Seed Money

A decent historical documentary of one of the major producers and distributors of gaymale pornography, director/writer Michael Stabile has collected a dozen or more interviews with men who directed (Chi Chi Larue, Jim Bentley, John Rutherford) or starred in them (older survivors such as Jeff Stryker and Tom Chase), a lover/co-producer (Steven Scarborough) and a prime observer of the results (John Waters), all of whom knew the founder of Falcon, Chuck Holmes.

Seemingly well-researched, Stabile records the long run of Falcon and how Holmes turned more and more to gay-activism and AIDS-related charitable contributions with the proceeds of his work (beginning with rough 8mm "loops," to VHS, thence to DVD), to groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT Victory Fund, and ACT-UP (not all his sizeable donations were accepted by moralists within all the communities affected, oddly enough). But Holmes' films and videos reflected his own changing tastes in men from hunky blonds to hairy, mustachioed "real-men."

Falcon covered just about all the varied sexual tastes from kissing (although Holmes had to be convinced there was a market for that), to frottage, to S&M/Bondage, anal-action and the ubiquitous blow-jobs. Nothing, apparently, was too kinky for Falcon (well, no snuff films that we know of, thankfully).

The interviews are lengthy and the clips from the films selective, but it does cover about fifty years of a still-thriving business, although with the freebie-internet fare, unit-sales have declined from the heyday of its once-expanding and then-extensive business.

Of particular interest are the extended interviews in the Bonus Features section, with some surprising articulates such as Stryker, along with the usual odd-eyed ideas of the talented Waters, plus a slimmed-down drag queen who made his career in this field, Chi-Chi Larue, Jake Shears, and Chase and Bentley as well as others, giving us a comfortable build on the Mid-Westerner Holmes, and how his sexual tastes helped influence America's and the World's views on same-gender sexuality.

At 71 minutes in the main documentary, plus ninety-minutes-or-so of the Bonus interviews, Stabile has created a fine examination of one studio and its conflicted owner, and what we owe to Holmes for our refined sexual freedoms-of-expression.