Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Ask any male boomer when he realized that he was gay, and he’ll most likely say when he saw Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964). I saw it in the spring of 1968, on the family’s brand new color tv set.

The plot is obviously a version of Robinson Crusoe: after crash landing on the frigid Red Planet, astronaut Kit Draper (Paul Mantee) builds a cave habitat so warm he can walk around shirtless or in a tight-black t-shirt, displaying an amazingly buff, hairy chest.

He has food, water, and a pet monkey, but he is intensely lonely. Then an alien mining company establishes a beachhead nearby, and he helps himself to one of their slaves. “I prayed for a companion,” Kit exclaims, “And I finally got one!” 

Somewhat Aztec in appearance, “Friday” (Victor Lundin) is so accustomed to the Martian cold that he can comfortably walk around in nothing but a kilt, displaying a massive, sculpted body, with golden skin, thick arms and shoulders, and a smooth, hard chest.

The two men are extremely physical in their interaction. Shortly after they meet, Kit takes Friday’s hand and places it on his own knee, an image that is intensely intimate and sensual. Kit is buried in a shower of space debris and nearly suffocates, and Friday rescues him. As they walk away, Kit wraps his arm around Friday’s waist.  At the end of the movie, they are rescued, and go back to Earth together, permanent partners.

Who would produce such a film, about two men who love each other and build a home together, in the dark homophobic days of 1964?

This was Paul Mantee’s first credited acting role; he went on to make dozens of two-fisted movies, sometimes with “man” in the title to emphasize the intended audience, such as A Man Called Dagger (1967) and That Man Bolt (1973), and he then settled down to write novels about heterosexual Italian-American adolescents.  And he obviously stayed in shape.

Victor Lundin played a series of Klingons, Indians, savages, and bad guys, and cut some country-western records. Today, on his website, he sells a cd with a song about how much he likes girl-watching.

Neither of the writers seem obvious gay allies, but when we look at the director, Byron Haskin, we find movie after movie set in steaming jungles, where men wear next to nothing and fall into each other’s arms a lot: Man Eater of Kumaon (1948), Tarzan’s Peril (1951), His Majesty O’Keefe (1953), Little Savage (1959). That explains the beefcake; what explains the bonding?

"Los Espookys": Who You Gonna Call?

I've been posting about a lot of disappointing tv series -- gay teases that don't follow through, gushing praise that masks endless boy-girl kissing.  It's high time we get to a series that it's actually good -- interesting, humorous, gay inclusive -- Los Espookys (well, that title could use a little work).

In an unspecified Latin American country, one of those magic-realism places where weird things happen so often that they're normal, Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) creates a horror-themed quinceañera for his little sister.  It is so impressive that his Uncle Tico (Fred Armisen), the world's greatest car parker (he can even park two cars at the same time), suggests that he make a career out of creating horror-themed events.

Renaldo conscripts his best friend, the weird blue haired Andrés (Saturday Night Live writer and Great North boyfriend Julio Torres), into the business.

Andrés is the heir to a chocolate empire, immensely wealthy and powerful (what if they started making sugar-free chocolate? every dentist in the country would be unemployed).

His parents and his bulging swimsuit-clad trophy boyfriend (telenovela star José Pablo Minor, top photo) disapprove of his interest in horror, but he agrees to participate.   

By the way, it's not a subtext: they are a canonical gay couple.

Next they conscript their friend Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), a Goth dentist's assistant; and her delightfully obtuse sister Tati (Ana Fabrega), who has a variety of odd jobs, like running a hand-cranked fan or breaking in people's shoes. (Welcome to the new economy)

They expect to plan horror-themed parties, but for their first gig, Father Francesco (Luis Grieco), the priest at the local orphanage, complains that his new, hot, hip associate Padre Antonio (Cristobal Tapia Montt), is stealing all the glory...of running an orphanage?  He wants to conduct an exorcism to get back into the spotlight.  So Los Espookys create an exorcism for him.

Next up: a millionaire's dying wish is to give his fortune to whoever can spend the night in a haunted house.  Los Espokys are hired to create the house, and ensure that the millionaire's son does not win.

They have found their niche, creating fake paranormal events: a sea monster for a seaside town to use as a tourist attraction; an alien autopsy for a UFO researcher to show her bosses; a magic mirror for "the American ambassador"; a fake dream for an insomniac.

Along the way they have the usual daily hassles of magic-realism life.

1. Andrés is pressured by his family to marry his trophy boyfriend (so his cookie empire can be combined with their chocolate empire).

2. Renaldo is pressured by his mother to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, even though he has explained that he only wants friends.  He's openly asexual!

3. Ursula, who is a lesbian, has any number of hookups.

4. Tati keeps expecting the guys she meets on dating apps to look like their photo.  So the quirky, odd comic-relief is heterosexual.  

Only 6 episodes, but fortunately Season 2 is already in the works.

