Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: Say Gay Edition, Part I - Killers, Cowards, and Criminals

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies:

Say Gay Part I 

Killers, Cowards and Criminals

It's strange. For all that the gay community has done for Hollywood (those sets don't decorate themselves, sweetheart!) they sure haven't treated us very well... at least, not on film. 

For today's Say Gay Edition we're going to take a look at some of the more questionable vehicles they've saddled our kind with. The bulk of the films we're going to examine as part of this series take place between 1931 and 1985 - and yes, there will be some exceptions to that rule, in later editions (of which there are six!) And, yes, Helen... I realize it's now the middle of PRIDE month and I am late to the party, but look at it this way: we get to celebrate all the way into July!

Also, don't worry... I promise future posts in this series will be a lot more fun. But to kick things off? I thought I'd look at a few of Hollywood's gay transgressions, which may or not be all that bad, depending on your POV. I mean, some are indeed rather horrendous to contemplate, but also, keep in mind the times. Which have changed... thank goodness!

As for today's lot...

Gay folk - if they're not being tortured, they're cowards. If they're not killing someone, being blackmailed, or committing a crime, then they're self-loathing, repressed and predatory. 

Yes, we are indeed represented, but...

...is this really the best they could do?

Ode To Billy Joe

1976

"On June 3, 1953 Bill Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahassee Bridge. Now the Tallahatchie River gives up its secrets within the haunting ballad that swept America. What the song didn't tell you, the movie will."  

"A love song that's joyous, funny, and so touching you'll never forget it."

(Based on the 1967 Bobbie Gentry hit, the film, Ode To Billy Joe, attempts to answer the question: Why did Billy Joe McAllister jump off the Tallahatchie bridge? Turns out the answer is: because he was gay. In a squirm-in-your-seat moment, cute, sloppy-mouthed Robby Benson exclaims, "I ain’t right! I have been with a man…which is a sin against nature, a sin against God!" - right before taking the big leap.)

 

"First a song, then a book, and now a legend and a movie."

(Made for $1.1 million, the film ended up grossing $27 million in the US.)

(When asked, Gentry, who based the song on a real person, said she never knew why the real 'Billie Joe'  killed himself. The movie was filmed in Gentry's hometown, with the premiere being held in Jackson, MS. The governor declared it Billy Joe Day and Gentry was the first woman inducted into the Mississippi Hall Of Fame.) 

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Self Defense

(1983)

(AKA: Seige)

"Your last defense is... "

(This Canadian B-movie concerns itself with a gang known as The New Order, who attempt to take over Halifax, Nova Scotia during a police strike. Their first priority is to harass the patrons of a neighborhood gay bar. When the owner of the bar is killed, the gang decides to eliminate all the patrons who witnessed the crime. One escapes, taking refuge in a nearby apartment building. When the gang hunts him down, the tenants of the building refuse to give him up. While the occupants fight back, the 'queer' hides, teary-eyed in, get this... a closet!) 

"Fight crime, shoot back!"

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The Choirboys

(1977)

 (Robert Aldrich’s adaptation of the popular Joseph Wambaugh novel detailing the day-to-day lives of a violently homophobic group of cops is a comedy in name only. If you're a gay man? It's a cringe-fest. At one point, a naked man is bound to a tree  with ropes in the middle of a public park as a mincing queen, with a purse and pink poodle in hand, cruises him as walks by. In another scene, a closeted rookie is outed and later, when he is shot in the line of duty, one of his fellow officers dismisses it as no big deal, saying, 'It’s only a fag.')

"From the outrageous bestseller... the wildest, toughest, funniest cops... ever!"

(The film rights were purchased before the novel hit the shelves. Wambaugh wrote the initial screenplay. "When I turned in my first script they said they loved it. Then there was total silence. I called but they didn't return my calls." Robert Aldrich had problems with both the book and Wambaugh's screenplay. The director felt unsympathetic toward cops, feeling that they needed to be outed as the bigoted, power-hungry fascists he believed them to be. He brought in a ghostwriter to punch it up and when Wambaugh read the results he became incensed. "They mutilated my work." Wambaugh sued to have his name remove from the film and was rewarded a million dollars. He then promptly bought back the screen rights to his other books to prevent something similar from happening.)

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The Detective

(1968)

"An adult look at a police detective."

(Set in New York City, Sinatra plays a no-nonsense detective investigating a grisly gay murder involving the removal of the victim's genitals. And, when compared to his partner, played by Robert Duvall, who beats up gay guys at the docks for fun, Sinatra comes off as a fair, open-minded guy. At one point in the film, a cop (Ralph Meeker) while interrogating a suspect (Tony Musante), demands to know: "Where did you put the knife, fag?" The victim's lover, who is mentally unstable, is arrested and Sinatra coaxes a confession out of him. He's sent to the electric chair as Sinatra comes to realize, due to discoveries made in a related case, that he has the wrong man. As bad as all of that is, the bigger problem lies with the film's view of the gay community. As one self-loathing closet queen (William Windom) so eloquently puts it: "twisted faces, outcasts, lives lived in shadows, always prey to a million dangers.")

"You're Joe Leland, detective. And you sit behind a desk in a city with every kind of crime in the book. And then along comes one as dirty as a knee brought right up to your stomach."

(Adapted from a novel by Roderick Thorp, The Detective serves a a prequel to a book which the Die Hard franchise is based upon.)

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Reflections In A Golden Eye

(1967)

"In the loosest sense he is her husband... and in the loosest way she is his wife!"

