Buried deep within the recesses of the Propaganda Films catalogue is a fine indie comedy that Dave has a lot of time for.

Michael Powell’s seminal British horror film would have had a whole different vibe to it if Karlheinz Böhm had stalked his prey from the primary-coloured confines of a Chad Valley Magic Playhouse – but that’s where the Peeping Tom (1960) of Tyler Bensinger’s debut movie opts to gaze upon the nocturnal activities of his sexually voracious neighbour.

JUST LOOKING is perhaps the most recherché of that conveyor belt of independent features pumped out by Propaganda Films during the ‘90s. Formed in 1986 by Sigurjon Sighvatsson and Steve Golin, music video specialists Propaganda hit pay dirt when they financed David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) through their deal with Polygram which, in turn, led to a wave of well-received quasi-arthouse fare like S.F.W (1994) and Jason’s Lyric (1994).

Quite why Bensinger’s film fell off the edge of a cliff remains a mystery. After all, Just Looking‘s star, James Le Gros, was and is a bit of an offbeat hero, lighting up even the most mediocre of the self-appointed ‘quirky indies’ during the ‘90s (see: Destiny Turns on the Radio (1995), Leather Jackets (1991)).

In Just Looking, Le Gros is Jim: a successful architect besotted with his wife Mary (Michelle Forbes), and young daughter. However, despite this façade of matrimonial bliss, both Jim and his other half are discovering that their respective sexual appetites are drifting apart, as he has a thirst for wild and uninhibited passion, while she favours something more sporadic and sober. The effects of this discordance are felt primarily by Jim, who becomes less obsessed with work, and more preoccupied by his growing addiction to porn and the need to spy on the woman next door (Albert Pyun favourite Tina Cote) having sex. Things come to a head when Mary discovers Jim’s kinks, and the couple are faced with some complex concessions in order to save their marriage. “If only it was taboo for a man to have sex with his wife, then maybe we’d do it more often,” bemoans Jim in a particularly insightful moment.

Born in Los Angeles and educated at Yale where he majored in English before attending UCLA Film School, you have to wonder what more Bensinger might have experienced if Just Looking had found an audience; nevertheless, a successful career in writing for television followed, as did a WGA award and an Emmy nomination for Masters of Sex and This is Us respectively. With allusions to the type of relationship comedies you’d get from the likes of Woody Allen, Bensinger’s picture spends its time examining the flaws and frustrations of monogamy. It’s down to the brilliance of Le Gros and Forbes that it succeeds, as they’re able to bring nuance and empathy to characters that could easily have been unlikable. Able support comes from Steven Weber, Kurt Fuller, Marshall Bell and Marg Helgenberger, whose participation further raises the question of how Just Looking, well, just disappeared into the ether.

Shot over the course of twenty-five days in January and February 1995, Just Looking failed to get home video distribution in either the U.S. or the U.K., eventually making its bow on German television in September ’97. Still absent to this day in any format across America, Bensinger’s film did eventually come to physical media in Britain, albeit in a rather unorthodox manner…

As a free DVD glued to the cover of Woman’s Own magazine.

USA ● 1995 ● Comedy, Drama ● 92mins

James Le Gros, Michelle Forbes, Ally Walker, Kurt Fuller, Steven Weber ● Wri./Dir. Tyler Bensinger