LA Plays Itself 1972

LA Plays Itself 1972
51min | Adult , Drama | April 1972 (USA)
Storyline:
The film opens on a shot of the "Los Angeles City Limits" sign. It then cuts to Fred Halsted taking a walk in the forest and coming upon a man sunning himself in the nude. They briefly talk and end up having passionate sex in the wilderness only to be interrupted by bulldozers destroying the wildlife area in order to build a new suburb. The film suddenly switches to inner city Los Angeles as Halsted and a man from Texas discuss in voice over the problems with modern society and the dishonesty of most people. This is inter-cut with shots of hustlers, bums, vagrants, porn theaters and shops, as well as footage of a man (presumably the Texan) being brutally tortured by Halsted. Eventually the man is bound and left helpless in a closet, a symbol of the violent and trapping nature of Los Angeles. The film ends on shots of newspapers saying that a young man was found dead after being tortured.
User review:
Fred Halsted spurted onto the gay porn scene just as the genre was gathering momentum as well as a modicum of "real world" respectability. The year was 1972 and groundbreaking adult movies like Gerard Damiano's THROAT and MISS JONES and the Mitchell Brothers' decidedly different GREEN DOOR had instigated the all too short-lived "Porno Chic" trend on the straight end of a budding skin flick industry. With his homo hardcore harbinger BOYS IN THE SAND, Broadway choreographer turned erotic "auteur" Wakefield Poole actually preceded what was to become known as the genre's Big Three by facilitating his film's first screenings in late '71. In truth, Halsted beat them all to the punch, or indeed might have if endless delays and difficulties hadn't kept him from finishing his still astonishing first work a full four (!) years after initial shooting had begun as early as 1968. Staking out his position in a slowly filling market place, he brought a downbeat West Coast sensibility to counteract the idealized imaginings of such early East Coast alumni like Poole and Jack Deveau.
It's impossible to discuss the life and work of Fred Halsted without taking into account his longtime lover Joseph "Joey" Yale, a down on his luck stage performer who attempted porn on a lark – not uncommon in those days among out of work thespians – and stuck around as the director's live-in lover and business partner in their production and distribution company Cosco until his AIDS-related death in 1986. Three years later, Fred would take his own life, overdosing on sleeping pills, even though at least one source (The Leather Journal) claimed he had shot himself through the head instead. His oft-cited suicide note read : "I had a good life. I've had looks, a body, money, success and artistic triumphs. I've had the love of my life. I see no reason to go on." May they both rest in peace…

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