''The Other Side of Aspen'' is a 1978 American gay pornographic film produced by

Falcon Studios Falcon Entertainment (also known as Falcon Studios), a United States company based in San Francisco, California, is one of the world's largest producers of gay pornography. Founded in 1971 by Chuck Holmes, Archived by web.archive.org. the comp ...

, directed by Matt Sterling, starring Casey Donovan,

Al Parker Al Parker (born Andrew Robert Okun; June 25, 1952 – August 17, 1992) was a gay American porn star, producer, and director. He died from complications of AIDS at the age of 40. Early career Parker was born in Natick, Massachusetts. After arriv ...

, and Dick Fisk. The film consists of sex scenes filmed in

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a Fresh water, freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevad ...

, California, interspersed with dialogue scenes shot in San Francisco. ''The Other Side of Aspen'' was Falcon's first feature-length release, notable as one of the first adult films distributed on

videocassette Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette ...

. The film was a critical and commercial success upon release, and marked a turning point in the development of the gay pornography industry. Its elevated production values, largely unprecedented at the time, led to feature film-style releases becoming the norm across the gay pornography industry. The film popularized a

macho Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1930s and 1940s best defined as hav ...

gay porn aesthetic that would remain broadly popular for decades after the film's release.

Plot

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, a skiing instructor (Jeff Turk) recounts to his friend (Mike Flynn) a particular incident that occurred during his recent visit to

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Mounta ...

. While traveling to instruct two clients (

and Casey Donovan), he witnessed two men (Chad Benson and Dick Fisk) having sex in a cabin. Upon arriving at his destination, he found his clients also having sex; they are subsequently joined by the men from the cabin and the instructor in an

orgy In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party consisting of at least five members where guests freely engage in open and unrestrained sexual activity or group sex. Swingers' parties do not always conform to this designation, because at many swing ...

. Having recounted the story, the instructor comments that he is aroused; he exposes his penis to his friend, who reaches for it.

Cast

* Casey Donovan *

* Dick Fisk * Chad Benson * Jeff Turk * Mike Flynn Cast sourced from the ''Gay Erotic Video Index''.

Production

Development

Chuck Holmes founded Falcon Studios in 1972, launching the company by purchasing three short gay pornography films by director Matt Sterling and an adult

mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...

for

USD$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

4,200. The founding of Falcon as a pornography company that conducted business primarily through

mail order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing a telephone call * Placing a ...

was a reflection of the emerging

home video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...

market, which provided the conditions for the commercialization and professionalization of the gay pornography industry through the establishment of a

studio system A studio system is a method of filmmaking wherein the production and distribution of films is dominated by a small number of large movie studios. It is most often used in reference to Hollywood motion picture studios during the Golden Age of Hol ...

that would come to dominate the production and distribution of gay pornography from the mid-1970s onward. Falcon's first release, the 1972 short film ''Johnny Harden and the Champs'', defined the studio's aesthetic of "down-to-earth men" with "naturally athletic bodies" that would recur in many of the studio's subsequent films. In fall 1977, Falcon cameraman Colin Meyer suggested to Holmes that the studio produce a film with "all the biggest porn icons at that time": Casey Donovan, the star of ''

Boys in the Sand ''Boys in the Sand'' is a landmark American gay pornographic film, released early in the Golden Age of Porn. The 1971 film was directed by Wakefield Poole and stars Casey Donovan.gay porn star;

, a popular model at Falcon rival Colt Studios who had appeared in several Falcon films; and the up-and-coming Dick Fisk. The film was marketed as the first release in the Falcon Video Pac line, with the title ''The Other Side of Aspen'' chosen after a staffer at Falcon suggested making "a movie in the snow."

Filming

''The Other Side of Aspens skiing and sex scenes were shot in

, California. Holmes regularly took skiing trips, and filmed scenes for the studio on one such trip so he could claim the vacation as a

write-off A write-off is a reduction of the recognized value of something. In accounting, this is a recognition of the reduced or zero value of an asset. In income tax statements, this is a reduction of taxable income, as a recognition of certain expenses ...

