Now an artifact nearly 40 years old, A DEEP COMPASSION remains a gay porn classic, representing a sentimental, idealized tradition rarely found in either straight or gay hardcore anymore. Characters walking off hand in hand at the finish (there was a famous gay porn distributor called Hand in Hand Films, typical of this approach) says it all.
Brad Kingston's well-remembered opus is Romantic with a capital R. For all its faults (which I will endeavor to describe) it presents a fantasy homosexual union that is interesting in its own right.
SPOILERS ALERT:
David Arlen stars as Carl, a blind boy who looks to be in his early 20s, living in a remote cabin with his brother Johnny (Robert Weaver). Film opens somewhat awkwardly with an alarm bell ringing, and seeming criminal Rocky (Duane Ferguson) escaping on a motorcycle he stashed. Johnny and car driver Bill (Tom Ringo) meet up with him and escape to nearby Carl & Johnny's cabin, where they need to trek on foot to reach the remote location.
Filmmaker Kingston fails to establish what's going on in this first reel, which plays like a real movie. I thought Rocky was escaping from a police station, but whether he was instead completing a heist is not obvious from the footage shown.
At this point an attentive viewer will be confused (that includes me) by the complete disappearance from the narrative of Bill, the getaway driver. He doesn't show up in the next scene when the boys arrive at the cabin and is never mentioned again, yet for such a non-speaking fleeting bit part Tom Ringo is credited at both the opening and closing of the film. Possibly the 1972 theatrical version was longer, with another scene (sex scene perhaps?) involving him?
Once the trio are settled in at the cabin, Carl evidences effeminate aspects to his personality - caring for his brother and doing the cooking, etc. I doubt if A DEEP COMPASSION has been viewed, either in its Gay Cinemas release of the '70s or more recent specialized video distribution, by many women, but would be curious to hear their reaction, as Carl's character is an obvious one for the fair sex to identify with among the genre's all-male cast.
Besides the confusing plot line of the first reel, there is a technical error in the video, wherein a 20-second scene of Carl putting a classical LP on his Magnavox stereo to listen to is repeated twice in succession, bad editing. This might be a video transfer problem, with two prints sourced and no one noticing the obvious repetition, but it is jarring in any event.
I thought Kingston misstepped again soon after with an overlong sex scene between Johnny and Rocky. Bored playing gin rummy, they segue to mechanical sex, alternating various positions and dominant/submissive, with Johnny getting the better of the deal. This sequence lasts 16 minutes and lacks passion, merely pushing the film into pure porn territory, losing any semblance of a "real film with sex sequences" status. I guess giving the fans what they paid for trumped the notion of making a good film, as the tedious sequence could easily have been staged and edited as a 4-minute wonder, not interfering with the movie's narrative thrust.
Carl hears their moaning & groaning and one assumes the blind boy has figured out what transpired. He wanders outside to a tree and as sentimental music plays on the soundtrack he expresses his loneliness in a touching, heart-on-sleeve performance. Magically, an idealized physical specimen in the form of Jim/Rick Cassidy appears to him, his seemingly imaginary playmate.
They hold hands, smooch and Carl gives this "Love God" (couldn't be further afield from Don Knotts!) a sensual blow job, followed by Rick "getting behind thee" for a stand-up anal sex finish. Unlike the two guys Johnny and Rocky who had a mighty hard time achieving erections in the earlier scene, Cassidy is proudly pointed skyward, and the overall effect of this classic scene is Romantic, rather than raw sex on screen.
After Cassidy's in-your-face money shot, Carl professes the wish to stay with him always, and Cassidy ominously announces "we will be forever soon", setting up the movie's tragic conclusion. Sort of a sex-change JOHNNY BELINDA, with Carl holed up in the cabin with Rocky while Johnny's away.
Bored playing solitaire, Rocky attacks Carl and rapes him in a nasty, violent extended sequence. Rocky shows no remorse as he leaves the kid battered and shattered, even promising a second helping later on, so Carl picks up a pool cue and bashes the sleeping Rocky to death, accompanied by dollops of pirated Bernard Herrmann music from PSYCHO. He flees nude outside, plummeting to his death (bloodily) in a ravine.
As a heavenly choir sings, Cassidy reappears, saying "and now, we will be together, forever" and they walk off hand-in-hand to the strains of Herrmann's MARNIE score.
This contrast of "roughie" violence, and sickly sweet romantic love is a potent combination, one not likely to be found in hetero films, even those of the weirder porn-makers like the Findlays or Damiano. Kingston should have played up the siblings' relationship here, left undeveloped and almost as blank as the non-character Bill the getaway driver.
David Arlen followed up his moving performance as Carl by directing and starring in a rather pretentious feature THE LIGHT FROM THE SECOND STORY WINDOW (using the name David Allen), reuniting with Cassidy.
