Frameline47: Ask Any Buddy

A Marilyn Monroe impersonator getting a blowjob. A busy gloryhole with “Edith Head gives wardrobe” scrawled above it. A jockstrap contest at the End Up. Ask Any Buddy offers a thrilling historical document of queer life during the liberation era, told through fragments from over 120 hardcore porn films from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

A companion to the popular Instagram account and podcast, Ask Any Buddy does not contextualize these clips with narration or interviews. Instead, film historian and director Elizabeth Purchell deftly weaves them together to offer a celebration of a bygone era, reveling in both the fantasies and realities of post-Stonewall porn. Though we see familiar faces like Al Parker, Casey Donovan, and Peter Berlin and work from the gay porn auteurs Wakefield Poole, Arthur J. Bressan, Jacques Scandelari, Fred Halsted, and Tom DeSimone, much of what is showcased is footage digitized from Purchell’s own collection. There are rare clips from rallies, the West Side piers, parades, bathhouses, and adult theaters, resulting in a brilliant and erotic kaleidoscope of sex and freedom.

Special guest: director Elizabeth Purchell

Presented as part of Frameline47 International Film Festival.