Seed Money: The (So Far, Untold) Chuck Holmes Story

Those of you who are fascinated with our Flashback Friday series—both from a historical and erotic standpoint—should take note of director Michael Stabile‘s upcoming film Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story. The documentary seeks to tell the story of Falcon Studios‘ founding father, touching upon his philanthropic work, his wild personal life and the effect he had on mainstream gay aesthetic as a whole.

Stabile, along with his colleagues Jack Shamama and Ben Leon, have been working on the project for years now. The list of folks they’ve interviewed is quite impressive, including Chuck’s former lovers, protégés, business rivals, former models and people he knew through his involvement with the HRC and the Victory Fund (a connection which has largely been kept quiet until now, due to the political ramifications).

However, despite all the time and research Stabile has put into unlocking Holmes’ story, he’s running into this little obstacle called “making a documentary feature like this costs a shit-ton of money”. It’s one thing to track down all these people and get them on camera, but you’re entering a whole other arena when you take into account paying for their flights, on top of fees for equipment, archival footage, editing and the list goes on…

We’re not asking you to fund this project. We’re merely asking you to support it in whatever capacity possible. Share a link to the page on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr! Give a dollar (or $5000)! We bring you this request with no ulterior motives whatsoever. Just an intense respect for all the passion, sweat and brainpower that’s gone into making this film happen.

– Dewitt

To watch a brief trailer for the film, follow the JUMP:

A note from the director via e-mail, which blew me away and made me feel like I’m not doing enough with my life:

“For me, Chuck’s story is really a way of looking at how gay politics changed over the course of those 30 years. From the sexual revolution to the inside the beltway galas of today. Falcon was the biggest gay porn company in the world, and aggressively, purposefully set out to change the look from hippie to preppy. For much of that time, the only place that you could see realistic depictions of gay men was porn. Everything in the mainstream media was tragic or comic, if not outright homophobic. And so that Falcon look — blond hair, popped collars, boy next door — was actively imitated and replicated. So the story of Chuck is the story of how we came to see ourselves, for better or worse. Gone were the hippies and the liberationists, in came a gay identity that wouldn’t be out of place at a genteel dinner party. In a lot of ways, in order for gay men to come out of the closet, gay sex had to be pushed back in. I think you can still see this discomfort in gay politics with things like ENDA and the battles over trans inclusion. There’s a discomfort with difference, politically.

“Chuck’s story — and his own efforts to fit in socially — mirror this. It’s a profoundly American story: the Kennedys and the Carnegies transformed ‘dirty’ money (bootlegging and strike-breaking) into social standing was through philanthropy, and so did Chuck. But I think it came at a cost. Despite all of his efforts to fit in with that high-society, there was always some insecurity about whether his checks would be returned (as they sometimes were) or whether he’d be welcome at events (as he sometimes wasn’t).

“But even aside from the politics, Chuck lived large, a gay porn Hugh Hefner. Parties at Studio 54, Rolls Royces to take him to the clubs, orgies. He even moved into the Getty Mansion in San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Falcon was the progenitor of the modern gay porn industry — Hot House, Titan, Chi Chi, (modern) COLT, Kristen Bjorn etc — all started as off-shoots of Falcon. He’s been a lot of fun to research, even aside from all the politics.”

Once again, head over here to make a donation or find out more about the project.