Here is it April 23rd
already and I still haven't coughed up my yearly dose of gents in the
shower! Did you think I'd forgotten about it? Never... I've just
been scrambling to get as many together as I could, often trying to
dig up lesser-seen or lesser-known examples. I couldn't resist using
this corny Mad Magazine cover artwork as the lead-off this time. I
have a bit of a tan-line fetish (a holdover, I guess, from being
reared – so to speak! - in the '70s when Speedos were the thing and
sunscreen was mostly for albinos!) One can only wonder what Alfred E. Neuman was wearing to achieve this tan line! Care to join me as we turn on the spigot?
We're going to start off today with
“the perfect man,” that is, if you were to have asked Truman Capote. Believe it or not, he was quoted as characterizing Lloyd
Nolan as the ideal man! If you're familiar with the alternately
kindly-craggy character actor from
Peyton Place (1957),
Julia
(1968-1971) and
Earthquake (1974), this is quite a shock. However,
if you catch him in his early days, it's a little bit easier to
understand (though he's hardly my usual cup of tea even then!)
Still, these shower pics of him for a
vintage magazine spread are appealing and amusing.
See if you can take a guess at who our
next, also highly unlikely, slab of beefcake is... He is another
long-term character actor, known for playing creepy, threatening,
sometimes weaselly types of parts and is well-known among classic
film lovers in both drama and horror genres.
This is Peter Lorre of M (1931), The
Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca
(1942) and many other movies.
This vintage hunk is Wayne Morris, an
actor of the '30s and '40s who was on the cusp of achieving a more
significant level of fame (following Paths of Glory, 1957) when he
died suddenly of a heart attack at only age forty-five.
We know there are still fans out there
of John Payne, a strangely unsung actor with a fair amount of
charisma and a sometimes eye-popping body.
Here's Gregory Peck in an unusual
display of perceived nudity.
Remember the rather threatening-looking
David Brian, who costarred opposite Joan Crawford in Flamingo Road
(1949) and The Damned Don't Cry (1950), among many other parts?
Take a very close look at the
unbelievable waistline that muscleman-turned-sword &
sandal-movie-star
Steve Reeves is sporting here. Where did all his
internal organs go?! (Seriously... enlarge this!)
Tony Curtis takes a makeshift shower in
this photo, likely from one of his war movies.
Fourth in a series of comedy films (six
of them with the word “Doctor” in the title) was Doctor in Love
(1960), with Leslie Phillips and Michael Craig getting the once-over
from Irene Handl while taking their showers.
This next shot from the same film (and
the same guys) isn't technically a shower, but more of a wash-off,
but since when have I ever split hairs over the chance to post some
half-naked men?
Another famous muscleman-turned-actor
is Arnold Schwarzenegger, shown here under the nozzle.
On the subject of athleticism, I give
you 1940s & '50s boxing champion Carmen Basilio (note the missing
tooth!)
Another pugilist Rocky Marciano was not
only the inspiration for Rocky (1976), but also had his story told in
the 1999 TV-movie Rocky Marciano, which starred Jon Favreau.
Then wrapping up this boxing triad
there is Muhammad Ali (who starred in The Greatest, 1977, based upon
his own life and career to that point.)
One could almost mistake our next
subject for Robert Wagner...
...but it turns out to be Richard
Beymer, who costarred with Wagner's wife Natalie Wood in West Side
Story (1960.)
That same year saw Elvis Presley
starring in G.I. Blues, directed by Norman Taurog who's shown here
coaching The King on how to take a shower.
1961 brought Splendor in the Grass,
with Warren Beatty and some of his classmates taking a shower after
gym class.
Sadly, we can see here something we
once spotted in a publicity still a long while back which is that the
guys (in this case Gary Lockwood) are wearing shorts in the scene and
aren't truly naked.
Still it's a great little scene of male
camaraderie and bonding (with horny teen Beatty concentrating on the
shower in order to avoid thinking about girls.)
I love all the soapy contact and
physical intimacy of the scene.
An unknowing viewer looking at this set
could get the wrong idea of what this scene is about, especially the
top photo which looks like these two buddies are about to be coerced
into a soapy, showery kiss!
1965's colorful, tenderly romantic film
Joy in the Morning has newlyweds Richard Chamberlain and Yvette
Mimieux showering in separate stalls of a boys changing room.
Naturally, we're zeroing in on Mr. C.
for the purposes of this post!
Even though we now live in an “anything
goes” era when it comes to films, little beefcake-y scenes like
this in vintage movies are still a welcome piece of eye candy.
1967's How to Murder Your Wife featured
Jack Lemmon going through his morning routine with the help of
manservant Terry-Thomas.
One of those “let it all hang out”
sort of performers was Andy Warhol favorite Joe Dallesandro, seen
here in a beefcake photo from his youth.
These pictures have a gritty,
grind-house quality to them, even though he's clean-cut (and
clean-skinned!) by today's standards.
On the flip side is this very demure
publicity shot of Dark Shadows actor Jonathan Frid. Hey, at least
from the reflection of his in the mirror we know that he wasn't truly
a vampire in real life!
Showing off far more flesh is Jan
Michael Vincent rinsing off in one of his movies.
These gents are from the 1973 movie The
Paper Chase. Character actor Edward Herrmann is on the left, Timothy
Bottoms center and Graham Beckel on the right.
