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Story Film Classics 42
12 plotted short films from the 1950s and 1960s
compiled by Bob Mizer
How to order

It's best to come right out and say it: the new DVD collections of American Model Guild (AMG) films from the 1950s to the 1970s that are being released by the newly invigorated AMG (and distributed by Colt) are the best thing to happen to gay history in years. With the exception of a few VHS tapes of some of AMG's 1950s soft-core, posing-strap eight-millimeter films, the enormous output of the famed American Model Guild factory-- over 3,000 short films and nearly a million still photographs-- has been unavailable.

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For anyone who showed up late: the American Model Guild was started by Bob Mizer in 1943 and was the premiere producer of photographs and films of scantily clad, and later naked, men. Most people know his work through his magazine Physique Pictorial-- the most noted, and important, of the physique and muscle magazines that flourished during the 1950s and 1960s, and which became the basis for present-day gay porn. Much of Mizer's work, produced between 1942 and 1992 in his Los Angeles studio, were published in Physique Pictorial, but he also sold them through a thriving mail-order catalogue business. Along with these photographic studies-- the images were to be used by aspiring artists who wanted to draw "from life" but could not afford models; ahhh, the innocence of the 1950s-- Mizer also produced short films. Some of these were plot-driven-- i.e. a young man is robbed by a teenage hood, they wrestle and pull off each others' clothing, a cop comes along, he wrestles and gets his clothing torn off as well, they all wrestle. Other films just featured stand-and-smile posing.

Issues of Physique Pictorial have become gay collector items over the years-- Mizer began publication in 1951 and the magazine continued until 1990. Relatively rarer are his photographs, and Mizer's films, because celluloid is so fragile and there were fewer of them, are far harder to come by. Now the AMG photos and films are available once again. In February 2004, Dennis Bell purchased the entire estate of Bob Mizer (and all of the AMG materials) and has restarted the company. This means that the largest-- and probably the best and most diverse-- treasure-trove of vintage gay visual culture will be preserved and available once again.

Bell is a photographer with a long-standing interest in historic physical photos-- check out www.posingstrap.com and www.physiquelibrary.com. He plans to make available the bulk of Mizer's work as well as produce new images under the auspices of AMG. While AMG will continue offering quality reproduction of Mizer's images, the real thrill for film buffs are the DVDs that are slowly being released.

The first releases from the new AMG were astonishing. Best Size 35 is a compilation of JO and duo scenes from the 1980s that Mizer had videotaped, while he was filming. The advent of video moved Mizer to a whole new level of physique art, since he could now film his models from when they entered the studio to when they finished the shoot. AMG has also released Story Film Classics 42, which is a compilation of 12 plotted short films from the 1950s and 1960s. These are the films that we most associate with the early AMG output: stagy, inept, clumsy, and with titles like Jailhouse Rumble, The Revenge of the Statues, and Cleopatra and the Blonde Slave. Seen now, they are charming, funny, and quite sexy.

Since the release of those first DVDs, the new AMG has released the first three (out of five) DVDs entitled Fantasy Factory-- which are collections of AMG story films, wrestling films, and posing sessions from the 1950s to the 1970s. Some of these were released several years ago by Campfire Video, but the quality of these DVDs is far better, and they have myriad "extras" as well. The newest releases are two mammoth DVD collections of wrestling tapes from the 1980s. These collections-- each four hours long-- are exhaustively comprehensive.

Bring on the anthropologists

So what-- aside from the erotic content-- do these DVDs bring us? Watching them is fascinating from a historical perspective. Not only are we privileged to witness a gay imagination at work decades ago, but the haircuts, the clothing, the bodies, the body language, the tattoos, the speech, and the affect of the models are glimpses into postwar gay culture that are no longer easily available. These films give us rare documentary footage that is historically invaluable.

Viewers will have their own favorites-- I favor the story films from the 1950s myself; the wresting films of the 1980s all seem to blur together, although Mizer's relationship to his models and actors is always fascinating. But there is, as they say in Hollywood, something for everyone here.

The AMG website offers a wide range of photographs as well as the DVDs-- check out www.athleticmodelguild.com-- as well as a timeline for Mizer's life and work.

The newly reinvigorated AMG is a boon to gay culture, gay history, and gay men that will have lasting impact.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com