Gay Subtext in Old Movies

Rebecca, All About Eve, anything with Clifton Webb

The Maltese Falcon!!

May I direct you to THE encyclopedia of gays in film, "The Celluloid Closet," by the late, great Vito Russo.

Also check out the documentary of the same name.

In Laura, Clifton Webb acted like he wanted to BE Laura

I just watched a great 1950s noir called "The Big Combo." Two of the bad guy characters played by Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef were clearly gay. They both shared a bedroom (separate beds, of course), and in one scene, when they're victims of a bombing and Lee Van Cleef is mortally injured, Earl Holliman cries and wails.

In DESERT FURY (1947), the gay subtext practically becomes text.

Here's how gangster Eddie (John Hodiak) tells of meeting his "partner" Johnny (Wendell Corey): "It was in the automat off Times Square at two in the morning. I was broke. He had a couple of dollars. We got to talking. He ended up paying for my ham and eggs. I went home with him that night. We were together from then on."

In the same movie, you also have Mary Astor as the very butch mother of Lizabeth Scott.

Of course's there's "Gilda" (1946):

[quote]Johnny: This way you'll have two friends. You've no idea how faithful and obedient I can be... for a nice salary.

[quote]Balin: This I must be sure of: that there's no woman anywhere.

[quote]Johnny: There's no woman anywhere.

[quote]Balin: Gambling and women do not mix.

[quote]Johnny: Those are the very words I use myself. Now shall we quit talking about it?

[quote]Balin: There was one once.

[quote]Johnny: Get this, Mr. Mundson. I was born last night, when you met me in that alley. That way I'm no past and all future, see? And I like it that way.

The Big Sky with Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin. Nothing is really in the screenplay, but the tension is just there on the screen.

The Big Sky with Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin. Nothing is really in the screenplay, but the tension is just there on the screen.

John Ireland & Montgomery Clift play with each others' guns in Red River

He’s just a dandy lion.

R3 I never truly liked Jon Stewart, didn't hate him, but always found him glib and condesending. The year he hosted the Oscars was the year of Brokeback and they had a montage of westerns where there appeared to be gay subtext in all the clips and I saw him later in an interview claiming to have just remembered westerns being the gayest things ever and that's where he'd gotten the idea. I was like bitch you just watched the Celluloid Closet and ripped it off. Knew then I finally was sure he was a fucking phony.

Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and Rope.

Captain Renault in Casablanca clearly had a thing for Rick.

There are thousands of example, famous and obscure, but to take off on the OP's example, I'm not sure there's ever been enough attention paid to the consistent homoeroticism in Kubrick's movies. The way his camera fastens on Malcolm McDowell's bum in Clockwork Orange, or how Ryan O'Neal is shot in Barry Lyndon, Tommy in Eyes Wide Shut....the list goes on. And lots of camp/gay characters used as comic relief. I have a strong suspicion Kubrick was a repressed homo, and I think it also plays a not inconsiderable role in the appeal his movies have to certain "straight" guys (as is the case with contemp movies like Fight Club).

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. The two bounty hunters were gay but it is never explicitly said, IMDB confirms it though. "It was Robert Webber's idea for his and Gig Young's characters to be ambiguously gay. Sam Peckinpah supported this. "

Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Maggie couldn't just come out and say in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

Maggie couldn't just come out and say in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

I had mixed feelings about The Celluloid Closet.

It was very groundbreaking for its time, but Russo wanted all gay men to be portrayed in a certain way. i remember he grouped in any characters played as sissies as necessarily clearly gay (which i don't think is true) and therefore a homophobic presentation of gay men, and he thought whenever a cartoon character like Bugs Bunny got up in drag to fool someone like Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam by being a sexy female rabbit, that meant the writers were being homophobic. I just didn't agree with those readings back then, nor do I now.

I still hugely respect Vito Russo for the pioneering work he did, though.

My favorite gay subtext movie, which is practically text, is Howard Hughes production of the outlaw, where in there is a love triangle between Doc Holliday, Billy the kid and Pat Garrett, wherein Pat Garrett is best friends with Doc Holliday until Billy the kid comes in the picture; Billy and Doc flirt like crazy, leaving Pat madder than a wet hen.

I'm not doing it justice; it must be seen to be believed.

And while Jane Russell is supposedly the love interest, and she does sleep with Billy the kid eventually, the romance is clearly among the three male leads.

Ben Hur

22 answers and...

You're forgetting me.

Are we, Mrs. Danvers? Are we?

I wonder what classic films would have been like if not for the Hays Code. Imagine Cary Grant and Tyrone Power doing gay love scenes.

I am a subtext.

You're going to hear a lot about MALTESE FALCON, ROPE, SPARTACUS; REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

THE HAUNTING and DRACULA'S DAUGHTER had overtly lesbian characters amazingly, though the P.C.A. forced some changes on DAUGHTER.