Cassidy, so familiar as a stud in dozens of hetero porn films, dominates the movie, which apparently had little effect on his straight career, as his obvious larger-than-life qualities were not properly exploited by mainstream directors.
Brad Kingston's well-remembered opus is Romantic with a capital R. For all its faults (which I will endeavor to describe) it presents a fantasy homosexual union that is interesting in its own right.
SPOILERS ALERT:
David Arlen stars as Carl, a blind boy who looks to be in his early 20s, living in a remote cabin with his brother Johnny (Robert Weaver). Film opens somewhat awkwardly with an alarm bell ringing, and seeming criminal Rocky (Duane Ferguson) escaping on a motorcycle he stashed. Johnny and car driver Bill (Tom Ringo) meet up with him and escape to nearby Carl & Johnny's cabin, where they need to trek on foot to reach the remote location.
Filmmaker Kingston fails to establish what's going on in this first reel, which plays like a real movie. I thought Rocky was escaping from a police station, but whether he was instead completing a heist is not obvious from the footage shown.
At this point an attentive viewer will be confused (that includes me) by the complete disappearance from the narrative of Bill, the getaway driver. He doesn't show up in the next scene when the boys arrive at the cabin and is never mentioned again, yet for such a non-speaking fleeting bit part Tom Ringo is credited at both the opening and closing of the film. Possibly the 1972 theatrical version was longer, with another scene (sex scene perhaps?) involving him?
Once the trio are settled in at the cabin, Carl evidences effeminate aspects to his personality - caring for his brother and doing the cooking, etc. I doubt if A DEEP COMPASSION has been viewed, either in its Gay Cinemas release of the '70s or more recent specialized video distribution, by many women, but would be curious to hear their reaction, as Carl's character is an obvious one for the fair sex to identify with among the genre's all-male cast.
Besides the confusing plot line of the first reel, there is a technical error in the video, wherein a 20-second scene of Carl putting a classical LP on his Magnavox stereo to listen to is repeated twice in succession, bad editing. This might be a video transfer problem, with two prints sourced and no one noticing the obvious repetition, but it is jarring in any event.
I thought Kingston misstepped again soon after with an overlong sex scene between Johnny and Rocky. Bored playing gin rummy, they segue to mechanical sex, alternating various positions and dominant/submissive, with Johnny getting the better of the deal. This sequence lasts 16 minutes and lacks passion, merely pushing the film into pure porn territory, losing any semblance of a "real film with sex sequences" status. I guess giving the fans what they paid for trumped the notion of making a good film, as the tedious sequence could easily have been staged and edited as a 4-minute wonder, not interfering with the movie's narrative thrust.
Carl hears their moaning & groaning and one assumes the blind boy has figured out what transpired. He wanders outside to a tree and as sentimental music plays on the soundtrack he expresses his loneliness in a touching, heart-on-sleeve performance. Magically, an idealized physical specimen in the form of Jim/Rick Cassidy appears to him, his seemingly imaginary playmate.
They hold hands, smooch and Carl gives this "Love God" (couldn't be further afield from Don Knotts!) a sensual blow job, followed by Rick "getting behind thee" for a stand-up anal sex finish. Unlike the two guys Johnny and Rocky who had a mighty hard time achieving erections in the earlier scene, Cassidy is proudly pointed skyward, and the overall effect of this classic scene is Romantic, rather than raw sex on screen.
After Cassidy's in-your-face money shot, Carl professes the wish to stay with him always, and Cassidy ominously announces "we will be forever soon", setting up the movie's tragic conclusion. Sort of a sex-change JOHNNY BELINDA, with Carl holed up in the cabin with Rocky while Johnny's away.
Bored playing solitaire, Rocky attacks Carl and rapes him in a nasty, violent extended sequence. Rocky shows no remorse as he leaves the kid battered and shattered, even promising a second helping later on, so Carl picks up a pool cue and bashes the sleeping Rocky to death, accompanied by dollops of pirated Bernard Herrmann music from PSYCHO. He flees nude outside, plummeting to his death (bloodily) in a ravine.
As a heavenly choir sings, Cassidy reappears, saying "and now, we will be together, forever" and they walk off hand-in-hand to the strains of Herrmann's MARNIE score.
This contrast of "roughie" violence, and sickly sweet romantic love is a potent combination, one not likely to be found in hetero films, even those of the weirder porn-makers like the Findlays or Damiano. Kingston should have played up the siblings' relationship here, left undeveloped and almost as blank as the non-character Bill the getaway driver.
David Arlen followed up his moving performance as Carl by directing and starring in a rather pretentious feature THE LIGHT FROM THE SECOND STORY WINDOW (using the name David Allen), reuniting with Cassidy.
Cassidy, so familiar as a stud in dozens of hetero porn films, dominates the movie, which apparently had little effect on his straight career, as his obvious larger-than-life qualities were not properly exploited by mainstream directors.