Gay Video Review	Gay Video Reviews Archive

Memories
Rating: 2 Stars
Produced and directed by Rockford T. Bets. No additional credits provided.
How to order

Le Salon is a production entity dating back to the dawn of aboveground, commercial gay film. In 1970, the San Francisco-based operation released Cycle Studs, which may have been the first American gay, hardcore movie to be openly distributed and publicly screened. In 2005, Le Salon's early-1970s releases retain some potency, but have to be viewed as artifacts of their time-- as pioneering, shoestring products of an adult film industry still in the throes of inventing itself. The sound is bad, the dubbing is atrocious, the stock is grainy, and production values hardly exist. But the rawness of these films add to their occasional erotic sting.

<

View our poll archive

I> Memories is possibly the best of a spate of early Le Salon multi-reelers now available on DVD. Others include Men of Big Sur, the interracial CUM-pany ASS-ets, and two volumes entitled California Homegrown; all feature cheerfully horny models whose relaxed, ante-condom innocence is charming and hot. In Memories, a man in a bathrobe lies on a bed reviewing his sexual past. There are a couple of tricks ("I remember this pretty number I found in the park... wearing Levis with the ass ripped out...."), a foursome that develops during a swimming party, and a social gathering where guests slip off to fuck. Some of the fashions are a bit much-- those plaid pants are enough to make Austin Powers hurl-- but most of the clothes aren't worn for long. The unwaxed, natural bodies on view are more softly defined than those of most contemporary models; the flesh you see seems pliable and real.

Since each of these films is a fragment of gay men's heritage, some background lore would have enhanced their resurrection on video. But we aren't even told just when these productions were made. (Memories seems to emanate from somewhere between 1971 and '75.) Purchasers of the California Homegrown volumes should be warned that despite the label touting bareback action, these two films are little more than cheaply thrown-together compilations of jerkoff loops. The other films do contain pre-AIDS bareback sex.