Here is the famous Tony Curtis, snail-swallowing scene that got cut from SPARTACUS:

There's a Gary Cooper western from the 1940s, called "The Virginian". Cooper's character starts out as enemies with the local hanging judge, but they start to get friendly as the film goes on, and then they get drunk... and wake up in bed together. Fully clothed, of course, but still. Two men crammed on top of each other in a twin bed, claiming they dont remember the previous night, and haven't we all done that?

Cooper made a lot of homoerotic westerns, including the love-hate relationship with Burt Lancaster in movie "Vera Cruz".

I completely understand Kubrick's wanting to use Sterling Hayden as the object of gay desire. He was a gorgeous, big manly man. Ex-Marine. Great career, great body. Last time I saw him in a film, though, Michael Corleone shot him in the forehead in a restaurant.

R29 Last time I saw Sterling Hayden in a film, he was Mr. Tinsworthy sending Franklin Hart off to the jungles of Brazil.

R1 Who do you think was gay? Addison, Eve, or both? I know a lot of people think that Addison was gay, and he does code as gay, but his threat to Eve seems sexual. I think Eve was gay though. Her obsession with Marg borders on sexual and that scene in the boarding house.

R12 My stepdad loved westerns, and as a young gayling who never heard of The Celluloid Closter, found them gay as fuck.

I loved the story of 1959's Ben Hur. Director William Wyler told Stephen Boyd to play his part as if he and Charlton Heston had once been lovers, but not to tell Heston, because Heston would have had a fit.

When you watch the movie, you see how Boyd looks into Heston's eyes like he wants to make out with him in almost every scene.

Dracula's Daughter wants to "live a normal life now, think normal things."

But she has "cravings" . . .

[quote] practically text, is Howard Hughes’ production of THE OUTLAW, wherein there is a love triangle. Pat Garrett is best friends with Doc Holliday until Billy the Kid comes in the picture; Billy and Doc flirt like crazy, leaving Pat madder than a wet hen.

Gen Z & Y got a version of this movie. Only it was called YOUNG GUNS, was split into two parts, was soundtracked by hair-rock balladry and featured twice as many Regulators flirting with each other in anachronistic ways while dismissing the beautiful soiled doves flocking to them.

^^should have been Gen X & Y. I don’t think Zoomers have grown up with any Westerns at all.

In The Dawn Patrol Errol Flynn and David Niven act like a married couple

Robin Williams' dad character in Mrs. Doubtfire. Not the Doubtfire character, the dad. He has a GBF, can't hack his marriage, wants to play with dolls and makeup, older studio exec sees his "talent." Lives alone at the end. Dad was gay. Also see: Robin Williams in Hook.

R37 Williams' GBF in that movie was his brother.

Cary Grant in BRINGING UP BABY, directed by Howard Hawks (who also put him in drag for I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE).

This is one of the gayest and funniest things I've seen for an old film. Oliver says "She thinks I like you more than I like her". Also starring the wonderful Mae Busch and Billy Gilbert.

Speaking of Laurel & Hardy, there's this moment from The March of the Wooden Soldiers, after they trick Barnaby into thinking he's marrying Bo-Peep when it's Laurel in disguise:

Ollie: Well, Good-bye and good luck.

Stan: What do you mean, good-bye? I'm not going with you?

Ollie: Why, no. You have to stay here with Barnaby. You're married to him.

Stan: [starting to cry] I don't want to stay here with him.

Ollie Dee: Why?

Stannie Dum: I don't love him.

[quote] Who do you think was gay? Addison, Eve, or both?

Don’t forget about Phoebe

joel mccrae "the sports parade" pre code

randy for cary, "my favorite wife"

R32 Stephen Boyd was smoking hot. A true dreamy

[R32]: Despite all the naysayers, including Heston, who denied any gay subtext in “Ben-Hur,” a look at the basic plot tells it all. In addition to all the longing looks Boyd gives Heston in their reunion scene, the fact is that Boyd is never seen in female company, but only with his Roman buddy, Drusus.

There’s even a domestic scene of the two of them at home, where Drusus is seated, reading a tablet, next to a table with a small wine cup, and restless Boyd is up, practicing with his bullwhip (!). Seeing an opportunity for fun, Boyd uses his whip to flick the cup off the table, vexing poor Drusus.

Drusus is also the one holding Boyd’s head during his agonizing death scene, the severity of which seems to be cut from recent broadcasts.

Reportedly, a number of cut scenes included Boyd using Roman lady Marina Berti to flummox Ben-Hur somehow, but they were removed before the film’s premier. (Though she is referred to in the original program as “Flavia, the Wanton, whose beauty was a trap set for Ben-Hur,” Berti’s part was whittled down to a mere glimpse, making her seem instead more like some kind of Roman debutante.)

