Gerran Howell: The hot doc from "The Pitt" plays a vampire, troubled teens, and Ozma's boyfriend, speaks Welsh, drops his trousers.

 

Link to the n*de photos

If you've been watching The Pitt on MAX, about emergency room staff and patients, you've certainly noticed Dennis Whitaker.  The fourth-year medical student moved to Pittsburgh from a farm in Broken Bow, Nebraska, which causes a lot of derision from the big city doctors, and got a degree in theology before going to med school. Don't you need a lot of courses in biology and chemistry?   He gets squelchy scenes where he is splashed with the body fluids squirting out of patients, but also heart-tugging scenes where he establishes an emotional connection with a dying patient.

So far Dennis hasn't expressed a romantic interest in anyone, although fans on the Pitt Reddit eagerly pair him with Nurse Kim, because she offered to find him new scrubs after a patient ur*nated on him, or the wife of a dying burn victim whom he comforts.

Plus when Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) is treating the victims of a mass shooting, he flashes back to treating COVID victims and the death of his beloved mentor and has a panic attack.  Dennis helps him out, and the two hold hands.  About 1,700 fan stories on Archive of Our Own move the relationship forward into romance (and explicit s*xual activity).

Noah Wyle n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

That's enough to warrant researching the actor, Gerran Howell.

Well, being 5'7" and exceptionally cute helps.

Turns out that Gerran is not Nebraskan, he's Welsh, born in Barry a resort town near Cardiff, in 1991.  He's bilingual in the Welsh language, and got to speak it as a fan service during Season 2 of The Pitt.

Nice swimsuit, mate.

After attending Barry Comprehensive School, Gerran studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.  His first on-screen roles came in 2006, in a PSA about the dangers of swimming in the Welsh Reservoir and the short Mummy's Boy, about a boy traumatized by his brother's death. 

Next he starred in Young Dracula (2006-2013), as the teenage Vlad, The Chosen One (of course) who moves from Transylvania to Wales with his family.  According to the episode synopses, he may have gotten a few gay-subtext buddy-bonds along with the usual assortment of girlfriends.  

The role brought Gerran a lot of fame in Britain: talk-show interviews, cooking on Blue Peter, a tutorial on how to spot a vampire.

In The Spartacle Mysteries (2011-15), everyone over age 15 is zapped into a parallel dimension.  It's up to the kids to survive -- and bring them home. So, was it a one-time deal, or does everyone who turns 16 zap over?  Gerran plays Ernesto, the leader of a rebel gang who doesn't want the adults back: the world is better and safer without them.  He gets a girlfriend.

Emerald City, the dreary, depressing take on the Wizard of Oz mythos (2016-17), stars Oliver Jackson-Cohen (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) as Dorothy Gale's boyfriend.  Gerran plays Jack (based on Jack Pumpkinhead), who helps Tip escape from the witch Mombi, and falls in love with her after she turns into a girl. But she's not into him.  Being into trans women makes him a LGBT ally.

More after the break

"The Seven Dials Mystery": Murder on an English country estate in 1925, with a gay couple, a gay bar, Bluemel's backside, and Frodo's junk

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Note: I revised this review based on Episodes 2 and 3.

I've been trying to get into reading mysteries lately, including classic Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and The Seven Dials Mystery (1929): one of her earlier works, while she's still fumbling around to create an ongoing amateur sleuth.  A tv adaption has dropped on Netflix, starring Corey Mylchreest, who is straight but likes to pretend to be gay.  So maybe he'll be pretending here, too.

Prologue: An elderly man walks through Ronda, an Andalusian village about an hour from Malaga., with beautiful establishing shots.  He enters the empty Plaza de Toros and checks his watch, and finds a note (a picture of a clock).  Suddenly a bull rushes out and gores him to death!

Scene 1: Chimneys, a stately country house in Gloucester, 1925.  A party, with everyone wearing masks and being decadent.  Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter) and her daughter Bundle hate the ghastly masks, but they had no choice; it was the idea of Lord and Lady Coote, to whom they are indebted.  Lord Coote wants to meet George Lomax, so they can form a relationship: "His Foreign Office, my steel factories." 

Lol, I can't hear the name Coote without thinking of Cornelius Coot, who founded the city of Duckburg in Disney comics.

Bundle, apparently the focus character, continues to mingle.  She approaches Ronny (gay actor Nabhaan Rizwan, right) and his Boyfriend (Hughie O'Donnell), who explain that their mate Gerry hasn't gotten up before noon all week, so they're going to prank him with seven alarm clocks hidden in various places in his room.

Next, she talks to Gerry (Corey Mylchreest, top photo, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  He gawks with Girl of My Dreams hetero-horniness, and tells Bundle how incredibly gorgeous she is.  Ok, so he won't be pretending to be gay in this one.  She counters that he is incredibly gorgeous as well.  

They gaze at each other for about five minutes, then he asks her to dinner, and implies that he's going to propose.  The gazing continues.  I'm fast-forwarding past it.

Scene 2: Cut to the boyfriends giggling as they hide alarm clocks in various places in Gerry's room.  Then to a card game, with Bundle and Boy of Her Dreams Gerry continuing to gaze at each other while the others chitchat. Jimmy (Edward Bluemel, left, backside on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) joins them.

 Then raucous Jazz Age dancing and more gazing.  

The boyfriends are not dancing.  They are engrossed with each other.  I think they're a canonical couple.

Bundle drops Gerry to mingle, then goes out into the garden. 

Scene 3: Morning.  Establishing shot of the country house surrounded by marshland.  Ronny and his Boyfriend complain of being hungover, and fill their plates.  The others arrive, equally hungover.

At 11:15, the alarm clocks go off in Gerry's room.  He's not turning them off, so they send the Butler to wake him.  Then Bundle goes.  She finds that Gerry is...dead!

