Paul and Stanley have a slightly unconventional relationship. Having fled their native Baltimore after a particularly violent altercation, the older and, in theory, more responsible of the pair, Paul, spends his days posing as Stanley’s Aunt Martha and avoiding their busybody neighbour, while the slightly simple free-spirited pot-head Stanley hangs out with the ladies, often as far away from Paul’s prying eyes as possible. When the past starts to catch up with them, Paul becomes increasingly paranoid and desperate, which leads him to…well, to do some pretty dreadful things.
Despite the differences between Paul and Stanley, there’s a question over what the relationship between them actually is – they share the same bed and definitely can’t exist without each other, but there’s never any hint of any actual romance and Stanley’s infatuation with the fairer sex suggests that this may well be a tale of unrequited love on the part of Paul/Aunt Martha. Whatever conclusion you come to, it’s quite a bizarre ride, and exactly the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from the 101 Films / American Film Genre Archive collaboration that has recently seen several similarly strange and obscure undiscovered-for-decades titles being released in the UK for the first time.
The extra features very much stick with the campy/queer theme of the film. An audio commentary by queer film historian Elizabeth Purchell and AGFA’s Bret Berg fills in as many gaps as it can (very few people involved in the film’s production were still around by the time the movie was rediscovered in the mid-2000s), and the 47-minute “Drag Queen’s Ball” – an all-male review show from the ultra-glamorous 1970 Memphis Cotton Festival, of all places – is riotously entertaining. Elsewhere, the 10-minute short “Gay In III” shows footage of a festival organised by the Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s, including an interview with a tough biker dude which has an unexpectedly delightful punchline. “Caught In The Can” is a 7-minute clip of a longer film that cuts off just as it gets going (two chaps dress up in ladies’ clothes and go out soliciting but get arrested by the vice squad), and four trailers – again sticking within the theme – give a few glimpses of what life was like for those with “alternative lifestyles” way back when (“Lusting Hours” looks especially fun – non-stop saucy softcore debauchery with a frantic 60s jazz soundtrack rattling away over the top). Another release for fans of the lesser-trodden paths, this one is fun from beginning to end with rarely a dull moment.