Also, a number of Martin and Lewis pictures presented them as sharing living quarters, even, in “Artists and Models” (1955), sleeping in adjoining twin beds, like many a married couple at the time, including my parents.

Vincent Price's character in The Ten Commandments. He was very clearly into gay S&M. I watch it every year on the Saturday before Easter.

How old a movie? "The Pizza Boy, he delivers" , "Big Guns" and "The Other Side of Aspen" are full of gay subtext....and they "Act" on it.

Dr. Suess' The 5000 fingers of Doctor T...For an alleged kid's flick BTW

Top Gun. Jarhead.

Benny Hill’s character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang always struck me as gay.

Did anyone see The Sea-Wolf or read the book? A weakling bookish man is first rescued, then tormented by a powerful, cruel, brutish, hyper-masculine sea captain. I was only halfway watching it when I was home sick and dozing off and on, but it seemed to have the most blatant homosexual tension I'd ever seen in a film.

R49 needs to learn the definition of the term "subtext."

[quote] Martin and Lewis pictures presented them as sharing living quarters, even, in “Artists and Models” (1955), sleeping in adjoining twin beds, like many a married couple.

That’s a brotherly relationship, R47. Two bros who trade kisses and spend all their time together and cry when the other isn’t around, sharing a room sleeping mere feet apart cuz they’re not gay!

R46, I wonder whether it's obvious in the original book as well. In The Big Sleep, when Humphrey Bogart impersonates a persnickety gay book collector, he says he's looking for an illustrated edition of . . . Ben-Hur. The Big Sleep, of course, has a number of gay characters, including the blond, leather-jacketed boyfriend of blackmailer Arthur Gwynn Geiger.

I think R49 was trying to make a funny, R54.

"In The Dawn Patrol Errol Flynn and David Niven act like a married couple "

Oh, Niven and Flynn lived together in real life!

They shared a house for a while in the 1930s, when they were both bachelor contract players. In his autobiography Niven described Flynn as having the master bedroom and bringing an endless parade of women into it, and maybe that was the whole truth. Maybe the two of them came across as an old married couple because they were used to arguing over whose turn it was to do the dishes and who left their dirty shorts on the bathroom floor, maybe there was more to their time as "roommates". I'll never know.

R50, I do remember the greased up elevator operator....

How about this one?

R60 Lordy! Very little subtext there. Looks pretty much right out there.

For a moment there, I thought R1 believed Clifton Webb was in Rebecca and All About Eve.

[quote]It’s a long and difficult ride and no place for a girl. Come along Reggie.

Hahahahaha

It's not really subtext in My Favorite Wife, it's text. There's a whole scene where Cary Grant is daydreaming about Randolph Scott shirtless and exercising. There were already rumors about them at the time so the scenes were pretty obviously meant to refer to those rumors.

This one

bump

R65 Is there a particular part of this movie we should look at? It's a pretty long film.

The Birds. Even as a child I picked up on it.

In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, so very gay. You literally think they'll kiss each other on the train station at the end.

I love The Killing! Which character was supposed to be in love with Sterling? Was it the wimpy married guy? Vince Edwards was SO fucking hot.

R49 & R51 -- it's there in OP's question about "production code era" movies.

It's interesting that subtext in the production code era came about because in the pre-Code era, it was right there, in the text. When Mae West visits her boyfriend in jail, she sees two men sharing the same cell. Standing at the bars cheek to cheek, Mae says, "Oh the Cherry Sisters." A non-judgmental appreciation for their sexuality, a nod to a vaudeville act, and and a saucy delivery. My favorite.

Don't forget Diamonds are Forever -- Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are portrayed as gay as can be. In the last scene, when Bond throws Mr Wint overboard, he grabs him by the balls, and Mr. Wint smiles as broadly and happily as he can before he dies.

Interestingly, the last two times I saw that movie on the TV, the censors cut that two seconds from the film.

Johnny Eager...Van Heflin’s character was supposedly in love with Robert Taylor’s Johnny.

r71, it was the Jay C. Flippen character

Oh, honey.

I didn't realize Ray from [italic]Archer[/italic] was based on a pre-existing character, R76!

R10 - HOLY SMOKES! Found the exact scene you were referencing. It's... surprisingly hot. The way John Ireland looks at Montgomery Clift on the "Swiss watch" line... woof!

Thanks for posting that r78. He was beautiful. Both of them.

Reminds me that I know next to nothing about John Ireland.

Did I see his name on one of those "actors with huge cocks " lists?

R76, the actor playing the tailor for some reason is not listed in any credits online, but the assistant tailor is. Wonder what's up with that?

[Can you think of any other production code era movies with gay undertones?]

Why are you looking at me?

Yes, r79. Ireland was well known for his "special talent."