ESSAY TWO: INTRODUCTION

85 Queer Films from the New Hollywood (1968–1980) is the second half of a two‑part series charting the evolution of Queer Cinema across nearly five decades. This volume traces queer representation from the introduction of the MPAA rating system in 1968 through the end of the New Hollywood era—also known as the Hollywood Renaissance or the American New Wave—in 1980.

The companion essay, 85 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934–1968), explores queer expression under the strict oversight of Joseph Breen, examining how filmmakers navigated censorship from 1934 until the Code’s collapse in the late 1960s.

Spanning roughly thirteen years and encompassing the entire 1970s, 85 Queer Films from the New Hollywood captures a transformative moment in American cinema. A new generation of filmmakers emerged, and for the first time in studio-era history, the director—rather than the studio system—became the primary authorial force. Within this creative upheaval, queer themes surfaced with new boldness, ambiguity, and complexity.

The watershed year of 1967 gave us “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde,” while 1969 gave us “Easy Rider.” The seventies gave us such masterpieces as “Chinatown,” “The Godfather Parts I and II,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” and “Apocalypse Now.”

Unfortunately, just like the death of the old studio system was marked by such catastrophic undertakings as “Star,” “Doctor Dolittle,” and “Tora, Tora, Tora,” as the New Hollywood entered its second decade, the arrogance of this new batch of directors started to manifest itself in gigantic financial failures that dwarfed their predecessors. Amongst these were Martin Scorsese’s “New York, New York” at the end of 1977 and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart” which was finally allowed a limited release in early 1982 after a series of delays. However, it was the disastrous release of Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate,” the follow-up to his Oscar-winning “The Deer Hunter,” at the end of 1980, that marked the end of this era for most people. The power and money transferred back to the studios, and for the past four decades, the producer, not the director, has been the guiding force in Hollywood.

I have decided to end this essay, somewhat ironically, with the release of the writer/director Frank Ripploh’s landmark German queer movie “Taxi zum Klo.” With its raw documentary style, Taxi was the perfect embodiment of the New Hollywood ethos. Yet, as it received its American premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1981, documented cases of what would eventually be known as HIV/AIDS were appearing across the country. What, on first view, appeared to be fresh and groundbreaking, now seemed irresponsible and dangerous – a toxic dinosaur from another era.

ESSAY TWO – TABLE I 85 Queer Films from the New Hollywood Fifteen Queer‑Themed Films at the Hays → MPAA Transition

The Leatherboys British Lion-Columbia Produced by Raymond Stross. 1964 Hays Code Era Submitted and approved without cuts. Released with a Code seal. Only one of two overtly queer-themed films to be screened in the US before the Code’s collapse in 1968.   An early queer cinema landmark and a sign of the Production Code’s waning power in the mid-1960s.

My Hustler Andy Warhol’s The Factory. 1965 Hays Code Era Not submitted, bypassed Code Released independently with no seal of approval.  Screened at the Filmmaker’s Cinematheque and The Hudson Theatre in New York City and in various arthouse cinemas across the country.

The Producers Embassy Pictures Produced by Joseph E. Levine 1967 (LA in 1968) Hays Code Era Submitted and approved without cuts. Released with a Code seal. The Producers arrived in late 1967 with flaming queens Roger De Bris and Carmen Ghia. Producer Joseph E. Levine nevertheless chose to submit the film to the Hays Office, fully aware that the Production Code’s authority was rapidly eroding. He also understood that these flamboyantly gay characters—written as broad comic figures—were unlikely to provoke meaningful pushback from a system that was already losing its grip on Hollywood.

The Fox Claridge Pictures, in conjunction with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. Produced by Raymond Stross. 1967 Hays Code Era Not submitted, bypassed Code Released independently with no seal of approval.  Explicit lesbian relationship. Independent release under the Code. Marketed adults only.   Later retro-rated R under the MPAA.

Reflections in a Golden Eye   Warner Bros-Seven Arts 1967 Hays Code Era Submitted and approved without cuts Released with a Code seal. Only one of two overtly queer-themed films to be screened in the US before the Code’s collapse in 1968. An early queer cinema landmark and a sign of the Production Code’s collapse towards the end of 1967.

Portrait of Jason Film-Markers’ Distribution   1967 Hays Code Era Not submitted, bypassed Code Released independently with no seal of approval.   Shirley Clarke’s avant-garde documentary of Jason Holliday. Independent release, no Code seal.

The Detective   TCF 1968 MPAA Era M (Mature audiences). Frank Sinatra’s crime drama openly depicts homosexuality, which was impossible under the Code.

The Sergeant Warner Bros. – Seven Arts 1968 MPAA Era M (Mature audiences) Rod Steiger as a closeted officer. One of the first studio films to address homosexuality.

The Killing of Sister George Cinerama Releasing Corporation 1968 MPAA Era X (17 or under, not admitted). Explicit lesbian relationship. One of the first films to receive an X rating.

No Way to Treat a Lady Paramount   1968 MPAA Era M (Mature audiences). The equivalent of today’s PG or PG-13. Dark comedy/thriller. Released with an MPAA rating.

The Boston Strangler TCF 1968 MPAA Era R (Restricted) Under-17s are only admitted with a parent or guardian in attendance.  Violence and overt references to homosexuality in the Boston demimonde. It would have been impossible under the Hays Code.

Rachel Rachel Warner Bros-Seven Arts 1968 MPAA Era M (Mature audiences). Themes of repression and sexuality – including homosexuality, carried an MPAA rating.

2001: A Space Odyssey MGM 1968 MPAA Era G (later PG) Major studio release. Carried an MPAA rating.

Midnight Cowboy United Artists 1969 MPAA Era X (later R). Male Hustler’s relationship. Won Best Picture. A landmark in the MPAA era.

The Damned Warner-Seven Arts 1969 MPAA Era X (later R). Themes of violence, incest, overt homosexuality, and Helmut Berger in drag managed to get Visconti’s film, like Midnight Cowboy, Last Summer, and The Killing of Sister George, an X-rating from the MPAA. Later, it was released as an R, after 12 minutes of offending footage were removed. This left the eviscerated version that most of us saw for decades. Visconti’s complete 154-minute vision is now the standard for screenings, DVD/Blu-ray editions and streaming presentations.

A 2025 Translation M no longer exists.  Today’s equivalent is PG or PG-13. R remains the same; Under 17 accompanied by a parent or guardian. X (17 or under, not admitted) has now been replaced by the more respectable-sounding NC-17. Today’s X signifies ADULT CONTENT or what might have been called pornography back in 1967-68-69 during the Hays → MPAA Transition

ESSAY TWO – THE ESSENTIALS

• In 1970, the first movie in which (almost) all the characters are gay men was released, echoing “The Women” – in more ways than one – over thirty years earlier: The Boys in the Band.

• In 1969, a gay man directed the only Oscar winner for Best Picture to get an X-rating from the MPAA. The movie is about a gay hustler and his tubercular best friend: Midnight Cowboy.

• In 1962, we had seen the inside of a gay bar in “Advice and Consent.” In 1968, we saw the inside of a lesbian bar in The Killing of Sister George. Cheers!

• Between 1968 and 1971, Italian Cinema gave the world four gay classics: Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Visconti’s The Damned, & Death in Venice, and De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Film would never look the same under the influence of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and art director Nando Scarfiotti.

• Visconti also gave us the monumental Ludwig about the gay Bavarian king who built all those astonishing castles along the Rhine. Unfortunately, a vague script, excessive running time and some severe cutting removed almost all traces queerness from the movie. It remains an Oscar-nominated costume spectacle.

• The other famed queer Italian directors of this period Franco Zefferelli and Pier Paulo Pasolini were more circumspect. The former avoided gay themes altogether while Pasolini alluded to queerness in a cresendo of films that tried to outdo one another in shock value. Only with Teorema (1968), did querness come into the foreground.

• Beginning in 1968, Queer Cinema and the New German Cinema merged seamlessly in one masterpiece after another, thanks to the genius and astonishing productivity of actor/writer/composer/art-director/director/producer/ Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Fox and His Friends.

• In 1972, the irrepressible John Waters and his gorgeous star Divine took the New York art scene by storm with Pink Flamingoes and Female Trouble.

• Also in 1972, one of the seminal American movies of the seventies about the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany had a gay character in the leading role and was based on the works of two gay writers. Thanks to two gay songwriters, it had some of the most significant musical numbers to ever grace the silver screen: Cabaret.

• In 1975, director Sidney Lumet gave us his gay masterpiece, Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino in one of the all-time great screen performances.

• In 1975, famed documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles focused their cameras on Big and Little Edie Bouvier. Forgotten by Long Island society and living in squalor, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’s first cousins captured the hearts of gay men everywhere, who, from the outset, began to champion the documentary “Grey Gardens” as the masterpiece it is recognized as today. Over the years, it has become a gay cult classic, giving birth to countless gay franchises. Money does make the world go ’round.

• In 1975 John Hurt appeard as Quintin Crisp in the BBCs landmark queer film The Naked Civil Servant.

• In 1975, producer/director Clint Eastwood gave us Faggot, the first Queer Canine, in The Eiger Sanction.

• In 1975, Belgian director Chantal Akerman explored queer and feminist sensibilities in the iterative life of a single mother turned prostitute in Jeanne Dielman, which the readers of Sight and Sound have recently voted the best movie of all time.

• In 1976, the notoriously Queer British director Derek Jarman made his directorial debut with Sebastiane.

• In the mid-1970s, Australian director Peter Weir, American director Brian De Palma and Italian director Dario Argento, all straight as an arrow, gave us three classic horror movies filtered through a queer lens: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Carrie, and Suspiria. I’m salivating!

• In 1978 in London and 1980 in Berlin, directors Ron Peck (Nighthawks) and Frank Ripploh (Taxi zum Klo), respectively, used raw documentary-like realism to explore the lives of two men who are schoolteachers by day and openly gay at night, navigating the tension between professional respectability and an uninhibited personal life.

• In 1980, gay composer John Corigliano wrote his monumental Oscar-nominated score for director Ken Russell’s Altered States – he would later win the statuette for The Red Violin (1999).

THE HATED FIFTEEN

1968-1980

Unfortunately, liberation and new social norms allowed overt homophobia to show its ugly face in a vast number of movies from this period. These films are not worth discussing, but they do warrant a mention – all are rated F. Here then, before we get to the “85” proper, are fifteen hated queer films that should never have been made. Let’s call them The Hated Fifteen. I am happy to say that most of this unfortunate batch would never be made today!

ESSAY TWO – TABLE 2 THE HATED FIFTEEN

A GLOSSARY Movie Title (Year) Director Rating Setting. Queer character. (Actor) Denouement. Audience reaction.

The Choirboys   (1977) Robert Aldrich F     Gays are cruising MacArthur Park in LA.  The cops are there as well.   Blaney – the young gay man who is cruising MacArthur Park. (Michael MacKeczie Willis)     When Blaney opens the police van’s door, he mistakenly thinks that Officer Lyles (Don Stroud) is waiting for him. Lyles, a Vietnam veteran, is in the middle of a PTSD flashback and shoots him in the face. The deathof the “fag” gets a big cheer and a big laugh from the audience.

Cruising (1980) William Friedkin F   Steve (Al Pacino) is a rookie cop who goes underground to investigate a serial killer of gay men in NYC.   Ted, Steve’s next-door neighbor (Don Scardino). Gregory, Ted’s jealous boyfriend (James Remar).   Ted is murdered.  Surprise!  Did “the killer” do it?  Did Gregory, do it?  Is Gregory “the killer?” Or did Steve do it?  Is Steve “the killer?” We will never know.   If you are a gay character in this movie, you are either the murder victim or the killer!

The Betsy (1978) Daniel Petrie F Harold Robbins, best Seller. Loren Hardeman, the heir to Bethlehem Motors, is queer. (Paul Ryan Rudd) Loren kills himself – it is Harold Robbins! The death of the “fag” gets a big cheer and a big laugh from the audience.

Valentino (1977) Ken Russell F Was Valentino queer? His wife Natacha Rambova and her lover Alla Nazimova were. Rudolf Nureyev, Michelle Phillips and Leslie Caron. Rambova was a highly influential costume designer and art director, but you would never know from this sham of a biopic. Likewise, Nazimova was one of the most influential figures on stage and screen in the early decades of the last century. Russell’s worst film, it cannot even be enjoyed as camp. The audience either walked out or they sleep their way through the movie.

A Different Story (1978) Paul Aaron F Both Meg Foster and Perry King are in gay relationships (with Valerie Curtain and Peter Donat).They meet, cohabit, and fall in love happily-ever-after. The old you-can-switch-at-any-time scenario. Not a single photo of Foster with Curtain or King with Donat exists. The audience was unimpressed.

Windows (1980) Gordan Willis F Emily Hollander (Talia Shire) is the subject of a lesbian obsession of Andrea Glassen (Elizabeth Ashley), her next door neighbor. Virulently homophobic movie, it was the only outing as director by legendary cameraman Gordon Willis. He, and his two leading ladies, should have known better. Luckily, nobody saw it.

The Eiger Sanction (1975) Clint Eastwood F  Miles Mellough is a flamboyant queer villain with a dog named Faggot. The Cinema’s first Queer Canine is a tiny little rascal – you know, the breed of dog only an effete homosexual would own – who vigorously humps the legs of any male who comes in contact with his master. Jack Cassidy portrays Mellough in the manner of his Columbo villains, but with a queer twist.   Eastwood’s character leaves Mellough and Faggot in the hot Arizona desert to fry. Everybody cheers!  Due to some bad continuity, we are not sure if Faggot escapes by jumping into Eastwood’s car as he departs – we think he does, but later, we hear that Mellough eats Faggot before he dies!

Vanishing Point (1971) Richard C. Sarafian F Barry Newman’s Kowalski, a car delivery driver, is driving from Denver to San Francisco. Two men are hitchhiking while standing next to a broken-down car with a “Just Married” sign on the back. Kowalski picks them up, and they attempt to rob him at gunpoint. The two exceptionally sleazily queers are played by gay British actor Arthur Malet (“Mary Poppins”) and the ultra-creepy Anthony “the skull” James (“In the Heat of the Night”). Kowalski manages to overpower them and throw them out of the car. Everybody cheers!

The Anderson Tapes (1971) Sidney Lumet F Anderson (Sean Connery), after spending ten years in prison, decides to rob a wealthy apartment complex. He hires a gay antique dealer to point out, with a very limp wrist, the most expensive pieces to rob. On paper, the guy’s name is Haskins, but you would never know from the movie where he is simply known as “The Fag.“ Hamming it up and mincing all over the place, heterosexual actor Martin Balsam uses every Nellie mannerism in the book to give a cringeworthy performance. “The Fag” is apprehended by the police. Everybody cheers!

Freebie and the Bean (1974) Richard Rush F Our heroes, police officers Freebie (James Caan) and “the Bean” (Alan Arkin), are on the lookout for a transvestite robber. Their first encounter with him/her is in a bathtub, where he/she is lisping and preening, and you can see that he/she disgusts them. The transvestite, unnamed, is played by noted female impersonator Christopher Morley. After he shoots Bean, seriously injuring him, he is chased by Freebie, who corners him in a public bathroom. They fight it out with Morley, having briefly incapacitated Caan, taking time to look in the mirror and freshen up! Freebie, however, recovers and manages to grab a gun, which he then empties into “The Transvestite” where just one bullet would have done. And the audience cheers! Not because of the villain’s demise but because “the fag” is dead.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar   (1977) Richard Brooks* F Theresa (Diane Keaton) meets Gary (Tom Berenger) in a bar and brings him back to her apartment. When Gary is unable to perform sexually, Theresa responds with patience but ultimately asks him to leave. Instead of departing, he erupts in rage and fatally stabs her—a shocking climax that reframes the film’s supposed moral message. Among the films in The Hated Fifteen, Looking for Mr. Goodbar may be the most insidious. It cloaks itself in the prestige of serious art, presenting itself as a profound meditation on the sexual freedoms of the Disco era. Yet beneath that veneer lies a reactionary narrative that weaponizes moral panic. Earlier, we glimpsed Gary in a gay club, dancing and kissing his older male partner. This brief but telling moment establishes his conflicted sexuality and deep self-loathing. The film revisits this thread only to position Gary’s repression and violence as the ultimate danger. After two hours of heterosexual escapades—casual hookups, fleeting romances, and Theresa’s own search for identity—the story reserves its harshest judgment not for the straight milieu it has been dissecting, but for queer desire. The result is a troubling bait-and-switch: the film pretends to critique the excesses of heterosexual liberation, but its final condemnation lands squarely on a marginalized community that has played little role in the preceding narrative. In doing so, Goodbar reinforces destructive stereotypes, conflating queer identity with pathology and violence, while masquerading as a cautionary tale about modern morality. * Director Richard Brooks wrote the novel The Brick Foxhole in 1945. One of the first American novels to deal with homosexuality, it was adapted to the screen under the title Crossfire in 1947 by writer John Paxton and director Edward Dmytryk, with the book’s homophobia being replaced by antisemitism. Brooks also wrote the screenplay for the Jules Dassin film noir prison breakout movie Brute Force (1947), and in 1958, he directed the queer film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Richard Brooks, who was married to actress Jean Simmons from 1960 to 1980 and directed her in The Happy Ending (1969), passed away in 1992 at the age of 79. PLEASE SEE THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER to ESSAY ONE – 85 Queer Films Under the Hays Code (1934-1968).

Drum (1976) Steve Carver F Antebellum New Orleans. Mid-19th century. DeMarigny is a wealthy Frenchman who forces enslaved men to fight for entertainment. He desires Drum (Ken Norton) sexually, but Drum rejects him, leading DeMarigny to harbor resentment. John Colicos’ DeMarigny is a loathsome excuse for a human being who harbors queer desires. In the slave revolt, Drum castrates DeMarigny. The audience erupts in cheers! .

