4 Devils: Lost Gay Beefcake of the Silent Era

The 4 Devils, directed by German expressionist F.W. Murnau, was named one of the top 10 films of 1928.  The Internet Movie Database gives it a 6.3 rating, based on 100 viewers.  There are 3 viewer reviews and 5 critic reviews.

The only problem is, no one has seen it.  At least not since 1948.

It was shot in 1928, then reshot with talking scenes in 1929 to make use of the new technology.  In 1937 all of the prints in the Fox Studio Archives were destroyed in a fire.  You'd think there'd be other prints around, but no one has found any.  Rumor has it that star Marion Duncan had a print, but threw it into the ocean around 1948.

We know what it was about through synopses and the original novel.  Four orphans join the circus and become trapeze artists, known as the Four Devils.  Eventually Charles and Marion (left) fall in love, but Charles falls under the spell of the evil Lady.  Marion is so upset that she falls during an act (or, in some versions, the Lady sabotages their act), and she dies, or nearly dies, bringing Charles back to his senses.

Sounds like a Betty and Veronica, wholesome v. vamp plotline. But there must have been substantial beefcake -- circus movies are always good for displaying biceps and bulges, as David Nelson discovered.  (Barry Norton, who played Adolph, is obviously packing.)

And there must have been a gay subtext somewhere, since nearly everyone associated with the film was gay:
1. Herman Bang, the Danish novelist who wrote the original story.
2. F. W. Murnau, the director.
3. Charles Morton (Charles).
4. Barry Norton (Adolph).

Why did Marion throw the last remaining print into the ocean?  Was she upset over her performance, as Hollywood gossip says, or upset over the gay subtext?

Unfortunately, no one is talking.

Charles Morton and Barry Norton worked steadily through the silent era, but couldn't make it in the talkies, taking mostly uncredited parts. Barry died in 1957, and Charles in 1966.  His last role was an uncredited bartender on the sitcom F-Troop (1966).  
Most of F.W. Murnau's other films have been lost, but you can get a few on Amazon.  I recommend Faust.

See also: The Collegians.

Patrick Schwarzenegger: Born This Way

This hunky teenager engaging in homoerotic horseplay in the surf is Patrick Schwarzenegger, 19-year old son of Governor Arnold.  But he has several claims to fame other than being hunky and the son of the Terminator.

When he was 15, he started his own clothing line, Project360.  The clothes feature messages like "Love," "Peace," and "Freedom," and some of the proceeds go to charity.

Patrick also has a modeling career -- usually involving shirtless shots -- and he's appeared in a few movies.

The questions on everyone's mind:

1. Is he gay?

He hasn't made any public statements about his sexual identity, but he does spend a lot of time with muscular male buddies, such as Taylor Lautner of the Twilight Saga, who has been the subject of gay rumors.  On the other hand, he's been photographed kissing girls, too.

2. Is he gay-positive, or like his "gay marriage should be between a man and a woman" dad?

In May the gossip site TMZ reported that Patrick was booted from a nightclub and then threatened to beat up the dj, using the expression "gay boy."

But he has recorded an anti-bullying PSA for Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation, encouraging kids to "be who they are."  I'm thinking that overrules the "gay boy" comment.

Parenthood: Gay Teen Tease

Parenthood (2010-) is a "warm," "family-friendly" drama centered on the lives of Zeek and Camille Braverman and their four adult children:

1. Adam Braverman (Peter Krause, left), who has a "traditional" job, house, housewife, and 3 kids.
2. Julia Graham (Erika Christiansen), a hotshot lawyer whose husband (Sam Jaegar, below) stays home to raise the kids.
3. Recently divorced Sarah Holt (Lauren Graham), who has two kids (Amber and Drew)
4. Irresponsible bachelor Crosby (the less-than-attractive Dax Shepard), who is helping to raise his baby mama's child (Jabbar Trusell)

Think Modern Family, without the gay characters.  Or any gay references.
Or The Waltons, without the gay subtexts.

