Off the Deep End: Fred Halsted’s Slip­pery Sadism

A man in a leather jack­et emerges from a dark void and approach­es the cam­era. His move­ments are unsteady, but his gaze – aimed straight down the lens – is unflinch­ing. He walks in a semi­cir­cle, like a preda­tor siz­ing up its prey, as day­light begins to scat­ter across the walls behind him. When he reach­es the mouth of the cave, he finds a gate left ajar and stum­bles back­ward into it, enclos­ing us with him. He advances toward the audi­ence, shat­tered beer bot­tle in hand, his sil­hou­ette engulf­ing our view as a title card cuts through a swirling elec­tron­ic sound­track: SEXTOOL.

Equal parts primer and provo­ca­tion, this open­ing sal­vo has lit­tle bear­ing on what scant plot there is in the twist­ed S&M rever­ie that fol­lows, which first chal­lenged and baf­fled view­ers 50 years ago. The leather-clad bruis­er shown squar­ing off with his cam­era is played by Fred Hal­st­ed, who also wrote, pro­duced, direct­ed, and edit­ed Sex­tool. An inno­v­a­tive film­mak­er and pop­u­lar porn star in his own right, Hal­st­ed spent a brief but pro­lif­ic career express­ing and inter­ro­gat­ing his infa­mous on-screen per­sona through the cre­ative stamp he cul­ti­vat­ed behind the camera.

His 1972 fea­ture debut, LA Plays Itself, was a cer­ti­fi­able hit in both art­hous­es and grind­hous­es. It also whipped up a pearl-clutch­ing fren­zy among queers of a cer­tain age and tem­pera­ment, who viewed its sado­masochis­tic con­tent as coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to gay lib­er­a­tion. After this inter­twined suc­cess and con­tro­ver­sy earned him a spot in the lime­light, Hal­st­ed dou­bled down on the scuzzy tex­tures and sin­is­ter sym­bol­ism for his fol­low-up three years lat­er. Where the ear­li­er film por­trayed the cor­rup­tion and sub­ju­ga­tion of a coun­try rube (Joey Yale) by a brood­ing local (Hal­st­ed), who per­son­i­fied a larg­er munic­i­pal rot, Sex­tool formed a spir­i­tu­al flip side in depict­ing the intro­duc­tion of a seem­ing­ly straight man to LA’s sor­did under­world, fer­ried along by his trans lover: ​“You nev­er know who you might meet, or what they might make you do,” she cackles.

While their frame­works of ini­ti­a­tion are mir­rored, Sextool’s con­fronta­tion­al doc­u­men­ta­tion of phys­i­cal and sex­u­al pun­ish­ment adds up to some­thing decid­ed­ly more ambigu­ous than the moral pre­da­tions that ani­mate LA Plays Itself.

The film’s diverse com­pendi­um of bondage and gang­bangs con­tains images of nip­ples clamped and pierced, boots licked clean of urine and semen, and in an espe­cial­ly shock­ing scene, police night­sticks wield­ed as sodom­iz­ing exten­sions of phal­lic state pow­er. Plea­sure and dis­com­fort are con­tin­u­al­ly aligned, and the orgasms the char­ac­ters (only some­times) reach don’t seem to offer much of a release. When our cen­tral fig­ure final­ly finds him­self in bed with anoth­er man, the sex is com­par­a­tive­ly vanil­la and con­ven­tion­al­ly sat­is­fy­ing. This new lover shirks him the next morn­ing, leav­ing the young man adrift in a world of false cli­max­es and emp­ty liberations.

The sequence pre­ced­ing this serves as a trou­bling con­trast. Hal­st­ed and his long term part­ner in life, art, and busi­ness Joseph Yanos­ka (cred­it­ed in his movies as ​“Joey Yale”) appear togeth­er, first as a snazzy cou­ple at a Hol­ly­wood swingers par­ty, and sec­ond as a box­er and sub­mis­sive cor­ner­man. In the lat­ter sequence, Hal­st­ed essen­tial­ly beats up Yanos­ka, repeat­ed­ly kick­ing him and throw­ing him to the ground. Yanos­ka crouch­es with his face against a mir­ror as Hal­st­ed pees on both the actor and his reflec­tion. The scene ends with a slo-mo shot of Yanoska’s mir­ror image shattering.

This couple’s tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship is described at length through var­i­ous sec­ond-hand sources in William E. Jones’ biog­ra­phy ​‘Hal­st­ed Plays Him­self’. Jones makes a con­vinc­ing case that Joseph – eight years Fred’s junior – may have invari­ably been the masochis­tic sub both on and off­screen, but out­side the bed­room he was a deeply con­trol­ling, pos­ses­sive, and (as mul­ti­ple sources claim) manip­u­la­tive part­ner to Fred, who was described as a warm and jovial per­son in his day-to-day life. These alleged con­tra­dic­tions are impos­si­ble to prove, but they are just as tough to shake.

