"Inches" is a must-see for fans of Gay Cinema, but finally catching up with it almost four decades on was disturbing to me due to its rather irresponsible message. Like most narrative porn the need to proselytize can ruin an otherwise well-made movie. (I must note that 99% of what passes as Adult Entertainment is gonzo all-sex crap whose message is merely "consume so we can make a buck".)
Casting is suspect, as nearly all the players seem cut from identical cloth: bearded with thick moustaches, seemingly auditioning for appearances in an AXE deodorant commercial to be shot 30 years later. Story line is paper-thin: studly "college student" (yeah, right) Doug played by superstar Al Parker is forlorn after his studly live-in lover Lee (Steve Taylor, a very poor actor) splits on him, heading to Frisco where the unfaithful bloke has been carrying on for months with an unseen new love.
Doug works at a gallery, where preparations are underway for an exhibit of black & white cock-centric photography titled "Inches". The artist, handsome Tony Cornell (studly Bob Blount) hits on Doug right away but is rebuffed. After Doug's lover is gone, he's more amenable to such approaches and after a very '60s S.O.L.I. in slow motion of the duo frolicking nude in the snow (!), they have sex.
Previously, Doug got on his high horse (at the "Inches" opening party celebration) to tell Tony off regarding latter's freewheeling life style, as opposed to Doug's yearning for a permanent relationship -his having just gone bad. Accusing Tony of having "a sex life with no love life", he earns Tony's riposte: "This isn't a long version of 'Father Knows Best' in case you haven't noticed - it's called Gay Love".
This manifesto struck me as odd during that gallery scene, but odder is the film's coda, in which apres-sex while driving away in Tony's luxurious Caddy convertible, Doug has come around to the artist's point- of-view, open to enjoying the newfound "swinger" Gay life-style, with an open ending final line "Call me Monday".
Perhaps to gay blades this manifesto was an open invitation to living it up in carefree sexual abandon, though an earlier scene where forlorn Doug trekked to a gay club called The Bullpen and bumped into Tony there amidst guys casually having mechanical sex all around in an atmosphere that reminded me of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" (key film made a couple of years earlier). At any rate, the rejection of monogamy in favor of hedonistic playing the field is just the sort of nonsense that surely didn't help in the onslaught of HIV/AIDS just around the corner.
Today's pornographers have retreated into a more bunker mentality form of propaganda defending their profession, in which the lines between prostitution and "adult film acting" (renamed modeling) are blurred and values inverted so that being a slut (of either sex) is devoutly to be desired.
