Monday, March 17, 2014

Boys in the Sand (1971): A Gay Coffee Table Porno

Boys in the Sand (1971)
Dir: Wakefield Poole

From a distance, it seems unnatural for the world of the 1970s porno chic to have seemingly caught popularity with a low budget gay hardcore pornographic film that featured no dialogue to go with its trilogy of sexual adventures. However, Boys in the Sand is a gorgeously shot amateur feature that fills the screen with fantasia and matters of cultural and political import.

Comparing the film to the early works of Andy Warhol isn't just a compliment, it's a given. Poole was one of Warhol's contemporaries, and seems to have been inspired by Warhol's earlier works of objectification and voyeurism, such as those featured in both My Hustler and Chelsea Girls. The main difference between the Warhol/Morrissey pictures and Boys in the Sand, other than the hardcore sexuality that Poole was now able to deal in, is that Warhol's films present a sense of jaded detatchment, while Poole is fully engaged in his scene, and hopeful for the next steps to come.

Boys in the Sand is a trilogy of short films featuring Casey Donovan (nee Cal Culver), a blond hairy and toned sort with a sizable phallus, who would go on to be one of the first gay pornographic superstars. All three are presented as fantasias of secret desire and lust.

Bayside begins with a dark haired Peter Fisk walking down a long boardwalk, hopping off at an unmarked location, wandering through a long path of sorts through the forest and ending up at an isolated nude beach, where he strips down to catch some rays and contemplate the water. Casey Donovan magically appears out of the water, and walks up to him. They engage in some beach sex before leaving for a more secluded area in the trees, where they get down on a blanket. When both have came, Fisk puts his leather bracelet/cock ring on Donovan's wrist and wanders out into the water to disappear. Donovan, now alone, dons Fisk's clothing and walks down the beach.

Poolside is a Donovan showcase, where he stars as a richer gay man who is trying to pick up guys on the boardwalk by using the gay newspaper as a signal he's gay. Unsuccessful, he wanders home to sunbathe by the pool, when he finds an ad that he mails about. Time goes by, filled with swimming and wandering the beaches, when he gets his package in the mail. Inside, is a tablet that, when thrown in the pool, becomes Danny DiCoccio. They get it on, and once finished, they get dressed and go out as a couple. On the boardwalk, they meet another lonely gay soul with the same paper.

Inside features Donovan lounging in a treehouse-styled house, when he spots Randy Moore, a power employee setting up a long pole to fix the cables. After taking a shower, he fantasizes about Randy Moore, first laying naked in his sunroom, then out on the deck, then on his landing, and finally in his bed. But, Randy is just his imagination, as he huffs poppers and fucks himself on a large black dildo. After he climaxes and cleans up, he wanders back downstairs to find Moore waiting for him outside his front door. He smiles, and they go inside, closing the front door.

These stories feature gay life in a way that's a blend of fantasia and reality. Bayside features a fantasia of the real phenomenon of cruising, where a blond god comes out of the sea. Poolside blends the reality of gay bar busts with the fantasia of being able to mail-order a boyfriend who comes in a tablet without ever having to be worried about being raided. Inside is about fantasizing about men who may actually be straight, but you can't proposition them because of gay panic, then the hopefulness of the object of your fantasy being attainably gay.

There are no judgments here. Gay is good and beautiful, and gay life comes with its own desires and wants and needs. Gay men have dogs too. They're respectful of straight borders. They lust, they need fulfillment. And, their lust has no borders. Not only is this a gay male fantasia, but the last of the vignettes features an interracial coupling, which features Moore as a power figure with many of the same stances seen in Bayside.

But, Poole is also making comments on the daily life of a gay man. There are reasons why he has the closeups of the raided bars in 1971, 2 years after Stonewall. These were everyday worries of the gay man in a political sense. You couldn't actively go after men for fear they would kick your ass, which is why the majority of Inside is a fantasy about the unattainable until he is attainable. You could go hookup and meet people on beaches that were secluded and distanced and out of the public eye, but you probably had to know about them. These were regular bits of knowledge that have been passed down through the generations.

But, what makes Boys in the Sand so essential is the cinematography. Shot on a handheld, which is reminiscent of the Warhol shorts, Poole manages to create a lush and richly photographed film about gay sexuality. In movies that had preceded it, and would follow it, frequently the films would eschew quality imagery just to have hard raw sexuality featured in a raw light. There was nothing romantic or beautiful about it. But, looking at the images in this, you come to realize that Poole's main limitation was the quality of film stock. While the handheld nature of the film leads to periodic shaky cam pans, it's forgivable for many of the stills that he created which were framed as deeply as any mainstream film would before it. Sometimes it was random luck, and sometimes it was static shots that were purely intentional, but Poole's films frequently had a gorgeousness to them that is rarely seen in pornographic filmmaking.

Is Boys in the Sand essential? Is it good? Well, it's erotic, and it's beautifully shot. To say it is just a gay pornographic film is so reductive of the qualities that are in it. But, it is primarily a pornographic film. It's place in the history of porno chic is undeniable, and its place as a gay time capsule of the post-Stonewall worries of 1971 also render this to be a must watch for those who want to see what people were thinking and worrying about. I enjoyed watching it, and it is romantic in an anonymous way.

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