(Based on the book by Carson McCullers and directed by John Huston, Taylor signed onto the film with explicit caveat that Montgomery Clift be cast opposite her. However, Clift died of a heart attack before filming began. Both Richard Burton and Lee Marvin were offered the role, but turned it down, leaving it to Brando.)

(There's something for everyone in this one: bestiality, nymphomania, voyeurism, stalking, infidelity, involuntary commitment, nudism, homosexual desires, riding crops...)

"Elizabeth Taylor: The Major's Wife - the kind of women every man wants... except her husband."

"Marlon Brando: The Major - he knew what his wife needed and he knew it wasn't him."

"Brian Keith: The Colonel - he had the roughest job in the army, taking care of the Major's wife."

"Julie Harris: The Colonel Wife - she does not desire... she does not lust. She watches those that do."

(When the film was first released, every frame was tinted  in a golden light, allowing only occasional glimpses of reds and greens to filter through. This was done in homage to the golden peacock Julie Harris' effeminate Filipino houseboy paints which possesses the titular eye. The gimmick confused audiences, so it was yanked and re-colored, quite contrary to Huston's intentions.)  

 

(The film begins and ends with the first line of the original novel: 'There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed.')

The Sergeant

(1968)

"Rod Steiger stuns as..."

"Just one weakness. Just one."

(Rod Steiger plays a closeted military man who finds himself gradually becoming obsessed with a hot, good-looking recruit. However, after drunkenly planting a big wet kiss on the terrified soldier, he’s so overcome with shame he blows his brains out.)

(Are you sensing a theme, here?)

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Black Shampoo

(1976)

"He's bad... he's mean... he's a lovin' machine!"

"The new black Emanuelle. Black erotica!"

(This blaxploitation film, in the tradition of Shaft, and Foxy Brown is a take-off of Warren Beatty's Shampoo and takes on the mob. Jonathan has the hottest salon in town and his pick of the ladies, that is until he messes with the mob in order to protect his female receptionist. The mob strikes back, wrecking Jonathan's salon and terrorizing his employees. In an effort to extract some information from one gay male hairdresser, mob boss, Maddox sticks a red-hot curling iron up his bum.)

(No. Really.)

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Cruising

(1980)

"Al Pacino is cruising for a killer."

(Well, if you want to get a bunch of gay guys to debate something... just mention this film. Based on several true crimes and a few circumstances the director stood on the fringe of, Cruising tells the tale of an ambitious detective who goes deep undercover in order to find a serial killer targeting members of the gay S&M crowd. In real life, once the gay community  got wind of the project, protests and disruptions became daily occurrences. Topped off with an ambiguous ending none of the cast were aware of and 40 minutes of deleted footage in order to escape an X-rating, the film has been reassessed in recent years, though there are still those who think it one of the most overtly homophobic films ever made.)

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Dog Day Afternoon

(1975)

"In August, 1972 he robbed a bank in New York."

"250 cops, the F.B.I., 8 hostages and 2,000 onlookers will never forget what took place."

(The gay angle here is that the reason Pacino's character, Sonny, robs the bank in the first place is to acquire the necessary funds for his male lover's gender reassignment operation. Yes, there's an estranged wife and some kids, but... hey, the heart wants what it wants. The lover attempts suicide, ends up in the hospital and tells Sonny to go on without him. In real life - yep, this is based on a real event - Sonny gets 20 years and the lover becomes a woman while the wife and kids subsist on food stamps and welfare.) 

"In August, 1972, Sonny Wortzik robbed a bank."

"The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later it was the hottest thing on live TV. 12 hours later it was history. And it's all true."

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Rope

(1948)

"Nothing ever held you like Alfred Hitchcock's..."

(The basis for Rope centers on the true-life crimes of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two privileged gay men who, in 1924, chose a random student, 14 year-old Bobby Franks to see if the could get away with 'the perfect murder.' Details are altered considerably, of course. During the film, the murderers hide their victim's body in a chest, which then serves as the buffet table for a dinner party they're throwing - with the dead man's family in attendance. They then give the murder victim's father a bundle of books tied with the rope used to strangle his son. A monogramed hat comes into play, as things begin to unravel for our two, self-proclaimed 'supermen.' Hitchcock plays the whole thing straight - which isn't all that surprising given the times, but is, considering that in the play the film is based upon the murderers are in a homosexual relationship.)     

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Victim

(1961)

"A scorching drama of the most un-talked about subject of our time!"

(Count on Dirk Bogarde to deliver the goods. This is the first English language film to use the word 'homosexuals.' A single photograph embroils an up and coming barrister (Bogarde) in a blackmail ring which threatens a group of gay men with exposure. Someone hangs themselves in jail, the news of which clues the barrister's wife (Sylvia Syms) that something is afoot. Surprisingly the barrister decides to risk wife and career, come clean and help the police bring the blackmailers to justice.)  

(When offered the role, Bogarde didn't hesitate a moment. In fact, he, himself wrote the scene in which the barrister admits to his wife that he is gay and has continued to be attracted to other men, despite his promise to change. Syms came aboard, in part, because a family friend of hers had committed suicide after being accused of being gay.)

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Looking For Mr. Goodbar

(1977)

(Ain't we all, honey? Ain't we all.)

(Richard Gere plays a gay man who, in a fit of self-loathing, picks up school teacher Diane Keaton on her last night of partying before she mends her disco-whoring ways. Sadly, Gere fails to get it up in the sack and Keaton pays the ultimate price as her paramour proceeds to redecorate her dumpy apartment with her own blood. Oh, those gays!)

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next week...

Same time, same channel!

Ode To Billy Joe - Bobbie Gentry