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Vapors (1965)

Dir: Andy Milligan

Andy Milligan's first film, based on a script by striking sometimes-actress Hope Stansbury, is a blueprint for many of his later creations, and yet very different in many ways…Most noticeably in it's attitude to the interaction of it's two lead characters.
Perhaps this was Stansbury's influence overcoming Milligan's?
As it is, openly Homosexual Milligan paints a less than happy picture of an iconic Homosexual hangout and ritual, and it brings up many questions.

Plinky plonky piano music and wildly erratic camera work open the film as the rough as hell stencilled credits jerk up the screen.
We follow a man named Thomas to a steam bath house, the real St Mark's Bath House in New York's lower east side (which Milligan will recreate with ragged sets for the actual drama to unfold in).
We learn that this is Thomas's first time at the establishment.

Thomas (played by Milligan's then roommate Gerry Jacuzzo) pays the entrance fee, picks up his robe, towel and sandals and puts his valuables in lock up on the advice of the Attendant who says "You can't trust your own Mother nowadays". A less than subtle dig at Milligan's own Mother, who he famously disliked with a vengeance?

Milligan's infamous 16mm Auricon camera follows the entire process of Thomas's undressing and changing, as if it's a sacred ritual, before he enters the strange World of the bath house.
Milligan's sets portray it as an incredibly run down looking place, full of half finished paint jobs, scratched graffiti, ill fitting doors, distressed woodwork, dubious looking electrics and deep shadows.
He shows us a Homosexual hangout populated by a mixture unsure rookies screaming queens and sure footed veterans.

Thomas nervously waits in his room, the door half-open. The regulars soon poke their heads around the door to check out the new arrival. Not least of which are two high camp queens (one played by Hal Borske, who would go on to be the prime actor in many, many Milligan films to come) who aim salacious remarks and put-downs Thomas's way, "he doesn't have enough muscles for me".

Suddenly a quiet, older man enters the room. He announces himself as Mr Jaffe (Robert Dahdah) and starts to make small talk with Thomas.
Jaffe is a lonely guy getting away from his cold cream and curlers sporting Wife who he now finds physically repulsive.
In fact much is made of her terrible looks and her hideous feet in the script (including an hysterical nightmare description by Jaffe where he dreamt his Wife's feet were attacking him).
Again, we see the classic Milligan digs at female kind…and the obviously older (as in 'Motherly') lady, even going so far as having Jaffe admit she leave her used sanitary pads out for him to throw away!
So the question comes up again…is this Milligan or Stansbury?

The film will now play out almost solely with the interaction between Thomas and Jaffe.
At first Thomas plays it cool and laid back, pretending he is a regular. Obviously taking advantage of the extremely nervous older man. But as they talk Thomas admits it is his first time and the two men slowly form some kind of bond.

Thomas starts to feel like they are being watched, and Jaffe finds some DIY peep holes in the walls, a nod to the glory holes in public toilet stalls.
But even with these holes plugged (now there's a metaphor) they are seldom left in peace as the queens and other denizens talk loudly in the hall and even burst in on the two men with outrageous displays of hysterical giggling.

Jaffe is finding the whole situation tough, "I've decided I don't like this place at all. It's like a Hell for men. An insane asylum for mad Homosexuals".
When asked by Thomas why he is here Jaffe weakly declares it's because the baths are famous.
"They seem to be quite famous" replies Thomas, "and an awful lot of people come".
In both senses of the word obviously. But there is no cheeky wink and sly and knowing nods when Thomas says this line. Is it innocent naivety on the characters part? Surely not on Milligan's part.
But going by Milligan's personality you do wonder if it was just an innocent line as such double entendre does not seems to be Milligan's style at all. It would be nice to see Stansbury's original script to see how much of this is her and how much is Milligan.

Jaffe starts to relax and suddenly says, "You have pretty feet Thomas…Mind if I do something"?
He then plays 'this little piggy' on Thomas's toes. An act that ends in a longing that Jaffe obviously finds hard to give in to.
Compared to the later, much more acidic Milligan attitude to relationships (and his use of cutting dialogue in his own scripts) this entire extended interaction is surprisingly gentle with an astute eye towards the nervous, uncertain build-up to what seems an entirely new, scary (and indeed perhaps life changing) experience for Jaffe.
Again, perhaps this is Hope smothering the more sharp aspects of Andy.
And there indeed is a metaphor, as much of Milligan's hope for his career would be smothered with extreme prejudice. By himself as much as others.

Milligan contrasts this gentle nervousness with cuts to the two camping queens who flounce and mince around admiring each other.
Milligan was well known for his puritan distaste for flamboyant, loud queens. Openly showing distaste for this 'type' of Homosexual.
And this is made obvious here given the jarring contrast they make to the Thomas/Jaffe scenes.
Especially when their vapid discussion about make-up is edited into Jaffe's (slightly overwrought in it's content if not it's quiet, respectful delivery by Dahdah) story about a horrifying personal loss.

As their conversation continues we learn of more and more sadness in Jaffe's life. Which makes us wonder about his motivations for going to the bath house.
Is he really 'coming out'? Is he just curious and fed up with his Wife? Or is this nervous Homosexual adventure nothing more than an escape from his dead life, a mental band aid without any real conviction towards the actual Homosexual aspect of it?
Jaffe is a fascinating, wounded character and Milligan/Stansbury capture perfectly his journey from nervous experimentalist to the more open, but still obviously unsure, man who later kisses Thomas gently on the head.

Thomas is a far more obscure character with lightly sketched and abstract motivations. He also comes across as manipulative and dark at times.
Though his change from a slightly cocky, predatory cruiser, when he initially lies to Jaffe, to an obviously emotionally lost individual at the end, adds some welcome substance to his character.

The finale? Well, that I of course will not tell, but like the rest of the film it is low key and made of many mixed emotions.
But I have to mention the final image of another bath house dweller's erect cock (played by the extreme sexual adventurer 'Gary Stone') that thrusts out of the screen.
It's the most sexually explicit image in the whole film (in fact sexual images are non-existent otherwise) and points to Milligan's more crass and unsubtle work to come. And it's certainly all Milligan and not Stansbury, as she hated the image.
But after the gentle, subtle Jaffe/Thomas interaction that preceded it, it is an act and an image that perfectly shows how things had changed for and with Thomas by the end.
Sadly it seems that most prints (if not all prints in fact, which may indeed be the case) censor the erection with an extremely crude black scratch line, which was added after the first showing of the uncut print was raided.
In a way this brutally harsh method of censorship adds to the crude and blunt change in the film itself. But it does jolt and it's a shame that we can't see the image that Milligan so blatantly showcased.

So we are left with a low key, tiny, personal, character driven drama that, despite very little action other than two people talking, manages to hold the attention and thanks to Stansbury's script gives us some interesting and thought provoking questions about Jaffe and Thomas…And just perhaps about Milligan himself.
It's certainly a very different creation, by a far more professional and talented film maker than his more widely seen, extremely amateur (but enjoyably trashy and warped) horror films would lead people to believe.