Can’t Stop the Music (1980) Nancy Walker F Directed by Nancy Walker and produced by flamboyant impresario Allan Carr, Can’t Stop the Music was conceived as a glittering disco extravaganza and a fictionalized origin story of the Village People. Instead, it arrived already dated, collapsing at the box office in spectacular fashion. The irony is that the Village People themselves barely register. The film sidelines them in favor of three leads—Steve Guttenberg, Valerie Perrine, and Bruce Jenner—who embody camp-adjacent “gay tropes” without the film ever daring to utter the word gay. This coy avoidance underscores the hypocrisy at the heart of the project: a movie built on queer-coded fantasy that refuses to acknowledge queerness outright. But the film’s gravest offense isn’t its dishonesty—it’s its tedium. What should have been camp is instead a slog. The glitter never sparkles, the jokes never land, and the musical numbers drag on with numbing predictability. For a film that promised excess, it delivers only monotony. In the end, Can’t Stop the Music isn’t outrageous or scandalous—it’s simply dull. Utterly, irredeemably boring. And that, for a supposed disco spectacle, is the ultimate betrayal. The audience snoozes – we will never get this time back again!

Scarecrow (1973) Jerry Schatzberg F Max Millan (Gene Hackman), a hot-tempered ex-convict, and Francis Lionel “Lion” Delbuchi (Al Pacino), a childlike former sailor, meet hitchhiking in California. Despite clashing personalities, they decide to travel together, pooling their savings to open a car wash in Pittsburgh. They visit Max’s sister, but their antics land them in a prison farm for a month. Max blames Lion, and their friendship strains. Lion is brutally sexually assaulted by another inmate named Riley, leaving him physically injured and emotionally scarred. Actor Richard Lynch plays Riley. Max later beats Riley to a pulp before he and Lion head off to Pittsburgh. The character of Riley is never seen again. The sexual assault is shocking. No movie has done more to conflate gay identity with pathology and violence than “Scarecrow”. After Max beats up Riley, there’s always a massive cheer from the audience!

Z (1969) Costa-Gavras F A thriller about the fall of an elected democratic government in an unnamed country – which is obviously Greece – and the establishment of a military junta, was feted by one award ceremony after another and one film critics association after another in the Winter of 1969/1970. However, few seemed to have noticed, or if they did, they didn’t seem to care, that this is a homophobic film in which the main villain, Vago (Marcel Bozzuffi) – the man who strikes down Deputy Gregoris Lambrakis (played by Yves Montand) with a club from a speeding van – is a homosexual and convicted pedophile who trades sexual favors with other gay deviants such as the newspaper editor. These scum of the Earth perverts are contrasted with our handsome, intellectual and heterosexual heroes, Montand and the examining magistrate Jean-Louis Trintignant. Vago is convicted in court for his role in the assassination, and he goes to prison briefly. However, the new regime releases him almost immediately once the coup consolidates power. The audience does NOT get to cheer.

SOURCE MATERIAL

All seventy-five movies listed are narrative features. Of these, 25 (37%) are original screenplays, while 43 films (63%) were adapted from another medium.

Source material in the latter category includes novels by Christopher Isherwood, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frederick Forsyth, William Goldman, James Leo Herlihy, Stephen King, Thomas Mann, Philip Roth, and William Makepeace Thackeray. There is a song by Bobbie Gentry, as well as plays by Mart Crowley, Charles Dyer, John Van Druten, Joe Orton, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

85 QUEER FILMS FROM THE NEW HOLLYWOOD

– ONE OF THE MOVIES LISTED WON BEST PICTURE

– NINE MORE WERE NOMINATED IN THIS CATEGORY

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER: is the queer character in the movie and, in parentheses, the ACTOR who plays him/her.

LGBTQ+ is anyone in front of (actor) orbehind (director | screenwriter | source of material, usually the novel or play on which the movie is based | production designers and costume designers – the latter two function sometimes being served by the same individual) who was known to be queer in real life.

1. No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)

B-

Jack Smight

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Christopher Gill aka “Dorian” (Rod Steiger)

Christopher Gill (Rod Steiger) is a serial killer fixated on his late mother, a noted stage actress. Gill preys on older women who remind him of Mama. A Broadway theatre owner and director, he adopts various disguises, such as a priest, policeman, plumber, hairdresser, etc., to put his victims at ease (and avoid being identified) before strangling them!

“Dorian,” Gill’s hairdresser persona, is gay with a classic sibilant-rich delivery. In the movie’s best scene, just as he is caressing the neck of his next intended victim, Miss Belle Poppie (a wonderful Barbara Baxley who has a house full of cats) during a wig fitting – “Isn’t that fantastic and breathtaking” – he is interrupted by the arrival of her sister Sylvia (Doris Roberts, always so good at putting someone in their place) who knows that something is not quite right. Dorian reacts with “Well, honestly, the suspicion of some people,” and after Sylvia’s “you homo” delivers the movie’s classic line, “Well, that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person.” As a gay man, I should be disturbed by Steiger’s Queer turn. However, this scene always ends with me rolling on the floor with laughter.

“No Way to Treat a Lady” was adapted by John Gay from William Goldman’s novel of the same name and directed by Jack Smight. It also stars George Segal, Eileen Heckart, and the underused but still captivating Lee Remick.

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2. The Detective (1968)

D+

Gordon Douglas

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Colin MacIver (William Windom)

LGBTQ+

COSTUME DESIGNER: Donald Brooks

Frank Sinatra plays detective Joe Leland, who is investigating the murder of a gay man found mutilated in his apartment. The crime is shocking and grotesque, with police colleagues displaying prejudice about the victim’s sexuality. The dead man’s roommate is eventually convicted. However, Leland begins to doubt whether justice was truly served.

Sinatra does the best he can under the circumstances. However, the condescending screenplay by Abby Mann, doing for homosexuals what he did for Jews in “Judgement at Nuremberg” in 1961 (he accepted his 1962 Oscar in the name of intellectuals everywhere), and the mediocre direction by Gordon Douglas put the kibosh on everything. William Windom plays the type of gay character that makes every adolescent gay boy want to jump off a bridge. Although it rates a D+, it is (almost) worth seeing as a pre-Stonewall period piece.

Rumor has it that the underperformance of “The Detective” relative to “Rosemary’s Baby” played a significant part in the Farrow-Sinatra breakup. With Lee Remick and Jacqueline Bisset.

Adapted from the novel by Roderick Thorp

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3. The Boston Strangler (1968)

C-

Richard Fleischer

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Terence Huntley (Hurd Hatfield)

*Ellen Ridgeway (Eve Collyer)

*Alice Oakville (Gwyda Donhowe)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Hurd Hatfield

Released the same year as “The Detective,” “The Boston Strangler” is another serial killer movie that, although not part of Queer Cinema per se, is filled with “queers” and “faggots” as the police comb the Boston demimonde in search of the strangler (Tony Curtis, whose brave performance is the film’s central redeeming feature). A long way from his Dorian Gray days, Hurd Hatfield has a good scene in a gay bar where Henry Fonda’s detective is questioning him. He has been fingered by two nasty dykes, played by Eve Collyer and Gwyda Donhowe in a gay-turning-on-gay scene that has to be seen to be believed. Let’s hope both actresses live to regret ever making this movie. The screenplay by Oscar-winner Edward Anhalt (“Becket”) is so nonchalantly homophobic it makes you glad you live in a more enlightened era. Richard Fleischer directs with so many split screens that it’s distracting. It’s a nasty piece of filmmaking, voyeuristic, but not in the cinematic sense. It makes you feel like a Peeping Tom! It makes you feel dirty. And, it turns out, very little of what is documented here actually happened.

Adapted from the novel by Gerold Frank.

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4. The Killing of Sister George (1968)

(B)

Robert Aldrich

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*June “George” Buckridge (Beryl Reid)

*Alice “Childie” McNaught (Susannah York)

*Mercy Croft (Coral Browne)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Coral Browne

THE FIRST LOOK INSIDE A LESBIAN BAR

Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George is a bruising, claustrophobic melodrama about identity, power, and the collapse of a woman’s carefully constructed world. Adapted by Lukas Heller from Frank Marcus’s play, it follows June Buckridge—known to millions as “Sister George,” (Beryl Reed) the beloved, saintly nurse she plays on a BBC radio soap. Off‑air, June is the opposite: hard‑drinking, foul‑mouthed, domineering, and increasingly terrified that her career is slipping away.

Her private life is no steadier. June lives with Childie (Susannah York), her much younger, emotionally fragile partner, whom she bullies out of insecurity and fear of abandonment. As rumors swirl that the BBC plans to kill off her character, June’s grip on both her job and her relationship begins to crumble. The network’s icy executive, Mrs. Croft, exploits the chaos, manipulating Childie and widening the rift between the two women.

Aldrich does an excellent job here, blending the drama and the camp, just like he did with Bette and Joan in “Baby Jane.” There is a gratuitous and embarrassing seduction scene that should have been left on the cutting-room floor. However, Beryl Reid is marvelous as “Sister George,” and the relationship between George and Childie seems precisely right. Meanwhile, Coral Browne is perfection as the predatory Mrs. Croft, who holds all the cards. The Killing of Sister George follows in the footsteps of Advice and Consent six years earlier, only this time, it’s a lesbian bar. Cheers

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5. Rachel, Rachel (1968)

B-

Paul Newman

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons)

Paul Newman produced and directed (his debut) “Rachel, Rachel,” a slight tale about a schoolteacher’s (Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward) sexual awakening in her mid-30s in a small Connecticut town.

Thirty-five-year-old Rachel still lives with her mother above the funeral home once run by her late father. She is lonely, emotionally stifled and trapped. She represses her desires and often uses her mother as an excuse to avoid change. Her colleague Calla (Estelle Parsons) harbors romantic feelings for her. Rachel reconnects with Nick (James Olson), a man from her past. Their brief affair awakens her sexuality and forces her to confront her own needs and independence. Through these relationships and her own introspection, Rachel begins to break free from her monotonous existence, contemplating a move away from her mother and the town. The film closes ambiguously, with Rachel poised between resignation and liberation, symbolizing the struggle of women seeking autonomy in a restrictive small-town society.

Highly regarded at the time of its release (with NYFCC awards going to Newman as Best Director and Woodward as Best Actress), the movie seems somewhat underwhelming today. However, with Estelle Parsons’ Oscar-nominated performance as Calla, it does offer one of the first sympathetic portraits of a lesbian character in an American Film.

The screenplay is by Stewart Stern. Adapted from Margaret Laurence’s novel “A Jest of God.”

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6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

(A)

Stanley Kubrick

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*HAL 9000 Computer voiced by actor Douglas Rain.

I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do

HAL TO DAVE – 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

THE BEST USE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC IN A MOVIE.

In Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” HAL 9000 is the psychotic gay computer (brilliantly voiced by Canadian actor Douglas Rain with just the right amount of Queerness!) aboard Discovery One. The starship is bound for Jupiter with mission pilots and scientists Dr. David “Dave” Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood). HAL is in love with Dave and quickly dispatches Frank and the other three astronauts, who are journeying in suspended animation.

From the stunning opening sequence in which our ape-like ancestors discover a black obelisk on the prehistoric African veldt to Dave’s journey through a series of rooms where he encounters the same object, Kubrick’s direction never falters. In fact, it’s quite the trip. For this reason, any ancillary substances one consumes to enhance one’s appreciation of Mr. Kubrick’s genius are okay by me. In fact, they may be essential to achieve the complete “2001” EXPERIENCE!

Kubrick scrapped the original score by Alex North in favor of various classical pieces, most notably Richard Strauss’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube.” Arguably, it is the most inspired use of classical music in Cinema.

The plot was inspired by several short stories by Arthur C. Clarke, most notably “The Sentinel” (1951). For this reason, although the book and the screenplay for “2001” were written simultaneously, the latter is considered an adaptation rather than an original screenplay.

Cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth.

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7. The Sergeant (1968)

C+

John Flynn

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*MSgt Callan (Rod Steiger)

Master Sergeant Callan was Rod Steiger’s second gay role of 1968, but unlike “Dorian,” his mincing hairstylist persona in “No Way to Treat a Lady,” hardly anybody saw it.

The subject matter, its release during the Christmas season of 1968, and a couple of scathing (and homophobic) reviews by some of the foremost critics of the time (Kael, Crist, and Canby were among them) that resembled a shark-feeding frenzy, quickly sealed its fate. The film is not terrible. Directed by John Flynn, making his directorial debut, and produced by his former boss, director/producer Robert Wise, it is eerily similar, in so many ways, to John Huston’s “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” which was released the previous year with Marlon Brando.

Both movies feature a martinet who revels in the life of men among men. Callan rules over his military camp (in this case, rural France in 1952) with an iron fist, all the while lusting after a beautiful young man. A black-and-white pre-credit sequence sets the scene during the closing days of World War II. In “Reflections,” that obscure object of desire was Robert Forster, mostly bare-assed and riding Elizabeth Taylor’s favorite horse. Here it is, John Phillip Law, looking beautiful between his star-making role in “The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming” and the blind angel in Roger Vadim’s “Barbarella.”

But while “Reflections” had the genius of Carson McCullers and Huston (not to mention Brando, Taylor, Julie Harris, and Brian Keith), “The Sergeant” can only rise above its pedestrian screenplay on occasion. The sanctimonious parallel heterosexual romance between Law and a young French woman (Ludmila Mikael) does not help matters. The best moments are thanks to the above-average performances of both leading men. Steiger – arguably the most flamboyant of all the great American actors – has a few memorable scenes, all of which border on camp.

There is a kiss, but it’s more of the Judas than the Cupid variety.

Adapted from the novel by Dennis Murphy.

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8. if…. (1968)

A-

Lindsay Anderson

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Wally Wallace, one of the Crusaders (Richard Warwick)

*Bobby Philips, One of the Crusaders (Rupert Webster)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Lindsay Anderson

ACTOR: Richard Warwick

Openly gay director Lindsay Anderson, who had launched Richard Harris’s career with This Sporting Life (1963), turned away from the gritty realism of Kitchen Sink Cinema to deliver the elite British public school exposé If…. (1968). The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and remains a landmark of satirical drama, charting rebellion within a boys’ boarding school where non-conformist students, led by Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell, in his debut), rise against oppressive traditions and authority, culminating in a surreal and violent insurrection.

The boys are persecuted by the “Whips” (senior prefects), who exploit and abuse younger students through the rigid traditions of the school and the wider British establishment. These include fagging—a system in which junior boys serve as personal attendants to seniors, performing tasks such as cleaning shoes, making tea, running errands, preparing meals, tidying rooms, and even warming toilet seats—as well as canings and other forms of humiliation. Authority figures, from the headmaster to the housemasters, are portrayed as detached, complicit, or absurdly incompetent. After enduring a particularly brutal punishment, Mick and his fellow “Crusaders” resolve to fight back. Their revolt erupts during a ceremonial gathering of parents and staff, where the boys unleash a violent armed insurrection. The surreal finale deliberately blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, leaving viewers uncertain whether the rebellion is literal or symbolic.

Alternating between color and black and white, the film achieves a dreamlike quality that contrasts with the horrors unfolding on screen. Yet Anderson also threads in humor and tenderness, most notably in the sweet, understated love story between Wallace and Bobby, who share kisses and occasionally a bed. If…. not only marked the debut of Malcolm McDowell but also cemented Anderson’s reputation as a daring chronicler of British institutions and their discontents.

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9. Les Biches (1968)

A-

Claude Chabrol

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Frederique (Stephane Audran)

*Why (Jacqueline Sassard)

Chabrol’s first major commercial success after a difficult mid‑60s stretch, Les Biches is the director at a crossroads – he is saying goodbye to his nouvelle vague roots and hello to his future as the French Alfred Hitchcock, the Gallic master of suspense.

Frédérique, a wealthy, imperious woman who collects people the way others collect art (Stéphane Audran – Mrs Chabrol at the time) encounters Why (Jacqueline Sassard) a young, drifting street artist whose vulnerability becomes both her allure and her danger,sketching on the Pont des Arts in Paris. Struck by her beauty and fragility, she invites the younger woman into her orbit—first for dinner, then to her villa in Saint‑Tropez. The dynamic is immediately asymmetrical: Frédérique is the patron, Why the protégée, but the emotional current runs both ways. In Saint‑Tropez, the pair live in a quasi‑romantic, quasi‑maternal arrangement until Paul (Jean Luis Trintignant) enters the picture. He is drawn to Why’s innocence, but Frédérique’s wealth and charisma also pull him in. The triangle forms quietly, almost politely, but the power shifts are unmistakable.

Chabrol’s direction is icy, geometric, and controlled. The villa becomes a psychological maze; the color palette (especially the whites and blues) reinforces the emotional chill. Stéphane Audran’s performance is a masterclass in elegant menace.

While the film does not acknowledge any literary sources, Les Biches is loosely based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, with the main characters’ genders being switched. Chabrol’s screenwriter Paul Gégauff had previously adapted the novel into Purple Noon for director René Clément in 1960.

Cinematographty: Jean Rabier

Streaming on YouTube

10. Teorema (1968)

(C)

Pier Paolo Pasolini

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Unnamed (Terence Stamp)

*The son (Andres Jose Cruz Soublette)

Pasolini’s Teorema unfolds as a cool, allegorical parable set inside a wealthy Milanese household. A mysterious young visitor—beautiful, serene, and unnamed and played, of course by Terence Stamp —arrives at the family’s villa. His presence exerts an almost supernatural pull. One by one, every member of the household falls into an intimate encounter with him: the mother, the father, the son, the daughter, and even the maid. Each experiences him as a kind of revelation—erotic, spiritual, or both.

Just as quietly as he arrived, the visitor departs. His absence detonates the family’s carefully maintained bourgeois order. Each character spirals into a different form of crisis or transformation:

• The father, stripped of meaning, gives away his factory and wanders naked into the desert.
• The mother seeks compulsive affairs to recapture the intensity she felt.
• The son abandons his artistic pretensions and collapses into creative paralysis.
• The daughter retreats into catatonia.
• The maid, the only working‑class figure, becomes a kind of folk saint—performing miracles, levitating, and ultimately being buried alive in a state of ecstatic transcendence.

The film ends not with resolution but with rupture: the bourgeois family disintegrates, while the maid ascends. Pasolini frames the visitor as a catalyst—angelic, demonic, or simply a pure force of desire—whose presence exposes the spiritual emptiness of modern capitalist life.

