Saturday afternoons were frequently gay-indoctrination times for me. TV networks used to run old movies on Saturday afternoons, I assume because they could buy the rights for cheap. That’s how I was introduced to Tarzan and Hercules. That’s also how I was introduced to A Kid for Two Farthings.
I must have been around 13 years old when I saw it first. It was pre-porn featuring actual wrestler-turned-actor Joe Robinson as a complete narcissist bodybuilder. Women threw themselves at Joe’s character, but he was too busy pinning up photos of beautiful hardbody boys clipped from bodybuilding magazines , and then taping them up to his walls (hey! I did that!).
The movie takes a quick turn from bodybuilding to bodybuilder wrestling (excellent!). Despite Joe’s reluctance to get into the pro-wrestling ring (“Nothing doing! Wrestling’s the worst thing in the world you can do for muscle development.”), he’s lured into the ring to defend the challenge to his manhood by the actual boxer-turned-pro-wrestler Primo Carnera (also seen throwing down with Steve Reeves in Hercules Unchained).
At one point in A Kid Joe’s character learns he’s become the coverboy for the magazine “Body Beautiful” (hey! I secretly bought muscle mags like that to lust after the beef!).
There are only a couple of actual wrestling matches, and most of the camera angles are from miles away, but from what I got to see of Joe Robinson in his impressively stuffed tight green trunks and floppy blond hair, he instantly became my hero-wrestler dreamboat. Of course he’s so cocky that he thinks his sheer brawn will make him victorious, despite his lack of skills. He’s impetuous and, well, pretty dense. He has to suffer because of his hard body, his blond hair, his cocky overconfidence, his simpleminded goodness. And he suffers nicely, particularly in a long, crushing bodyscissors in the middle of the ring.
He breaks a sweat, which you know how much I love! He even sits low into a pretty convincing boston crab, giving us a glimpse of his decent, muscle ass in action.
Joe Robinson in A Kid for Two Farthings taught me the notion of the chick-block, particularly that closet-strategy of throwing yourself into some esoteric obsession as an excuse to keep out of the clutches of horny women. He taught me that the bodybuilder/wrestler crossover is smoking hot! He taught me that pretty, blond muscle boys are always cocky, and they always must suffer terribly in the ring. And he taught me that, just like all those women in the movie, the only appropriate way to treat a hardbody narcissist is with awed, lustful, body worship.
Yep, all that I learned by the age of 13, thanks to A Kid for Two Farthings. As an adult, I purchased the film for nostalgia’s sake, but it can now be downloaded in chunks on YouTube, in case you’d like to review any of these important lessons.
Sidelineland 