He soon directed a documentary-like film, “ Take One,” in which he interviewed men about their carnal fantasies and had them act them out on camera, engaging two brothers in one notorious moment. Poole started afresh in San Francisco, which had become an epicenter of the gay rights movement, although his troubles only worsened there: He broke up with his longtime partner, and he became addicted to freebasing cocaine. Then came “ Wakefield Poole’s Bible!,” a creatively ambitious soft-porn movie that reimagined tales from the Old Testament, but it flopped.įrustrated with its failure, Mr. Poole’s next hit, “ Bijou,” followed a construction worker who stumbles on an invitation to a private club, where he joins a psychedelic bathhouse-style orgy. It was a communal experience by necessity, and you had to be seen in your seat. “This was a time when you had to leave your home to see pornography. “ Wakefield was determined to elevate the gay porn genre,” Michael Musto, the longtime Village Voice writer, said in a phone interview. The year after “Boys” appeared, the landmark film “ Deep Throat” was released, commencing a golden age of American pornography.
