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Juice/Daddy Dearest: Two Classic Adult Films by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Altered Innocence Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (3rd July 2025). |
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The Film
 "No other filmmaker better embodied the spirit of the gay liberation movement than Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (Passing Strangers, Forbidden Letters). A true pioneer of queer cinema, his films fearlessly blurred the boundaries between the artistic, the erotic, and the cinematic--especially with his final two adult films, the critically-acclaimed Daddy Dearest and Juice. Altered Innocence and the Bressan Project are proud to present these two classics of gay erotica, newly restored in 2K from their original film elements and with a host of new bonus features." The titular Juice is a bestselling gay magazine – with apparently a staff of two and one photographer – but photography Jim Bennett (The Best Little Warehouse in L.A.'s Michael Christopher) has been getting a bit too artsy for the tastes of his editor (Eric Ryan of the legendary "big budget" Centurians of Rome allegedly funded by a Brinks armored car driver who stole two million dollars). Threatened with being replaced, Jim has a weekend to get some seriously hot shots. His current object of infatuation is a jogger (What the Big Boys Eat's Vincent Thomas) he sees every morning who does not mind posing for a few shots in the park but is unavailable (and his nether regions otherwise engaged) when Jim tries to get hold of him. To compound things, this particularly weekend is when some previously interested parties have fled to Fire Island or have tickets to The Met and the street trade are not early risers on a Saturday morning. Over the course of two days wandering arcades, theaters, bars, and parks, Jim makes the acquaintance of willing subjects and he memorializes the experiences on celluloid, but he only has eyes for one. Preceded by Forbidden Letters and Passing Strangers, the first two films of director Arthur J. Bressan Jr. that bridged the genres of art film and gay pornography – in more of a gritty, New Wave fashion than the early works of Wakefield Poole (Bijou) – and his most widely-exhibited hit film Pleasure Beach and two years before his mainstream work Buddies that addressed the AIDS crisis in the gay community before the TV movie An Early Frost, Juice seems on the surface like a standard porn film with the scenario of a photographer who conflict is to get some sexy shots before the weekend is out or lose his job. In execution, however, it is a visually-stylish exploration of the lonely artist figure in which his camera is both facilitates communication with his subjects while also imposing limits on the type of interaction that sometimes benefit the protagonist's artistic detachment – his intercut sexual encounters with his models either being fantasies or resulting from the "heat" of the work – and other times suggests to the person in front of the camera that the photographer's interest is primarily in his surface image. Whether it is love or lust at first site for Jim with his jogger, the jogger posing for his photographs in the park and then being unavailable after giving Jim his number may seem like narcissism to Jim; but when the jogger finally does turn up on his doorstep, his casual, disinterested "or whatever" perception that all Jim is interested in are a few snaps and possibly some recreational sex is not unjustified by Jim's own attempts to play things casually. Episodic by nature and possibly in its structure an attempt by Bressan to adapt his vaguely melancholic style of memories and fantasies merging and impinging on the present to the market of where sex allows for the inclusion of plot rather than the opposite as seen in his earlier works, where arcade loops, storefront theaters, and videotape cater to viewers who just want to get to the screwing. Juice has since become a time capsule of the gay New York of the eighties – Ryan and Thomas were apparently uncredited extras in Cruising – filtered through the aspirations of both gay and straight artists who dreamt of making a living on their art and living in spacious loft apartments that can double as photographic studios (and possibly the Juice offices from a different angle). For most of the film, there is a nice balance between contemplation as characterization and the requisite sex scenes – answering the door just out of the shower in a towel to a food delivery boy surprisingly does not lead to a sex scene (although he turns up later either possibly as just an apparition in Jim's imagination); but, at a certain point it seems as though Bressan just uses every outtake he has and cuts them together non-linearly to the rhythms of the score – which might be original or stock music apart from the theme song ("“Juice! When you know it's certain: Juice! Just before you're squirtin': Juice!") suggesting a different tone for the film – either in an effort to give the viewer what they want or just to bring the running time up to feature length. Although Juice preceded his follow-up film Daddy Dearest in release, it was presumably shot after as the Juice magazine imagery seen during the opening credits and some of the protagonist's photographic slides come from the latter film and there is a VHS big box cover for the film (or a mockup) on his boss' desk in one shot.  