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Friday, August 01, 2003

PASSING STRANGERS


"I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you."

director: Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (1974)
Starring: Robert Adams and Robert Carnagey; Bob Middleton (Robert's voice), Edward Guthman (Tom's voice), A. J. Bressan, Jr. (projectionist - that's his pic on the far left, above), Jerry Johnson (projectionist's voice), Robert Jerome (TV announcer); on Polk Street: Grant Ditzler, Patrick Lee, Leon McGraw, Darrell Mascall; at the baths: Richard Locke and Eddie Cadena; bubble sequence: David Dehr, Terry Hunter, Chuck Feil, John Thompson, Richard Klingerman, Ralph Osborn, and Wayne Woodcock.

Nearly 30 years old, this film is about a man who places a personal ad in the paper (stumped for what to say, he uses a Walt Whitman poem), and an 18-year-old boy who lives at home with his parents responds. Much of the film is narrated by the correspondence between the two, but they do finally meet. Great footage of early 1970's San Francisco, including the Gay Freedom Day March. Loneliness, coming out, and other themes are touched upon, most notably the theme of younger/older male couplings (only 10 years separates the two); he revisits that theme again in his 1976 film Forbidden Letters, and to critical acclaim in his non-porn Abuse (which also explores other controversial themes - Check out the two Amazon.com customer reviews to get differing reactions to the film).