Review: Joe Gage is something of an anomoly in the world of both gay and straight cinema (he directed straight porn as well, and a few softcore features.) Other directors (of any persuasion) often tried to dress up the raunch, creating complicated soap opera-style storylines, convoluted scripting, expensive constumes and location shooting, while the films of Joe Gage are about sex as a tool, as a weapon, as a means of communication between men.

"Heatstroke" hit adult theatres with the tagline "Male Bonding...With a Vengeance" which pretty much sums up Gage's entire canon. In the films of Joe Gage, unlike so many of his
contemporaries, sex was about bonding, comraderie and power. There were no hints of romance, no one pining for something more. Sex was merely a form of communication. He drove this point home in several of his films by including heterosexual sex scenes that nearly always brought up conflict, confusion and complication in the lives of the male participants. The male on male sex scenes were always much more straighforward...and oddly refreshing in a way.

Richard Locke pretends to be straight. Riiight.

I won't say I agree with Gage's opinion about the role of sex in our lives (because, believe it or not, I'm a hopeless romantic and a monogamist), but his films do have an air of freedom to them. It's a bit like watching trash TV when you know you should be watching something more substantial - but all you want to do is unwind and be entertained, not be made to think.

"Heatstroke" is a lesser-known entry into the Gage filmography, overlooked in the shadow of his legendary "Working Man" trilogy of films. This is a shame, as the film is really quite enjoyable. The simple story of getting one's own back against a cruel boss by turning the tables of sexual humiliation on him, could well resonate with anyone who has ever felt under the thumb of a superior, and wiled away the hours plotting their downfall.

A gay movie with boobs! Bonus!

The sex scenes in the film are numerous, but they seem to be there, not just to titillate, but to drive home Gage's philosophy of sex being about communicating roles and deciding dominence among the cast of characters. This point is driven home by the sexual changes in our protagonist, Rory. Early in the film he visits a peep show, engaging in oral sex with a female stripper. When he sees two men masturbating together at the same venue, we see a change in him...a heretofore supressed curiosity. When he finally has his first homosexual experience, he is somewhat frightened and submissive, while the man he is with is seen as more powerful and superior. By the end of the film, as his resentment for Shep has built to a climax, Rory is seen physically overpowering him, becoming the alpha male, and Shep is seen as humbled and of inferior masculinity as he, somewhat unwillingly, submits to Rory sexually.

"I'm not gay... but my mustache is!"

Gage also manages to weave in a thread of male sexual politics into the film, when one character is turned away from a sex club for not being a hard-bodied stud. Gay male body obsession is still alive and well, and this viewer, being from a later generation, was surprised to see this going on in the suposedly "anything goes" gay sex culture of 1982 when this film was shot.

While every print of this film I've come across has been battered and faded, there are still traces of Gage's inventive eye, and interesting use of cross-cutting. There are lingering glimpses of Russell Ballard's competent camera work.

Revenge tastes sweetest without lubrication.

An interesting film, and sometimes uncomfortable and confronting viewing...but I think that was the point. In Gage's films, gay sex is about bonding in the same way sport is to straight men. It's about roles, the winner and the loser, the pecking order. Not much has changed, really. The "anything goes" sex culture may have fallen away somewhat, but the "body" politic is still alive and well.

-Johnny Stanwyck