A Gay Guide to Cruising

One of the more consistently dependable presences in early gay hardcore, Tom DeSimone didn't make every film a winner, but he had a higher batting average than most, at least generally seeming to be enjoying what he was doing. GAY GUIDE TO CRUISING is a great example. Adopting a pseudo-doc format, the film was probably produced in the very early '70s, when the genre was popular, and before DeSimone settled into a more listless routine grinding out interchangeable "Lancer Brooks" titles like ASSAULT, SWAP MEAT and BLACK HEAT.

Film opens with 10 minutes' worth of documentary set-up before getting down to business, and it's (surprisingly) legitimately funny. Headlining David Quinte, also of DeSimone's indescribably worse HIGHWAY HUSTLER, the film opens with funny LAUGH-IN-style lessons - mostly acted out on a barely-dressed soundstage - of how to pick up guys. The film has instructions on whom to avoid (prissy, well-dressed guys; drug addicts; and "stupid gays"), how to come up with a more inventive pickup line, and how to get things going once you get back to your (or his!) place. Just as I was beginning to wonder if the film was ever going to go hard, around the 10-minute mark it finally gets to business, and might more aptly have been titled A GAY GUIDE TO SEX from then on.

Film features a bevy of handsome, boyish models, and cycles through them as they demonstrate different sexual techniques, in a matter not dissimilar to Matt Cimber's early straight white coater MAN & WIFE (though without that film's obsession with near-endless positional iterations). Fellatio, mutual masturbation, and even kissing are demonstrated (the latter surprisingly one of the film's hottest scenes, revealing in a romantic passion missing from most modern-day porn). Another key indicator this is an early production: most of the scenes don't finish in ejaculations, that particular element of porn grammar apparently not having been set in stone yet. Film concludes with a demonstration of anal intercourse (another hot scene, with two handsome blond guys), and a sad attempt at S&M that seems to be shooting for SCORPIO RISING but lands more in the area of Meatloaf in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.

In all honesty, as a sex film, this is a mess - most of the actors have persistent wood problems, and frequently seem ill-at-ease in front of the camera. Nevertheless, there's something so nice about seeing the kind of wholesome, boy-next-door types the film captures from the dawn of the gay rights era, that in the light of historical perspective, all is forgiven. That DeSimone manages a bit of actual humor and intelligence in his documentary segments is just icing on the cake - more proof that even at this early stage in the career, he was one of the best in the game.