Article from "Gay Film Review" No. 1 magazine
CLIFF MASTERS
KENTUCKY MAN
BURT KELLY
RAY STEELE
CHUCK RYAN
GORDON HARRIS
Jaguar Productions was created in 1971 for the purpose of producing films to be shown at the Century Theater in Hollywood, and at other associated theatres in other cities, such as the Newberry Theatre in Chicago (a competitor of the Bijou), the Las Palmas (also in L.A.), the Laurel in S.F. and the Mini-Park in Houston.
Monroe Beehler ran the Century Theatre, which originally screened "straight" porn. On weekends, he would screen gay softcore films to capacity crowds, such as the films of Pat Rocco. Someone got the idea to make gay hardcore for theatrical showing. Pat Rocco was hired to make the first film ("Come of Age"), which resembled a lot of other Rocco softcore films--lots of costumes, sets, plot, dialog, etc. Barry Knight, the cameraman on many of these Jaguar films, recalls that after the premiere of that film, the only complaint from the audience was that there was no sex in the first five minutes.
These films had different directors, so that the output might be steady, without much lag time. At one time, there was a Jaguar film being shot in the desert while another film was being shot in a hotel on Hollywood Blvd.
"Magnificent Cowboys" was directed by Dick Martin, who wrote and directed several of the Jaguar films. Barry Knight also worked on the film, and in a 1997 interview, he recalled:
"Dick Martin wrote and directed Magnificent Cowboys which we shot over at the Bob Mizer [Athletic Model Guild] studio, built sets there, a beautiful little ranch set, country store set, and everything. The exteriors we shot at Hollywood Ranch stables."
Cowboys were a very popular theme at about this time. Warhol had produced "Lonesome Cowboys" (1968), and I recall reading the articles in After Dark and dreaming of actually seeing the film. There was "Midnight Cowboy" (1969). There was the Cowboys series of photos by Colt Studio, featuring Dakota and Jim Cassidy, among others. And there was Richard Amory's Song of the Loon trilogy, three explicit erotic novels which I am sure contributed to my current vision problems.
So Jaguar produced its own western. The "casting" was usually done at The Gold Cup restaurant, which cameraman Barry Knight referred to as "central casting." Barry had further recollections of this film:
"The star of Magnificent Cowboys was Cliff Masters, and he was gorgeous. Stunningly gorgeous jawline and beautiful lips. He only made that one movie -- a few years later we saw him as a mechanic at the local Montgomery Ward's fix-it place. And he didn't even want to know us when he bumped into us. It was like an era gone past. He made this one movie, and he was good in it, and he went the way of the wind. He was, I guess, one of the ones that Dick Martin found at the local Gold Cup or whatever.
"Kentucky Man was the bad guy in the movie and he got arrested for hustling between one day's shooting and the next. It took time for him to get out of jail, so to finish making the movie, the director put the cowboy hat on his own head, and we shot his shadow on the ground to suggest the kid. And later, we dubbed in the words. Because the actor was in jail for hustling, and we had to make these movies in three days."
Barry Knight and others have restored the Jaguar classic films, and I understand these are currently available on DVD. These are not the usual poor-quality film-to-videotape-and-then-to-DVD transfers. There is explicit sex, generally very well shot.
