The day I made a gay film

[eroticartist]

One day Paula Meadows said to me "why don't you make a gay film? "
I replied "why?"
And she replied"solidarity with the gay movement." Paula was bi and she had a few gay friends. I wondered why no gay person ever made such films and I asked her"why doesn't a gay make them?
Anyway I found out to make a gay film was very dangerous as the establishment were dead against it. One could get gay films but they were American and the British government did not seemed concerned as log as they were not British!
The first film I made was called What a Gay Day and the second Dial a Guy. The whole situation was a laugh and I had to ask if the actors minded a women videographer being on the set! They did not and I went ahead.

The first thing that happened was that Videx Ltd (my company) turnover increased forty per cent overnight with one little ad in Gay News.(Gay News was also taken out because they were going to do a story on the raid) The second thing was that I received an urgent call from my solicitor to attend his office in New Bond Street. It seems that I had an option:either take the gay films off the market or face trial at the Old Bailey. I chose the latter and the outcome is history. Videx was raided and taken out after I was found guilty at the Old Bailey and sent to prison for two films that would get an R18 today.

Mike Freeman revolutionary pornographer

[stripeysydney]

That'll teach you!

[eroticartist]

Homophobe?
Mike.

[colin]

whatever happened to Paula Meadows?

[eroticartist]

Colin,
She is alive and well and is a successful publisher and artist. A forward to her first book has a forward by the art historian Victor Arwas.
There is a link to one of her sites on the first page of my site at the bottom.
Lynn Paula Russell.
Mike

[colin]

thankyou Mike.

[one eyed jack]

Mike you are truly one of the guys in this industry who has earned their stripes but what you fail to mention in those great heady days is when most people established in this business today made their millions. Those who maintain the status quo are just protecting their own interests

Thats the difference with the risk in just making thousands. The industry has been splintered into a thousand pieces with chancers but the stigma of getting busted today has no weight compared to 10 years ago and even more so 10 years before that.

In other words a guy like Larry Flynt wouldnt be half as successful today as he was back in the 70's. Its true. Timing is indeed everything.

[eroticartist]

One eye,

The secret of success is making good films, quality not quantity. I make films under different names and they sell. When I was in Amsterdam Scotland Yard told the Dutch distributors not to buy my films so I used a different name! I made a whole series of SM films for example and no-one had ever heard of me!

Some distributors think that the most important part of marketing is the boxtop and that there is a mug a minute.

Whatever I do people come to me because my films sell.

The UK adult inustry cannot compete with the USA because you have the illegal R18 rules and endemic corruption which is a serious handicap. Larry Flynt is a revolutionary filmmaker, a fighter who cannot be controlled by the state and that is why the CIA tried to kill him. A guy like that would make it in any place anytime.

Mike.

[eroticartist]

Alice,
I think firing a high velocity round at Larry Flynt as he emerged from the court with his solicitor was a damned professional assassination attempt!
What do you call professional?
Mike Freeman.