Jan Dvorak Story, The Review

Reviewed by Joe Shaver  on  8/11/2002

In the Jan Dvorak Story, Jan Dvorak appears in four of the five scenes. Such a tour de force requires a hunk of tremendous sex appeal and versatility. Dvorak lives up to the task and then some. Whether he appears for Bel Ami as “Max Orloff”; for Jet Set as “Jakub Moltin; for Studio 2000 as “Pavel Novotny”; or for William Higgins as “Jan Dvorak” he remains one of the most beautiful guys ever to go before a camera.

The film opens with our hero leaving what appears to be a seminary and traveling through the snow to a job as a bellhop. Jan, doing room service, brings a steak to Pavel Dubcek (another actor who has appeared under various names. Most notably as Max Pellion for Man’s Best). Pavel asks Jan if he has eaten and receiving a negative reply persuades the young man to stay for dinner. Pavel feeds Jan some beefsteak and then proceeds to feast on Jan’s fleshsteak. After mutual blowjobs and an exciting 69, Pavel fucks the bellhop. (Now that’s what I call room service!)

Jan’s sexual nature now awakened, he propositions two cooks and tells them he has the key to a room and to the free bar. These two beauties are the Bartok twins, Jirka and Karel. Plying them with liquor, Jan now fulfills the ultimate gay fantasy by making it with two identical twins. It must be a unique situation to watch your twin brother being fucked as you stand around knowing you’re next. But the stiff cock on the voyeur indicates he is looking forward to it. Jan does indeed fuck both twins in a very athletic fashion. There are six come shots in this scene! One of which is filmed from below with cum spattering the lens. Thank goodness this is a DVD and not a VHS or I would wear the tape out re-watching this scene.

Scene three begins with a messenger, Bebe, delivering a package that Jan has to sign for. The messenger’s pen won’t write, but Jan tells him he has a pen up in his room. He also has a penis up in his room and Bebe is quite happy to use it. A word about Bebe. Every guy in this film is an icon of male beauty. Yet if I could have only one, it would be Bebe. He has the musculature of a young soccer player, beautifully developed pectorals, flawless skin, short-cropped hair, and a face that resembles Rob Estes. He bottoms quite cheerfully for Dvorak. There is touching moment at the scene’s conclusion when Bebe, reluctant to depart, looks back longingly at Jan, only to discover that he is asleep.

It is now Jan’s day off and he is in a tavern with Jirka Kaldova (a.k.a. Ales Hanek for Studio 2000) and Pavel Korsakov. Jirka leaves and passes a blacksmith’s shop where, to the strains of the anvil chorus, he watches the bare-chested smith, Joachem von Festung, pounding a horseshoe. Jirka is eating a banana as he watches sweat drip from the hairy chest. (Get that bit of symbolism, do you?) It is very hot so that blacksmith takes off everything but his apron leaving his buns uncovered. This is too much for Jirka who enters the shop and fondles those buns. Soon he and the blacksmith forge a new relationship. One thing I especially have to commend director Higgins on is having his hunks have sex totally nude. There is none of this sex in shoes or white socks that I find so deplorable in American porn. (That always reminds me of those old stag films with the women always in stockings and high heels and the men in black socks that clearly said “dirty film”) These hunks are gorgeous from head to toe and Higgins lets us see it all! Far from being “dirty” it is a glorious celebration of the male body and of sex.

Back in the bar, the buxom barmaid is flirting with Korsakov but he chooses to take Jan back home instead. Their light quarrel about Jan’s smoking leads to passion and Jan once again shows his versatility by bottoming for Korsakov. Using the Franz Liszt piano transcription of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde as background music, I assume Higgins is telling us that this time it’s not just sex, but love. And as the film ends with them sleeping side by side, I assume this is so.

There is a special segment in the extras section where Higgins comments on the film as we see scenes and background shots in the photo gallery. It is a very interesting addition. However, in his comments on discovering Jan Dvorak on a nude beach and of taking months to persuade him to do a hardcore video and saying that this is the first time he has bottomed, I began to wonder how well he knew this guy. Could he really be unaware of Jan’s work as Max/Jakub/Pavel N? Oh well, if I were in Higgins' position I wouldn’t be watching porn either.

William Higgins has been making films since the late Seventies. He made the best films then; and, as this one seems to prove, he is making the best films now. The Jan Dvorak Story is proof that William Higgins has not lost his touch. He is still the Grand Master.