Episode 42: Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.’s DADDY DEAREST (1984)

This week on the podcast, we’re celebrating the release of Altered Innocence’s new Blu-ray release of Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.’s seminal Passing Strangers and Forbidden Letters by taking a look at his 1984 film, Daddy Dearest. The third and final film in Bressan’s self-described ‘personal/porno trilogy,’ Daddy Dearest tells the story of Edward Thompson, a gay porn director with artistic aspirations who finds his personal life and private fantasies bleeding into the production of his latest film. One of Bressan’s most ambitious explorations of fantasy, memory, and reality, Daddy Dearest is a hidden gem waiting to be rediscovered and a fitting conclusion to a gay film trilogy unlike any other.

There’s a lot to talk about with this one and over the course of the episode we’ll use several early screenplay drafts to trace the development of the film and its core themes, explore the way it (perhaps misleadingly) exploits the then-nascent Daddy phenomenon, and place it in context with the rest of Bressan’s filmography.