Pat Rocco

Mondo Rocco is a collection of short films weaved together as it was seen in the Park Theater in Los Angeles in 1969/1970. Charming in their innocence, Rocco's films captured important moments in gay history and are an invaluable resource.

This entertaining and enlightening documentary sheds a light on a pioneering moment in film history and the gay rights movement, as it revisits the break-through 1960s gay films of Pat Rocco. Rocco was responsible for the very first gay films that were shown openly to the paying public in the late 1960s. Situated before hardcore porn became the norm, and in marked contrast to the somewhat darker gay porn that was coming out of New York at the time. Pat Rocco’s film were more sun-dappled, featuring tanned and happy-looking naked men on sail boats and on beaches, celebrating their identities and the beauty of the male body. The filmmakers got to talk to the generous, rather humble and open-minded Rocco just before his death. It took a team of dedicated Canadian filmmakers to capture a fairly obscure moment of indie film history that deserves to be remembered.

Compilation of loops produced by C.R. Productions, a company created by Chuck Robinson, a protégé of Pat Rocco’s who starred in several of his loops as Brian Reynolds. Compilation of loops.

ONE Adventure was filmed in 1972, only three years after the Stonewall riots. The trip was organized by One, Inc., whose members wanted a record of the trip to show audiences at home. The film chronicles a trip across Europe with Pat Rocco, Rev. Troy Perry, and six others.

A look at the Gay Pride Celebrations in San Francisco and L.A. in the US bicentennial year of 1976.

In January 1970, filmmaker and activist Pat Rocco went to a gay nightclub on W. El Segundo Blvd. in the Gardena neighborhood of Los Angeles called Meat Market. They were advertising a nude dancing performance, which had become the focus of some controversy and led to arrests of the dancers and the manager. In the short documentary, Rocco arrives just as one of the arrests is taking place, capturing footage of the police leading the dancers, Michael Craig and Bob Philpot, out of the nightclub. His intention was to film the dance as evidence for a court case involving the dancer Bob Philpot—regarded as the first male nude go-go dancer—who had been previously arrested on obscenity charges. Rocco speaks with Walter Culpepper, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents the dancers charged and explains the nature of the charges. Patrons of Meat Market are interviewed and describe the dance performance as more artistic than sexual in nature.