A controversial personality due to his straightforward style, Pasolini’s legacy remains contentious. Openly gay while also a vocal advocate for heritage language revival, cultural conservatism, and Christian values in his youth, Pasolini became an avowed Marxist shortly after the end of World War II. He began voicing extremely harsh criticism of Italian petty bourgeoisie and what he saw as the Americanization, cultural degeneration, and greed-driven consumerism taking over Italian culture. As a filmmaker, Pasolini often juxtaposed socio-political polemics with an extremely graphic and critical examination of taboo sexual matters. A prominent protagonist of the Roman intellectual scene during the post-war era, Pasolini became an established and major figure in European literature and cinema.

Although he directed The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972), Arabian Nights (1974) and Salo,or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), Teorem was Pasolini’s only movie to address homosexuality directly. Even then, it’s all pretty clinical. Laura Betti as the maid, and a magnificent Silvana Mangano as the mother, do manage to cut through the boredom and the director’s constant didactisism. Only 1964’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew remains as his only watchable film – a real testament to his talent.

Pasolini’s unsolved and extremely brutal abduction, torture, and murder at Ostia in November 1975 prompted an outcry in Italy, where it continues to be a matter of heated debate. Recent leads by Italian cold case investigators suggest a contract killing by the Banda della Magliana, a criminal organisation with close links to far-right terrorism, as the most likely cause

Streaming on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.

11. The Lion in Winter (1968)

B+

Anthony Harvey

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*King Philip II of France (Timothy Dalton)

*Richard the Lionheart (Anthony Hopkins)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Katherine Hepburn

SETTING

Christmas 1183, Chinon Castle, France

PLAYERS

King Henry II of England (Peter O’Toole), Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katherine Hepburn)

Richard the Lionheart (Anthony Hopkins), Prince John (Nigel Terry)

Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany (John Castle) King Philip II of France (Timothy Dalton)

The Lion in Winter

ADAPTED BY JOHN GOLDMAN FROM HIS PLAY

King Henry II wants his youngest son, John, to inherit the throne. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, temporarily released from imprisonment, favors their eldest surviving son, Richard, a proven warrior. Middle son Geoffrey schemes for power, manipulating both sides. King Philip II of France arrives to demand fulfillment of a treaty: his half-sister Alais, Henry’s mistress, was promised in marriage to Henry’s heir. The dowry, the strategically vital Vexin territory, hangs in the balance.

Richard and Philip are both gay and were lovers.

The film is a battle of wit, manipulation, and shifting alliances as the family remains locked in rivalry with no clear successor being chosen. Henry and Eleanor spar with equal parts venom and affection, their love/hate dynamic driving the drama. As a result, the dialogue and the performers carry the movie, which is essentially a filmed play with little directorial input.

The film marked the debuts of Timothy Dalton and Anthony Hopkins in their first major film roles.

Oscars for Hepburn, Goldman and John Barry’s score.

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12. The Damned (1969)

C+

Luchino Visconti

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Martin von Essenbeck (Helmut Berger)

LGBTQ+ 

DIRECTOR: Luchino Visconti

SCREENWRITER: Luchino Visconti

ACTOR: Dirk Bogarde

ACTOR: Helmut Berger

Many of the old German families sided with Hitler in the closing days of the Weimar Republic. Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned” centers on the Essenbecks (loosely based on the Krupp family) beginning on the night of the Reichstag fire in early 1933, when the family patriarch Baron Joachim von Essenbeck is murdered during a family gathering and ending with the Night of the Long Knives and the purge of the SA in 1934.

The patriarch’s death sparks a vicious struggle for control of the family business.

• Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde), a manager allied with Nazi forces, maneuvers to seize power.
• Sophie von Essenbeck (Ingrid Thulin), the Baron’s daughter-in-law, schemes alongside him.
• Martin von Essenbeck (Helmut Berger), the decadent heir, becomes increasingly unstable and is manipulated by others.
• The family fortunes are tied to Nazi brutality. Betrayals, incestuous relationships, and moral corruption consume the family. By the end, the Essenbecks are destroyed from within, symbolizing the broader collapse of Germany’s aristocracy under fascism.

After a grand opening, the film misfires. Part of the reason is that Visconti edited the film around his then-lover, Helmut Berger, whose famous impersonation of Marlene Dietrich was a minor sensation. However, a major blow came in the US, where 12 minutes of footage had to be cut to go from an X to an R rating by the MPAA.

German title: “Gotterdammerung.”

Original, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli and Visconti.

With Charlotte Rampling and Helmut Griem.

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13. Staircase (1969)

C-

Stanley Donen

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Charles Dyer (Rex Harrison)

*Harry C. Leeds (Richard Burton)

LGBTQ+

SOURCE MATERIAL: Charles Dyer (based on his play “The Staircase”)

Richard Burton and Rex Harrison are Harry C. Leeds and Charles Dyer (the names are anagrams of one another), an aging gay couple who own a barber shop in the East End of London. The shop is always empty, but that’s the least of their problems. Charles is about to go on trial for dressing as a woman in public! The movie is essentially a two-hander, adapted by director Stanley Donen from Charles Dyer’s play “The Staircase.” Although it has been “opened up” to include the characters’s mothers (Kathleen Nesbit as Harry’s bedridden mum and, in a horrific piece of overacting, Beatrix Lehmann, as Charles’ mother from hell) and various passers-by, the film consists mainly of the two leads discussing their loving but often volatile past together and pondering their possible futures without each other.

They have their tender moments, but they mostly bicker, and while the same could be said of the gay couple played by Hume Cronyn and John Randolph in “There Was a Crooked Man” (see below), the two relationships are light-years apart. You immediately fall in love with the two old queens in an Arizona prison circa 1883 and believe in their love for one another. Not so with this relationship. Harrison’s performance is all affectation and condescension, lightyears away from his more famous homo, Professor Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady.” Burton does better, though. His character has alopecia, and he spends the entire movie wearing a towel as a turban, which is funny. He even has the occasional moment of emotional clarity.

Unfortunately, the film is never really taken seriously by its director, Stanley Donen, who had consistently shown a light and gay-friendly touch throughout his career, from “Singing in the Rain” to “Funny Face” to “Charade.” That touch is missing here, and the soufflé falls flat. What a pity!

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14. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

(A)

John Schlesinger

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Joe Buck (Jon Voight)

*Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman)

*Towny (Bernard Hughes)

*Young Student (Bob Balaban)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger

SOURCE MATERIAL: James Leo Herlihy (adapted from his 1965 novel “Midnight Cowboy”)

I’m Walkin’ Here

Ratso Rizzo to an unfortunate driver on the streets on Manhattan

Joe Buck (John Voight), a young dishwasher from Texas, quits his job and heads to New York dressed in cowboy attire, imagining he’ll succeed as a male prostitute catering to wealthy women. His attempts fail; instead of making money, he ends up broke and exploited. Joe encounters Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a streetwise but physically frail con man suffering from tuberculosis. Although Ratso initially cheats him, the two eventually form a bond. They move into a dilapidated apartment, struggling to make ends meet. Ratso dreams of escaping to Florida, where the climate might improve his health. As Ratso’s illness worsens, Joe turns to desperate measures, including robbery, to fund their escape.

On a bus trip to Florida, Ratso dies in Joe’s arms.

OSCARS (1969)

BEST FILM (Jerome Hellman, Producer)

BEST DIRECTOR (John Schlesinger)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY (Waldo Salt)

John Schlesinger’s American debut is the only X-rated movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Dated now, it still boasts two great performances courtesy of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. The gay thing is a bit primitive, with tortured souls getting killed by their tricks and numerous queer types from The Village in small parts so that the audience can contrast the real fags from the subtler queer dynamics of the Joe Buck/Ratso Rizzo relationship. And like “Darling,” “Midnight Cowboy” falters during that long Warhol-inspired psychedelic party scene with Brenda Vaccaro.

You’re the only one Joe, You’re the only one

Crazy Annie to Joe Buck

The film also features Bob Balaban, Bernard Hughes, and Sylvia Myles, who received an Oscar nomination for her brief appearance. In a series of flashbacks, Jennifer Salt portrays Crazy Annie, Joe Buck’s girl from Texas. The movie is based on the novel by gay writer James Leo Herlihy, who took his own life with an overdose of sleeping tablets in Los Angeles in 1993. He was sixty-six. Waldo Salt (Jennifer’s father) wrote the Oscar-winning adapted screenplay.

John Barry’s haunting harmonica score gets no screen credit. It’s a rearrangement of the orchestral score he wrote two years earlier for the James Bond movie “You Only Live Twice” and was therefore not eligible for Oscar recognition. The same applies to Harry Neilson’s famous recording of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,” which was not written directly for the screen and, therefore, also ineligible for Academy consideration.

Cinematography: Adam Holender

Editing: Hugh A. Robertson (the first person of color to be nominated in this category)

Costumes: Ann Roth

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15. Goodbye Columbus (1969)

B-

Larry Peerce

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Ron Patimkin (Michael Meyers)

Ali McGraw’s movie debut was a box office success and paved the way for her sensational turn in “Love Story” the following year. Directed by Larry Peerce and based on the 1959 novella of the same name by Phillip Roth, with an adapted, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Arnold Schulman, the movie centers on Neil Klugman (Richard Benjamin), a nice middle-class Jewish boy from the Bronx who falls under the spell of Brenda Patimkin, a wealthy Radcliffe student whose parents are nouveau riche Jews who have grown rich in the plumbing business. There are similarities between this movie and Neil Simon/Elaine May’s “The Heartbreak Kid” from 1972, except in that movie, the golden girl, played by Cybill Shepard, is a Shiksa. In contrast, Ali McCraw’s character is a Jewish American Princess.

The Queer element in the film comes from Brenda’s older brother, Ron (played by the late Michael Meyers, a name that would later become synonymous with a horror franchise). Ron is a star athlete – the film’s title alludes to a song he plays when he gets nostalgic for his glory days at Ohio State in Columbus – and he has his mind set on being a college coach. However, he has the hots for Neil, whom he keeps inviting back to his room and slapping on the butt. And then there is the scene outside the bathroom where Ron, having just washed his jockstrap in the sink, regards Neil- or is it the game on the TV behind him – with such a goofy grin that he appears to be enraptured with him/it/them. To seal the deal, he is an avid collector of what he calls “semi-classical” music, and he prides himself on his extensive collection of Andre Kostelanetz and Montovani!

Unfortunately, Schulman and Peerce aren’t interested in Ron’s character. He marries a nice, rich Jewish girl whom Brenda supposes he has never slept with. And that’s that! The straight audiences who saw this in 1969 probably had no clue that Ron was a closeted homosexual. They were left feeling sorry for him because he was forced to work for his father-in-law’s business and, as a result, had to give up on his athletic dreams. It is unlikely that they would be grieving for his life in the closet and his loveless marriage.

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16. Satyricon (1970)

B-

Federico Fellini

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Encolpius (Martin Potter)

*Ascyltus (Hiram Keller)

*Gitone (Max Born)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Hiram Keller

ACTOR: Capucine

Federico Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) is a surreal, episodic journey through Imperial Rome, loosely adapted from Petronius’s fragmented novel. It follows Encolpius (Martin Potter) and Ascyltus (Hiram Keller) as they quarrel over the boy Gitón (Max Born) and wander through grotesque, dreamlike episodes of decadence, violence, and myth, ending abruptly mid‑sentence to mirror the unfinished source text.

Seeming longer than its 129-minute running time, and with no discernible plot, the movie becomes a bit of a chore. However, the images stay with you.

Danilo Donati was responsible for the fantastic production design

Cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno

Music: Nino Rota

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17. Something for Everyone (1970)

C-

Harold Prince

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Konrad Ludwig (Michael York)

*Helmuth von Ornstein (Anthony Higgins)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Anthony Higgins

SCREENWRITER: Hugh Wheeler

Was legendary Broadway director and impresario Harold Prince gay? He had a long and supposedly happy heterosexual marriage, which resulted in two children. Of course, the marriage could have been of the lavender variety. Does it matter? As he was more commonly known, Hal Prince collaborated with and mentored the crème de la crème of America’s artistic gay community for approximately seven decades. The man who directed the original Broadway productions of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” and “Follies,” directed the original stage version of Kander and Ebb’s masterpiece “Cabaret,” and co-produced the original staging of “West Side Story,” will always have a very special place in the hearts of the Queer community. Why he never set his sights on Hollywood is a mystery. Maybe he knew that the world of Cinema was not for him.

He only made two films. One was a weak translation of Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music,” from 1977, which he had directed on Broadway. The other, “Something for Everyone,” his cinematic debut, was made seven years earlier. Unfortunately, what should have been a gay romp and a fabulous showcase for its star, gay icon Angela Lansbury, fizzles out after a promising opening chapter.

Adapted by gay writer Hugh Wheeler (billed as a “research consultant” on Bob Fosse’s ‘Cabaret,” Wheeler wrote the books for “A Little Night Music” and “Sweeny Todd” and wrote the screenplays for George Cukor’s “Travels with My Aunt” and Herbert Ross’ “Nijinsky”) from the novel “The Cooke” by Harry Kressing, the film opens with a strapping pre-“Cabaret” Michael York in short pants bicycling across the Bavarian countryside. York plays the aptly named Konrad Ludwig, a Tom Ripley in Lederhosen who, like his namesake, wants to live in a castle and will go to any lengths to do so. It just so happens that the widowed Countess Herthe von Ornstein (Lansbury) has an opening in her kitchen and a brooding gay son, Helmuth (gay actor Anthony Higgins, billed as Anthony Corlan, a long way from “The Draughtman’s Contract”), who is just waiting to be seduced by Konrad.

It’s a promising beginning. Sadly, after about thirty minutes, you begin to feel the bloom fade from the rose, and with ninety minutes to go, it never returns. Neither Lansbury nor York nor an exceedingly boring and miscast Higgins can save it. Only Jane Carr, as Lotte, Helmuth’s annoying little sister who also has the hots for Konrad, manages to keep her character interesting until the end. Although the gay community turned out in droves to see their idol, who had just caused a sensation on Broadway in “Mame,” the disappointment must have been palpable.

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18. Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970)

B-

Douglas Hickox

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Ed (Harry Andrews)

*Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery)

LGBTQ+

SOURCE MATERIAL: Joe Orton (adapted from his 1964 play of the same name)

The talented gay British playwright Joe Orton burst onto the scene in the swinging sixties with his brilliantly dark, satirical, and comedic masterpieces “Loot” and “Entertaining Mr. Sloane.” Tragically, his career was cut short when he was murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, in 1967. Halliwell then tragically took his own life. Gary Oldman and Albert Molina portrayed these events in the captivating 1987 film “Prick Up Your Ears” directed by Stephen Frears.

This 1970 cinema adaptation of “Entertaining Mr. Sloan,” which was written by the esteemed British TV writer Clive Exton and directed by Douglas Hickox, loses some of its impact in translation mainly because it tones down the sense of danger that should have emanated from Peter McEnery’s title character, a morally ambiguous wanderer with a striking allure. Sloane is willing to go to any lengths, including sleeping simultaneously with the siblings, Kath and Ed, portrayed by Beryl Reid and Harry Andrews, if he can continue to live the spoiled life to which he has become accustomed. However, in this adaptation, he is portrayed as a bland, unassuming figure, rather than the powerful force he was intended to be. (I have not seen the 1968 ITV adaptation starring Sheila Hancock, Edward Woodward, and Clive Francis.)

Still, Reed and Andrews are marvelous, both giving deliciously devious performances (with Reed gamely suffering through some very unflattering costume changes) right up to the delightful ending where Ed presides over the marriage of Kath to the protesting Mr. Sloane, and she repays the favor by marrying the lovely gay couple! This scene is initially framed as being outrageous. However, there is also an air of WHY NOT about it! It’s a beautiful forecast of Queer triumphs to come.

The fourth cog in Orton’s wheel is Alan Webb doing his best Barry Fitzgerald impersonation as “the dado”, Kath and Ed’s grouchy father who, having witnessed some of Mr. Sloan’s shenanigans, is quickly disposed of in the first act. However, his corpse, complete with rigor mortis, “lives on” to become an essential part of the happy nuptials at the film’s finale.

McEnery had previously played the gay character “Boy Barrett” in the groundbreaking Queer film “Victim” opposite Dirk Bogarde in 1961 (please see the previous essay “75 Queer Films made under the Hays Code 1934-1967).

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19. Performance (1970)

B-

Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Chas (James Fox)

*Turner (Mick Jagger)

*Pherber (Anita Pallenberg)

This psychedelic ménage à trois involving a gangster (James Fox), a reclusive rock star (Mick Jagger), and the lady he lives with (Anita Pallenberg) was made in 1968. Still, Warner Bros. held it back from release because of its sexual content and graphic violence. Although the reviews were unfavorable upon release, the film has gained in stature over the years, and rightly so.

With obvious references to the Harold Pinter/ Joseph Losey masterpiece “The Servant,” the casting of the boyish Fox (who also starred in “The Servant”) opposite the androgynous Jagger (slipping into Dirk Bogarde’s shoes) works, the latter playing the role of a jaded rock star to perfection.

There will always be an argument about who the genuine auteur behind the camera was. Nicolas Roeg, one of the few great cinematographers (“The Masque of the Red Death,” “Petulia”), to transition to the great director (“Walkabout,” “Don’t Look Now”) is the obvious choice. Unfortunately, Donald Cammell’s post- “Performance” career was a series of failed projects (many involving Marlon Brando), with only the less than stellar “Demon Seed” (1997), White of the Eye” (1987), and “Wild Side” (1995, with the director’s cut in 1999) seeing completion before he died in 1996. As an iconoclast and a Hollywood outsider, however, he has his champions.

The Movie is based on an original screenplay by Cammell with obvious influences from Pinter and Losey.

