5 Movies From Earlier Eras with Gay Themes

Both leads in ROPE were gay in real life, too; which makes it a radical film even today. They apparently never mentioned the fact the story was about gay/homosexual men while they were making the film. No one on the set ever said a thing about it.

The James Stewart character is also gay and I used to wonder if he was uncomfortable with that or if he didn't know, considering he was a Republican and all that. It's a great film, though. Feels a little sluggish in pace due to Hitch wanting to do it all in long takes, but his technique of merging each take together by tracking into something dark, cutting, and then tracking out again, while totally obvious, is still more satisfying and natural than those digital merges used in BIRDMAN 50 years later.

The Sounds of Music. Max and The Baroness were the Will & Grace of the 30s. His secret crush on Georg. The sexual tension of Georg and Rolf, ripping the telegram and later the gun out of his hands. Freidrich hiding in plain sight, causing Georg to shun him. I think there was a deleted scene of him writing a telegram to Rolf. Isn't Edelweiss is a flower that smells like semen? And you just know the butler was a leather daddy. He probably filled a need for Georg when the Baroness was away and maybe spit-roasted Rolf.

R2 I'll never be able to watch that movie in quite the same way again......

OMG, R2!

The Outlaw, 1943. Jane Russell bust got all the publicity but this is a very gay film between Doc Holiday and Billy the Kid.

Forgot to mention Her Zeller was a bullying homophobe/closet case and Maria was obviously questioning with that hairdo. Frau Schmidt the housekeeper no doubt would've chosen her for a scissor sister, right on the new drape fabric.

Were Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey lovers in "Darling?"

The Leopold and Loeb trial also covered up the sexual elements of the two young men’s relationship from the public, R1.

I recently saw two different "Perry Mason" episodes in which John Dall played an uber-queeny designer (with a flair for Oriental design.) But they were completely different characters with different names. That's the most peculiar typecasting I've ever heard of.

Ah yeah, The Rope. Ben Affleck's best role !

"I was born last night when you met me in that alley."

I've read that the movie Desert Fury is full of subtext -Wendell Corey and John Hodiak are on the downlow, then Lizabeth Scott shows up and next thing that happens, one man is taken over by jealousy.

Victim...with Dirk Bogarde

Jane Russell singing "Is There Anyone Here for Love?"

If you want a gay Hitchcock movie with Farley Granger, watch Strangers On A Train.

R12 - I was just going to add Desert Fury! A lurid and trashy favorite.

It’s well beyond subtext with the two male leads. Wendell Corey is quite openly and passionately involved with Hodiak’s character, including a speech about how they met Very Late in Times Square, went home that night and have together ever since. He tries to stop Lizbeth Scott from stealing his man, but she’s got her own issues with her mother, a butch casino maven who calls her “baby” and leers at her throughout the film.

Totally worth a boozy watch!!

And then Mary Astor, playing Lizbeth Scott's mother, kisses her full on on the lips in a highly non-maternal way, r112. It's one of those rare film noirs in color, but the Technicolor is as ravishly lurid as the subtext!

Martin Landau is clearly jealous of the attention James Mason gives to Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest

“A Lion in Winter”, where the kings of France and England make the ultimate power couple.

MGM's high budgeted 1940's film of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is the queerest, gayest thing you'll ever see. With the slightest use of subtext the obviously gay creatives on the film got the bulk of it over on the studio suits and censors.

And another mention of Howard Hughes' The Outlaw. Its release was delayed for two years allegedly because of the censors' concerns over Jane Russell's low cut bra and her bosom display. But the film outrageously portrays two older sugar daddies. Sheriff Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday, vying for the affections of Billy the Kid. Lots of kink, too, in both the action and subtext.

I've been keeping an eye out for the movie - I really want to see it but TCM never seems to play it any more. How'd you see it R16/R17?

OP,

They both look like they just smelled a fart.

