Visiting video dealer John Andruska, climbing out of his car on the sun-struck set of Dare, Jett Blakk's first feature for Falcon, says "Whew! This place is off the GPS map!" A vulture hovering in the cloudless sky lands alongside several others on a telephone pole atop the second-highest hill overlooking Malibu.
Production assistant Chris Greene points a finger up past that hill toward the very highest peak and says, "Jack Nicholson lives up there." Then he goes about his business of bringing rolls of paper towels to this year's stars.
Seeing the towels, bystander Cort Donovan, not working today, jokes, "Hmm, they must have reached a climactic moment in there."
"Not yet, but it's best to be prepared," cracks Green, stepping over a cement rattlesnake, part of the corny cowboy décor of the famous standing "western town" set of Dry Gulch Ranch (which you've seen in a million movies).
Inside the Malibu Saloon, in a pool of light within a dark jungle of cables and crew, the stunning cast of Dare is working up a collective sweat doing take after take of a fight scene, which will precede a gangbang (to be shot later in the day). The boys are so beautiful, it's hard to believe that they're real. Their make-up man, Tony, who's done drag queens as well, says the difference here is, "On these shoots, you try to make men look like they don't have make-up on."
He's succeeded.
Scanning the quaint barroom, one gasps at brunet Roman Heart, with perfect shoulders and head, then at the totally tanned Tyler Saint, who is so well-built and handsome that he could be from a romantic comedy, pretty Mason Wyler with a new cropcut which makes his ears stick out like sugar-bowl handles, Dallas Reeves, who resembles Cary Elwes in his most angelic close-ups in Another Country, Eric Blaine looking poetically pale in a dark tank top, and finally at monumental Matthew Rush, the kind of muscleman whom Tom of Finland spent his entire life trying to draw, playing a bartender.
It's no wonder that the comparatively real-looking Braxton Bond leans across the bar and kisses Rush, inciting the other butch beauties to rise from their tables, grab Bond, and hold him down while Rush comes from behind the bar, unzipping his jeans and muttering, "Boys, let's show this guy a little western hospitality."
But grinning Riley Burke, a star of the movie, assures a nervous journalist, "Don't worry. I save Bond. I rush into the bar and have this big monologue and pull him out. But the guys in the bar don't want to waste their hard-ons, so they decide to party among themselves anyway."
Burke, not shooting till later, retires to the hospitality van, where anyone who's not working stretches out in the air conditioning. Asked if he minds the heat, he says, "I hate heat. But it's for Falcon! And Jett Blakk! I'm such a fan of his, and the script he wrote is just awesome."
The various models who come through for sodas and the restroom casually toss around the names of the great directors they've just worked with - Chi Chi LaRue, Joe Gage, Doug Jeffries. "Gage is like Spielberg," Burke explains. "It's not just about the porn with him, it's about the acting and the energy. Jett Blakk is like that. He sat with me and Braxton Bond, going over our scene line-for-line for hours until we got back to where it was all really happening fresh again, like it was the first time."
Later this week, Burke will be bottoming for the first time, ever, off- or on screen, under Bond, with Blakk directing. Mainstream actor and music-maker Lou Cass (L.A. Law, Rated X), who left porn 17 years ago after a meteoric three-year career, has returned for a nonsexual role in Dare. Why? "Because it's a Jett Blakk movie, and at Falcon! And, too, Jett said he thought of me first for the role. A drug-dealing druggie serial killer. Hmm, why was I thought of first? But seriously, I dig Jett's writing, it's beautiful, and I'm glad to be with Falcon, of course, especially now that they're using condoms."
The man himself, Jett Blakk, finds a rare off-moment to say, "Falcon has been very gracious with me as far as this film is concerned. They have asked for only minimal changes in the script. Dare is a very different kind of Falcon film for them, and I appreciate the fact that they are letting me make a ‘Jett Blakk' picture. That is, one where we have interesting characters and a complex storyline in addition to the hot sex and handsome men you'd expect from any Falcon movie. My movies usually have darker themes. I've been talking about Dare with some other people on the set, and we've come up with a classification for it as ‘porn noir.' Visually and thematically, it's about loneliness, longing, and dreams, some realized, some unfulfilled."
Are there laughs? "Oh, yes, Roman Heart, for instance, has a line that broke up the whole crew."
Cameraman Colby Taylor comes through with his head in a Lawrence of Arabia sweat-cloth, asking for "Garrett" (some model's real name) to get onto the set. "He's in the bathroom," someone yells. "No, that's Dallas in the bathroom," someone else corrects him. It turns out actually to be Roman in the bathroom, but he's needed for stills, too, so all is well.
Famous still photographer Mick Hicks comes into the van waving a little chip. He sternly asks photo editor Rikki Ercoli if he's sure he downloaded all the buttshots before putting the "buttshot chip" back into the camera. Ercoli assures Mick that he did.
Mason Wyler, passing through, when asked what he'd like to say to the world, responds on the run, "I'd like to say that porn is a lot of fun!"
The vultures, by the way, have given up and gone home. All the meat down here at Dare is alive, man!
Ordering Information: (800) 227-3717; FalconStudios.com.
