Bob Mizer | Space Mutiny / 1950

pulling rank

by Douglas Messerli

 

Bob Mizer (director) Space Mutiny / 1950

 

In physique director Bob Mizer’s 1950 black-and-white space epic, the commander of a space ship, dressed only in a posing strap, calls in two of his space-traveling assistants to demonstrate on the controls just what the problem seems to be.

     Both boys, who in these early scenes quickly appear to sprout erections, look on as the commander explains the situation, but apparently they don’t at all agree with his directions, and when in the midst of argument, he strips from their posing jocks what appear to be small decorative tinsel tassels as if they were military bars and stripes, they turn on him in full mutiny.

     Most of the short consists of the trio in full wrestling mode as they undergo the typical Mizer twists and turns of nearly full-naked bodies, filled with sweat, muscular ambition, and erotic evidence. The mutineers win the match and with their leader now passed out, they re-correct their apparent course of action, pleased with their ability to switch the situation.

 

      The lovely last moments of this cute pre-porno cinema, made in the very same year as the important gay classics, Un chant d’amour by Jean Genet and Orpheus by Jean Cocteau, the American boys proudly reveal their names. In those significant treasures of Europe, men surreptitiously meet up through tiny holes in the wall through which they share the erotic touch of rolled paper or in the case of the latter film, when they crash through mirrored realities. In the American version they just immediately get down to business with a good bodily workout of flesh-on-flesh. As brilliantly symbolic as Genet’s and Cocteau’s fables are, Mizer’s sweaty body workouts are far more to the point and say so very much about crass, in-the-mud USA culture—despite its far more intense fear of sexuality—that it’s hilariously profound as well as being just plain campy long before that word was even in the LGBTQ+ lexicon.

     Although it appears there were only three boys involved in the mutiny, Ronnie Wallace, Gerald Sullivan, and Dave Haupert, the naked boys keep appearing, suggesting that either in numerous intercuts or behind the scenes, Jim Lassiter, Chuck Davis, Rocky Ridge, and Louis La Venture were also involved, turning it truly into a Mizer epic.

 

Los Angeles, June 30, 2024 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog