Principle photography has already been completed on a new documentary about early gay porn director Wakefield Poole. Best known for “Boys In The Sand“, Poole showed up in person for a fundraiser to help complete the movie.
I attended the fundraiser last Friday which included a screening of clips from the new documentary, “Dirty Poole”, and from newly remastered versions of Poole’s films “Bijou” and Wakefield Poole’s “Bible”, followed by a reception for Wakefield Poole and his producer on Boys in the Sand and Bijou, Marvin Shulman. Also in attendance was the documentary’s director and producer Jim Tushinski (“That Man: Peter Berlin“).
The sign that Wakefield Poole and documentary director Jim Tushinski are posing with is an original prop from “Bijou”. The movie is about an underground “everything goes” fantasy sex club, and that sign is the first thing patrons see upon entering. The prop sign has been passed around several times, and is now back in the hands of the film maker.
The newly restored clips showed his artistry as a filmmaker and the men were absolutely hot. As an unexpected bonus, I went out for a drink at the Eagle later and another guy who also went to the screening brought his newly restored copy of “Bijou” for them to show at the bar.
Dirty Poole tells the story of Wakefield Poole – an overlooked gay liberation and independent film pioneer. In an era when anyone making, promoting, or appearing in what the US government considered “pornography” could be liable for prosecution and incarceration, Poole was a remarkably open and honest gay filmmaker who used his real name. Subsequently he became internationally famous and his movies screened for years as examples of films that could be artistic as well as sexually explicit.
An outspoken and articulate artist in a turbulent, passionate time, Wakefield Poole didn’t think of himself as a pornographer. He was a filmmaker who used his dance and theater background to create beautiful, erotic art films that “challenged the mind as well as the crotch.” To many, though, Poole just made dirty movies. But the enormous financial success of Poole’s films in the early 1970s changed the face of independent and gay film making, propelled hoards of gay men out of the closet, and helped start the modern gay porn industry.
In the late 1970s, Poole was one of the owners of Hot Flash of America, an influential and much loved art gallery/retail store/hair salon on Market Street in San Francisco.
All donations to Dirty Poole are tax deductible to the full extent of the law thanks to the fiscal sponsorship of the San Francisco Film Society. Please visit www.dirtypoole.com or more information.
WATCH WAKEFIELD POOLE MOVIES ONLINE