For a direc­tor and per­former whose craft was so glar­ing­ly per­son­al, it’s hard not to let the facts of his life inform his imagery. Hal­st­ed was sex­u­al­ly abused as a child by his step­fa­ther, an event he would describe as a turn­ing point in his sex­u­al iden­ti­ty. Is it reduc­tive, then, to draw a par­al­lel between this har­row­ing fact and the cur­rents of vio­lence, author­i­ty, and con­trol that run through his ear­ly films? How do Halsted’s accounts of hookups with old­er men at a young age square with his por­tray­al as a poten­tial­ly groom­ing elder fig­ure in var­i­ous sex­u­al formations?

These are ques­tions with­out answers, but LA Plays Itself and Sex­tool reflect not only the enig­mat­ic psy­che of the man who made and starred in them, but the dark­er shades of queer life in the 1970s writ large. These films con­fig­ure the expe­ri­ence of queer awak­en­ing in an era of wide­spread dis­il­lu­sion and new­found vis­i­bil­i­ty as some­thing imposed by an exter­nal force, with char­ac­ters thrown off the deep end and left to sink, swim, or per­pet­u­al­ly tread water in a new age where any­thing goes.

All that said, it would be a mis­take to reduce Halsted’s career to his most vis­cer­al works. Tim Kincaid’s play­ful road-movie El Paso Wreck­ing Corp (1977) sees the actor shed his hard­ened exte­ri­or shell to por­tray a more genial and flex­i­ble dom, Gene, who drifts between dive bars, auto shops, and glo­ry holes with dri­ving mate Hank (Richard Locke) as they cruise their way through the Amer­i­can south­west. The open­ing sequence finds Gene in the base­ment of a gay bar, where a het­ero­sex­u­al cou­ple have come to ful­fill a deviant fan­ta­sy; the woman wants to watch her hus­band have sex with a man, and Gene is hap­py to oblige.

Though the voyeuris­tic sce­nario would usu­al­ly entail the total emas­cu­la­tion of a straight man, the sequence plays as force­ful rather than aggres­sive as the men take turns sub­mit­ting and dom­i­nat­ing. In Wreck­ing Corp, Halsted’s flu­id and age­less per­for­mance strad­dles the line between the young, impres­sion­able stud up to no good (Hank chas­tis­es him like an old­er broth­er for the trou­ble he often fol­lows his dick toward) and the den­im dad­dy who both cor­rupts and com­forts the adven­tur­ous twinks they encounter.

This strain of gen­tle dom­i­nance con­tin­ues in one of Halsted’s less­er-known direct­ing cred­its, Pieces of Eight, an omnibus of sorts that fol­lows the relent­less­ly horny Dan Pace (play­ing him­self) as he gets amped up for a live demon­stra­tion of his prowess and viril­i­ty. He ogles var­i­ous mag­a­zines and we watch the pho­tographs come to life. Hal­st­ed acts in one of these seg­ments oppo­site Mel­chior Diaz. ​“I bet he’ll show that kid what’s what,” growls Pace as he strokes it to their pho­tos, but his dirty talk is humor­ous­ly drowned out by a Hip­pie torch song; the sex scene is sur­pris­ing­ly ten­der, con­trast­ing Pace’s pro­ject­ed image and gen­tly con­test­ing per­cep­tions of Halsted’s pen­chant for sadism.

Aside from his film stu­dio Cosco Pro­duc­tions, Hal­st­ed was some­thing of an entre­pre­neur; he edit­ed and pub­lished the mag­a­zine Pack­age (where he chron­i­cled his car­nal ven­tures in detail), and also ran a sex club called ​“Halsted’s.” Before the short-lived venue shut­tered its doors, he shot the 1982 film A Night at Halsted’s, in which he func­tions as both tour guide and audi­ence stand-in while the club’s var­i­ous atten­dees go about their busi­ness. Hav­ing grad­u­al­ly reced­ed from the act­ing spot­light since the late ​’70s, Hal­st­ed now takes on the role of pur­vey­or and over­seer, wan­der­ing the halls of his makeshift king­dom in search of an elu­sive young man, who even­tu­al­ly grov­els and sub­mits to him in the final scene.

Though he made three movies after it, A Night at Halsted’s is an endear­ing­ly self-aware last hur­rah for a fig­ure whose star­dom had fad­ed. The 1980s were rough on every­one, and Hal­st­ed was no excep­tion. Yanos­ka suc­cumbed to AIDS in 1986, and on his deathbed appar­ent­ly blamed his dev­as­tat­ed lover for the dis­ease. Fred took to drink­ing and drugs, both numb­ing and exac­er­bat­ing the decay of his body and spir­it as he aged. When he over­dosed on sleep­ing pills in 1989, Hal­st­ed left behind a thorny and pio­neer­ing cin­e­mat­ic lega­cy, along with a note that read: ​“I had a good life… I’ve had looks, a body, mon­ey, suc­cess and artis­tic tri­umphs. I’ve had the love of my life. I see no rea­son to go on.”