. The film's setting of

references the city's popularity as a destination for

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

tourists; in 1979, the city was the first municipality in Colorado to pass a non-discrimination ordinance, and has hosted Aspen Gay Ski Week annually since that same year. At the time, gay pornographic films were typically eight- to 10-minute single-scene film loops that were shot and released individually on

8 mm film 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of the ...

; ''The Other Side of Aspen'' was similarly shot as four individual scenes. After filming concluded in Lake Tahoe, Holmes, Sterling, and Falcon co-founder Vaughn Kincey elected to shoot additional scenes of dialogue in San Francisco. The dialogue scenes were edited between the sex scenes (an industry practice now referred to as "webbing"), giving the film a narrative with plot and continuity, and making ''The Other Side of Aspen'' the first

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

to be released by Falcon. Donovan and Parker met for the first time while flying to Lake Tahoe to shoot the film. The film's first sex scene between Donovan and Parker was improvised; the encounter was filmed after the actors began to have sex of their own accord during a still photography session. During the encounter, Parker fisted Donavan; this was cut from the film's original 1978 release, but was included in its 2002 re-release. After filming concluded, Fisk and Benson pursued a romantic relationship.

Release

''The Other Side of Aspen'' was heavily marketed in the lead-up to its release (an atypical approach for gay adult films at the time), with reservation cards and a brochure promoting the film sent to the top customers on Falcon's mailing list. The film would be released in all extant media formats of the time: standard 8 mm, Super 8, Sound 8, VHS, and

Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, ...

, making ''The Other Side of Aspen'' one of the first adult films to be released on

. The film was re-released on DVD in 2001, making it the first film Falcon Studios released on DVD; John Holmes notes that Falcon was a late adopter of the DVD format, as the studio was "especially cautious about the commercial viability" of the medium. A remastered version of the film was released in 2014.

Reception and legacy

Critical and commercial response

''The Other Side of Aspen'' was a major critical and commercial success upon its release, and was described by the

TLA Entertainment Group TLA Entertainment Group is a privately held corporation based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1981. Originally formed to operate a repertory movie theater, the company subsequently moved into catalog and online sales, retail store ...

as "one of the best gay adult films ever made." Alternative pornography director Black Spark has commented positively on ''The Other Side of Aspen'', describing the nostalgic qualities of film favorably in comparison to "boring" contemporary mainstream pornography. A short documentary about the film, ''Another Side of Aspen'', was produced by Falcon in 2011 to promote the release of ''The Other Side of Aspen VI''. The documentary is directed by Michael Stabile, shot by Ben Leon, and produced by Jack Shamama; footage from the documentary was later used in Stabile's 2015 feature-length documentary film ''Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story''. By 1993, 45,000 copies of ''The Other Side of Aspen'' had been sold, making it the best-selling gay pornography film at that time and producing the highest revenues in Falcon's corporate history up to that point. Its success prompted Falcon to release their back catalog of over 200 film loops on home video in the years subsequent to the film's release, as well as produce new material exclusively on home video. Falcon was thus uniquely positioned to exploit the home video market in a way its competitors were not, with John R. Burger noting that "film-to-videotape transfer and the subsequent packaging, marketing, and distribution of video is a costly procedure. Unable to compete in this new marketplace, many companies went out of business." In 2002, the film's re-release won Best Classic Gay DVD at the

GayVN Awards The GayVN Awards are film awards presented annually to honor work done in the gay pornographic industry. The awards were sponsored by '' AVN Magazine'', the parent publication of ''GAYVN Magazine'', and continue the recognition for gay pornograp ...

, and Best Classic Video at the

Grabby Awards Grabby Awards (better known as The Grabbys) are presented annually in Chicago to honor work done in the gay adult erotic video industry. The awards are sponsored by ''GRAB Magazine.'' The Grabby Awards and ''GRAB Magazine'' are owned and operate ...