The notorious gun scene from Howard Hawks' famous western Red River, starring John Wayne. The gay Montgomery Clift with John Ireland, whose cock was supposedly as big as Forrest Tucker or Milton Berle. Montgomery's first role, the film, like The Outlaw, was delayed from release by nearly two years, first because of Hawk's extreme dissatisfaction with the first cut and then because Hawk's was sued by Hughes who claimed the film copied too much from The Outlaw.

A classic film but try to find the longer director's cut preferred by Hawks which was unavailable for decades.

Hugely big dicked John Ireland telling gay Montgomery Clift "I'm sure you'd like to see mine." Love it.

Another vote for The Outlaw. Pat Garrett is insanely jealous when his "best friend" Doc Holliday takes an obvious shining to Billy the Kid.

Jane Russell's character does sleep with both Doc and Billy (not at the same time lol) but she is really just a subplot to the main triangle.

And speaking of Jane Russell, the song in Gentlemen prefer Blondes is called "Ain't there anyone here for love?"

"Sylvia Scarlett" sounds wonderful.

For my money, this 1935 feature is the most interesting and audacious movie George Cukor ever made. Katharine Hepburn disguises herself as a boy to escape from France to England with her crooked father (Edmund Gwenn); they fall in with a group of traveling players, including Cary Grant (at his most cockney); the ambiguous sexual feelings that Hepburn as a boy stirs in both Grant and Brian Aherne (an aristocratic artist) are part of what makes this film so subversive.

Genre shifts match gender shifts as the film disconcertingly changes tone every few minutes, from farce to tragedy to romance to crime thriller—rather like the French New Wave films that were to come a quarter century later—as Cukor's fascination with theater and the talents of his cast somehow hold it all together.

The film flopped miserably when it came out, but it survives as one of the most poetic, magical, and inventive Hollywood films of its era. John Collier collaborated on the script, and Joseph August did the evocative cinematography.

95 min.

30 seconds from the pre-code Al Jolson musical Wonder Bar. "Boys will be boys!"

Claude Rains in Casablanca. You know just what he wants that beautiful friendship to be.

Suddenly, Last Summer

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Yes r11, I used Gilda to explain old-time Hollywood's gay subtext to a straight friend. It's as if the entire film has two different narratives, from beginning to end.

The gay subtext of Cat is pretty much gone gone from the film, to its detriment.

It's still in Summer but made even more lurid. Williams hated the screenplay by Gore Vidal.

There was still just a bit of it in the film of Streetcar but the censors made them take it out with three minutes of cuts, which were finally restored a few years ago.

ADVISE & CONSENT (1962)

YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN (1950) in which Kirk Douglas loses his closet case of a wife (Lauren Bacall) to a lesbian artist. "You're sick, a very sick girl !!"

TEA & SYMPATHY (1956)

I started to object to your choice, r32, but then I realized the thread isn't about just gay subtext but gay themes in older films.

In films after the Hayes code took effect until the late 1950s/early 60s, gay themes could only be presented through subtext.

MODESTY BLAISE (1966) which I liked

Dirk Bogarde as a queeny bad guy & a vicious lesbian who inadvertently hangs herself while trying to off Modesty !

"Years from now, when you talk about this -- and you will -- be kind."

TURNABOUT (1940)

R37

Yes, she gives herself to him to reinforce his dubious sexual identity.

Everyone thought it was very brave of Dirk Bogarde to appear as a closeted gay man being blackmailed in 1961's Victim because everyone knew that privately he himself was then highly closeted.

MODESTY BLAISE

Full movie is on YouTube; Oh, and without the usual fuck-ups to keep the film on there.

Is Tea & Sympathy worth seeking out? The plot sounds rather moving if, obviously by today's standards, a little quaint.

What are the gay themes in Streetcar? That Blanche's husband was gay and killed himself?

"Their First Mistake" -- Laurel & Hardy (1932)

nine-minute mark:

"You wanted me to have a baby, and now that I'm in this mess you want to walk out and leave me flat."