And lots and lots of heterosexism, boys meeting girls, boys and girls falling in love, with the elders intoning "This is what life is like for everyone.  Every boy falls for girls, every girl falls for boys.  No one has ever, in the history of the world, not even once, experienced even a glimmering of same-sex desire.

I don't know any gay people who have even bothered to watch, but some heterosexuals have wondered where the gay characters are?  There's a cast of 3,000 (this is only half of the main cast).  It's set in Berkeley, California, right across the Bay from gay mecca San Francisco.  Why aren't some of them gay?  Why doesn't somebody mention gay people?

Two words: Ron Howard, the homophobe who drains gay content from everything he touches.

Sarah's son Drew, played by Miles Keiser, was sweet, sensitive, artistic, and not particularly into girls (at least, in the few scenes he got, having to share the program with 3,000 other people).  Viewers thought he was gay, and expected an eventual coming-out episode.  But apparently it was purely unintentional, and when producers got wind of the fact that the viewers were "getting the wrong idea," they quickly gave Drew a girlfriend.

Of course, just because he's on a homophobic tv program doesn't mean that Miles can't be gay-friendly in his personal life.  After all, he played a gay teen on Private Practice in 2007.   I doubt he's gay in real life -- I have seen approximately 300 photos of him off-screen, and in every one, he has his arms around a girl or woman.  Every one!

Criminal Lovers: Heterosexist Postmodern Fairy Tale

Criminal Lovers, or Les Amants Criminels (1999), directed by Francois Ozon, was advertised heavily in gay publications and in the gay-specific TLA Video.  But it's an aggressively, unabashedly heterosexist thriller, with a minor gay sex scene.

High schooler Alice (Natacha Regnier) gets her boyfriend-stooge Luc (Jeremie Renier) to murder their classmate Said (Salim Kechioche, right, but don't get your hopes up; this photo is from another movie.)

After burying the body in the woods, the two get lost on the way back to their car, and encounter L'Homme de Foret or "The Woodsman" (Predrag Manojlovic, top photo), a shaggy, wild-eyed man who can only be described as a fairytale ogre.  He imprisons them in his basement and provides food for Luc but not Alice, stating that "I like my girls thin and my boys fat."

Eventually L'Homme convinces Luc to have sex with him.

The heterosexual lovers escape, with L'Homme in hot pursuit.  They arrive back at their car, only to encounter the police, who shoot Alice and arrest both Luc and L'Homme. The end.

This is a postmodern fairy tale, with disparate and contradictory pieces of the story not quite falling into place. Why did Alice really want Said murdered? Who is L'Homme de Foret, and what does he really want?  Why are the police still buzzing around the car, days after the murder?

Maybe this was advertised as a gay-themed movie, but it is aggressively, unabashadly heterosexist. Luc's one on-camera sexual experience with L'Homme is as skittish and underplayed as a episode of Will and Grace, and it only serves to boost his confidence sufficiently for him to initiate loud, graphic heterosexual sex with Alice.

At least there's a bit of frontal nudity.

Jeremie Renier has played gay characters several times, but his only film available in the U.S. is the heterosexist Brotherhood of the Wolf.  Salim Kechioche, who doesn't have nearly enough locker-room and shower scenes, has played gay character before, but here plays a heterosexual.

The Anita Bryant Spectacular: A Hate-Fest That Nobody Watched

Singer Anita Bryant was never a superstar in the mainstream market: only two songs in the Billboard Top 10,  half a dozen in the top 100, a few appearances on Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Art Linkletter, some Bob Hope specials, and Lawrence Welk.  But she found her niche in complaining about how bad modern life was in the burgeoning fundamentalist Christian market.

She began releasing albums like How Great Thou Art and  Old Fashioned Prayin', publishing books about being a fundamentalist, and denouncing Hollywood in churches.

