40s gay party movie st louis farm

A still from the rare footage discovered at a Central West End estate sale. Photo courtesy of Geoff Story. His Saturday ritual in those days was to scour the pages of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for notices of estate sales. He loved estate sales. They allowed Story, then a year-old advertising creative, to indulge in an unusual hobby: collecting the discarded family portraits and home movies of strangers.

Even as a child, such mementos had captivated him. Complete contents of CWE mansion [for sale] including art work, marble sculpture and pedestals, large period dining table, demi-lune tables, Paul McCobb dining set, sofas, beds, mirrors…. There was no mention of old films, but what stood out to Story was the address: Lindell Boulevard.

Estate sales there were always top-shelf. He decided to go. An undated photo of Lindell Boulevard. Courtesy of Geoff Story. Inside the mansion, he climbed the staircase to the third floor. Wandering into a room that felt like an attic, he noticed a box with canisters of 8 mm film.

He carried one canister over to the dormer window, unspooled the leader and held some title frames up to the light. The film stock looked decades old. But when he finally watched the reels, which added up to 22 minutes, he realized he had stumbled on a treasure.

These home movies captured dozens of men splashing, lounging, dancing and laughing around a swimming pool somewhere in the countryside. What makes the film so poignant is its historical moment: Several clues suggest it was shot during and soon after World War II — an era in which the vast majority of homosexuals remained in the closet which would explain why some are wearing wedding rings.

The pool, it appears, was a place where dozens of them could just frolic and be themselves. He pitched his idea to a production company in Hollywood, which showed great enthusiasm. There was only one hitch.

How a Salvaged Home Movie Is Unlocking the Secret History of Gay St. Louis

Before the project could proceed, Story needed to pin down basic facts about this secret gay pool party. The task began to consume him, and turned into an obsessive quest to answer three main questions. Geoff Story at a screening. Photo by Nick Schnelle. Geoff Story, now 48, is a highly functional daydreamer.

His bristled brows and sleepy eyes give him the air of a professor at bedtime, though his real job is creative director at TOKY, a branding firm in Midtown. He frequented flea markets and would pull over the family car to pick up interesting objects on the roadside.

When Story showed up at his boyhood home, he and his father set up the old projector on the living room carpet. The first shot was a doozy: It showed a man wearing lipstick, a pearl necklace and leopard-print bikini top sashaying toward the camera. He abruptly shut off the machine.