10:30 PM MONDAY
A young man loses himself in a bewildering maze of leather, fisting, toilet play, and bondage in 10:30 P.M., one of the earliest and most influential experimental vintage gay porn movies (gay leather, SM, Fetish)
The story is non-linear and there is no dialogue; scenes cut abruptly, characters appear and disappear, locales change without warning. Some sets are dark and shadowed, others are stark white.
Add an atonal soundtrack, trippy effects, and lots of Crisco-slathered hardcore action into the mix, and the result is an atmospheric, Hitchcockian mind-fuck of a gay sex porno that is as disturbing as it is arousing.
A mysterious vintage Rolls Royce pulls into a driveway and whisks protagonist Jeff Sattler away to an old stone mansion. The tall, bearded, sandy blond approaches the house to investigate. Slowly he enters, unaware of the pleasures and perversities that lie within.
A radial whirl transition effect a la Twilight Zone is used whenever Jeff finds himself a different spot in the house. Depending on one's taste, the device is a cheesy distraction from the dark mood of the piece or a charming artifact of a more naive era of filmmaking. Either way, in narrative terms the effect is meant to suggest that events in the mansion might be taking place only in Jeff's head.
Jeff follows a white handpainted sign reading BAR and comes upon the bartender, a hot hairy leatherman wearing chaps, a leather vest, and an officer's cap (Val Martin of Roger Earl's classic BDSM film, Born to Raise Hell). Other men begin to arrive in various degrees of undress, mostly shirtless and in jeans torn in just the right places. The men start to slap ass, rip pants and suck dick. The sequence is erratically cut and it isn't always clear who is doing whom, thereby conveying the confused state of Jeff's mind.
He rips off a brunet's jeans and rims him or maybe just fantasizes that he does, for shortly after he is back leaning against the wall nursing a beer.
Next to Jeff a jock-strapped fellow is splayed over the makeshift bar, sucking the butch bartender, as another blond fucks his tight ass.
Jeff stumbles out of the room and down a dark hallway, following another painted sign that says TOILET Fantasy and reality blur again as we watch Jeff, or someone who looks a lot like Jeff, kneeling at a toilet bowl he'd just pissed into. While he's waiting, a brunet coats his hand liberally in Crisco. We are treated to an excellent shot of the brunet's hand slowly disappearing up his chute. The fisting event is intercut with shots from other parts of the house: a brunet sits on a wispy blonde's pole and jerks his own enormously long cock, paying special attention to the deliciously large mushroomed tip; the hunky bartender inserts his hand into a dark-haired fellow who is sucking another cock.
The music gets frantic as the orgy in the bar escalates. Someone pours beer on the formerly jock-strapped bottom and the crew pounces on him, licking and sucking the liquid off him while he continues to sample the bartender's ample tool and fat juicy sack.
Jeff, now thoroughly bewildered, enters into another room where a mysterious bearded leatherman magically appears, drops a towel, and disappears. When Jeff picks up the towel his clothes disappear. Jeff spots a sign to the BATHS and follows the arrow to a series of curtained changing rooms. Peeking in, Jeff sees a variety of men beating off. Some stare back at him, others present their asses, still others are in mid-fuck with someone else and are oblivious.
Two men begin a fisting scene, but instead of stopping to watch Jeff moves on to the ORGY ROOM. Director Severin makes the unfortunate decision to use a smoke machine here, which diminishes the impact of the action. The scene offers lots of cocksucking, including some good deep-throating, finger fucking, and some anal sex, before the fisting begins.
The segment cuts abruptly and Jeff inexplicably is being led by a leash on all fours into a room with three men. One of the guys, in leather gear, is stroking his meat on a motorcycle before getting serviced by the two other naked men. The damn radial spin is back, this time superimposed over the action footage. Severin really should have dialed back the effects here and it's all just distraction at this point.
Jeff, outfitted in chaps and a leather vest, is now suspended from the ceiling, while superimposed flames lick around the bottom edge of the frame; Jeff swings around for a bit, giving us a good view of his meaty ass, fat balls, and thick sleeping cock.
Cut to Jeff in a white g-string by a sign that says BEACH. He enters a white room. All the men he's encountered so far are inside, jerking their chains. Jeff strips and joins them. The others pounce on Jeff, stroking his body, kissing him, taking turns sucking his pole.
Out of the blue, Jeff's friend and roommate Jeremy appears. Jeff, blissed out, very happy to see his friend. They kiss passionately while one of the other men continues to clean Jeff's tool.
The roomies move into a 69, which leads to the closing orgy, a free-for-all with lots of sucking, fingering, and fuck sandwiches.
The camerawork by Selo Films here is solid, with plenty of closeups and generous money shots.
Severin's camerawork is solid and creative in this vintage gay porn video. He varied the lighting drastically from scene to scene depending on what mood he was after.
Technically, the footage has been fully restored for DVD and is in fantastic shape, a worthy credit to classic gay porn genre. -- KO
