ASK ANY BUDDY
AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF ALL-MALE ADULT CINEMA
October 20 – October 25
“The video component of a multimedia project that also encompasses an acclaimed podcast and Instagram feed, Elizabeth Purchell’s ASK ANY BUDDY compiles fragments from over 125 feature films to create a kaleidoscopic, dreamlike snapshot of the era. An official selection of nearly two-dozen international film festivals including BFI Flare and Outfest, ASK ANY BUDDY is a funny, sexy portrait of urban gay life in the years following the Stonewall Riots – or at least how it looked in the movies.”
how embarrassing – I don’t see any reference to this film on this here rambling blog! (must be jealousy…combined with laziness, or that dang “drafts folder”!) – anyhow, New Yorkers, if you haven’t seen this, you should – and try to do a double feature with one of the other featured film during this rare porn fest (now, do I have opinions on porn movies shown in theaters without backrooms, gloryholes, or other type dark crevices for friendship building? I do. yes, yes, i do. – but another time)
If you’ve never seen any of these on the big screen, I highly recommend seeing all of them; if that’s not possible, of course the headliner, ASK ANY BUDDY, plus at least Al Parker’s Turned On, Headtrip (which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen), and 10:30PM MONDAY (which I never really got interested in because Bijou Video had some COLT imagery on the cover, which I knew was wrong… ) but I digress. The Night Before I’ve actually seen there at Anthology (2001), and they do have these porno programs from time to time – check out my attempt at some form of ancient html back in 2002 for the Reflecting Poole – June 19-23, 2002 Wakefield Poole series. I’m rambling…but oooh, just took a peak at 10:30pm, and that would be my priority! Especially to see if they have a good quality, and complete print – the 33minute version on line can’t be right.
scroll to bottom of post for brief clip from 10:30PM
One last note – I do wish there were an x-rated version of the promo / preview – I get it for youtube, but jeez – can’t vimeo, or someone host an x-rated promo that promotes what the film does – celebrates gay (male) sex!
at the ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003 (corner of 2nd Street and 2nd Avenue)
here’s the schedule at this link
featuring:
- ASK ANY BUDDY – showing each of the first 5 days of the 6 day porn festival – by Elizabeth Purchell (2019) – Thursday thru Monday
- THAT BOY by Peter Berlin (1974) – Thursday and Tuesday
- HEAD TRIP by François About (1981) – Friday only
- THE NIGHT BEFORE by Arch Brown (1973) – Saturday only
- TURNED ON! by Steve Scott (1982) – Saturday only
- 10:30PM MONDAY by Lucas Severin
(1970?) – no, certainly wrong – 1975ish, post Bijou and Born To Raise Hell, right? – Sunday only - FORBIDDEN LETTERS by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (1976) – on the website as 1979!!!! – Monday only – check out this Forbidden Letters review
- AMERICAN CREAM by Rob Simple (1972) – Tuesday only
7 replies on “hey NEW YORK porn lovers!”
Damn! I’ve really been itching to see Ask Any Buddy – if only I lived even remotely close to NYC. Oh well. That hot, bearded lead in 10:30 PM Monday would make that film a priority!
Thanks for this! I’ve listened to all of their podcasts (after searching out whatever was available of the films) and I’ve got my tickets to the doc AND “Forbidden Letters”!
YEAH!!!!! very happy to hear this – have fun, take notes, and report back, please!
I saw Forbidden Letters back in the day, probably at the Adonis. Also say That Boy in about 2006, but Peter Berlin doesn’t interest me much. I remember in the movie Andy Warhol telling how “great” what he was doing on the street, but I guess it was the all-white. We all showed off to a farethewell then, it was Paradise, and I saw quite a number that were far more irresistible. But then they weren’t doing it as a constant act, just had the basket.
You may not have done a post about this documentary before, but I am pretty sure you or some of us mentioned it in the comments at least once. Ask me where that was, though, and I’m just going to fall back on the tried and true ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had seen it mentioned as being part of various online film festivals over the past few years but never actually found a way I could view it in full (for free, admittedly I was seeking out the el cheapo option for seeing this online, whereas I might have paid to see it in an actual theatre). I reached out to them when I first heard about it via email but never heard back, my unsolicited message likely wound up in their spam folder. But it’s a novel idea, and great to pair it up with some of the classics like the newly remastered Forbidden Letters with the missing scenes added back in.
Speaking of FL I think it was *made* in 1976 but wasn’t released until 1979, so I believe that part is right since you would have to go by when guys were first able to see it, in a porn theatre or the film loops in the pre-VCR days. And in your FL post from not long ago, you asked which scenes were cut for the shorter videotape release? I just watched the short version again since that’s what I have, there are a few sections that I can pinpoint: near the beginning of the full length version a warden is talking to the camera, smugly saying that obviously certain things couldn’t be mentioned in letters to prisoners without making their lives more difficult. He’s either talking to Robert or Richard, it’s a bit unclear but that whole scene is cut in the shorter one.
There’s also an extended scene where Richard, Robert and the woman go to someplace near the beach, hang out down there (it’s windy and Robert’s voice over talks about reading tarot cards) and they ride the merry go round, it’s another flashback scene and that is cut too. Along with a couple of minute scene of Robert and the woman when they meet for dinner the night Richard is released, which she alludes to in the phone call before Robert goes to the bus station to pick Richard up. Add those together and you likely get the bulk of why the shorter videotape is just under an hour and the full one is more like 1:20: if I remember right.
i am still interested in getting to the bottom of the Forbidden Letters release date – I agree the date is was available to the public, in whatever form, is what matters, not date produced/created. Alas, GEVI has no pre-1979 periodicals mentioning it, so I will have to do some digging (at a later date).
from what you are saying about what was missing from initial video release, it doesn’t add up to whatever the British were upset about – i thin the shorter version was classic sloppiness, typical of the porn industry as it began releasing videotapes. Curious if there is documentation of what was objectionable by British, or just was it gay sex?
Yea if anything what was cut from the full length version seems like it was more in the way of plot or flashbacks. I can’t think of any additional sex scenes I saw in the longer version that were missing from the shorter one, so it wasn’t fisting or water sports or anything like that. Even the joint smoking with the shaggy guy was included in the shorter one. That would seem to indicate it was the explicit sex that made the British confiscate copies or declare it obscene, whichever version it was in. They lived with a lot more restrictions on the kinds of sex that could be shown or sold on videotapes, and only had clandestine and private theatres as opposed to the ones we always had in larger US cities.
The Bressan Project would seem to be among the most authoritative online sources for details and info about his films, and it gives 1979 for the year (and links to the film’s imdb page which says the same):
https://bressanproject.wixsite.com/website
There is a larger point you’ve raised though that is worth exploring sometime, year of production vs. year of release and which one gevi lists, or should list. And which one would be considered as the more important. If it’s the same year for both or only off by one year it’s not that big a deal, but when there’s a few year gap as with FL it deserves to be noted correctly. And that doesn’t even take into account when a different company later acquires the rights to something made by another, or only serves as the distributor etc. I could see why both years are worth noting when there’s a gap like this.