American director Wallace Potts vividly evokes the gay hedonism of 1970s Paris, interspersing direct-to-camera stories by hustler and striptease performer Karl Forest with scenes of his daily life and erotic exploits.

Considered a lost film for decades, the negative of Le Beau Mec was recently found in a garage in Montgomery Alabama, with a trove of letters and documents corroborating what had long been rumored – that Rudolf Nureyev (Wallace Potts’ long-time friend and lover) choreographed the striptease sequences, and that the great Cuban cinematographer Nestor Almendros filmed some of the hottest sex scenes. (While living in Paris, Almendros fell in love with Wallace Potts, and after shooting The Last Metro for Truffaut during the day, he went out to the Bois de Boulogne with Wallace at night to shoot scenes for Beau Mec.)