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20. Women in Love (1970)

B-

Ken Russell

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates)

*Loerke (Vladek Sheybal)

LGBTQ+ 

ACTOR: Alan Bates

ACTOR: Vladek Sheybal

SCREENWRITER: Larry Kramer

Future gay activist Larry Kramer’s (founder of both GMHC and ACT UP) adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s 1920 novel was an enormous critical and commercial success, earning four Oscar Nominations:

• Best Actress: Glenda Jackson (won).
• Best Director: Ken Russell (nominated).
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Larry Kramer (nominated)
• Best Cinematography: Billy Williams (nominated).

The film takes place in 1920 in the Midlands mining town of Beldover. Two sisters, Ursula (Jennie Lindon) and Gudrun (Glenda Jackson), discuss marriage on their way to the wedding of Laura Crich, daughter of the town’s wealthy mine owner. At the village church, a particular wedding party member fascinates each sister – Gudrun by Laura’s brother, Gerald (Oliver Reed), and Ursula by Gerald’s best friend, Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates). Ursula is a schoolteacher, and Rupert is a school inspector; she remembers his visit to her classroom, when he interrupted her botany lesson to discuss the sexual nature of the catkin. A mutual friend later brings the four together, and as Jennie and Rupert start dating, so do Gudrun and Gerald.

What makes this a queer film is the famous nude wrestling scene by firelight between Redd (Gerald) and Bates (Rupert). Rupert enjoys their closeness and says they should swear to love each other. Still, Gerald cannot understand Rupert’s idea of wanting to have an emotional union with a man and an emotional and physical union with a woman. The other reason is Gudrun’s intense relationship with a gay German sculptor, Loerke, played by gay Polish character actor and James Bond villain Vladek Sheybal. Her fascination with his ideas about art drives a wedge between them, which ultimately leads to tragedy.

Oliver Reed would refer to the wrestling scene – his apotheosis on film – in every one of his drunken talk show appearances on both sides of the Atlantic for the next thirty years.

With Eleanor Bron.

The first movie to be released through director Walter Hill’s Brandywine Productions.

NOT AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING. THE DVD IS CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON.

21. There Was a Crooked Man (1970)

B+

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Dudley Whiner (Hume Cronyn)

*Cyrus McNutt (John Randolph)

Well-Adjusted Gay Couple, Arizona Territory 1883.

The “marriage” of Hume Cronyn’s Mr. Whiner and John Randolph’s Mr. McNutt in JLM’s “There Was a Crooked Man” is Hollywood‘s first presentation of a happy and “well-adjusted” gay couple. Yes, they fight and bicker. However, it is plain to see that they are madly in love. No, Cronyn and Randolph are not in We-Ho or the Hamptons. They are in a feeble excuse for a jail or, as Scarlet O’Hara would put it, a horse jail! We are in the Arizona territory circa 1883. The main plot involves a $500,000 loot hidden by Kirk Douglas, who also ends up in jail and is being hunted by Henry Fonda‘s Sheriff Woodward W. Lopeman.

This was director Joe Mankiewicz’s only Western, and it is a marvelous ride with a witty, intelligent script by David Newman and Robert Benton. The boys were fresh from their triumph with “Bonnie and Clyde,” and every word is savored.

However, in many ways, it’s like Mankiewicz had been transported back to an alternate “All About Eve,” with Cronyn and Randolph taking over from Bette Davis and Thelma Ritter, respectively. Two of the greatest character actors in Hollywood history, they play their roles with great knowingness and respect while being brilliantly funny. Cheers!

NOW STREAMING ON Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YOUTUBE

22. Little Big Man (1970)

(A)

Arthur Penn

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

Little Horse is a queer Native American (Robert Little Star)

Based on Thomas Berger’s 1964 novel, “Little Big Man”, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Dustin Hoffman, is a landmark revisionist Western. Told through the eyes of 121‑year‑old Jack Crabb, the film recounts his extraordinary life as both a white settler and a Cheyenne “Human Being.”

Framing Device: In 1970, the aged Jack Crabb (Hoffman) narrates his story to a historian, weaving together episodes that span the violent and contradictory history of the American frontier.

As a boy, Jack and his sister survive a Pawnee attack before being raised by the Cheyenne under the guidance of Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), who calls his people “the Human Beings.” Jack drifts between identities: Cheyenne tribesman, gunslinger, con‑man in medicine shows, hermit, and scout for the U.S. Cavalry. He marries twice, loses loved ones to violence, and repeatedly confronts the brutality of white expansion. His encounters with General George Armstrong Custer (Richard Mulligan) culminate in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Custer’s hubris proves fatal. Old Lodge Skins prepares to die in harmony with nature, while Jack endures—neither fully Indian nor entirely white, embodying the contradictions of frontier history.

Among the Cheyenne, Little Horse (Robert Little Star) stands out as a queer Native American who holds a sacred position in the tribe, a rare depiction of queer identity in the Western genre.

Penn uses humor and irony to critique prejudice, injustice, and the destruction of Native American communities. Together with “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Little Big Man” represents Penn’s finest achievement, helping to redefine the Western and paving the way for more nuanced portrayals of Native Americans on screen.

Chief Dan George’s performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor—the first Native American to receive such recognition. The screenplay, adapted by Calder Willingham, reflects his sharp sensibility; only three years earlier, he and Buck Henry had brought Charles Webb’s “The Graduate” to the screen, another seminal American novel.

With Faye Dunaway in the small but memorable part of a frustrated housewife who tries to take advantage of young Jack while he is taking a bath.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, APPLE TV+, AND YOUTUBE

23. The Boys in the Band (1970)

(A)

William Friedkin

As we saw in the 2020 remake, Mart Crowley’s play “The Boys in the Band” has stood the test of time beautifully. The original adaptation, directed by William Friedkin before he made “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” and, unfortunately, “Cruising,” is essential viewing for every gay man. The story unfolds at a birthday party for Harold, attended by his gay friends.

Michael, the host, provokes the group with a cruel party game that forces each man to call someone they’ve loved. The arrival of Alan, Michael’s ostensibly straight college roommate, heightens tensions and exposes the fragility of the group’s self-images. The standouts are Kenneth Nelson, Leonard Frey, and Cliff Gorman. Gorman gets extra kudos for playing the flamboyant Emory – he is stunningly good, and he was straight! The tragic epilogue is that the five real-life gay actors – and, to some extent, the straight actors, Cliff Gorman, Peter White and Laurence Luckinbill – were all unemployable in major roles after the film’s release, and all died of AIDS-related illnesses within seven years of one another in the late eighties and early nineties.

GAY CHARACTERS

*Michael (Kenneth Nelson) *Harold (Leonard Frey) *Emory (Cliff Gorman) *Donald (Frederick Combs)

*Hank (Laurence Luckinbill) *Larry (Keith Prentice) *Cowboy Tex (Robert La Tourneaux)

*Bernard (Reuben Greene)

AND

Michael’s ostensibly straight roommate Alan (Peter White)

GAY ACTORS

The tragic epilogue is that the five real-life gay actors were all unemployable in major roles after the film’s release – this included Leonard Frey, who was Oscar-nominated for his supporting role in “Fiddler on the Roof” – and all died of AIDS-related illnesses within seven years of one another in the late eighties and early nineties.

ACTOR: Kenneth Nelson (RIP 1993 AIDS-related illness)

ACTOR: Leonard Frey (RIP 1988 AIDS-related illness)

ACTOR: Frederick Combs (RIP 1992 AIDS-related illness)

ACTOR: Robert La Tourneaux (RIP 1986 AIDS-related illness)

ACTOR: Keith Prentice (R.I.P. 1992 AIDS-related illness)

The gay writer of the play, Mart Crowley, died of a heart attack at the age of 84 in 2020.

Straight actor Peter White, who played Alan, Michael’s ostensibly straight roommate, died from melanoma in 2023 at the age of 86.

Straight actor Cliff Gorman, who played the flamboyant Emory, died from leukemia in 2002, aged 65.

Straight actor Laurence Luckinbill has been alive and well, happily married to Lucie Arnaz, since 1980.

Actor Reuben Greene, who played Bernard, always insisted that he was straight. He gradually drifted under the radar and was last heard from around 2000.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME AND APPLE TV+

24. Myra Breckinridge (1970)

D+

Michael Sarne

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Myra (Raquel Welch)

*Myron (Rex Reed)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR (Rex Reed)

SOURCE MATERIAL: Gore Vidal (based on his novel of the same name)

Myron Breckinridge (gay film critic Rex Reed), a film critic obsessed with classic Hollywood, undergoes gender‑affirming surgery in Europe and returns to America as Myra (Raquel Welch). Myra arrives at the acting school run by her uncle Buck Loner (John Huston), claiming to be Myron’s widow and demanding half the inheritance. Buck doesn’t believe her, but Myra forces her way into the school as an instructor.

A disastrous, adaptation of Gore Vidal’s novel, directed – if that is the right word – by Michael Sarne and starring Raquel Welch, John Huston, and a pre‑fame Farrah Fawcett. The film takes Vidal’s gender‑bending satire of Hollywood and destroys it – not that the novel was any good to begin with. A few camp moments, here and there, keep it from an F rating and a spot on The Hated Fifteen.

With Mae West in a cameo as talent scout Leticia Van Allen.

Streaming on the Internet Archive archive.org

25. Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)

A+

Frank Perry

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*George Prager (Frank Langella)

The last movie that director Frank Perry and his screenwriter wife Eleanor made together was their best. An excellent adaptation of the bestselling novel “Diary of a Mad Housewife” by Sue Kaufman, it stars Carrie Snodgress as Tina, an upper-middle-class housewife who gets no respect from either her whining and demanding husband (Richard Benjamin, highly sought after at this point in his career before he turned director) or her arrogant and demanding lover (Frank Langella making his film debut). The movie’s only sour note, a product of its time, is that Langella’s character turns out to be gay, thus explaining all the nasty things he did to Tina throughout their relationship.

Snodgress is breathtakingly good and should have won the Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar. Instead, she lost to Glenda Jackson in “Women in Love.”

Alice Cooper and his band make a cameo appearance during a party scene. The song is “Ride with Me Baby.”

CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING. AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON ON DVD AND Blu-ray FORMATS.

26. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

A-

Billy Wilder

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens)

Billy Wilder’s affectionate, slightly parodic look at the Holmes-Watson relationship. It’s August 1887, and Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens) is approached by a famous Russian ballerina, Madame Petrova, who wishes to have a child. She proposes that Sherlock Holmes be the father, hoping their offspring will inherit her beauty and his intellect. Holmes extricates himself by claiming that Dr. Watson (Colin Blakely) is his lover, much to the doctor’s embarrassment. At 221B, Watson confronts Holmes about the reality of the ensuing rumors. Holmes only states that Watson is “being presumptuous” by asking him whether he has had relationships with women.

Wilder has said he originally intended to portray Holmes explicitly as a repressed homosexual, stating:

I should have been more daring. I have this theory. I wanted to have Holmes homosexual and not admitting it to anyone, including maybe even himself. The burden of keeping it secret was the reason he took dope.

Billy Wilder: Gemünden, Gerd (2008). A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder’s American Films. Brooklyn: Berghahn Books. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-78533-475-7.

This is, without a doubt, the underrated gem in the Wilder canon. Excellent work by Stephens (his best screen performance) and Blakely, while Geneviève Page gives a beautiful, melancholy performance as a German spy secretly in love with Holmes.

The Russian Ballet/Tchaikovsky sequence is a classic and represents Wilder at best.

Original screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

27. The Conformist (1970)

A+

Bernardo Bertolucci

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant)

*Anna (Dominique Sanda)

*Lino the chauffeur (Pierre Clementi)

LGBTQ+

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Ferdinando Scarfiotti

One of the most influential films ever made, Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist” tells the story of a sexually repressed gay man who, because of his relationship with a household servant in his youth, desperately wants to conform in society to the point of working for Mussolini’s Fascist secret police.

The film left an indelible impression on the young directors of the New Hollywood of the early 1970s, particularly Francis Coppola’s “Godfather” Trilogy and Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo” and Mishima.” Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s visuals had a profound influence on Gordon Willis and John Bailey. Schrader also utilized Bertolucci’s production designer, Ferdinando Scarfiotti, as his visual consultant on many of his early films. Using Art Deco, the dominant architecture of the day, as a backdrop to this film’s narrative, the partnership of Bertolucci, Storaro and Scarfiotti changed the look of Cinema forever.

It’s 1938, in Paris, and Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) leaves his wife Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) in their hotel room and finalizes his preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), an anti-Fascist who has fled Italy for safety reasons. From here, the film goes into a series of flashbacks. In one, we see Marcello as a boy picked up from school by the family chauffeur, Lino (Pierre Clementi). Lino is both a Fascist and a pedophile, and he tries to rape Marcello. There is a gun, Marcello shoots Lino and runs away, thinking that he has committed murder. During their visit to Paris from Italy, the two couples have become friendly, with Marcello having a romantic fling with Quadri’s wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), who in turn has a crush on Giulia. The two women have a slow dance with one another, which is another seminal moment in Cinema. Nothing like this had been seen since the days of Marlene Dietrich. From today’s perspective, the scene reeks of the male gaze, but it still packs a punch.

Bertolucci is a contradiction. His tastes were catholic, but he was raised Catholic. And while he revels in the risque value of a lesbian dance, he cannot quite get his head around homosexuality and its perceived relationship to pedophilia and Fascism. The conformist conforms because of his sexuality, and when Fascism collapses, he has nothing left.

Adapted by Bertolucci from the novel by Alberto Moravia of the same name. Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. M Muhammad

NOW SHOWING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+ AND YOUTUBE

28. Death in Venice (1971)

A-

Luchino Visconti

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Luchino Visconti

SCREENWRITER: Luchino Visconti

ACTOR: Dirk Bogarde

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Ferdinando Scarfiotti

WOULDN’T YOU DIE WITHOUT MAHLER?

Maureen Lipman as Trish in “Educating Rita”

Gustav von Aschenbach (played by Dirk Bogarde), a German composer modeled after Thomas Mann’s literary character (see below), arrives in Venice hoping for peace and renewal. He encounters Tadzio, a Polish adolescent whose beauty embodies the perfection Aschenbach has long sought in art. Aschenbach becomes increasingly captivated, watching Tadzio from afar, interpreting him as a symbol of idealized beauty and purity. Venice is quietly suffering from a cholera epidemic, which authorities attempt to conceal from tourists. The disease symbolizes corruption and mortality, undermining Aschenbach’s pursuit of beauty. Aschenbach’s obsession deepens even as his health deteriorates. He undergoes a grotesque makeover to appear youthful, further highlighting his decline. On the beach, Aschenbach watches Tadzio one last time as the boy gestures toward the horizon. Overcome, Aschenbach collapses and dies, his vision of beauty forever unattainable.

After “The Damned,” director Luchino Visconti and actor Dirk Bogarde collaborated on adapting the Thomas Mann 1912 novella “Death in Venice.” The result is a gorgeous, if somewhat slow-moving, tour de force. Visconti’s (and co-writer Nicola Badalucco) inspiration was to change von Aschenbach’s profession from a writer to a composer, thus opening up the movie to Gustav Mahler’s Adagietto from his Symphony No. 5.

Tadzio, the composer’s object of beauty, was presented to the world after a massive Visconti-led talent search. The actor’s name is Bjorn Andresen, who, contrary to general opinion, did NOT vanish from the face of the Earth after the movie was completed. He was recently seen, to significant effect, in Ari Aster’s “Midsommar”.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

29. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)

A-

Vittorio De Sica

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Alberto Finzi Contini (Helmut Berger)

LGBTQ+ 

ACTOR: Helmut Berger

SOURCE MATERIAL: Giorgio Bassani (based on his novel)

Directed by Vittorio De Sica, “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by gay Italian writer Giorgio Bassani. Alberto is the scion of a wealthy Jewish family in Fascist Italy. The film contrasts his sheltered life inside their garden with the growing persecution outside. He is played by gay actor Helmut Berger, who we last saw in Visconti’s “The Damned.” This is a very different performance; all brooding understatement, as opposed to Marlene in drag.

WINNER BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM 1971

Alberto is reserved and shy, and clearly in love with his friend Malnate, a young man with an imposing physical presence and communist leanings, played by Fabio Testi. He delights in Fabio’s company and even reacts jealously when he senses that his sister Micol (Dominique Sanda) and Malnate may be getting closer.

Will Alberto’s love be reciprocated? Of course, the Finzi Contini’s are living on borrowed time. Beyond their wall-off compound, the Jews of Mussolini’s Italy are being rounded up with an express ticket to the concentration camps.

Oscar-nominated Best Adapted Screenplay by De Sica and Ugo Pirro.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME AND APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

30. Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

(A)

John Schlesinger

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch)

*Bob Elkin (Murray Head)

LGBTQ+ 

DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger

FEATURES THE FIRST AFFECTIONATE ON-SCREEN KISS BETWEEN TWO MEN IN A TALKING MOTION PICTURE

Director John Schlesinger’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” follows Bob Elkin (Murray Head), a young bisexual artist, who is simultaneously involved with two lovers:

Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson) is a divorced recruitment consultant.

Dr. Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch) is a middle-aged gay Jewish doctor.

Both Alex and Daniel are aware of each other, but they tolerate the arrangement rather than lose Bob entirely.

The film delves into the emotional complexities of this polyamorous relationship, focusing on loneliness, compromise, and the pursuit of connection in early 1970s London.

Although while navigating the complexities of this bisexual triangle, you always feel that Glenda’s character will “win out,” in the end, Peter Finch gives a beautiful, thoroughly convincing performance. He is also one of the first gay characters on film to be unapologetic about being himself. Compared to Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in Schlesinger’s previous film, “Midnight Cowboy,” Finch’s doctor is positively walking on sunshine. He also gets an excellent monologue at the film’s end – “I am happy, apart from missing him” – which is spoken directly to the camera. It’s an acting tour de force that has never been bettered.

Look out for Daniel Day-Lewis in a small role.

Original, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Penelope Gilliatt.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE (SCREENPIX)

31. The Music Lovers (1971)

D-

KEN RUSSELL

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Richard Chamberlain

ACTOR: Max Adrian

SOURCE MATERIAL: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer

“The Music Lovers” (1971), a biopic about Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (gay actor Richard Chamberlain), focuses on his disastrous marriage (to Nina, played by Glenda Jackson), his suppressed homosexuality, and the emotional turmoil that fueled his music.

