Outfest will present Thom Fitzgerald's Beefcake (1999), a part-documentary, part-drama set in the world of male homoerotic films and "physique" magazines of the '50s, on Saturday, December 12, at 7:30pm at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood.
According to the Outfest release, Beefcake "chronicles the rise of male body-worship as a business enterprise and a fact of life. The film tells the story of Bob Mizer, a photographer and filmmaker whose coy portraits of scantly-clad and well-developed young men appeared in homoerotic films and 'physique' magazines in the 1950s. The sexy, sometimes kooky tale is interspersed with testimonials by Mizer contemporaries ranging from Jack La Lanne to Joe Dallesandro, who participated in similar projects."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle, "Beefcake is the movie for women who complain that films rarely show naked men. It's also the movie for men who make the same complaint. There are more naked men in Beefcake than you can shake a stick at."
Beefcake features Daniel McIvor (as Bob Mizer), Josh Peace, Jonathan Torrens, Carroll Godsman, Thomas Cawood, and Jaime Robertson. Fitzgerald himself plays an attorney in the film.
The screening will be preceded by a Pat Rocco short film from sometime in the '60s. Expect more naked or semi-naked men. (Though you may get something political instead.)
TICKETS: www.cinema.ucla.edu
Outfest members receive $1 off admission at the box office.
The Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation, a collaboration between Outfest and the UCLA Film & Television Archive, is the only program in the world devoted to saving and protecting LGBT Film and Video. For more information, visit outfest.org/legacy.