Hunting down pics of Joe Roberts ain’t easy, especially when he’s only done 4 films – A Married Man (co-starring with Jack Wrangler), I Do, A Good Day’s Work (found in Manhandlers Collection), Inches and One on the House (found in Ah Men loops collection (1982) – (via gayeroticvideoindex – thanks); he’s got two pseudonyms (Joe Marconi, Joe Tharp – and a 3rd, “Jack”), and then the movie titles don’t always match up with the magazine titles, like the one above, from One on the House – which is from a magazine called Pinball Master! I have to say, the dates associated with his films seem to be off on GEVI – like my notes show Married Man as 1978 – (vs. GEVI’s 1974) – hard to imagine a “porn career stretching 8 years, til 1982, and only 4 films to show for it. More importantly, check out the clip below and see why Joe has stuck in my mind all these years, playing the gardener in Married Man – the man was HOT! (and I love the beefier him in the above pic). Still trying to figure out where he is in Al Parker’s Inches – either one of the 3 masked guys in Al’s dream of his lover Steve cheating on him, or later, in the bar scene with the Donna Summer soundtrack and anonymous sex. Another puzzle – is that really him as the hairdresser in I Do – mustacheless!! – (egad!!)? Hard to tell from a quick look – anyone?
“Hi, I’m Jack Wrangler and you don’t usually see me on this side of the camera…” —– um, what was that, Jack?
7 replies on “Joe Roberts”
I like that you’re adding more content- since the demise of tumblr, there aren’t many places showing vintage gay porn. Thanks!
So one of my recent ‘music in vintage porn’ youtube clips was for A Married Man, with Joe Roberts and Jack Wrangler, which is why I’m commenting here. Because I feel like I learned some things about this movie while preparing the clip I posted. If you want to see that clip it’s here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO0PJoiJMwU
It was produced in 1974, which I assume means that’s when at least some of it was filmed. But the first release I could find was on videotape in 1978, as you noted above. Catalina was who put the film out on video but maybe some of the scenes existed on 8mm film reels before that, for some company? Higgins got his start in making porn when he realized that Falcon and some other companies wouldn’t ship to certain southeastern states, and I believe he was involved in some way in distributing other porn films and reels in this region of the country in underground ways, which was probably fairly common in that time. So at least some of the scenes could have been shot as early as 1974. But it’s obvious that it was compiled and finished up in ’78 when the videotape came out, due to some clues heard in the audio.
Smoggy City was the only part of the audio I included on the yt clip, the rather sappy but in a way, kind of awesome theme song to the film. I read a quote Higgins said about that song, that Jack had threatened to sue him multiple times concerning the song but I’m not sure whether Jack did that to keep it from being heard, because he thought it was awful, or if it maybe had to do with wanting to release it himself. After Jack and Joe get to the mansion, and have their so-so sex scene which isn’t as good as the later one, the audio plays about nine minutes recorded off of an AM top 40 station in L.A., KHJ 93. And the songs were all pop chart hits in 1978 (you noted some of these in your review on the gevi page) — E.L.O. (Turn To Stone), Paul Davis (I Go Crazy) and Bob Seger (Still The Same). This is all of course *only* in the audio from the VHS/Beta release, when they issued an anniversary edition on DVD they cut everything but Smoggy City and replaced it with typical newer shit music, anyway (I’m trying to keep this reasonable length and not just go on and on, thanks for reading my wordy comments man)
Then begins the 21 minute long Kraftwerk mix, in the original it plays from about 21:30 to 42:30 and the following songs are heard: Spacelab, The Robots, Trans-Europe Express, Metropolis, Franz Schubert and Endless Endless. All of those are on albums released in either ’77 or ’78. After this was the one that had me almost stumped until I figured out what phrase they kept repeating (told you I’ve never used shazam, I always thought it was fun figuring those things out the old fashioned way, sue me lol) but the next song is Sandstorm by La Bionda. Not the more recent one by Darude that always comes up when you search that song title, just fair warning.
