Cleverly-assembled but rather sad documentary inspired by Valentine Hooven's book looks back at the muscle magazines, photographers and models of the 1950s, many of whom got caught up in the legalities of the McCarthy era. This resulted in shut-downs on obscenity charges, also a court case to determine if muscle photographer Bob Mizer was using his stable of hunks as a front for prostitution. Archival footage is smoothly integrated with reenactments of the action, fleshed out (no pun intended) with sit-down interviews with a few of the survivors (Jack LaLanne is the most amusing). Was all this naked posturing just good all-American fun? Some of it, maybe, for awhile...but as with anything happening first, time has a way of pushing the envelope and tainting the process. There was indeed gay sex happening behind-the-scenes, though most of the models were heterosexual--and those who were tended to believe there was nothing at all dirty about giving young men of the era something to aspire to. ** from ****
Review of Beefcake
