SKIN DEEP – Director: Lancer Brooks (Tom De Simone) (1982) – 80 minutes running time
Starring: Michael Christopher & Johnny Dawes; plus: Chris Burns, Ben (Benjamin) Barker, Matt Michaels, and special appearance by Beau Matthews and Giorgio Canali
“This compelling story of a contemporary relationship confronts and questions some comfortable stereotypes. Johnny Dawes plays the author of pornographic novels who picks up a hustler, mainly for inspiration. But the hustler (Michael Christopher) turns out to be a thinking, feeling human being who challenges the writer’s preconceived ideas about sexual involvement.” – Bijou Video
In a spectacular conclusion, (the scene shown above) Dawes has sex with the hustler while imagining himself getting topped first by hustler Michaels, then by the other characters (fictional & not), Beau Matthews (rare for him!), Matt Michaels, Ben Barker, and Chris Burns. They surround him on the bed for the climax. (note: no Giorgio Canali – I read in an unpublished interview with De Simone that he was unhappy with Canali’s performance, or rather, lack of it as he had sex off camera with Beau before their filming, and wasn’t turned on after that first, off-camera attempt!)
“theme” music – Need Somebody by STUFF (at least one other STUFF tune appears, This One’s For You) plus Jerry Goldsmith’s – The Wrong Clue, and The Last of Ida; plus Serenade In The Night from Primo Scala & His Accordion Band, Herb Alpert’s The Factory (during the Beau/Giorgio scene) and Beyond in the subsequent scene between Johnny & Michael; and of course, PINK FLOYD’s On The Run. I love that the director’s original choices for music withstood the transfer to VHS, etc (unlike the case in The Idol). You can tell the film and music editing was coordinated, not just a random slap up job.
review: Skin Deep (Emerson Films, 1982)