Perhaps director Ken Russell’s most flamboyant film, “The Music Lovers,” is a landmark in early 1970s Queer Cinema, but for all the wrong reasons. Although notable for its frank (if stylized) depiction of Tchaikovsky’s sexuality, it’s one vulgar over-the-top Russell sequence after another. It’s MTV avant la lettre.

THE “1812 OVERTURE” MONTAGE, A DELIRIOUS MIX OF SEXUAL FRUSTRATION AND NATIONALISTIC BOMBAST, IS FOR RUSSELL FREAKS ONLY!

Glenda Jackson’s Nina is portrayed as both victim and villain, and Jackson, the actress, is debased on every possible level. You feel for her. The train sequence alone is grounds for an artistic lawsuit.

Chamberlin gives what can only be called a non-performance. All ham and no depth. A noted pianist, he does wonders on the piano.

With gay actor Max Adrian giving a deliciously flamboyant performance as the great pianist and sometimes composer Nikolai Rubinstein. A mentor of Tchaikovsky, they had a falling out around the time of his First Piano Concerto, the performance of which is one of the movie’s few pleasures.

The screenplay, if you can call it that, is by Melvyn Bragg and based on the book “Beloved Friend,” a collection of the composer’s personal correspondence.

The gorgeous cinematography is by Douglas Slocombe.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

32. Cabaret (1972)

A+

Bob Fosse

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Brian (Michael York)

*Baron Maximillian (Helmut Griem)

LGBTQ+ 

SOURCE MATERIAL: Christopher Isherwood (based on his book “Berlin Stories”)

SOURCE MATERIAL: John Van Druten (based on his play “I am a Camera”)

MUSIC ARRANGEMENT: Ralph Burns

SONGS (MUSIC): John Kander

SONGS (LYRICS) Fred Ebb

RESEARCH CONSULTANT: Hugh Wheeler

WINNER OF EIGHT OSCARS, THE MOST ACCUMULATED BY A FILM THAT DID NOT WIN BEST PICTURE

Fuck Maximillian !

BRIAN to SALLY – CABARET

I do!

SALLY to BRIAN – CABARET

So do I!

BRIAN to SALLY – CABARET

For a gay man, these are some of the sweetest words ever spoken on film.

The setting is Berlin in 1931, in the closing days of the Weimar Republic. The Nazi Party will be in power in less than two years. We are with Brian (Michael York), the delectable Miss Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), and Baron Maximilian (Helmut Griem).

The film is based on the 1966 Broadway musical “Cabaret” by Kander and Ebb, which was adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical novel “The Berlin Stories” (1945) and the John Van Druten play “I Am a Camera” (1951), also adapted from the same work. With Bob Fosse’s revolutionary choreography and direction and Liza’s stunning performance, this is one of the best films ever made.

Don’t forget Joel Grey’s irrepressible host at the Kit Kat Club and those amazing Kander and Ebb songs.

Adapted by J. Presson Allen from all three sources – gay writer Hugh Wheeler is credited under the heading “Research Consultant”.

OSCAR 1972

Best Film: Cy Feuer, producer (Nominated)

Best Director: Bob Fosse (WIN)

Best Actress: Liza Minnelli (WIN)

Best Supporting Actor: Joel Grey (WIN)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jay Presson Allen (Nominated)

Best Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth (WIN)

Best Editing: David Bretherton (WIN)

Best Production Design: Hans Jurgen Kiebach and Rolf Zehetbauer (Art Direction), Herbert Strabel (Set Direction) (WIN)

Best Music Adaptation: Ralph Burns (WIN)

Best Sound: Robert Knudson and David Hildyard (WIN)

Of its ten nominations, it won eight, losing to “The Godfather” in the Best Film and Adapted Screenplay categories. Astonishingly, costume designer Charlotte Fleming was not nominated for her incredible wardrobe. Some say it was because she was based in Berlin and not Hollywood. However, this also applied to the Production Design team, and it did not stop them from not just getting nominated but also winning. Michael York was also unlucky in not being nominated (he never has). Still, it was a particularly competitive year in the Best Actor category, with even Al Pacino being ridiculously moved into the Best Supporting category. The eventual lineup consisted of Marlon Brando (“The Godfather”), Laurence Olivier (“Sleuth”), Michael Caine (“Sleuth”), Peter O’Toole (“The Ruling Class”) and Pete Winfield (“Sounder”). Brando won the award, which he refused to accept, sending Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather as his proxy.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

33. Deliverance 1972

A+

John Boorman

It is one of the most discussed moments in American cinema because of how bluntly it exposes the film’s core themes: vulnerability, masculinity, and the collapse of civilized identity in the wilderness.

Ed (Jon Voight) and Bobby (Ned Beatty) are separated from the other two men while navigating the Georgia backwoods.They encounter two armed locals who quickly overpower them.The men humiliate and terrorize Bobby, culminating in a sexual assault.Ed is forced to watch, held at gunpoint, until one of the attackers prepares to harm him as well.The assault is interrupted when Lewis (Burt Reynolds) arrives and kills one of the assailants with an arrow.

The scene is not meant as exploitation; it’s the film’s turning point. It shatters the group’s illusion of control and forces them into a moral crisis about violence, survival, and the thin line between victim and perpetrator.The film strips away the veneer of rugged male competence. Bobby’s assault is the moment where the men’s fantasy of conquering nature collapses.Boorman isn’t depicting real rural Southerners; he’s dramatizing the city men’s fear of the “other,” turning the wilderness into a psychological landscape. The cover‑up, paranoia, and moral decay that follow are the film’s true engine. The assault is the catalyst, not the endpoint.

Beatty’s work is astonishingly brave for a debut role. He plays the aftermath—shame, anger, and the need to reassert dignity—with a precision that keeps the film from slipping into caricature.

Screenplay by James Dickey based on his novel

Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond

Music Eric Weissberg (Dualing Banjos)

Edtor: Tom Priestley

Warner Bros.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube

34. Pink Flamingos (1972) Female Trouble (1974)

Rated (C) (Solo)

High Camp at a Midnight Screening

John Waters

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Babs Johnson (Divine)

*Dawn Davenport (Divine)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: John Waters

ACTOR: Divine né Harris Glenn Milstead

After two under-the-radar curiosities, John Waters and his star, the fabulous drag queen Divine (né Harris Glenn Milstead), arrived on the scene in the fall of 1972 with “Pink Flamingos,” a very sick-and-twisted black comedy and the first part of his “Trash Trilogy”, which also includes “Female Trouble” (1974) and “Desperate Living” (1977). Divine plays a criminal named Babs Johnson, who is proud to be the filthiest person alive. While living in a trailer with her mother, Edie (Edith Massey), and companion Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), she is confronted by the Marbles (David Lochary and Mink Stole), a pair of criminals envious of her reputation who try to outdo her in filth. The scene in which Divine eats dog poop is not for the faint of heart.

Female Trouble follows delinquent high school student Dawn Davenport (Divine), who runs away from home, gets pregnant while hitchhiking, and embarks upon a life of crime. Also starring David Lochary in his final film with Waters, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole and, in her second-to-last film with Waters, Edith Massey. The film is dedicated to Manson Family member Charles Tex Watson. Waters’ prison visits to Watson inspired the film’s crime-is-beauty theme and the banality-of-evil motif. Waters’ favorite of all of his movies, with the incomparable Divine embracing ugliness, violence and spectacle in a bravura performance.

Like “Valley of the Dolls” and “Rocky Horror,” the ONLY way to see “Pink Flamingos” and “Female Trouble” is as a GROUP EXPERIENCE with a very gay crowd. Like the majority of his , ouvre, both films set in Waters’s hometown of Baltimore, which he affectionately calls the“white trash capital of the world.” Original screenplay by Waters.

Waters would skirt the mainstream with Polyester in 1981 and burst through with Hairspray in 1988.

Supplemental material: The Dreamlanders Polyester

Pink Flamingos is not available for streaming. However, the DVD can be purchased on Amazon.

Female Trouble is available for streaming at AMAZON PRIME VIDEO and YouTube.

35. The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972)

A+

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen)

*Marlene (Irm Hermann)

*Karin Thimm (Hanna Schygulla)

LGBTQ+

PRODUCER: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

DIRECTOR: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

SCREENWRITER: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Kurt Raab

In the city late tonight
Double feature, black and white (sic)
Bitter Tears and Taxi to the Klo
Find a bar, avoid a fight
Show your papers, be polite
Walking home with nowhеre else to go

Tom Robinson “Atmospherics” from the 1984 album “War Baby”

QUEER CINEMA MEETS NEW GERMAN CINEMA

AFTER FASSBINDER’S UNTIMELY DEATH IN 1982, AN ENTIRE MICROECONOMY OF GERMAN FILMMAKING COLLAPSED OVERNIGHT

SORRY, TOM ROBINSON. BOTH “BITTER TEARS’ AND “TAXI ZUM KLO” ARE IN COLOR!

A landmark in both Queer Cinema and the New German Cinema, writer/director/producer/ Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s examination of the dynamics of a lesbian love triangle was shot, in true Fassbinder fashion, over a few hours in der Wunderkind’s apartment. However, “Petra Von Kant” remains as influential today as it was in 1972. Based on Fassbinder’s play, it takes place entirely in the home of its eponymous heroine, an outrageously spoiled fashion designer. When a new sexually fluid young thing arrives from Australia (Hanna Schygulla), Petra (Margit Carstensen) begins to turn her attention away from her loyal friend and caretaker, Marlene (Irm Hermann), leading the viewer down avenues of emotional codependency you never knew existed. If the plot sounds familiar, it was remade in 1998 by Lisa Cholodenko as “High Art” with Ally Sheedy, Patricia Clarkson, and Radha Mitchell.

Singer/songwriter Tom Robinson immortalized the movie in his song “Atmospherics: ListentotheRadio”(co-written with Peter Gabriel) from his 1984 album “Hope and Glory.” He pairs it with another gay classic, Frank Ripploh’s “Taxi zum Klo” (see below – film number 75, the last one in this series). Presumably, for rhyming, Gabriel and Robinson say that both movies are in black and white. Sorry, guys, they are both in color.

Michael Ballhaus did the cinematography. Kurt Raab, famed German actor and frequent Fassbinder collaborator, designed the production. Maja Lemcke designed the astonishing costumes.

Supplemental material: Fassbinder Revisited: A Cinematic Journey.

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36. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *

“What Happens During Ejaculation?”A-

Woody Allen

Woody Allen’s 1972 anthology comedy adapts Dr. David Reuben’s pop‑psychology bestseller by turning each chapter title into a standalone sketch. The result is a seven‑part grab‑bag of parodies—of television, Italian art cinema, medieval farce, monster movies, and even science‑fiction—linked only by their shared obsession with human sexual anxiety.

WHAT IF IT’S A HOMOSEXUAL ENCOUNTER!

SKETCH NUMER 7: WHAT HAPPENS DURING EJACULATION?

The film’s most famous sketch: a science‑fiction control room inside the male body, where white‑clad technicians coordinate the mechanics of arousal, fear, and climax. Woody is one of the competing sperm determined to penetrate that egg. Our boys have been in training for weeks. But wait! What if it’s homosexual encounter? There’s also a Black sperm! How did he get in the mix?

With an inspired cameo by Burt Reynolds as one of the burley technchainas whose job it is to get that penis erect.

The other sketches, all of which are flaccid by comparison are:

1. “Do Aphrodisiacs Work?”

2. “What Is Sodomy?”

3. “Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm?”.

4. “Are Transvestites Homosexuals?”

5. “What Are Sex Perverts?”

6. “Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Accurate?”

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.

37. Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972)

B-

Martin Ritt

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Jimmy Twitchell (René Auberjonois)

Tillie (Carol Burnett) is single in her late thirties. At a party, she is introduced to Pete (Walter Matthau), a confirmed bachelor. On their first date, given a choice of beverages from Burnett, Matthau answers, “Whatever’s the most trouble.” It’s the best line in the movie, and it occurs too early.

Next thing you know, they are a married couple and are doubly blessed – or have good fortune – since Pete is an avowed atheist. When Tillie gives birth to a little boy, they call him Robbie (Lee Montgomery). The years go by, and although they have problems, the marriage is stable until one day, when he is nine, Robbie is diagnosed with a fatal illness.

Both Burnett and, particularly, Matthau were at the top of their game when this movie came out in 1972. Matthau’s next film, Don Siegel’s “Charley Varrick,” contains his greatest performance. However, “Pete’ n’ Tillie” is flat. The two stars seem afraid to let go, and the script gives them nothing to hold on to. It looks and feels like the TV movie of the week when that term was derogatory.

They each deal with the tragedy in their own way. Pete moves out, starts having affairs, and drowns his sorrows in alcohol. Tillie finds comfort in the company of her best friend, Gertrude, played by Geraldine Page. This was Page’s fifth of her eight Oscar nominations. She gets a lot of mileage out of the fact that Gertrude never divulges her age. Then there is the long-drawn-out catfight with Burnett, which inspired the Anne Bancroft-Shirley MacLaine brawl in “The Turning Point” five years later (see “The Turning Point, below). However (and I am a huge fan), she did not deserve the nod. It’s one of her least impressive performances. And then there is Tillie’s other best friend, Jimmy, the film’s token gay guy, played by René Auberjonois, who had one of the most memorable names in cinema.

There is nothing special about Jimmy except that he knows Gertrude’s actual age (well, he is the token gay guy). Meanwhile, director Martin Ritt and screenwriter Julius J. Epstein (of “Casablanca” fame) make him a kind of saint with no life of his own. All he wants to do is take care of Tillie, and he even offers to marry her if that would make her happy (she wisely refuses). It’s not precisely a gay stereotype, but it’s a bit one-dimensional.

Original, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Epstein.

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38. Play It As It Lays (1972)

C-

Frank Perry

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*BZ. Mendenhall (Anthony Perkins)

LGBTQ+ 

ACTOR: Anthony Perkins

“Play It As It Lays” (1972) is a bleak Hollywood drama about the psychological unraveling of movie actress Maria Wyeth, her failed marriage, and her search for meaning in a world of emptiness. It was director Frank Perry’s first film following his divorce from his screenwriting partner, Eleanor Perry, and she is sorely missed.

His choice of material was Joan Didion’s novel of the same name, for which he wrote the adaptation (usually Eleanor’s job) with Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne, in addition to coproducing it with her brother-in-law, Dominick Dunne.

Tuesday Weld’s Maria is a movie actress who strolls on the grounds of a mental hospital, recalling the traumatic events that led to her breakdown. She is married to an unfaithful, self-engrossed director (Adam Roarke) who neglects her. Following a series of one-night stands, she becomes pregnant. Her husband divorces her, and she has an illegal abortion. Maria’s only friend is B.Z., a gay movie producer played by Anthony Perkins. World-weary, he tells Maria that he has discovered the meaning of life is nothing. He invites her to commit suicide with him. However, she decides to live and cradles him as he dies after overdosing on sleeping tablets.

Heavy stuff!

Unfortunately, despite a good performance by Weld, the film only comes alive when she drives endlessly around LA’s spectacular freeways, which, in the 1970s, were considered one of the city’s great engineering and architectural achievements. Perkins is passable in the underwritten role of another doomed homosexual.

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39. Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973)

B-

Gilbert Cates

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Bobby Walden (Ron Rickards)

“Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams” (1973) is a poignant drama about a New York housewife confronting midlife crisis, regret, family estrangement, and the sudden death of her mother.

In 1973, four years before Woody Allen began presenting various interpretations of Manhattan in his films, from “Annie Hall” (1977) to “Melinda and Melinda” (2004), Gilbert Cates delivered a film that was notably Allenesque in its own right: “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.” This is a Manhattan where the leading lady shops at Saks, dines at excellent restaurants, and enjoys pleasant afternoons viewing screenings of Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries” at a revival house with her mother.

The character Rita Walden, portrayed beautifully by Joanne Woodward in what might be her finest performance, faces a midlife crisis triggered by her mother’s death—a role magnificently played by Sylvia Sidney, who also received an Oscar nomination. Rita must handle her mother’s estate while questioning her choice to marry her ophthalmologist husband, played by Martin Balsam, who delivers a beautifully understated performance—quite different from his role as “The Fag” in the previous year’s “The Anderson Tapes,” a performance that dominates the latter half of the film.

Rita’s son Bobby (Ron Rickards), who has moved to Amsterdam and is essentially out of touch, is gay. He appears only in one scene, which is portrayed in a rather creepy and homophobic manner. Woodward’s character inadvertently intrudes on a potentially intimate moment between him and his “friend” in Bobby’s bedroom. Bobby behaves disgustingly, reminiscent of the negative portrayals often seen in Hollywood films featuring gay male characters. Meanwhile, his friend, a ballet dancer, continues to perform pirouettes and demi-plies while maintaining a vaguely confrontational eye contact with Joanne. This flashback occurs as part of Rita’s dream after she dozes off during the aforementioned screening of “Wild Strawberries.”

The original screenplay was written by Stewart Stern, who treated the subject of homosexuality more sympathetically in films such as “Rebel Without a Cause” (original) and “Rachel, Rachel” (adapted).

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40. The Day of the Jackel (1973)

(A)

Fred Zinnemann

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Jules Bernard (Anton Rodgers)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Derek Jacobi

What we have here is another example of a gay character whose sole purpose in the movie is to be killed.

In directorFred Zinnemmann’s superb edge-of-your-seat 142-minute adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel of the same name, two innocent people are murdered as the French and English police forces – led by French actor Michel Lonsdale- try desperately to find “The Jackal.” That is the code name of the hit man for hire who is planning to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle as he hands out medals on the Place du 18 juin 1940, in Paris, on Liberation Day, 1963. The first murder is the result of a heterosexual affair, so it gets more attention. Also, this first victim is an upper-class French woman, Madame de Montpellier, who is played by the gorgeous French star Delphine Seyrig, then at the peak of her appeal following the release of “Last Year at Marienbad,” “Muriel” and “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” with “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” just around the corner. “The Jackal,” brilliantly played by Edward Fox, meets her at an expensive hotel, and later, as the police close in around him, he follows her to her mansion and, after she tells him that the police have been to see her, he kills her.

