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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: July 26th, 2016.
Director: Wakefield Poole
Cast: Burt Edouards, Casey Donovan, Curt Gerard, Jeff Addison, Philip Borden
Year: 1977/1974
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The Movie:
Vinegar Syndrome once again dips into the vaults to release remastered special editions of pioneering gay porn filmmaker Wakefield Poole's output. This follows their releases of Boys In The Sand and Bijou, as well as his softcore art picture, Bible!. This release, a two-disc set, brings together two features and, as part of its supplemental package, some interesting short films as well.
Disc One - Take One! (1977):
The first feature is a trippy look at the gay scene of San Francisco in the seventies by way of melding documentarian and arthouse filmmaking styles - of course, with plenty of explicit action worked into the mix as well.
Clearly meant to be a fantasy of sorts, the movie is both set in and, simultaneously premiering at San Francisco's Nob Hill Theater - it's even featured on the marquee! Poole himself appears on camera here but the bulk of the film is made up of beefcakes engaged in all manner of playful gay sex. First up is a guy and his car who somehow engage in some bizarre man on machine action. From there, two guys who look eerily similar to one another unwind from a hard day's work at the construction site by changing into leather fetish gear and going at it. A nude man, probably high on something, talks to Poole's camera about living in the desert. This leads into more sex scenes, one in a small apartment, the next in the desert and then last but not least, back in the theater where some conveniently placed glory holes come into play.
Reasonably playful in its delivery, Take One is an odd duck even by the admittedly odd standards of Poole's output during this period of his career. There's certainly no shortage of man on man hardcore activity here, the movie is pretty brazen in that regard (though not nearly as brazen as the second feature - more on that in a bit!), but so too does it engage in intentionally pretentious artsiness throughout its duration. There are all manner of quirky shot set ups here, an obvious intention on the part of Poole and his team to make use of some oddball locations (the guy sort of hanging out in the desert is the best example of this), and then there's the whole self-referential side of the movie. What exactly the point of all of this is would seem to remain up in the air to a certain degree, but as Poole himself tells us, there's no point in trying to make sense out of this. If nothing else, as an oddball relic of late seventies gay culture in San Francisco, the movie is an interesting curio.
Disc Two - Moving (1974):
This experimental film made by Poole is pretty minimalist in a lot of ways, but it's interesting. There isn't really much of a story here, instead the feature is comprised of three different vignettes (loops) that are strung together by footage shot specifically to focus on empty rooms and homes.
The first vignette is House For Sale. Here Casey Donovan wanders around exploring the grounds of a large home. He checks out the garden and the greenhouse and then heads towards the pool where he imagines another man arriving. They have sex and Donovan is fisted. From there, we get Rooms For Rent, where two men - Burt Edouards and Curt Gerald - basically just have sex together in the shower in a hotel room before heading to the bed to finish the deed. The third and final story, Apartment For Rent, Tom Wright explores a virtually empty apartment. When he comes across a drawing of Peter Fisk (Poole's boyfriend, Peter Schneckenburger), he has a sexual fantasy wherein said drawing materializes in flesh and blood form. More fisting ensues, and they go at it for a spell and then the feature comes to its conclusion.
Presented here in its completely uncut form running about sixty-four minutes, this dialogue free feature is pretty strong stuff clearly intended for a rougher, more fetish oriented market than some of Poole's more artistically intriguing efforts. Everything is shown in unflinching detail and the lack of a narrative or a story of any form makes it tough to connect with unless you fall into the movie's target demographic (this was meant for mail order customers rather than a more traditional theatrical run). Some of the ideas that Poole explores here are interesting - fantasy becoming reality, dominance, sex as mechanics and in the last chapter, art imitating life in a sense - so it has that going for it, but despite the extremities on display this is the less interesting of the two features (which is probably why it's second billed).
Video/Audio/Extras:
Vinegar Syndrome presents Take One, restored in 2k from the best known surviving elements and presented in its Director's Cut, in 1.33.1 fullframe. Moving! has also been newly restored from its original 16mm negative and is also presented completely uncut, it too is presented 1.33.1 fullframe. The black levels are fairly deep which makes the films' use of shadow and light more effective than it would be otherwise. Skin tones look lifelike and accurate and there aren't any issues with compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction. There is some minor print damage here and there but all in all this is a decent, film like transfer. Moving!, given that is essentially a loop carrier, isn't quite as consistent looking as Take One but both features look quite good here.
The only audio options for the feature in this set are Dolby Digital Mono tracks, there are no alternate language options or subtitles provided. The levels are nicely balanced and the music used throughout the movie has a bit more depth than you might expect for older mono tracks. These aren't fancy mixes by any stretch but they certainly gets the job done and sound true to source.
As far as the extras go, Poole provides introductions and commentaries for both films. These commentaries are definitely the highlights of the extensive supplemental package that has been put together here. As he has with his other commentary tracks, here Poole offers up pretty much everything that you'd want to know about each feature. For Take One he details his love of the Nob Hill Theater, who the various players in the production are, some of the other locations that were used for the movie, why the film plays out the way that it does and his thoughts on all of this as he gives us a scene specific breakdown of its history. In Moving! he talks about the mail order target for the movie, how he went about assembling the footage the way that it is presented here, his relationships with some of the men featured in the movie, the locations and a good bit more. Both tracks are thorough and quite interesting. He was clearly quite committed to the scene at the time and his involvement in said scene affords him the opportunity to tell a lot of interesting stories here as they related to these two entries in his filmography.
Extras on the first disc include three deleted scenes from Take One which are reasonably interesting to see and rightly preserved for posterity's sake here. More interesting is the twelve minute featurette Wakefield Poole In SF. Here the director talks about moving to the city, his involvement in the gay culture of the era, various people he was involved with on various levels, different artistic projects he worked on during this period and of course, his filmmaking.
The first disc also includes a few bonus short films made by Poole. The first is 1974's Roger and there really not much to this one - an oiled up, musclebound alpha male type stands naked in front of a black curtain and pleasures himself for the camera. More interesting is Freedom Day Parade, also made in 1974. Here Poole heads out into the streets of San Francisco for a pride parade, capturing all the sights and sounds that would go along with it.
Rounding out the extras on disc one are static menus and chapter selection.
On disc two we get a five minute documentary entitled More On Moving that provides a rare glimpse into what it was like on set during the time that some of this material was shot. A lot of the stronger content you see in the feature itself is showcased here as well. Rounding out the extras on disc two is a theatrical trailer for Moving!, static menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Vinegar Syndrome's two disc special edition DVD release of Wakefield Poole's Take One / Moving! is a pretty stacked set. The film's won't be for all tastes and some of the more extreme content is… definitely extreme, but these important entries in seventies era west coast gay adult filmmaking are now presented uncut and with more extras than most ever thought possible. These aren't as artistically engaging as the earlier entries in the Poole series that Vinegar Syndrome has been responsible for, but their respective presentations have been given plenty of care.
