Men's Room (Bijou Video) Review

Distributor: Bijou Video Edition Details: Standard Streaming Movie Specs: Genres: Golden Age Classic (1970s Shot on Film), Feature Film, Gay Also known as: Mens Room, Tea Room Run Time: 59 minutes Rated: X Release Year: 1977 Director: Vince Trainor (as Robert Shaw) Written by: Dick Sheppard (as Dick Shepard) (based on a story by), Vince Trainor (as Robert Shaw) (written by) Director of Photography: Vince Trainor (as Robert Shaw) Cast: Dave Daniels (as Dave Daniel), Danny Robb, Shannon, Craig Roberts, Scott Heath, James Scott, Steve Pypo (as Steve Pyro), Louis Lane (as Lois Lane), Ray Nemo (as Ray), Roy Nemo Release Specs: Audio: English Mono Subtitles: none Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: Streaming Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): N/A Number of discs: N/A

Men's Room is an interesting gay feature film from director and writer Vince Trainor. Men's Room has a minimal plot to it, and minimal locations yet manages to tell an interesting story. Gay viewers will likely end up enjoying Men's Room more than straight viewers due to the heavy sex nature of the film.

In Men's Room, A park men's room is a meeting place for various gay interludes. Homophobic cop Jim (Dave Daniels) has the park men's room on his beat and sets out to bust the men who keep copulating in the men's room making his life miserable.

The concept behind the story is a good one; however, the only real issue with the story is that it isn't enough to fill up the longer runtime of the film. What is present in Men's Room would have been sufficient to make for a well-done short film. For a feature-length film, the story should have been more developed. The characters could have been more fleshed out. The finale of the film, which has to be seen (this reviewer isn't going to ruin it for you), is just plain bizarre.

The majority of the runtime of the film is the sex scenes, including an extended sex scene where two men, Jerry (Danny Robb) and Paul (Shannon), sneak away from the restroom to Jerry's house. There appears to be an excellent variety to the sex scenes, with gloryhole action, an orgy, and regular sex all present in the film.

The men's room used, whether it was a real one that they managed to have as a location or whether it was a set, works well for its role in the film. Overall, this reviewer thinks that viewers that enjoy male-on-male sex will get far more out of watching Men's Room than viewers who are straight due to the limited plot. If the film sounds good, you should give it a try.

The edition of Men's Room screened is the streaming-only edition available on NakedSword.com from Bijou Video. Bijou Video has done a poor job with their streaming-only edition of Men's Room. Men's Room was shot on film, and it is very evident that Bijou Video has used a VHS tape as the master for this release. Men's Room is presented in the Academy aspect ratio of 1.33:1 pillarboxed to 1.78:1 in 480p — which, realistically, is likely to be 250i. The image quality in the release is inferior. The image displays a lack of definition and a dark and murky picture. The video is just plain ugly looking and has poor color rendering. There are also artifacts and print damage visible. There have also been eight minutes trimmed out of the film.

Men's Room is presented with an English monaural audio track. The audio is in better shape than the video. The volume is very low for some reason, and there are pops present. The dialog in the film is understandable at all times.

Bijou Video hasn't included any extras for this release.

The concept and story idea behind the gay hardcore feature film Men's Room are good ones. However, the film is likely to be best enjoyed by gay viewers because the concept is stretched out too long and the time is filled with large amounts of sex scenes with little story portions here and there. Unfortunately, Bijou Video has done a poor job with their release of Men's Room with an ugly looking video sourced transfer that is edited.

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