The second murder is the result of a homosexual affair, so it gets less screen time. Back in Paris, with the murder of Madame de Montpellier on the news stations and the police now knowing his nom de guerre and having alerted all of the hotels in Paris, “The Jackal” knows that he must find somewhere else to stay. So, barely escaping the police at the train station, he asks the taxi driver to take him to a Turkish Bath where, as he hoped, he is hit on by a French man named Jules Bernard (played by English actor Anthony “Anton” Rodgers) who invites him back to his home to spend the evening. All seems to go as planned until Jules overhears the newsflash on the television, and like Madame de Montpellier before him, he is immediately dispatched, in his case, to that great gay sauna in the sky.

This is another example of a gay character whose sole purpose in a movie is to be killed. Our consolation is that Zinnemmann and Rodgers treat him with a modicum of respect – we get a glimpse of his life outside the bathhouse, and Rodgers manages to do his best with his few minutes of screentime. That his murder is a mirror image of Seyrig’s also eases the pain (a little).

Otherwise, I always sit back and enjoy this beautifully made film. It is a reminder of what a great director, Fred Zinnemmann, could be when he worked from suitable material.

Openly gay actor Derek Jacobi is among the marvelous cast, a virtual who’s who of excellent English and French character actors, plus the occasional star!

Oscar Nomination for Best Editing of 1973: Ralph Kemplen

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42. A Touch of Class (1973)

C–

Melvin Frank

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Cecil (Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch – uncredited)

The year is 1973. The setting is London.

Our stars are Glenda Jackson and George Segal in Melvin Frank’s déclassée “ A Touch of Class,” a movie nobody sees today because the bloom has faded from the rose. Jackson’s Oscar for Best Actress is on a par with Jack Lemmon’s Best Actor for “Save the Tiger” that same year – utterly undeserved and the worst of that year’s five choices -Joanne Woodward’s reaction to her being named the winner is priceless. Her character works in the garment industry, so we are on “fairy alert,” and one of them does descend on her office just as Segal is visiting. He’s got a swishy fairy attitude, which he unwisely unleashes on Jackson as he minces about her desk. His name is Cecil, and he is played, unbelievably, in an uncredited part by Benedict Cumberbatch’s dad, Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch, who is known professionally as Timothy Carlton. Jackson wonders why a particular document is not typed. The dialogue is as follows:

You know I only type with one finger and (pause), I’ve hurt it

Cecil

Don’t tell me how!

Jackson, dripping contempt.

The, ahem, Oscar-nominated original screenplay is by Frank and Jack Rose.

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43. The Last of Sheila (1973)

(B)

Herbert Ross

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Herbert Ross

SCREENWRITER: Anthony Perkins

SCREENWRITER: Stephen Sondheim

COSTUME DESIGNER: Joël Schumacer

On a one week pleasure cruise on the Mediterranean aboard the yacht of movie producer Clinton Greene (James Coburn), the guests include actress Alice Wood (Raquel Welch); her talent-manager husband Anthony Wood (Ian McShane); secretary turned talent agent Christine (Dyan Cannon); screenwriter Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin) and his wife Lee (Joan Hackett); and film director  Philip Dexter (James Mason). The trip is, in fact, a reunion; except for Lee, all were together at Clinton’s home one year before, on the night a hit-and-run resulted in the death of Clinton’s wife, gossip columnist Sheila Greene (Yvonne Romain). Once the cruise is underway, Greene, a parlor game enthusiast, informs his guests that each will be assigned an index card with the following titles: HOMOSEXUAL | SHOPLIFTER | EX-CONVICT | INFORMER |LITTLE CHILD MOLESTER. One of the cards is blank. The game aims to uncover everyone else’s secret while keeping one’s own private.

Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, who teamed up to write this movie’s original screenplay, were good friends who liked throwing lavish parlor games in their fabulous Manhattan apartments. They also loved clues, riddles and crosswords, and anyone who has seen old episodes of “Password” on TV can attest to how clever Perkins was with words. Ditto for Sondheim, arguably the most excellent wordsmith of the 20th century. Both men were gay, as was the film’s director, Herbert Ross (despite being married to both Nora Kaye and Lee Radziwill). And that massive gay sensibility does come through. The actors are all in good form, with Raquel Welch being particularly impressive in her one genuinely good film. Dyan Cannon also has a great time playing a character that was clearly modeled on uber-talent agent Sue Mengers. The movie ultimately disappoints, however, in that it’s only moderately entertaining. With this level of talent and queerness, we should have had the time of our lives.

The song “Friends” is sung by Bette Midler.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Gerry Turpin

Warner Bros.

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44. A Very Natural Thing (1974)

(D)

Christopher Larkin

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*David (Robert Joel)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Christopher Larkin (RIP 1988: Suicide following the diagnosis of end-stage AIDS)

ACTOR: Robert Joel (RIP 1992: AIDS-related illness)

Christopher Larkin directed and co-wrote this film about a gay man in his late twenties searching for love in mostly the wrong places (in Manhattan and the Hamptons), aiming to market it to a general audience. It didn’t work. Possibly because it was ahead of its time, but mostly because it’s pretty awful. The hackneyed script, the terrible acting, the wall-to-wall padding, and all those dreadful haircuts! The lead character in the film was once a monk, as was the director, and the opening scene, where he bids farewell to his monastery brothers, is the only moment with genuine pathos. There is massive footage of NYC pride parades that lends nothing to the proceedings except to tell us that the director did not have enough material or ideas to fill his movie.

Today, it’s nothing more than a failed curiosity. It would be over ten years before such infinitely superior Queer Films as “Buddies” and “An Early Frost” (both in 1985), “Parting Glances” (1986) and “Longtime Companion” (1990) were released. Unfortunately, all of those films showed gay culture in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Tragically, the lead actor in this movie, Robert Joel, died from an AIDS-related illness at the age of 48 in 1992, while the director took his own life after being told he was in the latter stages of AIDS in 1988. The writer of “The Celluloid Closet,” Vito Russo, who also died from an AIDS-related illness in 1990, has a blink-and-you-will-miss-it cameo appearance in the film.

Original screenplay by the director and Joseph Coencas.

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45. Butley (1974)

B-

Harold Pinter

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Ben Butley (Alan Bates)

*Joey (Richard O’Callaghan)

*Reg (Michael Byrne)

LGBTQ+

Alan Bates

Butley (Alan Bates) is a literature professor at Queen Mary’s College, London. Once a respected scholar of T.S. Eliot, he now spends his time obsessing over nursery rhymes and Beatrix Potter. The film unfolds almost entirely in Butley’s office, which is shared with his assistant and former student Joey (Richard O’Callaghan). Joey is also his current lover. On this day, he finds out that his estranged wife is remarrying and that Joey is leaving him for another man, Reg (Michael Byrne)

Adapted by Simon Gray from his stage play and directed by Harold Pinter, the film is a testament to Alan Bates, who, having originated the role on stage, delivers a tour-de-force performance that is simultaneously witty, pathetic, and tragic. As a record of academic and personal disintegration, this is the one you keep referring back to.

That said, the movie is basically a filmed play, and it, perhaps wisely, does not attempt to disguise its origins.

“Butley” is also a milestone in Queer Cinema, presenting us with gay characters who are unapologetically themselves.

With Jessica Tandy as Edna.

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46. The Great Gatsby (1974)

B+

Jack Clayton

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Nick Carraway

*Jordan Baker

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess

Nick Carraway – The Great Gatsby

A novel of astonishing economy and grace was stretched out into a bloated 150 minutes.

Produced by David Merrick and directed by Jack Clayton, from an adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola, the third film version of F. Scott Fitzgerlad’s Jazz Age masterpiece (the first two were also produced at Paramount) stars Robert Redford as Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan. The film won two Oscars. One was for Theoni V. Aldredge’s striking costumes, which instituted a brief Gatsby fashion craze and beat out an astounding Best Costume Design lineup that year, including Anthea Sylbert for “Chinatown,” Theodora Van Runkle for “The Godfather Part II,” Tony Walton for “Murder on the Orient Express” and John Furness for “Daisy Miller.”The second was for Nelson Riddle’s adapted score, which used the plaintive refrain from Irving Berlin’s 1923 song “What’ll I Do” to profound effect.

Both Nick Carraway (Sam Waterston) and Jordan Baker (Lois Chiles) are gay, and Waterston’s sensitive, almost asexual presence is the film’s greatest pleasure, mainly since he is the voice-over narrator (as he is in the book). Chiles’ Baker is also excellent, a woman who cannot believe in the astonishing freedom offered by a new decade to gay and straight women alike. She is a professional golfer and only wears slacks. She’s a proto-Kate Hepburn!

People were divided concerning Farrow’s Daisy. I loved her performance. I thought she made the perfect Daisy Buchanan. I found Redford’s Gatsby boring on first viewing, but I have grown to appreciate him over the years—thanks to excellent support from Bruce Dern, Karen Black, and Scott Wilson.

The gorgeous cinematography is by Douglas Slocombe, who should have been nominated but wasn’t. Notable in the cast are Brooke Adams, who is very striking as a party guest (uncredited), and Patsy Kinset as Daisy and Tom’s daughter.

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48. GOING PLACES (1974)

(Les Valseuses)

(A)

BERTRAND BLIER

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Jean-Claude (Gérard Depardieu)

*Pierrot (Patrick Dewaere)

Co-written and directed by Bertrand Blier and based on his own novel with the same title, “Going Places” (1974) – originally titled Les Valseuses (direct translation from the French: the testicles) – is a landmark in both New French Cinema and Queer Cinema as we follows Jean-Claude (Gerard Depardieu) and Pierrot (Patrick Dewaere) two aimless, anarchic young men who roam across France in stolen cars. Their journey is marked by petty crimes and random acts of violence, all portrayed with a disturbingly casual tone. They are joined by Marie-Ange (Miou-Miou), a passive hairdresser who becomes their companion, lover, and emotional sounding board. Her own quest for sexual fulfillment adds a layer of melancholy to the trio’s chaotic escapades.

Four sequences stand out:

The first is where Depardieu and Dewaere encounter a woman on a train (Bridget Fossey, who was the little girl in director René Clément’s 1952 masterpiece “Forbidden Games”) while she is breastfeeding her baby. They then partake in the milk themselves! This scene, in particular, is beautifully managed by Blier and his three actors. Shocking at first, it transforms itself into a moment of great tenderness.

The second is where the boys wait outside a women’s prison and pick up a newly released prisoner who they think is going to be sex starved. She is played by Jeanne Moreau, who gives the movie a touch of class. Although the film has been described as misogynistic – and it is, in places – I found these scenes to be both beautiful and sad.

The third is where the boys are horsing around and, wouldn’t you know it, next thing they are pounding one another. Very sexy, and the reason for the movie’s inclusion in this essay.

The fourth is where Depardieu, Dewaere and Miou-Miou encounter a bourgeois French family at a campground and seduce the very willing teenage daughter, played by a bratty Isabelle Huppert, much to the consternation of her parents.

Not for the faint of heart, the film is almost as sensational now as it was fifty years ago.

Stars Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, Miou-Miou and Isabelle Huppert gained significant recognition from this film.

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47. Once Is Not Enough (1975)

C+

Guy Green

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

Deirdre (Alexis Smith)

Karla (Melina Mercouri)

Based on the Jacqueline Susann’s 1973 bestseller, the movie “Once is Not Enough” introduces us to January Wayne (waif-like Deborah Raffin, the embodiment of that seventies look), the sheltered daughter of once‑legendary Hollywood producer Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas). After a long recovery from a motorcycle accident, January returns to New York to discover that her father—now financially ruined—has married the fabulously wealthy and domineering Deirdre Milford Granger (Alexis Smith) to secure his career and lifestyle. Dierdre, having survived numerous husbands, is involved in a lesbian affair with Karla (Melina Mercouri, who should have known better) and has very definite plans for her new stepdaughter!

The third and final Susann blockbuster to be given the big expensive Hollywood treatment, Once is Not Enough benefits from a strong performanes by Smith – her first appearance on screen in sixteen years – and an impressive one by Brenda Vaccaro as a high-powered magazine editor – Vaccaro received an Oscar nomination for her performance. Irobically, because the movie has a tiny modicum of taste, it has never developed the Midnight cult following that made the infinitly more dreadful Valley of the Dolls immortal.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.

49. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Rated (C) (Solo)

High Camp at a Midnight Screening

Jim Sharman

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry)

LGBTQ+ 

ACTOR: Tim Curry

Adapted from the West End musical by Richard O’Brien.

Every boy and every girl, whether gay or straight, must see Richard O’Brien’s fantastical creation, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It has been running continuously on one stage or another/one film theatre or another, for almost 50 years since its debut in London’s West End in 1973 and the release of the Lou Adler-produced movie in 1975. It is a GROUP EXPERIENCE with those inspired zingers returning to the screen, resulting from two generations of audience members’ brilliant responses, which is the real entertainment. So, let’s join Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) as they find themselves in the world of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (the incredible Tim Curry), Riff Raff (O’Brien), Magenta (Patricia Quinn), Columbia, a Groupie (Nell Campbell aka Little Nell), Dr. Everett V. Scott, a rival scientist (Jonathan Adams), Eddie, an ex-delivery boy (Meat Loaf) and, finally, The Criminologist, An Expert (Charles Gray) to do …….

Science Fiction/Double Feature – The Lips (those of Patricia Quinn; the voice of Richard O’Brien).

Dammit, Janet – Brad, Janet, and Chorus.

There is a Light (over at the Frankenstein Place): Janet, Brad, Riff Raff, and Chorus.

The Time Warp – Riff Raff, Magenta, The Criminologist, Columbia, and Transylvanians.

Sweet Transvestite – Frank.

The Sword of Damocles – Rocky and the Transylvanians.

Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me – Janet with Magenta, Columbia, Rocky, Brad, Frank, and Riff Raf.

Rose Tint My World– Columbia, Rocky, Janet, and Brad.

Fanfare/Don’t Dream It. Be It – Frank with Brad, Janet, Rocky, and Columbia.

Wild and Untamed Thing – Frank with Brad, Janet, Rocky, Columbia, and Riff Raff

I’m Going Home – Frank and Chorus

The Time Warp (Reprise) – Riff Raff and Magenta

Science Fiction/Double Feature (Reprise) – The Lips

Adapted by Richard O’Brien from his own stage play.

Producer: Lou Adler

NOW SHOWING AT A LATE-NIGHT MOVIE THEATRE NEAR YOU EVERY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY NIGHT!

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50. Barry Lyndon (1975)

(A)

Stanley Kubrick

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Lt. Jonathan Fakenham, gay British soldier (Jonathan Cecil)

*Gay British Soldier (Anthony Dawes)

LGBTQ+ 

ACTOR: Murray Melvin

In times like this, I realize how much I care for you and how impossibly empty life would be without you.

Lt. Jonathan Fakenham – BARRY LYNDON

In Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” (1975), there is a moment where Barry (Ryan O’Neal) finds two soldiers naked and holding hands in a pond as they confess their love for each other. Barry overhears their conversation, and he takes advantage of the situation, stealing the clothes of one of the men and assuming his identity. The scene is humorous. But does it mock the lovers? The first time I saw it, I thought so. However, I have come to look at the scene more favorably over the years. It shows that same-sex love existed in the eighteenth century. Although only an incidental moment in the film, and we never see these characters again, the expression of true love remains with the viewer.

Gay Actor Murray Melvin plays the Reverend Runt, who, by all appearances, is devoted to Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) but is cruelly dismissed by Barry’s mother (Marie Kean).

Oscar-winner John Alcott shot the movie’s famed candlelit card game sequence with all-natural lighting. The scene features O’Neal, Berenson and Melvin and also introduced the general public to Schubert’s haunting “Piano Trio in E Flat.”

The film was adapted from the novel “The Luck of Barry Lyndon” by William Makepeace Thackeray, directed and produced by Kubrick.  At Oscar time, when the nominations were announced, he was three for three in the BEST FILM | BEST DIRECTOR | BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY categories, but lost all three to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Of its seven nominations, it won four:

Best Costume Design

Best Cinematography (John Alcott)

Best Production Design

Best Adapted Score (Leonard Rosenman)

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51. In Celebration (1975)

C+

Lindsay Anderson

LGBTQ CHARACTER

*Colin (James Bolam)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Alan Bates

DIRECTOR: Lindsay Anderson

Directed by Lindsay Anderson and based on David Storey’s 1969 play, “In Celebration” boasts all of the original stage cast members.

A mining town in Derbyshire, England. The Shaw family, including their three sons, gathers to celebrate Mr. and Mrs. Shaw’s 40th wedding anniversary. Mr. Shaw (Bill Owen) has worked as a coal miner for nearly 50 years. Andrew (Alan Bates), the eldest son, once a solicitor, has abandoned the law to pursue painting. Colin (James Bolam), the middle son, was once a member of the Communist Party. Now, a successful but unfulfilled industrial relations manager, he’s gay but in the closet. Steven (Brian Cox), the youngest, is a schoolteacher with four children who has abandoned a book he had been writing. Over the course of the evening, a dark family history emerges.

Like “Butley,” this is another filmed stage play starring Alan Bates that does not attempt to hide its origins. However, the performers are so engaging that you stay with them. All of the actors have their moments, with Bates making the most significant impression. James Bolam’s Colin’s homosexuality is never discussed, paralleling other family secrets that lie buried from child neglect, to a suicide attempt, to a death in the family. However, there is enough queer-coding to convey the point, although, for most of the film, he’s little more than a sounding board for Bates’ character’s witty asides. And it’s fascinating to see Brian Cox in an early role – one of those lucky actors who reached a mass audience later in life, you never think of him as being young, but here he is!

With Constance Chapman as the mother who married beneath her and Gabrielle Day as their nosy but sweet-hearted next-door-neighbor.

The film was part of Ely Landau’s American Film Theatre series, which adapted stage plays for cinema with subscription screenings.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, APPLE TV+, AND YOUTUBE

52. Farewell My Lovely (1975)

A-

Dick Richards

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

Lindsay Mariott (John O’Leary)

YOU SMELL GREAT. COME ON IN

Marlow, on first meeting Mariott.