In the 1970s, fundamentalist Christians were looking for something new to blame the world's problems on after the decline of the "long-haired hippie freaks," and they latched onto gay people.  In March 1977, Ms. Bryant jumped onto the bandwagon with her Save Our Children Campaign, a successful attempt to revoke a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, by arguing that gays were, among other things, child molesters.

Soon Ms. Bryant was the Voice of Homophobia in America: shrill, vicious, hateful, and jaw-droppingly ignorant as she recast myths from the 1950s.  Fundamentalists believed every word, and even invented some new myths of their own.  In September 1977, our preacher at the Nazarene church began screaming that gays had committed the Unpardonable Sin.  Gay people proclaimed her Public Enemy #1.  Everyone else thought she was rather ridiculous.

Mainstream media dropped her, but no matter; she made lots of money screaming about gays to fundamentalist church groups.

Then, in 1980, her husband, Bob Green, asked for a divorce.

Fundamentalist Christians believe that divorce is a sin.  Maybe not as Satanic as being gay, but a sin.  Speaking engagements dropped, book contracts were cancelled, and Ms. Bryant declared bankrupcy.

On March 27, 1980, in a last-ditch effort to get back into the limelight, she got some influential friends to lend her the facilities at West Point for an all-homophobia comedy-variety program, The Anita Bryant Spectacular.  Appearing with her to "bring the nation back to decency, morality, and wholesome family life" were a pack of homophobic icons: Bob Hope, former teen idol Pat Boone, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (beefcake star of 77 Sunset Strip, top photo), the Imperials, and the West Point Chorus.

31 years later, a gay cadet was bringing a same-sex date to the Winter Formal.  Ms. Bryant must be turning over in her grave.  Oh, wait, she's still alive.

Old homophobic friends Art Linkletter, Jack Lalanne, and Lawrence Welk phoned in their support.

As far as I know, nobody saw the 3 hours long hate-fest. It was syndicated, and few local stations could afford to devote that much time to gay-bashing, no matter how homophobic they were.  And where it did air, everyone was watching the gay-friendly Barney Miller and Soap on the other channel.

Richard Bennett: The Unknown Bodybulder

During the Golden Age of Bodybuilding, when Physique Pictorial and many other magazines were distributing semi-nude (and nude) photos of musclemen to a worldwide, mostly gay male audiences, a surprising number of models managed to make the transition to tv or movies: Davis Cole, Doug McClure, Sammy Jackson, Gary Conway, William Smith, and so on.  But most, due to limited acting ability, lack of media contacts, or lack of interest, found their way into other careers.  Some are so obscure that, half a century later, we know practically nothing about them.

According to the Vintage Male Physique blog, Richard Bennett was photographed in both nude and semi-nude poses, primarily by Danny Fitzgerald.  Not much is known about Danny Fitzgerald, except that he published under the name Demi-Dieux, Demi-Gods, in magazines like Demi Gods and Young Physique during the 1960s.

But they weren't just nudes for their own sake; they were exquisitely composed, studies in light and dark, hardness and softness, strength and fragility.

And intensely homoerotic.  No way could you buy these magazines under the pretense that you were looking for musclebuilding tips.

He drew his models primarily from New York City, often selecting toughs, street hoods, and hustlers.  But Richard Bennett wasn't among them.  His perfect physique is not the haphazard muscle of a street hood, but of someone with the time and money to spend countless hours at the gym, sculpting his body with artistic precision.

Richard Bennett was not a pro bodybuilder, but he does appear on the rosters of amateur competitions from the late 1940s through 1965.  He had no wins, but he could have.

What was his life like, before and after the shots?  What did he do for a living?  Who were his friends and lovers?  Was he gay, bisexual, heterosexual?

A correspondent stated that he still lives in New York City and he has a house upstate, so he must be an economic success.  And he has a brother who looks like James Dean.

That's all.  Otherwise, even in the Age of the Internet, Richard Bennett remains a mystery.