Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Richard Locke
Robert (Robert Adams), a 28 year-old man places a personal ad in the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco. He uses Walt Whitman's "To a Stranger" poem as his message. It's answered by 18 year-old Tom (Richard Camagey), living at home with his parents. Parts of the film are narrated (Bob Middleton and Edward Guthman) by their correspondence until they finally meet. Robert becomes Tom's mentor. There are vintage lingering shots of "the scene" on Polk St. in the early 1970's, some great shots of Gay Freedom Day, a trippy hippie scene with a young Richard Locke in a bath house, and director Arthur J. Bressan Jr. has a non-sexual role early in the film as the projectionist. On Polk Street the actors are: Grant Ditxler, Patrick Lee, Leon McGraw, and Darrell Mascall. The bubble sequence features: David Dehr, Terry Hunter, Chuck Feil, John Thompson, Richard Klingerman, Ralph Osborn, and Wayne Woodcock. Richard Locke, Ralph Osborn, Wayne Woodcock, and Eddie Cadena appear in the bath house.
In Walt Whitman’s 1855 “The Leaves of Grass” there is a series of 45 poems called "Calamus", which celebrate and promote the theme of love. In “To a Stranger” Whitman expresses a general sense of longing directed at the world in general and he not only alludes to the love between a man and a woman but to the beautiful and sane affection between a man and a man. It reveals Whitman’s inner conflicts with his sexuality and his yearning to want to express his sexuality openly without restrictions imposed by society.
To a Stranger
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
"Passing Strangers" is completely unavailable. You cannot watch it, and I have not seen it, so I cannot evaluate its merits. But it did win first prize at San Francisco's Erotic Film Festival, and one reviewer regards it as a "great film". Jeffrey Olmstead composed the music score, and Arthur J. Bressan Jr. directed.
