Beefcake (1999)

Thomas Cawood, Daniel MacIvor, Joshua Peace, Jaime Robertson, Orest E. Ulan ... see more  , Carroll Godsman , Glen Deveau , Jonathan Torrens , Andrew Hiller , Jack Griffin Mazeika , Marla McLean , Joe Dallesandro , Joe Leitel , Daniel McLaren , Bernard Robichaud , Jim Lassiter , Russ Warner , Marc St. Onge , Jack La Lanne , Steven MacLaughlin , Andy Skith , Dave Martin , Wayne Stanley , James MacSwain , Valentine Hooven , Michael Weir , Marc Le Blanc , Lucy Decoutere , Joe Dacey , Mark Burt , Brian Breau , Jane Kansas , Dick Sircon , Thom Fitzgerald , Timothy Phillips , Jonathan Langlois-Sadubin , Renee Penney , Hegan Richards , Liz Anderson , Sarah Dunsworth , Katy Pedersen , Mitchell Landzaat , Stephen Arnold , Wayne Bedwell , Reuben Lee Aulds , Larry Dunn , Bobby Lawrence , Dick Schidler , Brad Allen , Gary Herman , Ed James , Johnnie Dylan , Ed McMakan , Dave Gable , Paul Jackson , Lester Cole & Frank Melford , Eddie Stevens , Dave Stubbs , Buddy Love , Larry Ahrendt , Bob Lawrence , Dave Connly , Johnny Stacy , Boris Demitroff , Kenny Aloha , Lucky Rand , Robert Akron , Gerald James , Bob Kennedy , Terry Caldwell , David Jones , Jerry Silvey , Lenny Schwartz , John Manning , Ron Thompson , Skeeter Block , Mitch Hardin , Bob Glennon , Bob Akers , Jim Walsh , Bob Shaefer , Bob Jackson , Dino Ferzanno , Eddie O'Malley , Blackie Preston , Casey Parker , Jim Johnson , David Mineric , Guy Michaels , Bobby Kennedy Jr.

This portrait of the man who brought nude male flesh into the American mainstream combines present-day interviews, archival footage, and semi-fictionalized dramatization into a cinematic hybrid. Photo... read more grapher and filmmaker Bob Mizer (Daniel MacIvor) founded the Athletic Model Guild, or AMG, in Los Angeles in 1945, hoping to turn his fascination with the male physique into a successful business that used nude and semi-nude photographs to sell the services of models to painters and the like. When the photos themselves proved more lucrative than the non-existent modeling contracts, Mizer launched Physique Pictorial. The magazine ostensibly offered bodybuilding tips and moral guidance to young men the world over, but in reality its clientèle included legions of gay men eager for eye candy. With the help of his mother and business partner, Delilah (Carroll Godsman), Mizer parlayed his magazine, short films, and other work into a palatial residence/studio where young men fresh off the bus from Nowheresville could frolic, crash, and earn a little cash in front of the camera (or on the casting couch). Occasional run-ins with the law and stints in prison couldn't deter Mizer from continuing his photography until his death in the early '90s. His models, contemporaries, and associates included bodybuilding proponent Jack LaLane and future Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro, who are among the many men interviewed by filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald. The writer/director/producer intersperses his dramatic and documentary sequences with plenty of actual AMG and Physique Pictorial images. The film's narrative arc, however, focuses on the fictionalized character of novice model Neil E. O'Hara (Joshua Peace), who serves as a stand-in for the audience as he acclimates himself to Mizer's campy, flesh-filled compound and witnesses the photographer's betrayal by another model, Red (Jack Griffin Mazeika). Beefcake was inspired by F. Valentine Hooven III's book Beefcake: The Muscle Magazines of America, 1950-1970. The scenes of Mizer's trial for pandering were based on transcripts of the real-life Red's courtroom testimony. The character name Neil E. O'Hara, of course, is a joking reference to Neely O'Hara, the ingénue character from Valley of the Dolls. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi