James Franco's film which recreates
deleted gay sex scenes from the 1980 film Cruising will
premiere at the Sundance Film Festival next month.
Franco produced Interior. Leather
Bar with director Travis Matthews.
The psychological thriller Cruising
was directed by William Friedkin and stars Al Pacino as a NYPD
officer working undercover in the gay leather scene to catch a serial
killer.
To avoid an X rating, Friedkin deleted
40 minutes of footage from the original film.
In the 2005 book The Erotic Thriller
in Contemporary Cinema, Friedkin is quoted as saying that those
40 minutes of footage consisted of “absolutely graphic sexuality …
that material showed the most graphic homosexuality with Pacino
watching, and with the intimation that he may have been
participating.”
Franco's film is a supposed recreation
of the deleted footage, which has since been lost.
Franco stars as himself opposite Val
Lauren (Help, True Love). Matthews, the director of the gay
art film I Want Your Love, which includes graphic sex, told
gay glossy The Advocate that Franco “interprets” Al
Pacino's character in the film.
A trailer for the film released this
week suggests that the film borders on pornography but leaves open
the question of storyline. (The video is embedded on this page.
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