YOU BEEN JUDGING A FLOWER SHOW IN HERE MARLOW. IS THAT THE WINNING DAFFODILL WHO JUST WALKED OUT?

Detective Billy Rolfe (Harry Dean Stanton) who arrives as Marriot is leaving Marlowe’s office.

Directed by Dick Richards, this version stars Robert Mitchum as an aging, world‑weary Philip Marlowe. Set in 1941 Los Angeles but filmed with 1970s melancholy, it’s a deliberately nostalgic neo‑noir that leans into decay, corruption, and the end of an era. Marlowe is hired by Moose Malloy (Jack O’ Halloran), a hulking ex‑con, to find his vanished girlfriend, Velma (Charlotte Rampling).The search leads Marlowe through a maze of brothels, gambling dens, corrupt cops, and Hollywood grotesques. A parallel case involving a stolen jade necklace eventually intersects with Moose’s quest. Velma, now reinvented as a glamorous nightclub singer, has erased her past and will kill to protect her new identity. The story ends in tragedy: Moose dies, Velma dies, and Marlowe is left with nothing but the bitter taste of truth.

One of those rare cases where the remake is marginally better than the original (Murder My Sweet directed by Edward Dmytryck in 1944 with Dick Powell – see ESSAY ONE: 85 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code), Farewell My Lovely not only keeps the original title of the Raymond Chandler novel, it also more faithful to the spirit of the book. Mitchum is marvellous. He’s in practically every scene and he never wears all his welcome. There is a superb moment with an equally down-on-her-luck Sylvia Miles who received a well-deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for just a few minutes of screen time, mirroring her work in Midnight Coiwboy a few years before.

And our queer friend Lindsay Marriott (John O’ Leary) is back, still smelling super nice, still being mocked by the straight guys, and still doomed to die in the canyons above Malibu.

The gorgeous cinematography is by John Alonzo who the previous year had immortalized Los Angeles inChinatown. The haunting score is by David Shire.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.

53. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

A+

Sidney Lumet

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino)

*Leon Shermer (Chris Sarandon)

WITH BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, THE BEST QUEER MOVIE EVER MADE.

1975: OSCAR WINNER FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

(FRANK PIERSON)

1975: OSCAR NOMINATED FOR BEST FILM, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE, AND BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE.

Sidney Lumet’s masterpiece is based on actual events. On a hot August afternoon in 1972, Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) and Sal Naturile (John Cazale) attempt to rob the First Brooklyn Savings Bank but only find $1,100 in cash and end up being surrounded by the police. Sonny wants the money to get his lover Leon a sex change, and as a long day journeys into the night, things turn into a circus.

Pacino is magnificent. With Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” it’s his defining role. Director Sidney Lumet, who works wonders in an enclosed space, gets the scenes between Sonny and Leon (Chris Sarandon, excellent) precisely right. Funny but endearing. Not a trace of condescension. Can this be the same team that gave us the rancid “The Anderson Tapes?”

Excellent work, as well, by Charles Durning as the head police officer.

The superb Oscar-winning screenplay is by Frank Pierson.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

54. Fox and His Friends (1975)

B+

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Franz “Fox” Bieberkopf (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

*Eugen (Peter Chatel)

*Max (Karlheinz Böhm)

LGBTQ+ 

ACTOR: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

ACTOR: Peter Chatel

DIRECTOR: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

PRODUCER: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

SCREENWRITER: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

QUEER CINEMA MEETS NEW GERMAN CINEMA: PART TWO.

Fassbinder’s companion piece to “Bitter Tears,” which he had made three years previously. Here, he casts himself against type as a working-class gay man who wins the lottery and then falls in love with the elegant son of an industrialist (Peter Chatel) who ultimately swindles the easily flattered “Fox” out of his fortune.

It’s a fascinating look at gay life in the 1970s, and it’s one of at least a dozen great movies Fassbinder wrote and directed in the decade leading up to his untimely death. Karlheinz Böhm, who starred in Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom” in 1960, is the older sophisticate who introduces Fox to his circle of wealthy friends.

The name of Fassbinder’s character was taken from Alfred Doblin’s 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, which the director later adapted for television.

Photographed by the great German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus before he immigrated to the United States.

Original screenplay by Fassbinder.

Supplemental material: Fassbinder Revisited: A Cinematic Journey.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, HBO MAX (YOUTUBE)

55. Grey Gardens (1975)

A+

Grey Gardens: Albert and David Maysles

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

Big and Little Edie Bouvier are not gay but have entered the hearts of gay men everywhere!

The film “Grey Gardens” tells the story of Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier, the aunt and cousin of former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. When the brothers Albert and David Maysles discovered them in the early seventies, Big Edie, who was almost eighty at the time, and Little Edie, who was fifty-six, appeared to be stuck in another era, holding onto their aristocratic past while living in a crumbling house and caring for numerous cats and raccoons.

The Maysles were already famous for their unique style of filmmaking, which they had used in such classics as “Salesman” (1969) and “Gimme Shelter” (1970), where, at the Rolling Stones Altamont Free Concert, they unexpectedly captured on film the altercation between Altamont attendee Meredith Hunter and Hells Angel Alan Passaro that resulted in Hunter’s death. Their film footage showed Hunter drawing and pointing a revolver just before being stabbed by Passaro, who was later acquitted of Hunter’s murder on self-defense grounds after the jury viewed the film. They christened their style Direct Cinema, a type of cinéma vérité with no directorial interference, although some critics, such as Pauline Kael, accused them of staging and more!

I need professional music!

Big Edie Bouvier

The filmmakers gained the trust of Big Edie and Little Edie and filmed at Grey Gardens for several weeks. They, along with their co-directors, Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, then carefully edited their footage to create a remarkable documentary that captured the essence of the women and their unique lifestyles. After its release, the film’s high campiness—a tragic story set in the faded milieu of New York high society and featuring some deliciously bitchy one-liners between mother and daughter—developed a significant gay following. Little Edie had a unique fashion sense, particularly with her head scarves, and, over time, some gay fashion designers credited her as an inspiration for their work. She was also a wanna-be cabaret artist, and after her mother’s death, she did achieve her goal of signing in some of Manhattan’s top Cabaret venues, mainly to the gay audiences who had grown to love her over the years since the film’s release.

GREY GARDENS, THE DOCUMENTARY BY ALBERT AND DAVID MAYSLES, IS NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE and THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Special mention to the TV movie “Grey Gardens” (2009)

The documentary received a Criterion Collection DVD release in 2001, where it is now available for screening. By the turn of the century, it had become a definitive gay cult classic, inspiring songs such as Rufus Wainwright’s “Grey Gardens.” In 2006, the documentary was adapted into a musical play by three gay men: Doug Wright, Scott Frankel, and Michael Korie. In 2009, it was adapted into a highly successful TV movie of the same title by gay writer/directors Michael Sucsy and Patricia Rozema. It starred Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as Big and Little Edie, respectively; Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy; and Ayre Gross and Justin Lewis as Albert and David Maysles.

GREY GARDENS, THE TV MOVIE, IS NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+ AND YOUTUBE THROUGH MAX.

Special mention to the TV Limited Series” Feud: Capote vs The Swans” (2024)

The Maysles brothers have returned in high style, thanks to the conceit behind the third episode, “Masquerade 1966,” of Ryan Murphy’s new limited series “Feud: Capote vs the Swans.” Written by Jon Robin Baitz and directed by Gus Van Sant, the episode brilliantly interweaves the footage the brothers filmed (with Charlotte Zwerin) for their documentary “With Love from Truman” in which Truman Capote, having just published his masterpiece, “In Cold Blood,” has reinterred New York society and is sorting the invitations (who is in and who is out) to his famous 1966 Masked Ball at the Plaza Hotel. In what has to be some of the most mesmerizing moments in television history, the entire episode – apart from the closing moments, when Truman (the excellent Tom Hollander) dances with the ghost of his dead mother (Murphy’s muse, the incredible Jessica Lang back after playing Joan Crawford in “Feud: Bette and Joan”) while The Swans – Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C. Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny) and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart) look on – is shown as part of the brothers’ black-and-white “footage” giving The Swans ample time to bitch and moan about Truman. Pawel Szajda plays Albert, and Yuval David plays David. There is a scene where Truman flirts outrageously with David in the back seat of a car and another where Truman and Albert slow dance in Truman’s living room. It’s during this scene that Albert quotes Saint Theresa of Avilla: “More tears are shed over Answered Prayers than unanswered ones,” giving Truman the title of his new book on New York society that he would never publish – apart from the articles in Esquire Magazine in 1975 in which he betrayed the trust of The Swans and for which Paley and Keith never forgave him. David Maysles died from a brain hemorrhage at age 55 in 1987. Albert died at age 88 in 2015.

FEUD: CAPOTE VS. SWANS IS CURRENTLY STREAMING ON HULU (FX)

56. The Naked Civil Servant (1975)

(A)

Jack Gold

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

Quentin Crisp (John Hurt)

The Naked Civil Servant is a 1975 British made‑for‑television biographical drama based on Quentin Crisp’s 1968 autobiography. Directed by Jack Gold and adapted by Philip Mackie, it stars John Hurt in the performance that made him internationally known.

The film traces Crisp’s life from the late 1920s through the 1930s and beyond, focusing on his unapologetic embrace of effeminacy in a violently homophobic society. As a young man, Crisp rejects conventional masculinity, dyes his hair, adopts makeup, and insists on living visibly as himself—despite harassment, police scrutiny, and social ostracism.

He works briefly as a prostitute, then as a commercial artist, and eventually as a nude model in an art school—an experience that gives the film its title. His life becomes a kind of performance art: a defiant, camp assertion of individuality in the face of a conformist culture.

Hurt is phenomenal. One of the great queer performances as one of the great Queers.

A follow-up movie, An Englishman in New York, was made in 2009 by director Richard Laxton with Hurt reprising the role of Crisp.The film chronicles the years that Crisp spent in New York City and gets its title from the song written by Sting for the 1987 album …Nothing Like the Sun.

Streaming on YouTube and on Apple TV+ and AMAZON Prime, the latter two through BritBox.

57. Jeanne Dielman (1975)

A+

Although released in Europe in 1975, Chantal Akerman’s feminist/queer masterpiece “Jeanne Dielman” was not shown in the USA until 1983.

We, the audience, observe three days in the iterative daily life of a widowed woman and single mother. The duration of 3 hours and 21 minutes requires a significant commitment from the viewer. However, like many classic “SLOW MOVIES,” it rewards us with many pleasures. The film’s everyday details of this loving and caring mother contrast with her life as a prostitute. She welcomes clients into her home with the detached and mechanical demeanor that is also evident in her other daily activities.

There is no backstory, and we never know how or why Jeanne arrived at this point. No one speaks her name in the film. We only catch a glimpse of it in a letter she reads to her son.

QUEER AND FEMINIST SENSIBILITIES RESONATE IN CHANTAL AKERMAN’S MASTERPIECE.

There are a few brief scenes where she shops and stops for coffee. However, the film is primarily a closed-door affair, taking place mainly in Jeanne’s apartment, with most of the action occurring in her kitchen. In a series of long takes, the camera captures Jeanne in a medium shot. We see her making coffee, washing dishes, making the bed, taking out the garbage, and bathing after sex. As the viewer settles into the film, Jeanne’s routines fascinate us. And they are all the more hypnotic because Delphine Seyrig (“Last Year at Marienbad”) does something unique. Although she disappears into her role as Jeanne, she remains an actress of style and great beauty—an exceptional star.

By the second day, however, you notice subtle changes in Jeanne’s rituals. Trivial things at first, like the dropping of a newly washed spoon. After that, as the movie progresses, we realize that Jeanne is slowly losing her mind before our eyes. A sense of unease settles over us. We have a hunch that something terrible will happen, and it does.

LONELINESS AND ISOLATION – TWO QUEER TROPES – ARE THE CORNERSTONE OF JEANNE’S EXISTENCE.

Akerman, who committed suicide in 2015, was born in Brussels to Holocaust survivors. Her mother, unlike her grandparents, survived Auschwitz. They would be exceptionally close throughout their lives. The daily details of Jeanne’s life were influenced by those of her mother and her beloved aunt. The Jewish religious rituals of her childhood also played a role. That said, Akerman hated labels, whether they were “feminist,” “Jewish,” or “lesbian.” Although “Jeanne Dielman” predates Ruby Rich’s coining of the term “New Queer Cinema” in “Sight & Sound” in 1992, Akerman was considered by many to be a vital representative of that movement.

“Jeanne Dielman” was shot with an all-woman crew, as Akerman insisted. Cinematographer Babette Mangolte does some astonishing work here. From her lighting, you can feel the hours go by. Fifty years before the Academy nominated its first two female cinematographers, she pioneered and innovated in the careful design and lighting of interiors. She is now a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

“Mrs. America’s” Haunting Final Scene.

Recently, on Hulu, “Jeanne Dielman” inspired the closing scene of “Mrs. America.” After hearing from Reagan that she will not be part of his cabinet, Cate Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafly, defeated, retreats to the kitchen. There, she robotically peels one apple after another. Right before our eyes, we are witnessing the renaissance of Jeanne Dielman! That Akerman’s feminist/queer masterpiece is used as the inspiration for the conclusion of a series about a woman who considered herself an antifeminist and who distanced herself from her gay son should be antithetical. Yet it is not.

STREAMING ON the Criterion Channel, MAX (YOUTUBE)

58. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

A+

Director Peter Weir’s masterpiece.

The plot revolves around the disappearance of several teenage schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at Hanging Rock, Victoria, on Valentine’s Day in 1900, and the subsequent impact on the local community.

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Sara Waybourne (Margaret Nelson)

*Miranda St. Clare (Anne-Louise Lambert)

*Mrs Appleyard (Rachel Roberts)

*Miss Greta McCraw (Vivean Gray)

SCREENWRITER: Rainer Werner FassbinderSpearheading the then-emergingAustralian New Wave Cinema, which included notable directors like Bruce Beresford and Fred Schepisi, the film boasts bravura direction from Weir. Like Hitchcock, Weir showed that horror can occur on the brightest and most beautiful of summer days. There’s a suggestion that it was the young charges’ blossoming sexuality, in concert with some ancient force within those rocks, that led to the girl’s transportation into some other realm.

A sense of something unsettling is there from the beginning as the girls awaken to a beautiful morning. Sara (Margaret Nelson), a young, newly arrived orphan not allowed to go on the outing, is clearly enamored with the gorgeous Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert). When Sara whispers something to Miranda, she is rebuffed and told, somewhat fatalistically, “You must learn to love someone else, apart from me; I will not be around for much longer.”

Miranda has self-possession and knowingness beyond her years. At the picnic, the school’s French teacher (Helen Morse) likens her to a Botichelli angel. It is Miranda who initiates the walk up the rocks and, as some mysterious magnetic force stops everyone’s watch at noon, you begin to feel that maybe sublimated queer desire is at the heart of the events depicted in the film. There are also hints of a romantic relationship between the schoolmistress, Rachel Roberts, and the headmistress, Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), who was last seen running up the hill in her underwear to join the girls and was never seen again.

Russell Boyd was the cinematographer, and Bruce Smeaton composed the haunting score, incorporating the didgeridoo and other Aboriginal musical instruments. Weir also skillfully used sound design to significant effect, combining the sound waves of earthquakes and other natural phenomena into the mix.

Boyd’s camera operator on the set was John Seale, who would eventually supplant his master and become Weir’s cinematographer on three movies (“Witness,” “The Mosquito Coast,” and “Dead Poets Society”) and Anthony Minghella’s cinematographer on “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” winning an Oscar for “The English Patient.”

Weir and Boyd would eventually reunite in the new millennium for two more movies, one of which, “Master and Commander of the World,” would win Boyd his own Oscar.

The film was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1977, and not until 1979 in the United States.

Adapted by Cliff Green from the 1967 book “Picnic at Hanging Rock” by Joan Lindsay.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, APPLE TV+, MAX (YOUTUBE)

59. THE RITZ (1976)

C+

RICHARD LESTER

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Chris, a bathhouse patron (F. Murray Abraham)

* Claude, a bathhouse patron and confessed chubby chaser (Paul Price)

LGBTQ+

SOURCE MATERIAL: Terence McNally (Play)

SCREENWRITER: Terence McNally

ACTRESS: Kaye Ballard

Gaetano Proclo (Jack Weston), a mild-mannered man from Cleveland, is targeted by his mobster brother-in-law, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller). Fleeing for his life, Gaetano tells a cab driver to take him somewhere Carmine would never look. He ends up at The Ritz, a gay bathhouse in New York City. Unaware of its clientele, Gaetano stumbles into a flamboyant underworld of drag shows, steam rooms, and eccentric patrons.

Comic Encounters:

• Googie Gomez (Rita Moreno), a talentless but ambitious entertainer, mistakes Gaetano for a Broadway producer and relentlessly pursues him.
• Claude (Paul Price), a confessed “chubby chaser,” becomes infatuated with Gaetano.
• Various bathhouse regulars and staff add to the chaos, including a detective (Treat Williams), Gaetano’s suspicious wife (Kay Ballard) and a young F. Murray Abraham as a bathhouse regular.

Carmine and his henchmen eventually track Gaetano to the Ritz, but family secrets and absurd misunderstandings unravel in a comedic finale.

Part mob comedy and part drag review, this exhausting adaptation of Terence McNally’s hit play wears out its welcome in the first thirty minutes, but the laughs keep coming!

A real curiosity! Directed by Richard Lester, who had seen better days with the Beatles in “A Hard Day’s Night” and “The Three Musketeers.” He keeps things moving at a frantic pace! Moreno, Weston, Stiller, Abraham, Ballard, Williams and Price all have their moments.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON, APPLE TV+ and YouTube

60. Norman, Is That You? (1976)

(C)

George Schlatter

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Norman (Michael Warren)

*Garson (Dennis Dugan)

Ben Chambers (Redd Foxx) arrives in Los Angeles after his wife (Pearl Bailey) leaves him, only to discover that his son Norman (Michael Warren) is gay and living with his boyfriend (Dennis Dugan). Ben’s frantic, often misguided attempts to fix the situation drive a comedy about clashing values, parental expectations, and the era’s shifting attitudes toward sexuality.