In Daddy Dearest, director Edward Thompson (The Last Surfer's Daniel Holt) is about to direct an adult film about a college student who arranges to meet a "daddy" through the personal ads culminating in a group sex scene in his dormitory room. With his producer (director Bressan) doing the casting – the audition scene of the student (Dean Johnson) and his roommate (Andrew Dupree) is so straightforward and not of the "casting couch" variety that we really must question whether his suggestion that they get acquainted while he is out of the office was literal or innuendo – he has to fight for his choice of the daddy actor (Kansas City Trucking Co.'s Richard Locke) who must be flown in from the west coast, his composer gives him cliché porn music for a love theme, and his editor suggesting he end with the sex and dump the romantic ending, Edward is inundated with memories of his ex Bob (The Private Pleasures of John C. Holmes' Johnny Dawes). As his memories and his fantasies about the couple (Jan Boscamp and Hot Off the Press' Robert Vega) in the window across the street reshape his film, is Edward working through his loss or sinking further into loneliness and nostalgia? While Passing Strangers and Forbidden Lovers featured inter-generational relationships marked by distance, longing, memory, and fantasy – and both featured Locke as the older half of the couple – one wonders whether the Daddy Dearest dynamic of the film-within-a-film is a crass commercial choice for the filmmaker protagonist or if it was intended to mirror his relationship with Bob who does not appear to be that much younger than him. Visually, their "versatile" relationship seems to have more in common with the couple in the apartment across from him in terms of height difference, contrasting hair color and skin tones, and mustache versus clean-shave. With the exception of facial hair, they in turn seem like they would be models for the characters in the film and the actors had they not been cast by the producer. Edward as voyeur stumbles upon both couples in the act, and it may instead be that the actors inspire his fantasies about the other couple which he then attempts to recreate in the film. More interesting is his conversation with the editor who warns him against falling in love with the image of his actors who do not see him for himself but as a means of making money and getting exposure before moving "on to the next dreamer." While we do not know much about the production of gay adult films of this period – apart from working on a considerably lower budget than their most of their straight 35mm counterparts (including some of the ones that were shot in a motel room over the weekend) – so we have no idea how much of the satirical look at the film's behind the scenes looks at pre-production meetings are just good planning or meant to signify all porn filmmakers as "dreamers" or just Edward as an especially susceptible artistic type who happens to work in adult filmmaking. Even the surprise ending in which someone does indeed turn up on his doorstep leaves as much room for interpretation as the ending of Juice about the visitor's own intentions and their perception about the kind of interest in them on the part of the artist protagonist (especially because Edward's interest seems less singular than that of the protagonist of the former film). Daddy Dearest and Juice would be Bressan's penultimate films and his last adult films, with the follow-up being the aforementioned Buddies in 1986 before his own death in 1987 from AIDS-related complications, and we can only wonder where he might have intended to go: towards more mainstream gay films in the independent film boom of the nineties alongside the likes of Gregg Araki or exploring the experimental further narrative possibilities of video (and nonlinear digital editing of film or video material) in adult filmmaking. A filmography consisting of twelve features, shorts, and documentaries might pale next to more prolific adult filmmakers and some of the better-known East and West Coast experimental/underground filmmakers, but Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.'s output reflected both a drive to represent the gay community from his own artistic perspective and in activism (the documentary Gay U.S.A. made in the wake of Anita Bryant's vote to repeal the gay rights ordinance in Miami's Dade County and the aforementioned Buddies about the buddy system developed to support AIDS patients at a time when even hospital staff feared breathing the same air). 
Video
Although the gallery on the disc shows just how heavily-promoted both films were, Juice and Daddy Dearest were hard to see after the VHS days, not belonging to one of the big adult labels so they were not dumped to DVD from tape masters and readily available for the internet legally or otherwise – one of the commentators mentions the unwieldy process of getting to see the latter film back in the nineties via loaned videotape shipped across the country – but the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.37:1 pillarboxed fullscreen presentations have both been restored from 2K scans of the original 16mm camera negatives which deposited at the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project as part of the Bressan Project devoted to restoring his films and cataloguing his papers (the benefits of the latter are on view in the disc's gallery discussed below).  The audio commentary track reveals that Bressan shot the films using a spring-wound 16mm Bolex camera that restricted shots to thirty seconds at a time. While their discussion of that technical aspect was primarily in relation to his cutting and pacing style, Bressan must also have known how the dark scenes and color gels would have photographed, projected, and transferred to video so we should consider the murkiest sequences as stylistic intent rather than defects. Juice is the more colorful of the two films owing to the use of gel lighting, arcade video screens, and 42nd Street neon while Daddy Dearest generally has a more cooler, naturalistic palette apart from the red gels of sequence of the two actors getting "acquainted" in a room full of office supplies (we looked up the company name on the boxes behind them assuming it might be an adult company's stock of lube or "marital aides" but its more likely printer ink or typewriter ribbon). There is a smattering of archival damage but the most noticeable splice damage at the shot changes suggests that Bressan cut the film together as one strand – whether working directly with the negative or comforming to workprint – rather than the A/B negative technique either due to budgetary limitations (both for the editing itself and making the prints) or possibly just the greater immediacy of seeing the images cut together given the limitations on the length of takes and cutting to music.  Other Bressan restorations are available on Blu-ray from including Passing Strangers/Forbidden Letters and Gay U.S.A. from Altered Innocence as well as Buddies from Vinegar Syndrome (the latter also available in the U.K. from Peccadillo Pictures).
