Skin Deep (1982) Gay

Response to Pleasure Beach (1983) was so strong we're reseeding Skin Deep, made a year earlier with the same stars - Michael Christopher and Johnny Dawes. A street hustler and a porn writer are starred-crossed in this precondom gay porn classic.

From IMBD:



Johnny Got His Man
22 September 2006 | by Dries Vermeulen (Dirtymoviedevotee) (Brugge, Belgium) – See all my reviews

*** This review may contain spoilers ***


Before he became something of an affectionately remembered footnote in the history of exploitation cinema with stuff like REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS and HELL NIGHT, Tom De Simone (a/k/a "Lancer Brooks") was one of the finest gay porn filmmakers around. He won everlasting industry fame with his celebration of the late, great Al Parker's awesome sexual versatility in THE IDOL as well as for creating the best of the bisexual movies with BI-COASTAL starring underrated Cara Lott and the ever welcome David Ashfield. He also made the extremely peculiar HEAVY EQUIPMENT in 3-D, a tantalizing prospect considering the cast was headed by a very active Jack Wrangler. His best and perhaps most ambitious work however remains SKIN DEEP, a stunningly shot tale of sexual attraction that by film's end could possibly turn into something more…

Prior to their more famous teaming in Arthur J. Bressan's flawless PLEASURE BEACH, the late Johnny Dawes and too hunky for his own good Michael Christopher star as a lonely porno writer and the level-headed hustler he fancies respectively. Dawes keeps bringing Christopher over to stay the night for equal parts lust and literary inspiration, claiming he wants the great, unspecified "more" from him while at the same time preserving the social and emotional distance between them. Well-written dialog strongly establishes both characters, vividly brought to life through stellar performances. Christopher was always a bit wooden (and opinions about his looks vary wildly, some considering him downright ugly, the blasphemy !) but somehow that actually works for him here, underlining the hustler's finely drawn line between the role he plays for his customers and his real, well-protected persona. Dawes, the Richie Cunningham of gay porn, on the other hand was one of the very best actors the genre has ever seen, combining a battered sensitivity with a steely determination to just get on with his life.

There are just five sex scenes in this movie but, to quote one genre critic, any more and you would need a third hand ! The two stars are up first and display spectacular chemistry. Christopher returns for a fleetingly filthy shower scene (in more ways than one…) with too frequently overlooked Benjamin Barker, the nerdy kid with Steve York in the pre-credits opener to William Higgins' BOYS OF SAN FRANCISCO, now sadly also no longer with us. Beautiful blond Beau Matthews, who'd play one of Christopher's tricks in PLEASURE BEACH, and dark hunk Giorgio Canali from Higgins' immensely popular jock opera THESE BASES ARE LOADED appear in my favorite scene here, a languorous hot tub encounter that builds up a full head of steam, perfectly lit, shot, edited and scored with some sort of teasing tango rhythm. Dawes' editor, fly by night Matt Michaels (whose only other credit seems to be Peter Demetri's STUD STRUCK), gets a rent boy fantasy of his own with the always amazing Chris Burns, a performer known for his seemingly limitless rectal capability who probably fulfilled some kind of lifelong ambition by accommodating the King himself in THE PRIVATE PLEASURES OF JOHN HOLMES. The final sequence starts out with the two stars now "making love" rather than just having sex with the rest of the cast gradually joining in, signifying that Dawes' character may not be quite ready for commitment just yet.