Are You Ready for a Gay Porn Movie Written By Sir John Gielgud?

LONDON—Pretty much everyone's heard of Sir John Gielgud, the British actor who died in 2000. Most would probably recognize him as the manservant in both of Dudley Moore's Arthur movies or Fogg's ex-valet in Around the World in 80 Days, or if they're Turner Classic Movie fans, possibly Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936) or as the male lead in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957)—or even his role in the PBS series Brideshead Revisited (1981). The point is, Sir John's been a fixture of the mainstream movie biz since his 1924 debut in Who Is The Man?, and he's tackled almost every genre of movie since then ... including porn: He played the role of Nerva, one of the Roman senators, in Tinto Brass's 1979 movie Caligula, to which its distributor, Bob Guccione, added hardcore scenes, much to the dismay of a fair number of the cast and crew. But what apparently few knew (until now) was that Gielgud had also written a screenplay for a gay movie for his friend, director Peter de Rome, whose films Leah Green of The Guardian described as "not just sex but titillation, fun and beauty" and said he "managed to show men having sex, and make it domestic, unaggressive, and loving" even during a time when gay films bordered on being illegal. Gielgud's film was titled Trouser Bar, which is "set in a menswear shop where an orgy takes place," and stars  "Eighties heart-throb Nigel Havers, 63, camp comedian Julian Clary, 56, and veteran comic Barry Cryer, 80," as passersby, according to articles in The Guardian and the Daily Mail. However, de Rome never filmed Sir John's screenplay, and it languished in de Rome's effects until discovered by David McGillivray, the documentarian who recently produced the biopic Peter de Rome: The Grandfather of Gay Porn—who decided to turn the script into a full-length hardcore feature. But guess what: the trustees of Sir John's primary heir, the Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust, are none too happy with the production, and had refused to give McGillivray permission to use the script—but he did anyway, and the film is now in its final editing stages. McGillivray defended his violation of the Trust's copyright by recalling that Gielgud has been busted and fined in London in 1953 for having cruised a public bathroom, and that, "Pornography is still a stigma in this country, but Sir John loved porn and, in his letters, he talks about visiting gay cinemas. ... I was shocked when the trust didn’t give me permission. We stuck to Sir John’s script very tightly when we made the film a couple of weeks ago. He was very specific about the clothes he wanted the actors to wear. Corduroy was his favorite, but he also liked velvet, flannel, leather [and] denim. He was very particular about the type of clothes he liked. Trouser Bar is a film of enormous historical interest." The film cost £50,000 (US$76,320) to produce, and apparently it's unlikely to be screened in Britain. "They have come down heavily on me," McGillivray told the Daily Mail. "They are using intellectual copyright as an excuse." Actually, that's a pretty good excuse reason. People really shouldn't be taking other people's property for their own use, even if it is to make what might be one of the more historic gay films ever—and considering that the U.S. and UK have treaties regarding the use of copyrighted material, it's unclear if Trouser Bar will ever been seen in the U.S.—but fans of gay movies—and/or Sir John Gielgud—can always hope! Pictured, l-r: Sir John Gielgud and Peter de Rome.