A fascinating and sometimes moving new Netflix documentary about Karen and Barry Mason, who as a young married Jewish couple struggling to make a living in 1976 answered an ad in the Los Angeles Times to become a local distributor for HUSTLER magazine. Their side gig would soon expand and see the couple taking over a local gay bookstore called Circus of Books. Before long, the Mason's expanded to film production and became one of the biggest distributors of gay porn in the US, while Circus of Books became an iconic hub for the local LGBT community.
Directed by the Masons' daughter Rachel, CIRCUS OF BOOKS paints an endearing portrait of these most unlikely of smut peddlers, for whom the adult business is strictly that - a business. Mason not only interviews her parents but also her siblings, which helps give the documentary an additional angle by reflecting on what it's like to grow-up being the kid whose parents run a hardcore gay sex shop.
The documentary covers an important era of erotic entertainment, and it gets quite heavy and sad when the Masons start reflecting on the deaths of a number of employees during the height of the 80s AIDS epidemic. The Mason's pre-porn careers were also interesting - Karen was a freelance writer who had interviewed Larry Flynt while Barry was a student alongside Jim Morrison at UCLA film school and went on to do some special effects work on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the STAR TREK TV series.
Highly recommended.
