The life of Wakefield Poole contains so many disparate chapters that any attempt to summarize it would seem like an exercise in futility. So it’s a pleasant surprise that director Jim Tushinski does such an engrossing job with his new documentary, “I’ve Always Said Yes: The Many Lives of Wakefield Poole,” which is currently available on various VOD platforms.
Today, Poole is probably best known for his pioneering 1971 gay-porn film “Boys in the Sand,” its title a playful Fire Island riff on the name of the famous 1968 Mart Crowley play and its subsequent 1970 William Friedkin-directed film adaptation. A modest triptych of sexual interludes, “Boys” nevertheless became a massive hit, with a crossover mainstream success that arguably initiated the ’70s “porno chic” phenomenon, given that its release predated the unveiling of the more widely acknowledged straight porn breakthrough of “Deep Throat” by several months. Poole and company followed up “Boys” with 1972’s darker, surreal “Bijou” (his best film) and 1973’s ambitious, if ultimately unsuccessful, religious opus “Bible”; this early trio is available on DVD through the Vinegar Syndrome label, and is also available for viewing on services like Fandor.
But if Poole is most identifiable these days for his groundbreaking adult filmmaking, “I’ve Always Said Yes” spends equal time on his early careers as a Broadway dancer and choreographer, working in this capacity in major productions associated with Richard Rodgers, Steven Sondheim and Jerry Herman throughout the 1960s before his transition to filmmaking. The period in Poole’s life after his porn-directing heyday is similarly difficult to categorize, as he became spiritually and financially crippled due to a cocaine addiction, before bouncing back and focusing on the culinary arts, including a stint as a chef for Calvin Klein(!). And this isn’t even touching upon his status as an art collector par excellence.
Narrated by Poole and adapted from his own memoir, “Dirty Poole: the Autobiography of a Gay Porn Pioneer,” the new documentary does an admirable job incorporating these many facets of Poole’s life, although Tushinski admits it was a daunting task.
“I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Tushinski recalled. “It was a very difficult process, primarily because I had so much material and so much ground to cover. Plus I had to make it interesting for people who had never heard of Wakefield, had no idea why his films were important and who might even react negatively to someone who made films that were considered porn. But I knew I didn’t want to focus on just the films. So balancing the story was key, as well as frustrating and daunting.”
Too many documentaries on cinema have the unfortunate tendency to race through their coverage at such breakneck speed that there is only the most superficial insight into their subject matter, but “I’ve Always Said Yes” benefits from the fact that Tushinski — previously responsible for the 2005 documentary “That Man: Peter Berlin,” as well as the novel “Van Allen’s Ecstasy” — spent several years making this new film.
“I had interviewed Wakefield for ‘That Man: Peter Berlin,’ and bonded with him right away,” Tushinski said. “He gave me a copy of his autobiography, and I read it in a couple of days, loving every word, but I honestly didn’t think about making a documentary of it because it seemed too sprawling and too complicated. However, after ‘That Man: Peter Berlin’ did well, I was asked to pitch new projects to production companies, and Wake’s autobiography kept coming back to me. The pitches didn’t go well. Nobody knew who Wakefield was, and it wasn’t hitting the younger demographic. And that actually made me more interested, so I just went ahead and made it anyway. I scraped together enough money to shoot all the New York interviews in 2007 and thought if I showed some footage, I’d be able to generate some interest. Nope. So that began a three-year process of trying to raise some money, shooting what we could, digitizing Wakefield’s films, stopping and starting until I had what I needed, culminating with the screening of ‘Boys in the Sand’ on Fire Island that ends the documentary. Then I had another three years of trying to raise money for post production and footage licensing, as well as editing. Crowdfunding helped some and I got a small grant, but there isn’t a lot of financial support for creating documentaries like this.”
“Boys in the Sand” — and, to a historically lesser extent, Poole’s subsequent films — remains a landmark in LGBT cinema, so the initial lack of interest in Tushinski’s documentary is dispiriting if not exactly surprising. Fortunately, Tushinski persevered, and finished his film — not only does “I’ve Always Said Yes” stand out as a biography of a unique cultural icon, but also Tushinski believes the film has greater significance for the LGBT world today.
“Boys in the Sand actually helped thousands of gay men feel good about themselves for the first time and, in conjunction with the early gay-rights movement, facilitated a lot of men coming out of the closet,” he said. “Wakefield kickstarted what we now call LGBT cinema. Without the influence and success of Wake’s first two films, I don’t think we’d have LGBT film festivals today.”
And what does Poole himself think of the documentary?
“He was very happy,” Tushinski said. “He still thinks it should be funnier, though.”