Audio
Both films feature English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks which are entirely post-dubbed – if any of the interior location dialogue was recorded on the set, it might sound "post-sync" because of the spring-wound motor of the Bolex cameras would not have allowed for crystal sync with the audio. The electronic scores have more warmth than dialogue or the aforementioned Juice theme song which may have more to do with the quality of the recordings themselves. Optional English SDH subtitles are included for both films. 
Extras
Each film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Elizabeth Purchell & KJ Shepherd of "Cruising the Movies" (formerly "Ask Any Buddy") in which they frame both films as coming at a turning point in Bressan's career in which the New York-born filmmaker returned from the West Coast where he had made his earlier diptych, in adult filmmaking which was becoming "Hollywoodified" on the West Coast – both Pleasure Beach and Juice played at festivals and the latter won several awards – while on the East Coast, gay filmmakers were moving into the possibilities of video which itself made gay adult films more widely available outside of metropolitan areas. They also discuss the film's New York in contrast to the gradual changes in the AIDS crisis more so than the usual 42nd Street heyday of the grindhouse circuit versus Giuliani's gentrification that accompanies discussion of New York-lensed exploitation films and their exhbiitors. Of the film, they provide background on actor Christopher – who was something of an onscreen "power couple" with Daddy Dearest's Dawes appearing together in three other films including the aforementioned Pleasure Beach and Tom DeSimone's Skin Deep which forms a triptych with the two Bressan films in that it features a pulp writer with similar fantasies and muses to the photography and filmmaker in these films. They also reveal that Thomas who had been a busboy at Studio 54 was allegedly the inspiration for Ryan Phillippe's protagonist in 54. Of Daddy Dearest, they cover some of the same ground while also discussing the "daddy" aspect and Bressan's published views on it in contrast to some of the more overt role-playing relationships of skewed power dynamics like S&M, as well as how Holt and Dawes fit into the perceptions of those roles in contrast to their offscreen lives. On the previous track they reveal that both films were spun out of an earlier script called "Minor Obsession" but here they provide more details, noting that the film-within-a-film was initially a parody of William Higgins' films from the period before it became the "daddy" film here while Edward's obsession with a jogger was spun off into Juice which is why they feel linked. They also reveal that Holt became a talent agent for adult performers – revealing that Juice was indeed shot first as his agency is credited with casting – and an escort service while Dawes was a stage actor as well as an opera historian with published articles and was rumored to have had over four thousand LPs in his collection (which is hard to imagine in any kind of New York apartment), and the "daddy" Locke was a safe sex advocate who instead of preaching abstinence promoted methods of safe but "exciting" sex and traveled to Mexico in search of experimental drugs for AIDS patients. As with the previous track, there is also plenty of discussion of New York gay businesses and hangouts – including a steakhouse – that no longer exist.  The disc's video essay on Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. by I. Que Grande (11:17) covers his education, pre-filmmaking jobs, his filmography – including more discussion on the lesser-seen Abuse which was not pornographic but caused more controversy than his adult works for suggesting a relationship between the film's minor abuse victim and the filmmaker within the film making a documentary on him as part of the wider theme of documentary ethics – his better known works, and the Bressan Project. The piece feels like an overview that touches upon topics briefly mentioned on the commentaries or not at all as much as a promotion for Grande's audiovisual podcast Demystifying Gay Porn which admittedly does feature individual podcasts devoted to Bressan's films. The ephemera and script gallery (15:14) is a thrilling inclusion as it not only includes all of the promotional material for both films including their published form in various magazines but also both the script for "The Boy in the Window" (aka Juice) and the earlier incarnation of both films "Minor Obsession" which are both under twenty pages each but convey the ways in which both become feature-length films. The dialogue scene are in traditional shooting script format with Bressan knowing exactly how he would capture them while the sex scenes and other montage sequences are in the A/V format splitting audio (narration/offscreen dialogue) and imagery giving leeway for how they would be shot on set/location and cut together (the trims of these sequences are presumably where the montages mixing various sequences later in the film came from). The disc also includes theatrical trailers for each film (2:01 and 3:28, respectively) along with trailers for Altered Innocence releases including their other two Bressans. 
Packaging
Packaged with the disc is a booklet with press notes on both films by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. as well as an essay by Mackenzie Lukenbill discussing Passing Strangers, Forbidden Letters, and Daddy Dearest as a "personal/porno trilogy" and Juice separately but in the context of how it shares similar autobiographical qualities to the others three. 
Overall
A filmography consisting of twelve features, shorts, and documentaries might pale next to more prolific adult filmmakers and some of the better-known East and West Coast experimental/underground filmmakers, but Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.'s output reflected both a drive to represent the gay community from his own artistic perspective and in activism.
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