Then the baseball game, which is the audio playing during Jack and Joe’s second, better sex scene filmed on a bed. I figured out exactly where that’s from, the date of the game (June 19, 1978), who was playing (N.Y. Yankees at Boston Red Sox), who won (Boston) … I found the box score, which is only interesting as a result of Higgins flipping on Monday Night Baseball on ABC and recording about 11 minutes of the audio, with the commercials edited out, and therefore having that be what the viewer heard playing while Joe and Jack suck each other off and fuck on the bed. At first I thought maybe it was a radio broadcast but I recognized Howard Cosell’s voice a few times, with Keith Jackson and Don Drysdale doing most of the rest of the talking since those three guys hosted MNB in 1978. Anyway I thought this was interesting, more discoveries from this old music we vaguely remember from the films and thought I’d tell you about it.
Ultimately I wonder if all the scenes were shot in ’74 and maybe existed in loop form, under some title(s)? Or maybe the two Jack / Joe scenes were from the earlier timeframe, and all the ones with the exec played by Eddie Summer, could have been shot later and used as filler for the video release? That I don’t know.
(oh and also the music from your preview clip above is instrumental I Feel Love, you probably knew that, that doesn’t play in the original version — at least not what I found online)
wow! what a weird coincidence…. I found in my draft folder 2 days ago something I started last week about Joe Roberts…. One on the House – from Ah Men. and i had no idea why I started the post! yes, I have 2 images from the 8mm film packaging, but nothing else – had I found the film? was I adding something else, I have no idea. So it, and 90-some other draft posts sit in that folder…
anyway, on to YOUR post – wow! I am having a hard time seeing this as from 1974 – the real test would be to compare Joe in Married Man to Joe as the hairdresser in I Do to see if he looks 10 years older in the later. I think in the original post I questioned 10 years in porn, and only 4 or 5 films to show for it… but then again, porn “careers” in the 70’s weren’t necessarily what they became later – porn, or even the sex trade, may not have been a primary way of making money for many of the guys in earlier films… so much porn film re-watching to do this winter when this seasonal job is over!
oh – and I am showing Steve Scott as the director, not Higgins – I’m pretty good at getting that info right off the film itself – GEVI shows Steve as only the editor… wonder if Higgins changed that in the credits when they changed it for DVD (along with the music) – the survivors get to write history, don’t they?
back to Steve Scott for a minute – it was TOTALLY in keeping with him to not only use contemporary music BUT to often use it as heard on the radio… so including a baseball game via radio or TV sounds so much like Steve Scott – perhaps its mere editing, but I think he’s the director!
Steve Scott could have directed the film, or the parts of it that existed before the videotape came out in ’78. Both the sources I can find today leave a bit of ambiguity, first gevi:
https://gayeroticvideoindex.com/V/7/1517.html
… which says “Although the movie credits Steve Scott as the director, he was actually brought in to edit it.” Then there’s imdb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829232/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_28
… which lists both Steve Scott and William Higgins as director, with Higgins being uncredited. I read somewhere that Higgins got a 5000 dollar loan from some businessman to complete the film, that could be some of the confusion as well. But gevi lists this one as the first credit for Higgins, and one of only three with years listed that were from the 70s. Not sure who the DVD release credits as the director, I felt lucky that I stumbled across the original videotape release where it says Steve directed it, the improved picture quality would have been nice to see but since I’m such a music nerd I was glad I found the original audio.
Maybe the Jack and Joe scenes were the newer ones, i.e. ’78 and the other scenes with the exec were the older ones? Knowing when Jack transitioned to straight porn would be helpful, I know he was in Night At The Adonis which was also ’78 so it’s within that timeframe regardless.
Your drafts folder sounds fascinating, you mention it every once in a while and I bet it’s chock full of spurting cocks, furry butts, jockstraps and the other things that have turned you, me and a bunch of your faithful readers on for a long time.
Replying to myself, if you see this and are searching for more Joe pics for a future post about him someday, I found some at the retro studs blog, link below:
https://retrostuds.blogspot.com/search/label/JOE%20ROBERTS
YES! I have many of these, but some of these are better quality that what i have – thanks
“Hi, I’m Jack Wrangler and you don’t usually see me on this side of the camera…” —– um, what was that, Jack?