Year Released: 1971
Director: Tom DeSimone

Cast: Larry Danser, D.C. Michaels, Ruffin Tumble, Sky Kinque, Myona Phetish

Sex and rock-and-roll! This psychedelic look at times gone by details handsome Larry Danser's travails as a male groupie in the early 1970s. The sex debauchery of the rock 'n' roll world of the '70s gets a gay twist in this quirky, wildly hedonistic vintage gay porn cautionary tale, which is possibly the ultimate hippie porn. Subtitled (in homage to Stanley Kubrick and his black sense of humor) "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Electric Banana," this slice of a certain kind of life incorporates and captures the freewheeling abandon of post-hippie culture in Hollywood. At times this film is both shocking and radical, with its scenes of partying, free love and celebration of pleasure for pleasure's sake, but ultimately the rapturous ride of the main character, known only as The Groupie, ends badly.

As for the sex, well, there ain't no anal here, only some blowjobs and sixty-nining, but anyone who sees this film will realize that the sex is not the point. Larry Danser, The Groupie, begins his journey listening to a record on headphones and being sucked into a psychedelic freak out/jerk off scene. His fever dream that begins with him dancing in a white-fringed poncho and ends with a jack off session. The camera traces his hot, little body as he works his erection; his face tilts back in ecstasy as droplets of pudding splatter onto his torso.

Somehow this experience changes him and he decides to travel cross-country to Los Angeles. He explains, as he walks along the streets of Anycity U.S.A., how America looked a lot like his hometown, only bigger. He reaches Hollywood and, in what can be understood as the movie's theme, tells us, "when I hit Hollywood it hit me back."

He meets Sweet Lady Mary, a large queen of the groupies who looks stunningly like Mama Cass. She introduces him to a hedonistic lifestyle of lying about eating chocolate, smoking, and sauntering around town in fabulous clothes. Mary is also the woman all rock stars visit when in town. She and The Groupie spend most of their time hanging out, waiting for the next group to arrive. Soon enough, The Electric Banana makes their way into Mary's house and The Groupie's heart. The Electric Banana, who we see performing a song on stage for a roaring crowd, is a three-man mess of long hair and a lust for all things illegal. Two of the members, Jeff and Frank, are lovers. One night, they make stoned love on Mary's bed as she sits on an adjacent chair licking a lollipop in tandem with their oral exchanges.

The Groupie is officially hooked; now he wants the rock 'n' roll life, especially Steve, the other, well-endowed member of the band. Mary teaches The Groupie how to make plaster casts of rock star cocks (Cynthia Plaster Caster anyone?) so he can reach his goal of getting with Steve. Before this happens, though, he jacks off to an album cover and Mary takes a chilled out, trippy bubble bath - a beautifully pink-lit solo nude fantasy sequence. Finally, The Groupie casts Steve's member and the two get it on, though the sex is all gangly face fucking and tentative kissing.

The film abruptly ends with a wonderfully shot and edited "anything goes" party that features various bedazzled men and women doing all sorts of sordid things. This sequence features an indoor swinset, dancing, lots of horsing around and smoking, and amazing glittering make-up and outfits on all genders of partygoers, and includes in the crowd a trans couple (together in real life) who were the subjects of two Penelope Spheeris short documentary films. As a document of a real community of queer friends and lovers of the early '70s, this scene alone makes checking out this film well worthwhile.

The Groupie then explains that all of this happened three years ago and since then he's been busted, Mary has died, and the Electric Banana broke up because one of the members was drafted. The Groupie hitchhikes back to his small home town. Even in the midst of the decade of liberation some people knew that it was going to come to a crashing halt.

However, I don't think that even Tom DeSimone (director of The Idol, Catching Up, Dust Unto Dust, Hot Truckin' and many more gay porn classics, as well as Reform School Girls), who always snuck conservative messages into his films, knew what was really coming... the 1980s. Nonetheless, Confessions of a Male Groupie is a unique testament to a world that can never exist again.