The height differential of these guys
probably made it a little difficult to set up the shot, hence 6'5”
Herrmann is showing a tad more skin than the other two. (Beckel's
belly button doesn't even make the frame!)
The 1976 drive-in classic The Pom Pom
Girls featured a welcome locker room shower scene. That's Robert
Carradine attaching a condom to the overhead shower nozzle and
filling it with water.
Check out those nozzles darting
straight down out of the ceiling with no angle to them at all!
Here he lends a supportive hand to
costar Michael Mullins (and I've included a shot of his rear view for
those who may be interested.)
I have always loved these type of
communal shower scenes with cute guys sprinkled around.
In 1977, Mel Brooks aped the shower
scene from Psycho (1960) in his Alfred Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety.
Ryan O'Neal took a contemplative shower
in Oliver's Story (1978), the sequel to 1970's Love Story.
That same year brought the sex comedy
Coach, in which Cathy Lee Crosby has to fight sexism in order to lead
a high school basketball team.
Here, she turns the water to 100% cold
to jolt the players out of their sniggering, disrespectful attitude
towards her.
Later, she takes things much further by
beginning an affair with one of the students (a young Michael Biehn!)
...Joining him in the shower for a bit
of hanky-panky (which, by the way, is interrupted by a janitor.)
The 1981 teen horror spoof Student
Bodies featured this freshly-showered character applying some unusual
deodorant.
One of those
saw-it-on-cable-in-the-'80s-and-never-forgot-it movies is Fear No
Evil (1981) in which Stefan Arngrim (from Land of the Giants) plays a
put-upon teen who begins to demonstrate Satanic powers and uses them
to punish his many enemies. Here, he is being picked on in the
shower by the class bully (Daniel Eden) and uses his mind control
abilities to turn the tables on his tormentor and make him supply a
lengthy lip-lock in front of all the other showering students. This
whole sequence (sorry about the shitty quality of the pics) was very
vivid to my fourteen year-old eyes, believe me!
Campus Man (1987) told the story, based
on a true story, of a college-age entrepreneur who comes up with the
idea of a beefcake calendar. Here we see him (John Dye) attempting
to coerce his dead-hot roommate and diving champion (model Steve
Lyon) to take part in it.
During their discussion about it in the
pool's steamy shower room, various other swimmers shuck off their
Speedos in the background.
Few '80s hunks made quite the same
visual impact as the delectable Lyon, though his acting career was
staggeringly fleeting.
Before he joined the cast of Arrow (and
before that, Dawson's Creek), Dylan Neal was a daytime soap star on
shows like The Bold and the Beautiful, showing off his wares in
countless photo shoots.
The shower still provides a viable
backdrop for publicity shots such as this one with James Marsden.
And this one with Scott Foley (of
Felicity, The Unit and Scandal, and formerly Mr. Jennifer Garner.)
1998's marijuana comedy Half Baked
centers on a plan to free a man from jail before he is killed by an
enemy of his and thankfully includes a prison shower scene.
Harland Williams is singing in the
shower, with his soap-on-a-rope as an imaginary microphone when he
catches the eye of a fellow inmate.
All the old cliches come true when he
drops the soap and heads over to retrieve it.
Of course, 1998's most memorable shower
was surely taken by Kevin Bacon in
Wild Things, only a bit of which
is shown here.
Few people who saw the engrossing
Mexican film Y Tu Mamá También (2001) can forget the sight of Diego
Luna and Gael GarcÃa Bernal enjoying a shower in the vacated country
club locker room where they've been hanging out.
The chit-chat between them devolves
into a towel-snapping chase in which they both provide full frontal
nudity. (As a side note, it's been a joy to see these two actors
continue to appear in terrific roles and grow in fame as the years
have gone by.)
2007's Meet Bill had down-and-out Aaron
Eckhart playing reluctant mentor to a smart-mouthed, ego-driven kid
(Logan Lerman) who winds up helping him win his cheating wife back.
The two of them bond in several ways
(some of them quite controversial, such as when they share a tent
overnight with two gals and apparently have sex with them!) including
this shower scene.
Another 2007 movie, I Now Pronounce You
Chuck and Larry, had firemen Kevin James and Adam Sandler posing as a
gay couple in order to obtain domestic partner benefits.
Things get momentarily dicey, however,
in the station's shower room when one of their skeptical and nervous
cohorts – you guessed it – drops the soap.
The guy tries to borrow another man's
soap rather than bend down to retrieve his own, but the grappling
over it causes that bar to fly into the air and onto the floor as
well!
Then Ving Rames comes in and has no
qualms about reaching down to grab the soap for himself.
This shot is of Jake Johnson of the sitcom New Girl.
Here we have what is currently my
favorite commercial (and I typically do not ever watch commercials,
but I stop the presses for this one!) It's about a man who
inadvertently uses his wife's Summer's Eve body wash while taking a
shower and then feels the need to do all sorts of macho behavior
(towing with his teeth, drinking raw eggs, etc...) in order to
reclaim his masculinity, all to the wife's dry bemusement.
The man in the ad is delectable and
thankfully has his modest chest hair intact during this era of
shaved, waxed and lasered specimens everywhere!
I guess this post has been all wet, but
hopefully in a good way! I leave you now with a set of shower photos
that clearly have a dick in them (but can you identify who it is?)
This is an old army training film
featuring ol' “Derwood” himself, Dick York of Bewitched! Till
next time, yours truly, Poseidon.
