by Addison DeWitt

Before we start, about the title of this film. Back in the late 70's the biggest thing running on Broadway was a musical called A Chorus Line. The big hit from that show was a number called "What I Did for Love". The first line from that song was "Kiss today goodbye...". Many in the gay community were particularly smitten with A Chorus Line as well as the soundtrack. "What I did For Love" was even covered by disco diva and gay icon Grace Jones on her 1977 debut album Portfolio. Now that we have that out of the way, let's take a look at the movie.

In what is an obvious homage to a Douglas Sirk melodrama, Kiss Today Goodbye kicks off in high camp mode as Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B-Flat Minor fills the air, and opens with a view of an ornate book lying on a satin covered surface while a well manicured hand flips through the pages revealing the actors, producers and various others who toiled to create this masterpiece of dirty cinema.

After the credits have ended we find ourselves in front of the Plaza Hotel in New York City where our hero, Charlie (the wolfish, handsome, George Payne), a construction worker, literally walks into businessman Bill (Lew Seager) knocking his briefcase and some belongings to the ground. After some nervous conversation the guys decide to go have a drink, and apparently are smitten with the other. Even so, they remain silent about whatever feelings they both might be harboring and return to their respective homes.

Bill goes back to his apartment in Chelsea and immediately we understand that he is living with the ultimate shrew of a boyfriend, Tom (Michael Gaunt), who spends most of the next scene bitching about Bill's mother, Bill's lack of money, and Bill not paying enough attention to him. Frankly, what a gorgeous piece of man is doing with such a shrill bastard is anyone's guess -- if I were Bill I'd have kicked this queen to the curb and moved on a long time ago. Ah, but then we would not have much of story to wrap our narrative around, would we?

Meanwhile, if Bill is stuck with a shrill bastard then Charlie is equally unlucky with his choice of wife (played by Christopher Rage as Mary Jane Sstuning) as she's a screeching harridan complaining as loudly and as piercingly as Tom does to Bill. While this harpy of a wife is going on with a laundry list of litanies against her husband, Charlie finds Bill's phone number and decides to give him a call. Happily the men manage to break free from their domestic hells and reunite at the Plaza for an afternoon of heavenly delights.

Before a roaring fire, Charlie and Bill share a drink and then draw into each other's arms for some long, sensuous kissing. Then, slowly, they undress each other and get down to business. Watching Seager and Payne in this scene might cause some of you to break a sweat as the love-making is seriously realistic, and the two principals seem genuinely engaged. Payne is built beautifully and has a chest that is lightly covered with fur. Seager is a leggy lad, with a magnificent prick and a bubble butt that just wont quit. The mutual cock sucking that these two engage is both energetic and sensuous. And finally, when it comes time to fuck, Payne mounts his conquest and pretty much rides Seager into next week. My only complaint with this scene is that about two thirds of the way in the director opts for a special kaleidescope effect that, while original, pretty much ruins the scene's effect. Be that as it may, the men end their love-making covered in each other's spunk and continue making out until the scene ends.

Back at Bill's it seems that his bitchy boyfriend is going to throw a birthday party for him, much to Bill's chagrin as the last thing he wants is to be spending any time with anyone other than Charlie. Nevertheless, Tom (who begins to sound more and more like Harvey Fierstein as the movie progresses) throws the party and then starts making jokes about Bill's age, asking him if he's forty or forty-one this year, and poor Bill just sits and takes it (seriously, you will want to punch Michael Gaunt in the face he is so good at playing an unpleasant person).

As the party guest arrive, it's no wonder Bill did not want to be here. One of the guys shows up holding a Raggedy Ann doll that he coddles like an actual infant, another one makes a bee-line for the album collection and starts rooting through it, and yet another walks in wearing a Lincoln Art Theater t-shirt and then does a pretty bad Mae West imitation as he shouts out, "Appearing nightly!" Yes, it now seems that we might be watching a scene right out of The Boys in the Band.

As the catty night continues, Bill sits and sulks in a chair until Tom announces that he has a special surprise for the birthday boy, and with that in walks Charlie who goes over to the sofa and lets one of the guests give him a blowjob.

What the fuck?

It was at this point that I was no longer feeling like I wanted to punch Tom. I now wanted to shake Bill out of his stupor and say, "get a grip fellow, why are you putting up with all of this?"

Instead, Bill tosses his cocktail glass on the floor and storms out of the room (bringing to mind every grande dame of the cinema whose ever thrown a similar hissy fit in a film...but then again, I do think that director Ellie was going for one of those overwrought dramatic moments).

Suddenly Charlie breaks free from the guy who has been sucking him off and runs into the bedroom with some kind of lame excuse and the boys reconcile, and once more we are treated to the sight of Payne and Seager passionately engaged in another steaming hot fuck scene. Unfortunately the action keeps changing to the orgy, which is now going on in the living room. And this would not be bad were that the participants were worth looking at, but frankly they are not. You will probably find yourself fast forwarding away from the orgy and back to Payne and Seager, who work up one hell of a sweat and almost fall off the bed at one point they are going at so energetically.

Finally, after an exhausting love-making session, the men fall asleep in each other's arms and all seems right with the world. That is until the next morning when Bill wakes up and finds an empty bed and a letter addressed to him from Charlie. It seems now that Charlie has found true love, he has to go back to his wife (huh?) but he was nice enough to let Bill know that he'll "never forget him."

Bill panics and leaves the apartment and runs back down to the Plaza hotel where for a fleeting second he catches a glimpse of Charlie on the sidewalk. Bill waves his arms to get Charlie's attention and mouths "I love you" to him and Charlie does the same. And just then, Charlie's wife shows up and the couple stroll away arm in arm leaving a dejected Bill to wander the streets weeping.

Yes, it's an ending right out of The Way We Were. In fact I was half expecting to see Robert Redford standing next to Charlie and Barbra Streisand next to Bill.

No doubt that prolific director Francis Ellie (who worked under several different names directing not only porn but horror films) had a thing for A Chorus Line as he also made a film entitled Point Me Towards Tomorrow, which is the second line from "What I did for Love". One wonders if he was ultimately going to create a series of films based on lines from this song. Sadly, Ellie was killed in helicopter crash in 1977 and Kiss Today Goodbye was released posthumously.

The bottom line: Kiss Today Goodbye has a great premise and two extremely attractive leads. Unfortunately, the overdubbed voices are very distracting (obviously this film was silent and the voices added later), and while the sex scenes that include Payne and Seager are top drawer, the few other sex scenes in the film are pretty flat. Still, it's worth a watch.

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