Outfest Screens ‘All Male’ Documentary On International Male Catalogue That Winked At Gay Readers And Changed Fashion Forever
For countless gay men of a slightly earlier era, the International Male catalogue provided a portal to fashion… and fantasy.
Handsome men with chiseled jaws and muscled bods filled the pages of IM, often clad in no more than a skimpy pair of underwear.
Straight dudes could ogle the Victoria’s Secret catalogue bursting with “angels” in lingerie; for gay guys there was International Male.The documentary All Man: The International Male Story, which played at the Outfest LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Los Angeles, explores the history of the pioneering publication that styled itself as a “catalogue/magazine.” Bryan Darling and Jesse Finley Reed directed the film.“It was loosely based on my experience going into the bedroom and locking the door” to enjoy IM, Reed joked during a Q&A after the weekend screening. “I came to Bryan, I said, ‘You know what?
Let’s make a funny little like 3- to 5-minute film about what this meant to young gay men of a certain generation. And as we began unpacking the story, it became so much more.”Producer-writer Peter Jones went into the project with his own relationship to International Male.“I was a customer,” Jones told Deadline at an after-party at the Chateau Marmont. “I bought a black fishnet tank top and jaguar print, uh, lycra-kind of a gym outfit that I wore for many years.”International Male launched in the mid-1970s, the brainchild of Gene Burkard, a formerly closeted military vet, singer and songwriter.
