This remarkable lost classic stars the legendary gay adult actor and AIDS activist Richard Locke (one of the quintessential daddies in classic gay adult cinema, best known for his work on Joe Gage’s classic trilogy: Kansas City Trucking Co., L.A. Tool and Die, El Paso Wrecking Co.) and novice performer Robert Adams.

Unavailable since it’s initial release forty years ago, Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.’s Forbidden Letters has been digitally restored in a beautiful new 2K scan through a partnership with The Bressan Project, the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project and esteemed Blu-ray distributor, Vinegar Syndrome. In honor of its 40-year anniversary, it was re-released exclusively in August 2020 by PinkLabel.tv. One of only a handful of gay independent feature films of the 1970s, Forbidden Letters played at both LGBT film festivals and gay adult cinemas in 1979 and had a prestigious German premiere when it was showcased in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section in 1980.

Forbidden Letters is one of the most romantic and cinematically sophisticated gay adult dramas of all time. Utilizing flashbacks, epistolary voiceover, terrific dramatic scenes and a variety of super hot and languorously paced sexual encounters — writer-director Bressan unfolds a simple tale of the cherubic 20-something Larry (Robert Adams, whose sole other performance was in Bressan’s 1974 debut feature, Passing Strangers) longing for his tall, dark and handsome older lover, 30-something Richard (Richard Locke) who is about to be released from prison. With the tagline: “An Unusual Gay Love Story,” the film’s original ad campaign touted Adams as “Young & Innocent” and Locke as “Hot & Macho.”

A jarring opening sequence leads us to believe Richard may have a darker side (he is in prison after all), but the film gradually evolves into an unabashed uplifting romance as Bressan takes us through scenes of their earlier days replete with jack-offs, blow-jobs, butt-fucking, sixty-nine and even a three-way on the beach. Abundant use is made of San Francisco Bay Area exteriors as Larry and Richard saunter through the Castro, make out at Land’s End and get it on under a tree after a ferry ride to Alcatraz. Bressan’s surreptitiously shot Alcatraz prison sex scenes would make Genet blush (or very happy). Also ala Genet, Bressan gives us double exposures and striking compositions of light and shadow straight out of avant-garde erotica alongside more standard adult cinematography.

The film’s gritty black-and-white gives way to glorious color halfway through as Bressan pulls off one of his signature techniques — shooting his actors within large actual public events (in Passing Strangers his lead actors march in the Gay Freedom Day parade). Here we see actor Richard Locke partying at the legendary gay North Beach club, Cabaret. Incorporating film-within-film sequences is another of Bressan’s favorites tricks — here, Larry goes to a gay adult cinema on Turk Street where he is suddenly transported into the world of the gay porn film he’s watching on screen. The soundtrack ranges from classical piano to earnest gay folk songs and although at times you may be tempted to laugh at the sincerity of their tone, you might also actually be tempted to cry — at Bressan’s heartfelt achievement of bringing such a passionate gay romance to the screen.

Rounding out the cast and one of the highlights of the film is actress Victoria Young as Larry and Richard’s plucky hooker friend, Iris. Bressan’s lengthy monologues for Iris run for minutes at a time, like this one where she breathlessly urges Larry to take his mind off his troubles as he waits for Richard to come home: “Get out! Cruise, go to a movie, do something a little kinky. See a porno flick, get hot, take a Quaalude, sleaze around. Hmm… not the bars; the streets. Meet someone. Talk, blow ‘em, fuck. Do anything… This is San Francisco, homo heaven, so, get out — and I’ll meet you for dinner at 7.”

Forbidden Letters is saturated with a kind of guileless gay joy — a poignant post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS innocence that makes even the hardcore action seem almost quaint. As in all of Bressan’s work, gay liberation politics are woven deeply into the script. Larry’s politicized gay identity is evident as he describes the injustice that, sadly, he cannot send letters to Richard in prison, lest he inadvertently out him to the prison authorities. And so, Larry writes his letters to Richard in a journal — which we hear in voiceover throughout the entire film. What is most remarkable about these candid odes is their expression of love and intimacy, affection and warmth.

It shouldn’t be such an unusual thing, and yet truly it is — Forbidden Letters portrays, in the most heartfelt and genuine way, a simple loving relationship between two gay men. In homo heaven.

Bressan’s film takes us back to San Francisco where a young man and his older lover exchange letters of happier times and longing. The young man still resides in the apartment they shared, impatiently waiting for his man to be released from prison. Through their letters we embark on a dark, beautiful and poetic journey, in color and black and white imagery, about falling in love and loving another person.

One of the most artistic porn films, a sexually explicit poem you want to experience again and again. ~ 2020 Oslo Fusion International Film Festival, Norway

CREDITS:

Forbidden Letters (1979) USA 70 mins. 16mm scanned to 2K DCP

Writer-Director-Producer: Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.

Cast: Richard Locke, Robert Adams, Victoria Young

Cinematographer: Douglas Dickinson

Music: Jeffrey Olmstead

2K digital restoration by Vinegar Syndrome in partnership with The Bressan Project and the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project for Moving Image Preservation. Special thanks to: Joe Rubin, Roe Bressan, Jenni Olson, Todd Wiener, Brendan Lucas.

EXTRAS: Queer film historian Jenni Olson chats with Robert Adams, star of Forbidden Letters during the 2021 San Francisco PornFilmFestival. Presented at the Brava Theater. (This video is included with purchase of the film, or a PinkLabel+ subscription.)