Penis (film)

Penis, also distributed under the name 1967, is a 1965 American experimental silent short film in black and white by A. J. Rose Jr.^[1] Long considered a lost film and believed to be a gay pornographic material, it was rediscovered in 2021 and subsequently uploaded to the Internet Archive. The film runs for around 20 minutes, and is highly experimental and surrealist, with dream-like sequences in which reviewers saw influences of works by Luis Buñuel, Maya Deren and Ingmar Bergman.^[2] The narrative is open to many interpretations, with people seeing stories of homosexuality and coming out,^[2] critique of Vietnam War and/or American military,^[2] and transgender (both transmasculine and transfeminine)^[3] readings. It is theorized that Penis may be one of the first gay films.^[4]

History[]

Penis premiered in January 1965, and had The New York opening take place on 28 June 1965.^[1] It was distributed by The Film-Makers' Cooperative,^[1] who first listed it as Penis in a paper catalogue from the 60s, and then catalogued it as 29-minute long 1967.^[5] FMC's 60s paper catalogue contained a quote from Jonas Mekas, who called Penis "the first real film from Chicago".^[5][4] The film was also mentioned in the American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films 1961-1970 under the title Penis.^[6] The AFI database claimed that this film originally came out in 1965 as a 45 minute short called Penis and then was re-released in 1967 retitled as 1967 with about 15 minutes of footage cut out.^[7]

Penis had been forgotten for years, with its IMDB profile listing a synopsis of another movie for a long time.^[8] The profile was also one of the few available accounts of the film's existence (besides TCM database and AFI catalog), and so, partially due to the name, Penis sparked interest of lost media enthusiasts, putting it in their selections of lost media and wanting to find it.^[9] They contacted AFI, who claimed that they no longer catalogued “sex films,” and accordingly no longer had a copy.^[10] They also contacted FMC, who responded it was still in their files and might be rented, but since no one had requested it, they were not sure if their copy existed.^[5] After finding 1967 in FMC archives, a Reddit used rented it and uploaded a digitized version to the Internet Archive, sharing it on the r/lostmedia subreddit.^[11]

Summary[]

Adam by Auguste Rodin, the sculpture the main character contemplates

Penis is an experimental film, with loosely-related or seemingly unrelated scenes (both realistic and surrealist) cutting from one to another. With no explanations given, the viewer has to figure out the connections and build their own narrative(s) and interpretation(s).

The film begins with the long heterosexual kiss between the film’s main character, a young man with glasses, and a woman. It cuts to the title screen: the word Penis placed upon an image of erotic Indian sculpture of a male with an erect penis and a woman with bare breasts. It cuts to the locked safe door, in front of which a hand reaching from outside the frame appears to deposit a dime. The hand waves rhythmically back and forth. The door opens to reveal the footage of marching CORE protestors demanding “Freedom Now.” In context of the film, it is worth noting that CORE's stated mission was "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background."

The next scene shows a priest, adult officiates, and altar boys genuflecting at the altar. The gesture is looped and repeated in several following scenes and young altar boys, after the service, genuflect to the cross, lain on of the floor, also in a loop. There is a quick frame of a young boy, wincing in pain, with a bandage winding from his head to his jaw. In the next scene the cathedral is decaying and deserted. The man from the first scene enters from out of the frame to walk up a path to visit the church. This is juxtaposed with further scenes of the priest and altar boys. Then he is pulling a small wooden broken-down handcart, chains around his neck holding what look to be heavy round lodestones, the cart hooked up to a dead dog which trails behind. The cart gets stuck and the man attempts to pull it out before proceeding on his perilous path. The film cuts to a museum (Metropolitan Museum of Art), where the main character is staring up at the sculpture of Adam by Auguste Rodin, whose tormented face the camera lingers on.

The poster young nude man dances with in this film

In the next scene the man sits in a laundromat, waiting for his clothes to finish their cycle. Each washing machine has a handwritten woman's name on itself, and the main character watches and contemplates them. Then the man walks through Times Square where he sees the posters for 1964 film Strait-Jacket with Joan Crawford, first screaming behind the bars and then swinging an axe. The man walks into a butcher warehouse where he wanders around the huge carcasses of hanging meat, eventually taking off his tie and shirt to embrace the carcasses more fully in a suggestive way. The camera cuts back to him at the Met studying the muscles of Adam. He is interrupted by an effeminate blond-haired boy apparently singing; another long-haired guy smoking, and the third boy, shot head-on sitting on a couch blinking at the camera. A woman smiles and flirts, while the camera quickly winks again at Adam’s buttocks. The camera cuts to the main character walking along an old wall with a large clock hanging from it, apparently permanently stopped at 12:00.

A clown pops up on the screen, and the film cuts to the main character entering the scene naked, carrying the iconic sign of Uncle Sam and the line “I want you for U.S. Army”. In this number, described as "a little gay political vaudeville theater" by Douglas Messerli,^[2] the man slowly lowers the Uncle Sam sign down to the height of his crotch, and then comes out with penis in full view on one side of the poster. He turns to the poster, pretending to get a fellatio from Uncle Sam, before dancing around. With a magic hat the man makes himself and the poster disappear, only to re-enter, still nude, holding a clock with its hands still intact. The clock shows 2:35, and he slowly moves the right hand up to read a quarter to 3.

In the next scene the main character tackles woman's nude breasts, exploring her nipples with his forehead, nose, tongue, and lips. The camera cuts to her in a museum, checking out a female nude sculpture. The man stands on a bridge smoking a cigarette as he looks over. The woman appears at the other end of the bridge, walking in his direction while carrying something. She hands the object to him, turns away, and begins walking back in the direction from which she has come. The bridge is a drawbridge, rising its both halves up into the air and dividing the two who stay on the other sides. The woman's gift is shown: a realistic-looking penis which the man briefly strokes before putting it into his pants, zipping it up.

References[]

External links[]

• 1967 on FMC website
• Penis uploaded on Web Archive
• Penis at IMDb