"I don't know anything about babies."

"Well you should have thought of that before we got it."

*******

"She says I think more of you than I do of HER."

"Well you do, don't cha?"

Any movie featuring Franklin Pangborn. This clip really tickles me.

[quote]Everyone thought it was very brave of Dirk Bogarde to appear as a closeted gay man being blackmailed in 1961's Victim because everyone knew that privately he himself was then highly closeted.

Dennis Price also plays a closeted gay man being blackmailed in the film and he was a closeted gay man in real life, too.

TEA AND SYMPATHY is extremely dated now, but I do love the film. It's odd, given it was directed by Minnelli, that any hint of homosexuality is completely extracted from the film. It's totally subtextual (he dresses and speaks well, he's polite, etc). Clearly euphemisms for HE LOVES COCK!

The weird thing about The Rope is that the censors rejected the script as too Gay. When Hitchcock saw the red-lined script, he discovered that their objections were all British language such as referring to someone as "old boy." The actually Gay parts went right over the censor's head.

R23, still reeling from your revelation that John Ireland's cock was as big as Forrest Tucker. That must be over 6 ft!

You can't leave out Clifton Webb as a gay villain in Laura. He queened it up but probably didn't have to try hard to do it.

"The Sergeant" 1968, on screen kiss, Rod Steiger and the beautiful John Phillip Law

Rebel without a Cause - Sal Mineo's character was definitely in love with James Dean.

Rebecca - Mrs Danvers

"The Sports Parade" 1932

"The film has become famous for certain Pre-Code scenes, including Gargan snapping a wet towel at McCrea in a scene where football players can be seen taking a shower in the background."

the camera loved Joel's McCrae's beautiful body, homoerotic male milieu

Reflections In A Golden Eye with Marlon Brando lusting over Robert Forster.

The first time I saw Rope I didn't get the impression the two leads were gay characters. It was after I watchged it several years later that I got it.

The character played by John Hoyt in Winter Meeting seems totally gay

There's quite a few gay characters and themes in the films of Powell & Pressburger. Leslie Howard's character in THE 49th PARALLEL is gay and bravely walks towards gunfire to apprehend the Nazis. Hero!!! Also, Anton Walbrook's character in THE RED SHOES is gay. There are several "queer" characters in A CANTERBURY TALE and Pamela Brown's character in I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING is mega-dykey and clearly has a thing for Wendy Hiller. There's probably quite a few more.

The silent movie Wings has a really loving scene between two men - two friends are pilots and one gets injured in a firefight. They hold each other while saying their goodbyes, ending with a kiss. Open to interpretation - back then, men could show their platonic love w/o embarrassment, or these guys were "in love".

Wings was also one of the first Hollywood films to feature male nudity. In a scene in an enlistment office you can see naked men getting their physicals in the background.

And the kiss is clearly platonic in the context of the film. The two guys had been best buddies since childhood and they both grew up in love with Clara Bow, rivalling for her. One is shot down behind enemy lines in aerial combat but is able to steal a German plane to fly back. His friend sees the plane and shoots him down, thinking it's the enemy. It's a real four hankie death scene.

Wasn't Charles "Buddy" Rogers (aka Mrs Mary Pickford) gay in real life?

I can't believe I'm the first to mention "Lawrence if Arabua" and "Spartacus"!

In "LoA" Lawrence becomes friends with a devastatingly handsome Arab prince played by Omar Sharif, but before anything happens there he's gang-raped in a a turkish prison. Afterwards, there's a tender scene where the two men hold hands and realize nothing will happen between them now, it's been ruined by the rape.

And in Spartacus pretty slave Tony Curtis runs away from horny bisexual master Lawrence Olivier to join Spartacus's rebel army, and falls in love with Spartacus. And his love is returned, even though Spartacus has a wife, as Curtis dies trying to spare his beloved the agonies of cruxifiction, the two men declare their love for each other although they use familial language. The subtext is unusually gay-positive in this film, giving the femme-subtext-gay character an honored place in the egalitarian, democratic society of freed slaves.

