Table Of ContentPRAISE FOR QUEER FILM CLASSICS
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“Each book offers a close reading of an underrated film, which i L.A. PLAYS ITSELF /
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restores that film to its significance within queer history. The kinds d
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of queerness at issue in these accounts are as distinct as the films’ P BOYS IN THE SAND
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respective styles, and it is in their powerful elaboration of the t
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relation between the two that the books, and the series, break n
new critical ground.” —Film Quarterly Cindy Patton
This Queer Film Classic examines two groundbreaking gay
films from the early 1970s, both of which exemplify the growing L
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liberalization of social attitudes toward sex and homosexuality .
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in post-Stonewall America. L.A. Plays Itself and Boys in the Sand L
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were both gay art house porn films released within months of
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each other at a theatre in New York in 1972. L.A. Plays Itself, S
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directed by Fred Halsted, is a dark treatise on violence and urban T
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squalor featuring hustlers and vagrants that reveals the City of E
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Angels’ dark side; Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand, meanwhile, F
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is its sunny flipside, about a young man’s sexual adventures at B
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a gay beach resort community. Both films represent particular,
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polarizing moments in the early history of the gay movement. S
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Cindy Patton discusses the historical context of these films and T
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their legal and social ramifications, as well as other films that E
were produced during this crucial period in cinematic history. S
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Entertainment (Film) / LGBT
ISBN 978-1-55152-562-4
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L.A. Plays Itself / Boys in the Sand
“Cindy Patton tells the story of s gay pornography on its own terms,
arguing that the tendency to look back on these works as an archive of
condomless sex is to miss what is most interesting about them. A riveting
account of gay sexual culture in the ’s from one of our foremost experts in
the history of sexuality.” —Heather Love, author of Feeling Backward:
Loss and the Politics of Queer History
“Cindy Patton, an expert guide to sexual expression in the early s,
offers a tour de force overview of the social, aesthetic, and erotic histories of
the classics of gay porn films Boys in the Sand and L.A. Plays Itself. Patton
does more than open our eyes to an important episode in gay film history; she
revives a period alive to the inventiveness of sex and its representations, and
she does so in an accessible, witty, and insightful style that makes this a most
enjoyable and fascinating read.” —Christopher Castiglia, co-author of
If Memory Serves: Gay Men, AIDS, and the Promise of the Queer Past
“When a leading writer on the cultural politics of AIDS asks us to take
gay male porn films of the s on their own terms as radical visual and
political experiments and not simply nostalgic pre-AIDS, pre-condoms sexual
representations, we need to pay attention, especially when that writer is Cindy
Patton. Her original analyses are revelatory and counterintuitive, rewriting
the history of both sex and film.” —Constance Penley, co-editor of
The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure
“In an era when sexual imagery is a tap away by smartphone, Cindy
Patton’s book recaptures the turning point when Fred Halsted and Wakefield
Poole ushered in a new form of gay erotic visibility. Influenced by gay
liberation, while navigating through a tough social and legal context, Patton
shows how these two iconic films paved the way for contemporary visions
of how to be gay.” —Barry D. Adam, University of Windsor
“Cindy Patton dives into the queer archive to celebrate the sexual culture
of the pre-AIDS s gay world. Through her excavation, we’re reminded
that the periodicals and porn of that era represent powerful ideas that have
not been erased by the requirements of equality.” —Chris Bartlett, Executive
Director, William Way LGBT Community Center (Philadelphia)
Arsenal Pulp Press | Vancouver
L.A. PLAYS ITSELF /
BOYS IN THE SAND
A QUEER FILM CLASSIC
Cindy Patton
L.A. PLAYS ITSELF/BOYS IN THE SAND: A Queer Film Classic
Copyright © by Cindy Patton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any
means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in
the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.
ARSENAL PULP PRESS
Suite – East Georgia St.
Vancouver, BC VA Z
Canada
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The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the
Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the
Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund) and the Government
of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program) for its
publishing activities.
Efforts have been made to locate copyright holders of source material wherever
possible. The publisher welcomes hearing from any copyright holders of material
used in this book who have not been contacted.
Queer Film Classics editors: Matthew Hays and Thomas Waugh
Cover and text design by Gerilee McBride
Edited for the press by Susan Safyan and Kerrie Waddington
Printed and bound in Canada
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:
Patton, Cindy, –, author
L.A. plays itself/Boys in the sand : a queer film classic / Cindy Patton.
Includes index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN ---- (pbk.).—ISBN ---- (epub)
. L. A. plays itself (Motion picture). . Boys in the sand (Motion
picture). . Gay men—Sexual behavior. . Gay liberation movement—United
States—History. . Homosexuality in motion pictures. . Homosexuality and
motion pictures. . Gay pornographic films—History and criticism. I. Title.
PN..GP .' C--
C--
To the men and women who believe that showing
sex is important, even time doesn’t tell.
CONTENTS
| Acknowledgments
| Synopses
| Credits
| One: Porntasia
| Two: Good Gay Porn
| Three: Deep Play
| Four: Porno Chic in the Porn Palace
| Conclusion: To Hell in a Handbasket
| References
| Filmography
| Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I want to thank Tom Waugh and Matthew
Hays, who hatched the series and convinced me that I ought
to write about these films. Tom’s work on gay porn is foun-
dational for all research in the area, and Matt’s loving inter-
view with Wakefield Poole sets the standard for recovering
our queer past. They have been extremely patient in the face
of many delays and uncertainty about how classic porn and
classic film fit together. I don’t think this book is quite what
they imagined, but I hope it nevertheless fits the bill. I also
thank Susan Safyan and Gerilee McBride who helped me
sort through production issues—these were a little out of the
ordinary, especial since the materials I examined were at one
time only quasi-legal. Some of the authors used pseudonyms,
and a disproportionate number died in the early years of the
AIDS epidemic. I have made every effort to identify author-
ship and to seek permission from those I can identify as living
or as having left their rights to an estate.
There are three institutional debts, which also carry with
them personal debts. First, to the University of Minnesota’s
Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual
and Transgender Studies, which, among many other trea-
sures, holds one of the few copies of L.A. Plays Itself on Beta
video. My friends and colleagues Beth Zemsky, who helped
develop that collection, Richard Morrison, who edited
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