Vintage Gay Cinema

Trailer for "Song of the Loon", 1968

Thank you for the link, OP. My first time reading about this film.

Thanks R1...that trailer was better than all of Brokeback Mountain

Ben Hur

You know that dim friend of yours? The one you always have to explain things to? That's me.

I don't get it. Was he just fucking with him? Was everything a lie?

Mr. Jaffee sure was handsome.

There was a comedy called "The Gay Deceivers," about two young men who pretend to be gay in order to avoid being drafted.

-Staircase (1969) with Rex Harrison and Richard Burton -The Killing of Sister George (1968) -Homicidal (1961) -The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

"Victim" with Dirk Borgarde, 1961

R4 should have signed as Gore Vidal, or ghost thereof.

The best vintage gay film I've seen is "A Very Natural Thing."

A Very Natural Thing is on Amazon Prime now. I've watched a bit of it, and I was wondering if the eldergays had any memories of it.

I was surprised. For such an amateur production, it was decent.

[quote]A Very Natural Thing is on Amazon Prime now.

It's also on YT.

[quote]A Very Natural Thing is on Amazon Prime now.

Everyone sounds the same and everything they say sounds like a question.

It's a bad film.

I remember in the summer of 1974, posters for A VERY NATURAL THING were all over the place, plastered on fences, buildings, everywhere, this image of two men cavorting in a wave at the beach. How I longed for such an experience with someone. But at the time I was too closeted and self-hating. Did not see the movie then; only did that years later, long decades after I came out and started an honest life, did I finally see it. It's OK.

But the poster was better.

I should elucidate; there were posters for A VERY NATURAL THING posted all over New York City in the summer of 1974. Couldn't go anywhere that summer without seeing them.

R13...I feel I was being a bit harsh on the film, especially given the context of the time it was made.

I think the excerpt of the 1973 gay parade makes for pretty fascinating viewing.

Here's the link, should be bookmarked at the parade:-

During the mid 60's, there was a film called "Vapors," which has historical interest.

Gee, R17-why didn't FUCKING OP bring that up?

R18 Go fuck yourself.

Thanks anyway, R19, but I'm too busy actually reading threads (at least as far as the actual point of the thread) to fuck myself right now.

The Leather Boys (1964).

I saw "The Leather Boys" many years ago. Mostly a typical British Kitchen Sink drams.

'Victim' is the most important one, I think. It had a direct effect on the change in the law to decriminalise homosexual acts in the UK. It was extremely brave of Dirk Bogarde to play the main role (as a closeted barrister who is being blackmailed) as he was the most popular matinee idol in Britain at the time. Somewhat ironically, despite his bravery and the ultimate effect it had on gay rights, he never came out of the closet, going to quite extraordinary lengths to maintain his image right up until the end of his life. He wrote an autobiography in many parts and people who knew him say that they were almost entirely fiction. Great actor, though.

"Some of My Best Friends Are" from 1971. All takes place in a gay bar in Greenwich Village just after Stonewall. The then-mostly unknown cast includes Rue McClanahan, Fannie Flagg, Gary Sandy, Gil Gerard (both young and HOT!), Carleton Carpenter (of MGM musicals) and Candy Darling. Fascinating, fabulous and funny.

Available at Amazon Prime and YouTube

[quote]It had a direct effect on the change in the law to decriminalise homosexual acts in the UK.

Which only took twenty more years.

[quote]Which only took twenty more years.

It took just over five years in England and Wales, but 20 years more or less in Scotland and Ireland, yes.

Wasn't the first attempt at decriminalization only a partial one? And didn't Thatcher want to crack down on it more?

The first gay bar scene in a post-WWII mainstream American movie...though I can't think of any before then, mainstream or not, other than the brief mincing, flouncing pre-Code bit in Call Her Savage...

They need green carnations behind their ears...

Jean Genet's short film Chant d'amour (1950) is obviously vintage but not even remotely mainstream. Worth a look if you've never seen it.

Thank you, r24. I've always been curious about "Some of My Best Friends Are..." and am happy I'll get a chance to see it.

As far as another short made around the time of "Vapors," I'd recommend Paul Bartel's first movie, "The Secret Cinema." It's a comedy about a hapless secretary with a gay auteur boyfriend -- she begins to suspect that she's the star of a secret movie being made by everyone else in the world. It clearly was the inspiration for "The Truman Show," but it's extremely arch and queer. Only 27 minutes long and lots of fun.

WHET Curt Gareth who played handsome Mark in A Very Natural Thing? Someone on the IMDB message board says he did porn under a different name. He looks vaguely familiar, but I can't place him.

Thanks to r24, I just watched "Some of My Best Friends Are..." on Amazon Prime.

Yeah, it had the same tone as "The Boys in the Band," but where "Boys" was sort of a "Virginia Woolf" set at a bitchy party, this was a series of episodic scenes that all took place on Christmas Eve in a dingy gay bar. A couple dozen characters, at least, and quite a few extras.

Fun to see Rue McClanahan (around the time of "Maude") as a middle-aged "fruit fly" or "fag hag" (they call her both), looking a bit like a low-rent Faye Dunaway. Gary Sandy was good as an arrogant but charming male hustler, and Gil Gerard was appropriately wooden as a bi airline pilot. Fannie Flagg was in it a lot, but most of her role seemed to be checking coats.

Probably the best person in the thing was Candy Darling, playing a tranny — she had three distinct personas in the movie: a somewhat conservative transvestite who was "passing" (and looked a bit like Streisand), along with her fantasy version of herself (she was quite beautiful as a blonde), and then finally as a boy in a very sad scene she handled well. Out of all those Warhol queens, I imagine she could've fashioned a legit movie career eventually.

Here's Rue in the movie.

Suddenly, Last Summer

THE FOX

THE KILLING OF SiSTER GEORGE

THAT CERTAIN SUMMER

THE DETECTIVE

I miss Vito Russo -- he would have written a whole shelf of books by now that we could enjoy and discuss.

R1 this looks amazing!

"I should elucidate"

Nobody wants to hear about your bodily functions!

I’m surprise no one has mentioned John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (1971), starring Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch, in which their characters are both involved with the same man. Nominated for four Oscars, and won numerous other awards.

Finch was notable as a well-adjusted gay doctor. When asked by an interviewer what he thought about during the much-discussed kiss with Murray Head, he responded with the apocryphal advice English mothers gave their daughters about their wedding night, “I closed my eyes and thought of England.”

American Fabulous.

The loons, Norman!