Kiss Today Goodbye
Kiss Today Goodbye was the gay blockbuster hit in Manhattan in 1976. The film ran a a year at the Big Top all male theater in the heart of Times Square. It's a "Francie Ellie" movie, a pseudonymous collaboration between Mike Finlay and the Amero Brothers. Mike and John Amero had been close friends since their days as editors at ABC TV, before they made Touch of Her Flesh. Mike and John Amero co-directed; Mike shot and edited the movie under his other nom de film, "Julian Marsh" and John's brother Lem ("Firth DeMule") put together the exceptionally campy music.
The resultant film is a unique brew of of Mike straight S&M and the Amero brothers homosexual sensibilities. Kiss Today Goodbye is cartoonish look at seventies Christopher Street clichés in the form of a soap opera involving George Payne as a quiet hardhat. Through a work situation, he becomes the love interest of a closeted married businessman (Lew Seeger). Their romance blossoms behind the backs of George's trick roommate (Michael Dattore, of various straight roughies) and Lew's wife, an irritating, unsexy, henpecking shrew. The movie presents the classic dilemma of the button down type going after rough trade. The surprise here is that the hardhat falls hard for the businessman. The businessman, however, cowardly remains in the closet, thus betraying his heartbroken lover by reducing him to a trick. It's a sadistic emotional game to pull on someone you ultimately can't live up to. Kiss Today Goodbye is the movie that gave George the public persona of the Christopher Street Dream and King of the Queers. It took him years to live this role down... with the help of Phil Prince and Avon Productions. No CONDOMS!
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