As someone who has never seen it, did Leni Riefenstahl's Olympic movie have a great deal of homoerotic images?

I only mention this because I've seen a few movies and TV shows where the camera takes a very appreciative view of robust, athletic men and inevitably, a comment will come up that links it to that movie.

Well, you glossed over Jose Ferrer's character, who was mesmerized by Lawrence's blond hair and blue eyes and was compelled to beat him before the implied rape? Also, I have thoughts about Lawrence and the two boys who become his servants. The boys seemed to be a couple when we first meet them, but later, after one dies, the other seems to become "more" to Lawrence. Am I alone in this perception?

r61 Do you prefer oysters or snails?

r63 No, I've always had that impression, too. The love of Lawrence's life was Dahoum a young man/boy similar in age and appearance to the two orphans. The most moving scene in the film, for me, is when Lawrence goes back alone to rescue the young man who has strayed away from the pack and become lost in the desert and one of the boys waits for hours for Lawrence to return. When he finally sees him approaching in the distance he races towards him shouting his name.

My impression that Lawrence and the Arab kid were together is from the scene when TEL goes to the British HQ dressed in native robes. He asks for a glass of lemonade and then sort of yells "it's for HIM". My sense is he picked up on the Brit guys silent racism and they would have let this boy (his lover?) go thirsty if he didn't speak up.

[quote] The actually Gay parts went right over the censor's head.

That reminds me of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" when the character based on Alexander Woollcott squabbles with Bette Davis playing the Dorothy Parker character. I couldn't believe a 1942 film got away with calling her a "Simpering Sappho".

Love this thread

Don't forget that John Ireland's name in RED RIVER was "Cherry"!

R62, the Riefenstahl films were anything but homoerotic. There are a few clips with the Jungen, but the propaganda and the Nazi shit and the hit-the-viewer-with-a-hammer style denature anything natural from them. Of course some people get off by fetishizing aspects of the Nazis and their over-the-top sense of manly style, but as with all fetishists of military or man-power images it seems to suggest personal issues, not a homoerotic fun fest in action.

Bell Book and Candle and the underground witch culture were similar to the underground gay culture of the times. Gays living among straights / Witches living among mortals. One of my favorite Christmas Eve movies.

Sinatra's THE DETECTIVE (1968) creepily hits the gay side of life, and ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962) has a gay subplot, complete with a gay-bar scene. Not very positive.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE is very gay, thanks to dear Sal. And the jokes about BEN HUR's gay secrets were claimed to keep Gore Vidal smiling over Heston's cluelessness. Funny, considering the stories about his relationship with James Franciscus and the ugly tales of his trolling for teens with his stunt double, when they'd supposedly rape the boys and toss them out. Now that couldn't be true, could it?

Required viewing

R70, I think they were referring to “Olympia” not “Triumph of the Will”

Mr. Ireland appears to be packing quite a rod, r48.....

....and then there's that scene of Vincent Price whipping a muscular oiled-up bare-chested john Derek in The 10 Commandments......

R70 and R74 Thank you. I have only seen tiny dribs and drabs.

I get that big and blond and muscular was representing Aryan in Nazi eyes. I just found it truly strange that I've heard those responses more than once, and that somehow, some folks have a weird correlation between Nazis and that kind of imagery.

The Big Combo starring Cornel Wilde. It also starred Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef as the henchmen of a gangster; they're a team who does everything together. Over the years many movie viewers have come to see them as a gay couple. See the article for more info.

The Big Parade MGM's huge 1925 hit also about WW l includes men showering outside bare assed. Movie audiences in the 20s weren't as prudish as you might think.

But then this was male nudity so not considered sexual. Though I'm sure the straight women and gay men enjoyed it.

Oh yeah and the silent Ben Hur has a naked male slave hanging down.

That's why I was careful to say "one of the first" r79. The three films all came out within 3 years of each other.