Cut to the doctor (Tristan Gemmill, p*nis on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), who finds a sleeping draft next to the bed.  Gerry must have taken a draft to help him sleep, and since he was drunk, the combination was lethal.  

"Impossible!" Bundle exclaims.  "He never used sleeping drafts!"  And she knows what he did before bed because....

"Then maybe it was deliberate?" the doctor suggests.

The Boyfriend: "Well, he was stressed at work.  His boss, George Lomax, was always riding him."

"No way!  Impossible!  He was planning to propose to me."

Next up: a bumbling detective (Jake Davies, left), on his first case, ineptly examines the crime scene while making jokes.  Bundle thinks that it was a murder.  Otherwise be lousy story.

"Wait -- there are seven clocks on the mantle.  I thought you guys hid them?"  The Boyfriends glance at each other in shock.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.5: Baby Billy and Eli compete for Aimee-Leigh. Plus water sports and donkey d*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Title: "Interlude."  The interludes, set halfway through each season, are designed to clarify the conflicts and back stories, and to keep you in suspense after a major crisis. Here we flash back to 1989. when Eli and Aimee-Leigh were rich but not mega-rich, Baby Billy was hoping for a come-back after his child-star career, and young Jesse was jealous of his soon-to-be-born brother Kelvin. 

A Hot Piece of Tail:  This is the golden age of televangelism, with Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Jerry Falwell eating up the airwaves -- and blaming homa-sekshuls for everything from teen pregnancy to hurricanes/  They were especially eager to proclaim that homa-sekshuls were trying to destroy society by infecting straight people with AIDS.  In 1989, the number of new cases peaked at 80,000. 

Before the broadcast,  Aimee-Leigh walks around, being friendly to the crew.  Very diverse crew: -- old and young, black and white, women in jobs traditionally held by men, probably gay people.  She compliments Eli as "a hot piece of tail," and he agrees: "I'm sizzling hot."This seems a little gender-transgressive.  Men aren't typically referred to in this way.  Just before the curtain rises, Aimee-Leigh tells Eli, "I'm pregnant."  How playful, and borderline mean!

Family Dinner:  Lots of gross closeups of 1980s food.  When Aimee-Leigh says that she has news to share, Jesse guesses that Judy has been put up for adoption, and she guesses that he has AIDS. In 1989 evangelicals -- and most of the general public -- thought that only gay men contracted AIDS, so she is "accusing" him of being gay. 

No, Aimee-Leigh says without disciplining them, she is actually having a baby. Jesse wishes that she has a miscarriage, again without discipline, then backtracks: : "I will never like them.  They will never be my friend."  This is a call-back to the Episode 1.1 scene where Jesse is upset with Kelvin because "we used to be friends."  

Judy hopes that it's a boy, so she can teach him how to pee standing up.  Is she accusing Jesse of being a woman?

The Misbehavin' Tour: At the office, Baby Billy tells the Gemstones about his idea for a Misbehavin' Comeback Tour this spring.  But she can't do it: she is pregnant, due in July (in Season 2, Kelvin says that his birthday is near Christmas, but never mind).

Baby Billy insists that they go on the tour anyway, but she insists that she can't.  How about waiting until after the birth?  Nope.

The screenshot shows Baby Billy in pain, behind window slats that look like bars. He is trapped, unable to move beyond his child-star days, blaming Eli for ruining his life. In Season 3, Eli's other brother-in-law will blame him too, with more violent results.  

The Birthday Party:  After scenes where Jesse is caught arranging little-kid fights and complains that his parents are never around, a we cut to Judy's birthday party.  Kids eating food in disgusting ways (a regular trope in this episode); riding a slip-and-slide; riding ponies.  

More after the break

Mark Lester: Jack Wild's boyfriend moves on to sleazy hetero cringe, buddy-bonds with Michael Jackson, shows his backside on the grass

It seems that every kid is forced to see Oliver! (1968)   Their parents think that the musical is somehow educational because it's roughly based on Oliver Twist.

I saw it on DVD a few years ago, after two doses of the live musical, in high school and in L.A.  Not my favorite: all about child abuse, domestic violence, and other fun stuff, with a heterosexist "true love" plot.  

But I liked the gay-subtext buddy-bonding between the streetwise Artful Dodger (15-year old Jack Wild) and the cherubic innocent Oliver (10-year old Mark Lester).

 

I knew Jack Wild from H. R. Pufnstuf, but I heard nothing more about Mark Lester for many years. During the early 2000s, I was writing an article on demonic children in the movies, and I found that the cherubic Mark Lester spent his pubescence playing violent or creepy, or both.  His characters seemed uncomfortable with their bodies, ravaged by uncontrollable desires, and obsessively heterosexual.

In Eyewitness (1970), also released as Sudden Terror, 12-year old Ziggy (Mark) witnesses a murder on the Mediterranean island of Malta,  and is pursued by the killer.  He goes on the lam, along with his girlfriend.

In Melody (1971), 10-year old Daniel (Mark) falls in love with a girl and decides to marry her. The adults disapprove of a 10-year old getting married, but it's the heart of the counterculture, and "true love" is always right.

Jack Wild plays his gay-subtext budd.

In What the Peeper Saw (1972), also released as Night Hair Child and Diabolica malicia, 14-year old Marcus (Mark) isattracted to his father's new wife (Britt Eklund).  She shares his interest, and they start a relationship. They conspire to kill Dad so they can be together. But is she really conspiring to kill Marcus? 

In Who Slew Auntie Roo (1972), 14-year old Christopher (Mark)  tries to rescue his sister from the demented Mrs. Forrest (Shelley Winters), who is holding her prisoner in the attic. 

More after the break