the
chameleon
by Douglas Messerli
“Oscar Wild” (pseudonymous director)
The Surprise of a Knight / c. 1929 [Difficult to obtain]
The Surprise of a Knight was released under the pseudonymous attribution of “Oscar
Wild” in 1929, a film which many proclaim to be the first USA gay porn film
devoted exclusively to homosexual intercourse. Given the several short films
I’ve seen from the early part of the century, there was a certainly a history
of this long before in Europe. Moreover, even though it also portrays
heterosexual sex, Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly (1920) most
certainly does portray scenes of exclusive gay male sex. But I’ll accept this
as the first American gay porno film, for whatever value one wants to make of
that designation.
Although the film has apparently been shown on the online film site, Mubi, it was
before the time that I subscribed and now seems to be basically unavailable,
although it is definitely available at the Kinsey Institute Collection of the
Indiana University. However, I have not seen this film, although I’m not
certain actually witnessing it is necessary to fully describe it or appreciate
it, and I have been able to find stills from the picture, reproduced below.
For all of its so-called exclusive male
credentials, evidently the film begins with an elegantly attired short-haired
woman who is completing her dressing as she awaits a visitor. She lifts “her”
skirts to reveal a think patch of pubic hair, powders herself, and enters a
drawing room where she offers “her” gentleman caller a drink. He refuses, so
she drinks it instead. After a brief conversation, they engage in intense
kissing, as in many such heterosexual encounters the “lady” pushing away his
hand whenever the attempts to touch her breasts or genitals, finally coyly
slapping him as to say, “You dirty man!” But apologizing for her coyness she
begins to suck him off.
Our “lady” friend finally lies face-down on the sofa, presenting her
buttocks for his delectation, in the process revealing that she is wearing no
undergarments.
The gentleman begins to copulate—although the film does not show any
actual penetration. After a few moments, the man withdraws, sitting back on the
sofa for a brief rest. The “lady,” gyrates her buttocks, inducing the gentleman
to mount her anally once more. Both reach orgasm and the gentleman pulls up his
pants and walks off.
The “lady” stands, raising her skirts to
reveal “she” is really a “he.” At least, that’s the standard interpretation.
But today, obviously, we might question whether this individual identifies as a
female or male, and ponder whether or not this is really a representation of
homosexual sex or sex between a transgender individual and a cis male.
Obviously, if that is what we are observing, it would be a far more significant
“first.”
However, the film apparently wishes to argue for the gay-sex
interpretation since the gentleman caller suddenly returns to help his lover
remove his/her skirt and all apparel, as the younger individual dances about
briefly as a nude young man, jump-cutting to a frame of him dressed in male
business attire, winking at the audience and walking off screen.
More recently there have been several different interpretations of this
male-on-male sexual film. Critics Thomas Waugh and Linda Williams have both
argued against the standard notion of the piece actually comprising a porn
film. Williams argues that such hardcore pornographic films were primarily
concerned with nudity and were focused on the display of genitalia and
penetration during intercourse, while in this work costume becomes the central
element. As Waugh argues, “The costume spectacle either steals the show or
becomes a grotesque distraction.” And the fact that it represents a central
character in drag merely reinforces heteronomy. The joke is the “surprise,”
which of course would have been utterly no surprise for those who purchased the
under-the-counter porno. I doubt that fact might transform the film
into a work of “faux homosexuality,” since the penis is finally revealed and we
recognize, if only after the fact, that the two lovers were both men; perhaps
it was simply felt to be a safer way to temporarily “cloak” the subject. Males
might, at least subliminally, imagine that the gentlemen (and themselves) had
been deceived.
The following year saw another such porn film, titled A Stiff Game,
in which an African-American male engages in fellatio with a Caucasian man
without any pretense of drag. But evidently there were no more such movies
(although again I have my doubts) until the 1970s.
Los Angeles, March 6, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema
Review (March 2022).
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