Kris Studios Chicago (Charles Renslow and Dom Orejudos) | The Plumber / 1967

clean sex

by Douglas Messerli

 

Kris Studios Chicago (Charles Renslow and Dom Orejudos) (director) The Plumber / 1967

 

This beefcake production was filmed by the noted Kris Studios of Chicago. The story, as in many such a posing strap movie, does not feature any sex—and least within the framework of the film itself. But we certainly do know what these boys are washing up for, other than primarily our delectation.

      Model Don Dunne has decided to take a shower, and the movie presents him seemingly in the nude, but when the water seems to be depleted, he suddenly puts on a posing strap and calls up the local plumber, appropriate attire for a come-on.

      The plumber (Tony Pagan) arrives, also a cute hunk, who tries to figure out what is wrong with the water output, but tricked by Don, soon gets wet himself. Off go his clothes as well, he too enjoying a shower, Don providing him with towels before he returns to take a proper shower.

      Waiting for him to finish, Tony get impatient and soon joins him, permitting us a lovely shower duo a bit like the stereographs viewing of Victorian days.

      In each of these cases, the camera focuses on the butt and covered penis, which in Tony’s case is quite visible through him white posing strap.

      The soaping up and the seemingly endless teases of the camera as it focuses on the derriere and cock, is what this film is all about. In fact, it’s little other than a frustrating tease for contemporary audiences, with none of the usual body contact through wrestling introduced by Los Angeles Beefcake filmmaker Bob Mizer, and a far cry from Mizer's full nude shorts he was making that same year. 

     Only at the end, with Don lays out on his couch, butt up and Tony finally approaches him do we get any suggestion of possible sex, too late of course, since it’s left up now to our imaginations.

     Imagination, in fact, was what most Beefcake movies were all about. The beautiful bodies which pretended to proffer up simply models of what males might embody, had to be caught, fondled, and fucked in the viewer’s imagination, which some viewers still might prefer.

     Certainly, it is a long way from today’s porn shoots where absolutely nothing is left to our imaginations, and our engagement with the work is primarily that of voyeur.

 

Los Angeles, June 21, 2025| Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2025).