I have reported in the recent past on the strange & unfortunate collisions of things Bix Beiderbecke-related with, well, sex. Here is yet another.
On the Internet Movie Database there used to be a customer review of the English-language, Italian-made biopic Bix: An Interpretation of a Legend (1991, Giuseppe “Pupi” Avati, dir.). It began like this:
This is the Bix Beiderbecke story for gay men. The film appears to have been made by a combination of GQ, the photographers for the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, and Bruce Weber. It’s filled with beautiful twenty-something guys (Beiderbecke died at 28), all of them wearing nice clothing—often tuxedoes, posed against vintage 20s automobiles or in art deco theatre lobbies and nightclubs, in prep-school dorms, or on wrap-around porches of large Midwestern homes bathed in a soft golden light. Even when the men are a bit scruffy and in need of a shave, they appear as if in high-fashion photo layouts. This is a film where even the ugly guys are handsome. Watching it is like turning the pages of a deluxe coffee table book about Bix’s life.
I call your attention to this review not because I actually appeared in a couple of the film’s scenes. Instead, I’ve always found the reviewer’s take funny & ironic in the context of the rumors and controversy that have always swirled around Bix’s own sexuality. (Was he gay? Do we care?)
Then, the review up and disappeared. One currently posted comment, left by Michael T. Henderson, even references the missing review—“I would like to thank the guy who said that even the ugly guys were attractive (I played Pee Wee Russel)”—although Henderson also misspells his own character’s name and then goes on to insult the script. (Henderson, by the way, has done some fine work besides Bix, most prominently 1988’s Pledge Night, in which he answers to Chip. The film is notorious for its gratuitous nudity, its unintended homoeroticism, a killer hand coming up out of a toilet, and a cherry bomb up the ass. Music by Anthrax.)
Anyway, this weekend I was able to contact the author of the original IMDb customer review. He was fairly pissed off. In an e-mail, he explained that a single anonymous complaint led the review to be labeled “abusive” and deleted. IMDb officials will tell him nothing, causing him to suspect homophobia. “I made it clear that it was a comment for/about gays,” he told me. “I am gay; I am out. And that's that. If you don’t like it, tough.”
Hey, man. I’m cool. But when you’re dealing with Bix, it’s never that simple.
[February 19, 2006]