[quote]Farley Granger looks gorgeous in this photo.

Not as good as he does in this one.

[quote]Hugely big dicked John Ireland telling gay Montgomery Clift "I'm sure you'd like to see mine." Love it.

Goddamn---John Ireland is SO much sexier and fuckable to me than Monty Clift. Even without the purported big dick. VERY hot,handsome man.

[quote]Jane Russell singing "Is There Anyone Here for Love?"

And here's one of her co-stars in that scene, hunky John Weidemann.

Everyone involved in the "Ain't There Anyone Here For Love?" scene seems to act surprised whenever it was suggested there was a gay subtext. Howard Hawks denied it, didn't he? Yet it's so clear and obvious and there's no other possible interpretation. Hawks was a curious character. His films are all about very close male bonding and friendship and his women were all "one of the boys" types, dressed in men's clothes. Yet he was a wanker whenever he spoke about homosexuality. I think it's him that's mostly quoted when people talk about Cary Grant being gay and Hawks said that was horseshit. It was also Hawks who advised William Friedkin to stop making fag films like BOYS IN THE BAND and start making thrillers with action and car chases, which I guess wasn't bad advice (Friedkin made THE FRENCH CONNECTION).

R82 is the definition of BDF in a photo!

Night of the Iguana (Grayson Hall's character is heavily implied to be a lesbian)

The Haunting (Theo is implied to be a lesbian as well)

Kiss me, you fool.

R86 Night of the Iguana -- Grayson Hall plays a repressed lesbian, who is jealous and frustrated over Richard Burton's attention to the nubile Sue Lyon. She uses her Christian religious talk to condemn him for his lascivious behavior. Burton, in the most powerful scene in the movie, calls her out as a lesbian, and she acts like she had been struck in the face by his fist. Hall got an Oscar nomination for supporting actress over Ava Gardner who had a much bigger role.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

[quote]Is Tea & Sympathy worth seeking out? The plot sounds rather moving if, obviously by today's standards, a little quaint.

It's an interesting curio, given that it was made in 1956, but it's hardly enlightened in its attitudes toward homosexuality, which is an "accusation" that threatens to ruin a young man's life. The "years from now, when you speak of this . . . " scene ended the stage version of the play, but the movie (with its original Broadway stars) tacks on an epilogue with Deborah's character nattering on about "the wrong we did" and assuring movie audiences that John Kerr's character really was straight. The epilogue was the only way to get the movie version past the censors.

The movie version of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" turns Brick's homosexuality, which was clearly conveyed on Broadway, into subtext, and in doing so makes the characters' motives and even the plot almost incomprehensible.

The Children's Hour

Robert Redford in "Inside Daisy Clover"

First of all Claude Rains, though gay in many films, including " Robin Hood" and " Now, Voyager" is not gay in " Casablanca". He is sleeping with women in exchange for visas.

John Dall is very bisexual in " Gun Crazy".

Howard Hawks always has gay subtext in his films. He makes Ricky Nelson so attractive even John Wayne likes him in " Rio Bravo". Cary Grant seems gay from the start of " Bringing Up Baby". And all the men in " Ball of Fire" except Gary Cooper are gay.

I also thought that Robert Vaughn's character in " The Magnificent Seven" was gay.

There is also a hint of fag in Rod Steiger 's character in " On The Waterfront".

If Clifton Webb isn't gay enough for you in " Sitting Pretty" wait till you hear his speech about giving a bath to both men and women!

And George Sanders is the best gay of all time in " All About Eve".

As is Vincent Price in " Laura".

The sad part about " Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" is that by taking away Brick's sexual confusion the movie allows all the blame for Brick and Maggie's problems in the sack to be place on the dead gay ghost of Skipper.

The lead character in the " The Man Who Came To Dinner" is gay, openly!

Captain Renault may have been chasing skirts in Casablanca but he also said

[quote]Well, Rick is the kind of man that... well, if I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick...