My grade: A+

Robert Rodan and the Gay Casting Couch of "Dark Shadows"

One day in May 1968, when I was second grade in Racine, Wisconsin, my friend Doug invited me home after school.  We came into the living room to find his older sister watching tv.   Outraged over her co-opting Garfield Goose, we demanded that she change the channel, but she said "Cool it, gremlins!  This is good."

I looked at the screen.

A naked man on an operating table.

Seeing shirtless guys on tv was almost unheard of, and here was a guy almost totally naked. Chest, shoulders,arms, belly, legs....penis....


I had heard of the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows -- the older kids all grooved on tortured vampire Barnabas Collins.  But I didn't watch, so I didn't know that Barnabas was trying to cure his vampirism by by transferring his life force into a young hunk, a man built out of the spare parts of bodybuilders.  I don't think I had even heard of Frankenstein.

But there was a naked man on the operating table!

In the actual episode, he's covered up except for his head and shoulders, but in my memory you get an eyeful.

It was a busy summer, with Vacation Bible School and then three weeks at Aunt Nora's house while Mom and Dad negotiated the move from racine to Rock Island, so I only caught an occasional half-episode of Dark Shadows. 

After a few weeks of Frankenstein-style grunts, the man, dubbed Adam (Robert Rodan), becomes eloquent, super-strong, and vicious.   An altogether formidable foe, but all he really wants is a date.  First he tries for Caroline, the teenage daughter of the super-wealthy Collins family.  Then he forces reformed vampire Barnabas and his doctor-sidekick Julia to build him a mate, Eve.  His storyline ends in December 1968, when he goes off to a clinic to have his scars removed and fade into obscurity.

He never got naked on screen, but he did in my memories.  

Robert Rodan, 30 years old at the time, was born Robert Trimas (he chose his last name after his favorite sculptor).  An art major at the University of Miami, he graduated in 1960, spent five months in the army reserve, and then moved to Los Angeles to seek a job in advertising art.  But he was so goodlooking that people kept mistaking him for a movie star and asking for his autograph, so he figured, why not?

In the mid-1960s, he landed only a few minor roles:  an episode of A Day in Court (1963), a musical called Looking for Love (1964), and the comedy Goodbye, Charlie (1964).  Then he moved to New York and began modeling for magazines and auditioning for the theater.

A soap opera gig sounded like a good steady paycheck.

When he went to the Adam audition wearing regular clothes, Robert was intimidated: the other actors came in full Frankenstein makeup.  Still, he was tall, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, characteristics that, according to Robert himself, producer Dan Curtis found especially sexy.

Wait -- is he implying that there was a gay casting couch going on?

And that Dan Curtis was a member of the fraternity?

That explains why half of the male cast members were gay.

After doing Adam, Robert returned to L.A. and started auditioning for movies.  But he was typecast as a monster. 

He acted in a few commercials and the softcore porn thriller The Minx (1969), which a Swedish producer bought and turned into an X-rated movie.  Then he  hung up his headshots, turned back into Robert Trimas, and went into real estate.

Later in life, Robert returned to acting, voicing some of the Dark Shadows audio dramas.  He died in 2021, at the age of 83, divorced, with children and grandchildren.  No gay rumors.

But, half a century ago, he gave a 7-year old Wisconsin boy one of the iconic moments of his life by lying naked on an operating table. 

See also: Barnabas and Willie

Spring 1977: On the Brink of Busting Loose

In the spring of my junior year in high school, when I was starting to accumulate college catalogs from all over the country -- indeed, all over the world -- and hoping to get away from the oppressive influence of parents, church, and heterosexism -- a new sitcom appeared on Wednesday nights after Good Times called Busting Loose. 

It starred the 20-year old Adam Arkin as Lenny Markowitz, a cute Jewish boy -- just as I was reading My Name is Asher Lev, and watching Lanigan's Rabbi, with their homoerotic Jewish subtexts.  And meeting Aaron, my first Jewish friend, who was gay but didn't know it yet.

Lenny tries to distance himself from his parents by getting his own apartment -- a terrible one.  The wallpaper has ducks on it.

He has a crush on his next door neighbor, Melodee (Barbara Rhoades), who dates for a living -- "I'm a great date!" she explains. But she's actually a paid escort, not a... you know.

  She's always saying things that sound like sex but really aren't: "Can I borrow some ice?  My date threw his back out."

But I was more interested in Lenny's close knit group of childhood buddies (plus a coworker), various personalities and levels of hotness: the nerd Lester (Danny Goldman), the bad boy Vinnie (Greg Antonacci), the hunk Woody (Paul Sylvan), and Allan (Stephen Nations), whom I don't rememer.

There were only 21 episodes, in the spring and fall of 1977.   No gay characters, no nudity.  You had to be there, just at the brink of "busting loose."

Paul Sylvan also embarked on a musical career, and posed naked and steamy for the cover of this album.

Stephen Nathan was in The First Nudie Musical (1978).

And Adam Arkin has had a long career, with many gay-positive projects, such as East of A (2000) and Kids in America (2005).