Meatrack
finally ends the way it began - with J.C. hitchhicking on a country road
and being picked up by an amorous driver. Freeze frame on a field. Thankfully,
the film is only 65 minutes long.