R74, I was referring to all of Riefenstahl's propaganda films, including "Triumph of the Will" AND "Olympia, plus the other two ("The Victory of Faith" and "Day of Freedom." Perhaps some people do reflexively associate or categorize well-lit studies containing male physiques with homoeroticism, but in my viewing of "Olympia" the subservience of all that humanity, male and female, to the cause and its horrible structures and organization completely denuded erotic content. In fact, some of the shots in "Victory of Faith" more erotic charge, for me than do almost all of "Olympia," which to me is a more hateful version of "Salo."

For inadvertent gay (as in GAY GAY GAY!) content through and through, I recommend "Ensign Pulver." It's hard to believe that the crew wasn't in on it, but some of it is astonishing.

If I remember right, the stage director in the original 42nd Street has a line that pretty clearly shows him as gay.

For massive BBC look no further than Leni's Nubia films.

Claude Rains plays gay in Now, Voyager??

You could have fooled me.

Johnny Guitar

dykes with guns

cabaret

hot boys....and liza to boot

"Morocco" Dietrich kisses girl

[quote]"Morocco" Dietrich kisses girl

While wearing men's clothes, r102!

The fat queen pimp in Advise & Consent has to be a datalounger.

He’s a hilarious burst of full-blast gay without apology.

It was mentioned up thread but I'll say it again:

If you have any interest in this subject matter, do yourself a favor and watch the brilliant documentary The Celluloid Closet. And if you buy the DVD it comes with an hours' worth of outtakes that are every bit as informative and entertaining as the doc itself.

Smelling like "lavender"

What about the character named Carmen Ghia and his drag queen boss in the movie The Producers (1967).

Poor Op.

The first time gay was used in a film to mean homosexual. Supposedly this was ad libbed by Cary.

trollerina!

Well I guess if you can bring up Leni Riefenstahl I can bring up Clouzot's '47 Quai des Orfevres one of the great French films.

Gorgeous Simone Renant is in love with cute as a button Suzy Delair. This is openly and sympathetically depicted. No subtext here.

Put this at the top of your list of must see films if you haven't already.

A real beauty.

"Caged" is possibly the dykiest movie ever made. Agnes Moorehead and Hope Emerson....ping!

In "King Rat" George Segal and James Fox act totally in love with each other

The film of The Celluloid Closet is indeed great but the book of the same title it's based on by Vito Russo has even more detail and insight. Of course, it doesn't have the actual clips. I think the book is out of print but it is very easy to find copies through Amazon and eBay. Look for the revised edition.

R112 - I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who sensed that there was something between King and Marlowe in the movie "King Rat". I felt most of the UST was coming from George Segal's character - James Fox seemed rather oblivious/passive. Also, there was insinuation from the doctor in the movie about his medical assistant. Forgive me, I haven't seen the movie in a while but I remember the scene where the doctor was attending to Marlowe's damaged arm, the doctor says things to the assistant like "you have your legs....".

^^^ "you SHAVE your legs....".

Staircase, 1969

Queen Richard and Queen Rex meet in battle

Does it count to add random characters in movies whose sexuality is open to interpretation? Yes? Then how about Rod Steiger as Mr Joyboy the funeral director in "The Loved One". He's effeminate, has blond curls and wears makeup but is supposedly in love with his female coworker.

How about Liberace as the unctuous coffin salesman in The Loved One?

Didn't some guy hit on Clint Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz?

The Clint Eastwood mentioned made me recall that there were gay cops in the Dirty Harry movie "Magnum Force". The story is about a crew of vigilante cops; some of the other officers suspect that the vigilante cops are gay for each other, given how much time they spend together. Harry says [paraphrase] "if anyone else is as good a shot as them, I wouldn't care if everyone in the department was gay".

Later in the movie, Clint has figured out that these guys are the bad cops and tracked them to an abandonded boatyard. One of the four cops gets shot by Harry and his buddy comes over kisses him on the lips as he lays dying,