Impact

''The Other Side of Aspen'' is regarded as a turning point for the development of gay pornography as a genre and industry: its elevated production values were largely unprecedented at the time, and feature film-style releases would become the norm across the gay pornography industry in the wake of ''The Other Side of Aspens success. The film cemented the legacy of Donovan and Parker, with writer

Jeffrey Escoffier Jeffrey Paul Escoffier (October 9, 1942 – May 20, 2022) was an American author, activist, and media strategist. He was a research associate at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. He has taught at the University of California (Berkeley ...

noting that the film "put Donovan back into the spotlight and confirmed Parker's celestial status." The film is credited with popularizing the

gay porn star aesthetic that would remain broadly popular in the decades subsequent to the film's release, which Holmes described as his response to the "scummy" look of

stag film A stag film (also blue movie or smoker) is a type of pornographic film produced secretly in the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Typically, stag films had certain traits. They were brief in duration (about 12 minutes at most), were silent, d ...

s of the 1960s. Escoffier writes that ''The Other Side of Aspen'' "crystallized Chuck Holmes' vision of the erotic movie ..it signaled the culmination of the gay macho sexual ethos, the confirmation of the ideal gay male body–young, a swimmer's build, no tattoos, and little hair–and the codification of gay porn movies as a genre." Mercer concurs, noting: The aesthetics of ''The Other Side of Aspen'' are further examined by Lynda Johnston, who notes that the setting of an exclusive ski resort "laden with signifiers of wealth" furthers emphasizes this polished and professional tone. Whitney Strub similarly argues that ''The Other Side of Aspen'' was "a harbinger of gay hardcore's emerging dominant modality," as the genre moved away from fetishistic material typical of the early- to mid-1970s, and towards "soft stylization" and "a more standardized masculinity." Strub notes how the removal of the fisting scene from ''The Other Side of Aspen'' was part of a broader effort by Falcon beginning in the 1980s to pivot away from the fetish and

kink Kink or KINK may refer to: Common uses * Kink (sexuality), a colloquial term for non-normative sexual behavior * Kink, a curvature, bend, or twist Geography * Kink, Iran, a village in Iran * The Kink, a man-made geographic feature in remote east ...

videos it produced in the early 1970s; the company began to de-emphasize this content it its mail order catalogs before removing it entirely, a trend Strub notes was later exacerbated by "moralistic

New Right New Right is a term for various right-wing political groups or policies in different countries during different periods. One prominent usage was to describe the emergence of certain Eastern European parties after the collapse of the Soviet Uni ...

bigotry" and "its internalized echoes in the scapegoating of leather, kink, and fisting communities" in the wake of the

HIV/AIDS epidemic The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...

Sequels

A total of five sequels to ''The Other Side of Aspen'' have been produced by Falcon, and often star the most popular performers of the film's given era.

Michael Joseph Gross Michael Joseph Gross (born 1970) is an American author and journalist. He is a contributing editor to ''Vanity Fair'', where he covers topics including politics, technology, and national security. He has also written extensively for publications s ...

argues that the franchise has gone "mostly downhill", as "Falcon's ideal of male beauty has become transparently crafted" with "bodies that look increasing fictional," in contrast to the naturalistic appearance of the actors in the original 1978 film. *''The Other Side of Aspen II'' (1985), directed by Matt Sterling *''The Other Side of Aspen III: Snowbound'' (1995), directed by John Rutherford *''The Other Side of Aspen IV: The Rescue'' (1995), directed by John Rutherford *''The Other Side of Aspen V'' (2001), directed by John Rutherford *''The Other Side of Aspen VI'' (2011), directed by Chris Ward

Notes

References

;Bibliography * * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Other Side of Aspen 1978 films 1978 LGBT-related films 1970s pornographic films American pornographic films Films set in Colorado Films set in San Francisco Films shot in San Francisco Gay pornographic films American LGBT-related films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films