Episode 37: Tom DeSimone's CATCHING UP (1975)

Cruising the Movies

When Tom DeSimone’s CATCHING UP begins, two lovers are in crisis. The older man, Frank, tells his younger partner Dennis that their relationship has grown stagnant after a mere three months of living together. Frank’s solution? Spice things up by opening their relationship! At first outraged by this suggestion, the doe-eyed, yet well-hung Dennis (Keith Anthoni, here in his screen debut) rises up to the challenge by throwing himself into a journey of sexual maturation and, well, CATCHING UP. From cruisey movie theater balconies to kinky personals, the romantic comedy-drama of CATCHING UP manages to resonate with relationship issues and tropes still common today.

Critically lauded at the time of its release, CATCHING UP was a watershed film for filmmaker Tom DeSimone. Its success allowed him to finally make the jump beyond pornography — and the stigma that went with it — into more legitimate mainstream films. In this episode, we focus on this, as well as DeSimone’s relationship with Hand in Hand’s Jack Deveau, and the unlikely college education of one of the film’s beefcake stars. We also mull over why the film has been somewhat forgotten over the years, especially compared to some of DeSimone’s other work.