Underworld U.S.A. (1961)
“One thing I learned early on, is everybody’s lying: everyone has their own perception, none of it is true.” (Sam Fuller quoted by Tim Robbins.) I don’t like this movie; I suppose that means I’m a liar, and I kinda am (but as Sam says, everybody is). Fuller is one of Scorsese’s favourite filmmakers because he was trying to tell the truth about America. My problem is I identified with the character in this movie called ‘Cuddles’ played touchingly by Dolores Dorn. She’s the pretty blonde who Cliff Robertson rescues from being murdered by thugs, and she has some of the best lines. The first time he makes love to her she says “isn’t there a story about a guy all alone in a desert for years and years — and then he meets an ocean?” And the next time she says “I die inside when you kiss me. ” But all this — in Sam Fuller’s world — is past it’s due date, because Sam Fuller’s films actually murder film noir. For one thing the violence is not in any way romantic (there are no venetian blinds) and Fuller makes it all super-gross. Cliff Robertson is out to kill the thugs who killed his Dad (in this way he is the anti-Hamlet) and promptly does so. In the meantime a thug runs over a little girl with his car, because he’s been told to. The thug is chatting with a sweet little girl about Mommy and Daddy. Then the boss tells him to kill her and does. After a shot of the girl lying dead on the ground by her bicycle — cut. A whole, naked, featherless, chicken carcass is pulled out of a bag and dumped in a pot. In another scene a guy is about to be burned to death, and is whimpering ‘No, no?” but they set him on fire anyway. Then one of the thugs asks another: “Gotta light?” (Funny, right?) But, for me, the most horrifying moments come with Cuddles, right after she has one of those old-fashioned film noir lines: “We got a right to climb of the sewer, and live like other people!” I’m thinking — right, yes, go for it Cuddles, but then she asks Cliff Robertson if they can get married, and Robertson says “Marry you?” and laughs hysterically. I like Scorcese — Fuller’s disciple, —why don’t I like this? I didn’t have a great day or a great night, I had sex with a very ordinary, reasonably unattractive guy. He had a really nice cheap, apartment that he was really proud of. Everything went fine, but it was nothing to write home about. And I guess I was just shocked by his ordinariness — which I know sounds horrible. But he was just a gay man - there are certainly a lot of them out there, middle aged, not particularly attractive, with lovely apartments and lots of sexual accoutrements, i.e. toys and drugs. He offered me crystal meth, of course, they all do, that’s also quite ordinary in gay ol’ Montreal. (Two guys wanted crystal last night.) Maybe I was seeing myself for the first time, as myself, as a regular, not very attractive middle-aged guy (like him) for whom promiscuous sex has become less a desire than a routine. Sam Fuller would want me to tell you about the gay bath house in Montreal about six months ago. (For all of you who care about bath houses, apparently the word is that ‘G.I. Joe’ in Montreal is re opening for sure after COVID-19, but ‘Oasis' is struggling for reasons that might soon be obvious.) Anyway, when I was at ‘Oasis’ six months ago some guy OD’d on drugs in the room next to me. It was a serious downer, and ruined my night. Now, I kinda meant that remark to sound callous — the truth is that he was fine, he didn’t die or anything — but we all had to kind of stand around looking at our naked selves in a very unsexual way while the medics took hours to carry him out (maybe that still sounds callous). Anyway, when I went back a couple nights later, somebody else OD’d in the same room. I’m not kidding. By this time it was clear to me that this was an epidemic (and no, I don’t have a heart of stone, I went to the front desk and expressed my concern about the serious drug problem there — but of course the attendant had zero thoughts on the subject). And, dare I say it, in terms of gay men right now, the crystal meth problem is more serious than friggin’ COVID-19? But no one wants to talk about it because a) gay men think it makes them look bad to talk about it and b) politically correct people think we’re all rich, and vain, and suntan too much, and are not at all interested in our ‘so-called’ problems. But if I got anything out of Underworld U.S.A — which constantly shoves ‘reality’ in your face — it might be an obligation to say this; gay men have serious addiction problems. I have an addiction problem. I went to a gay therapist once who told me all his gay clients usually got stewed in some way or another — booze or pot or drugs — to get laid. It has certainly always been a requisite of my sex life; I rarely have sex if I’m not in some way knackered. And you can say that’s screwed up, and I’d say yeah well, I hope your pot is not black, because that’s what you’re calling the kettle. Why, oh why, are we like this? Because we hate ourselves for what we are doing, sometimes right after, and often during — because for most of us it took years of lying and disappointing those close to us just to come to the realisation that we love men in that way. Speaking of gay therapists, I’ve never had one who did not get inappropriately involved in my personal (i.e. professional) life. Of course you’re not supposed to say that either. But this is Sam Fuller night. One of my gay therapists asked me to produce a play he wrote, and I finally did —cuz I really needed the therapy. And the other one became obsessed with a young man whose name I won’t mention. This young man he was in love with was an actor who I barely knew, and had only briefly worked with. And this therapist started asking me if I knew who the young man was screwing. Please don’t think I am saying all this because I hate gay men. The point is I’m saying it cuz I love them. But when you see gay men walking those little dogs — and the gay men have their gay noses in the air — the nose that announces ‘my life is so perfect’ — please try and realize it’s merely tragic overcompensation. So please don’t bemoan their ‘privileged’ status; no. They need your help. It’s our fault, we’ve been going on and on about how ‘normal’ we are for years, and now it’s come back to bite us in the very area that got us into so much trouble in the first place.