In he original play Norman, Is That You? by Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick, Norman and his parents were Jewish. Working with Clark and Bobrick, director George Schlatter has moved the story to another demographic entirely without ever recognizing the fact that An African American family’s reaction to their son being gay can be quite different from that of a Jewish family. In this new version there are no ethnicities. There are no religions. There is no mention of Black vs Caucasian – the boyfriend is white. There is no room in director Schlatter’s world for the complexities or subtleties of human existence. There only two variables in Norman: gay and straight.

What we do have, however, is Redd Foxx as the dad and thank God for that! The result is a laugh every other minute. Foxx does not have to work for it, he’s a natural and he basically saves the movie. The rest of the cast coasts alongside him and Bailey is wasted in what turns out to be a glorified cameo.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.

61. Car Wash (1976)

C+

Michael Schultz

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Lindy (Antonio Vargas)

LGBTQ+

Actor: Richard Pryor

Writer: Joel Schumacher

“I’M MORE OF A MAN THAN YOU’LL EVER BE AND MORE OF A WOMAN THAN YOU’LL EVER GET“

LINDY (ANTONIO VARGAS IN CAR WASH)

You come for Antonio Vargas’ Lindy, who delivers razor-sharp shade to his homophobic coworker Duane (Bill Duke). You stay because a day at the Dee-Luxe Car Wash in Los Angeles is, despite the slurs, irresistibly fun.

It’s 1976, and Joel Schumacher—then a white, gay costume designer—was cutting his teeth on barely serviceable Black scripts. Before directing a dozen films of wildly variable quality, Schumacher had worked for Halston, producer Julia Phillips and director Herbert Ross (see The Last of Sheila, above)

The film unfolds over a single day at the car wash, where a multiracial crew of car washers—comprising Black, Latino, and Native American workers—seems to do everything except wash cars. Their world is a kaleidoscope of personal dramas, romantic entanglements, and eccentric customers, all woven into the rhythm of everyday life. Director Michael Schultz keeps the energy shifting so you never get bored, and the funky score by Norman Whitfield lifts the movie to another level: remember the excellent title track by Rose Royce?

Seventy-six was the year of Antonio Vargas. His Lindy is witty and an unapologetically camp character who is the comic spark of the ensemble, delivering shade with precision and turning the car wash into a stage for his personality. Lindy’s presence in a mainstream comedy in 1976 was quietly radical. Amid slurs and stereotypes, he carved out space for queer-coded energy in a film otherwise focused on working-class, multiracial camaraderie. What’s more, Fargas himself is not gay, but his brother is. That family connection may have helped him capture the vibe authentically, giving Lindy’s flamboyance a lived-in credibility rather than a caricature.

Then, contrast Lindy with Vargas’s gay character in our next queer film, Paul Mazursky’s “Nest Stop Greenwich”. What you get is a beautiful shift in tone!

Known LGBTQ+ actor Richard Pryor has a small part – a cameo, really – as Daddy Rich, a flamboyant, prosperity‑gospel style preacher who arrives at the car wash in a gleaming Cadillac, accompanied by the Wilson Sisters (a gospel trio played by The Pointer Sisters) who perform gospel-infused numbers alongside him.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO, APPLE TV+, AND YOUTUBE

62. Next Stop Greenwich Village (1976)

A-

Paul Mazursky

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Bernstein (Antonio Vargas)

LGBTQ+

Christopher Walken

“Next Stop, Greenwich Village” (1976) is writer-director Paul Mazursky’s semi‑autobiographical comedy-drama about a young Jewish actor who leaves his Brooklyn home in 1953 to chase his dreams in the bohemian world of Greenwich Village. The film beautifully captures both the allure and the disillusionment of artistic life in postwar New York.

At its center is Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker), a 22‑year‑old aspiring actor determined to break free from the suffocating embrace of his overbearing mother, Faye (Shelley Winters). Moving into the Village, Larry immerses himself in a vibrant circle of friends: his sensible girlfriend Sarah (Ellen Greene), the troubled Anita (Lois Smith), the neurotic Connie (Dori Brenner), the witty Bernstein (Antonio Fargas), and the charismatic playwright Robert (Christopher Walken). Through their intertwined lives, Mazursky explores themes of love, ambition, identity, and the sobering realities of adulthood.

Together with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice(1969), this stands as Mazursky’s finest work. An urgency and edge are missing from later films, such as An Unmarried Woman. Lenny Baker delivers a marvelous, lived‑in performance, radiating zest for life. Tragically, Baker’s career was cut short; he died of thyroid cancer at just 37 in 1982, never appearing in another film.

Shelley Winters is at her very best as Faye, offering a quintessential portrayal of a Jewish mother—domineering, guilt-laden, yet deeply human. Ellen Greene, remembered for her dazzling turn in Little Shop of Horrors (1986), is equally impressive as Sarah, grounding the film with warmth and intelligence. Watching her here, one wonders why Greene’s film career wasn’t more expansive.

And then there is Antonio Fargas’ Bernstein. 1976 was truly his year: in Car Wash, he played Lindy, a flamboyant, defiant, and camp character; in Next Stop, Greenwich Village, he embodied Bernstein, an introspective and witty figure who seamlessly integrated into the bohemian ensemble. While Lindy confronted homophobia head‑on, Bernstein represented the “gay best friend” trope with nuance, never reduced to comic relief. Fargas’s subtle performance broadened the range of queer representation on screen at a time when such roles were rare, underscoring his versatility and cultural significance.

NOW STREAMING ON YOUTUBE

63. Ode to Billy Joe (1976)

C+

Max Baer

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Billy Joe McAllister (Robby Benson)

THE QUESTION

Why did Billy Joe McAllister jump off the Tallahassee Bridge?

THE ANSWER

Because he slept with a man.

Rural Mississippi, summer of 1953. Billy Joe McAllister (Robby Benson), a shy, sensitive farm boy, courts fifteen-year-old Bobbie Lee Hartleyu I(Glynnis O’Connor)—their romance blossoms despite her father’s strict rules about dating. Billy Joe struggles with his identity and a secret encounter with another man. This revelation devastates him, and he withdraws emotionally from Bobbie Lee. In a tragic climax, Billy Joe jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge, echoing the unanswered mystery of Gentry’s song. Bobbie Lee is left heartbroken, reflecting on love, repression, and the harsh social conventions of the time.

The mystery behind Bobbie Gentry’s haunting song should have remained a mystery. That was its allure. That was its magic.

After listening to Bobbie Gentry’s haunting song, the question we have always been asking ourselves should have remained a mystery. That was the song’s allure—the song’s magic. Unfortunately, in the summer of 1976, whether we liked it or not, screenwriter Herman Raucher (“Summer of ’42”) and actor-turned-director Max Baer (formerly Jethro in “The Beverly Hillbillies”) solved the mystery. The answer: because he slept with a man. Robby Benson is sympathetic as the unfortunate title character, as is Glynnis O’Connor as his girlfriend, until the plot overtakes her toward the end. Meanwhile, Joan Hotchkis is as perfect as O’Connor’s mother. Unfortunately, the film is reductive and backward-looking, and the final scene can only be described as outrageous.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, APPLE TV+, YOUTUBE

64. Carrie (1976)

A+

Brian De Palma

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Miss Collins, the gym teacher (Betty Buckley)

LGBTQ+

SCREENWRITER: Lawrence D. Cohen

Carrie White is a timid, socially awkward high school senior. Her classmates bully her relentlessly, and her fanatically religious mother, Margaret, represses her, teaching her that natural processes like menstruation are sinful. After being humiliated during her first period in the school showers, Carrie discovers she has telekinetic abilities. These powers intensify as her emotions grow stronger. Sue Snell, a remorseful classmate, convinces her boyfriend Tommy Ross to take Carrie to the senior prom as an act of kindness. Carrie, against her mother’s warnings, attends.

At the prom, Carrie experiences joy and acceptance—until bullies stage a cruel prank, dumping pig’s blood on her after she is crowned prom queen. Traumatized, Carrie unleashes her telekinesis, locking the doors and causing a fiery massacre that kills many students and teachers. She returns home, where her mother attacks her, believing Carrie is possessed. Carrie kills her mother with her powers, but dies herself as the house collapses around them. The film ends with Sue Snell dreaming of Carrie’s hand reaching from the grave—a famous jump-scare that cemented the film’s horror legacy.

QUOTES

Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it Up! Plug it up!

In the showers, the girls Sue, Chris, Norma, and Helen (Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, P.J. Soles, and Edie McClurg) throw tampons and sanitary pads at Carrie. They are taking a communal shower after a game of volleyball, which Carrie (Sissy Spacek) is responsible for losing. Carrie, hysterical and covered in blood with her arms outstretched, runs towards the girls after she experiences, at age sixteen, her first period. Her mother (Piper Laurie), a religious fanatic, has never told her about menstruation.

That was a really shitty thing you did yesterday, a really shitty thing!

Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) to Sue (Amy Irving).

Ballots? Ballots anyone? Ballots?

Norma (P. J. Soles) IS collecting the ballots for the King and Queen of the school’s prom. Norma then surreptitiously exchanges these ballots for Chris’ (Nancy Allen) preprepared ones, all of which have a check mark on the box labelled “CARRIE WHITE AND TOMMY ROSS”.

I should have given you to God when you were born. But I was weak. I was backslidin’!

Margaret White (Piper Laurie) to Carrie White (Sissy Spacek).

He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath. And I liked it!

Margaret White to Carrie White.

I should’ve killed myself when he put it in me!

Margaret White to Carrie White!

After the blood come the boys!

Margaret White to Carrie White.

Eat Shit!

Chris Hargenson to Carrie White after she causes Chris’ team to lose the volleyball game.

Margaret White

 These are godless times. Mrs. Snell. 

Mrs. Snell

(Priscilla Pointer)

 I’ll drink to that… 

Margaret White

 I pray you find Jesus!

Margaret White

 I might have known it would be red. 

Carrie White:

It’s pink, Mama.

Margaret White

 I can see your dirty pillows. 

Carrie White:

Breasts, Mama. They’re called breasts, and every woman has them.

One of the GREAT HORROR MOVIES with tremendous performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, the latter returning to the screen after a fifteen-year absence. Brian De Palma’s masterpiece, like “Mildred Pierce” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” works simultaneously as drama and high camp. We feel for Carrie while at the same time reveling in her mother’s treasure chest of unforgettable lines (see above). It’s a list so long that it will satisfy the gay sensibility of any red-blooded adolescent male! The one gay character in the movie is Betty Buckley’s gym teacher, who sets the plot rolling by coming down hard on the girls, Nancy Allen and Amy Irving, after the “plug-it-up” scene in the showers.

The unforgettable score, one of the all-time greats, is by Pino Donaggio.

Adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen from the novel by Stephen King.

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME AND APPLE TV+

65. Sebastiane (1976)

C-

Derek Jarman

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Saint Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio)

*Severus (Barney James)

LGBTQ+ 

DIRECTOR: Derek Jarman

SCREENWRITER: Derek Jarman

Gay director Derek Jarman’s directorial debut is set in Rome in AD 303 during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians. Sebastian is a member of the Emperor’s personal guard. When he tries to intervene to stop one of the Emperor’s catamites (prepubescent boys whose sole purpose is sex) from being strangled by one of his bodyguards, Sebastian is exiled to a remote coastal garrison and reduced in rank to private. He is an early Christian and celibate despite all those naked Roman soldiers swarming around him. Severus, the commanding officer of the garrison, who becomes increasingly obsessed with Sebastian, tries to rape him and ultimately presides over his execution by a phalanx of arrows for refusing to take up arms in defense of the Roman Empire – echoing the iconic imagery that made him a gay icon in art history.

It’s a start. However, what seemed revolutionary in 1976 now looks rather mediocre. The film is more of a series of tableaux vivants than a narrative feature, and its mostly British cast makes a sad substitution for a sexy Roman garrison. Jarman seems to want to be erotic and anti-erotic, at the same time, having his cake and eating it too. The whole misguided adventure is an exercise in hypocrisy. And the (minimal) Latin dialogue. Oh My! Maybe it would have worked better as a short film.

Jarman clearly found his way here, co-directing with Paul Humfress and cowriting with Humfress and James Whaley. Always a somewhat precious filmmaker, he would go on to better things—and give the world, for better or for worse, the phenomenon known as Tilda Swinton—before his life was tragically cut short by AIDS at the age of 52.

NOT AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING. AVAILABLE ON BLUE-RAY AND DVD FROM AMAZON PRIME VIDEO.

66. Suspiria (1977)

A-

Dario Argento

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett)

*Miss Tanner (Alida Valli)

Italian director Dario Argento’s supernatural horror sensation!  The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy but realizes, after a series of murders, that it’s a front for a coven of lesbian witches who are presided over by legendary actresses Alida Valli and Joan Bennett in her final role. Both actresses were, in a sense, banished from Hollywood – Valli when she didn’t turn out to be Ingrid Bergman despite her obvious talent and Bennett after her husband of the time, Walter Wanger, shot her agent Jennings Lang, whom he incorrectly supposed was her lover, in the groin. Wanger went to jail for a few months but made a successful career comeback by producing “I Want to Live.” Lang survived and successfully segued into producing. However, as is often the case, there was no sympathy for the woman involved, and Bennett’s Hollywood career was over. Valli was also involved in a scandal after she returned to Italy in the early fifties, when her lover at the time was found dead on an Italian Beach. Both actresses are dressed by Argento and his costume designer, Piero Cicoletti, in beautifully tailored jackets and suits. It is interesting to note that after this movie, Valli went on to play another lesbian character in Bertolucci’s failed collaboration with Jill Clayburgh, the film “Luna,” set in an opera milieu.

The screenplay was written by Argento and his partner, Daria Nicolodi, at the time. It is based on “Suspiria de Profundis” by nineteenth-century English writer Thomas De Quincey, who wrote the novel under various stages of opium addiction and withdrawal.

Many of the actors (including Udo Kier) were dubbed into English.

Remade by Luca Guadagnino in 2018.

*Members of the Italian prog-rock band Goblin, when they wrote and recorded the soundtrack for “Suspiria” under the guidance of the movie’s director Dario Argento

Claudio Simonetti – keyboards (piano, organ, Mellotron, celesta, electric piano, violin)

Fabio Pignatelli – base, tabla, acoustic guitar, vocals

Massimo Morante – guitars (electric and acoustic)

Agostino Marangolo – drums, percussion

Maurizio Guarini – additional keyboards (synths, organ, piano)

SUSPIRIA CAN BE STREAMED ON AMAZON, APPLE TV+ and YouTube.

67. A Special Day (1977)

(A)

Ettore Scola

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni)

Set in Rome in 1938, on the day Adolf Hitler visits Benito Mussolini, the film centers on Antonietta (Sophia Loren), an exhausted, apolitical housewife left behind while her fascist husband and six children attend the parade. In the otherwise deserted apartment block, she encounters Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni, Oscar-nominated), a former radio announcer dismissed and persecuted for his homosexuality and suspected anti-fascist sympathies.

Their meeting begins when Antonietta’s pet myna bird escapes into Gabriele’s flat. What starts as a simple retrieval evolves into a profound, transformative encounter. Over the course of the day, the two strangers—each marginalized in different ways by the fascist regime and rigid social roles—share conversation, vulnerability, and ultimately a fleeting intimacy, though both recognize it cannot alter their destinies.

Directed by Ettore Scola, this elegant two-hander unites Loren and Mastroianni, long celebrated as the “King and Queen of Italian Cinema.” Their star power, enriched by memories of earlier collaborations such as Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and Marriage Italian Style, infuses the film with a layered resonance. What begins in understatement blossoms into one of the most finely acted works of the 1970s.

By evening, Antonietta’s family returns, and Gabriele is arrested for deportation. Alone once more, Antonietta sits by the window reading The Three Musketeers, the book he gave her, as her husband calls her to bed to conceive another child—a chilling reminder of the life she briefly escaped.

At the 50th Academy Awards, Bob Hope quipped that Mastroianni deserved the Best Actor prize simply for playing a homosexual opposite Sophia Loren, underscoring the film’s daring and impact.

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68. THE TURNING POINT (1977)

C+

HERBERT ROSS

In 1978 gay director and former choreographer Herbert Ross – he had been married to ballerina Nora Kaye and then Lee Radziwill but people in Hollywood knew he was gay – surprised everyone by filling two of the five Best Film of 1977 Oscar slots with the newly married Neil Simon/Marsha Mason romantic comedy “The Goodbye Girl” and the Arthur Laurents-penned ballet soap “The Turning Point”. Both had gay moments, and both were the very definition of schlock. Yet, between the two of them, they garnered an incredible 16 Oscar nominations (” The Turning Point” eleven and “The Goodbye Girl” five), with Ross himself getting a nod for Best Director for “The Turning Point”.

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Wayne, Deedee’s husband (Tom Skerritt)

A former ballet dancer. Deedee may have married him to prove that he was not gay – according to Emma!

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: HERBERT ROSS

SCREENWRITER: ARTHUR LAURENTS

Shirley MacLaine is Deedee Rodgers. Once a promising ballerina, she left the stage to marry Wayne and raise a family in Oklahoma. She now runs a small ballet school. It is intimated that Deedee married her husband Wayne (Tom Skerritt), a former ballet dancer, to prove that he wasn’t gay! Anne Bancroft is Emma Jacklin, Deedee’s former friend and rival, who chose career over family, becoming a celebrated star with the American Ballet Company. Leslie Browne is Emilia Rodgers Deedee’s daughter, who joins Emma’s company, reigniting old tensions between the two women. Deedee envies Emma’s fame and regrets her own sacrifices, while Emma envies Deedee’s family life. Their rivalry intensifies as Emilia thrives under Emma’s mentorship. Emilia becomes involved with Yuri (Mikhail Baryshnikov), a charismatic dancer, complicating her professional and personal growth. Deedee and Emma confront each other in a heated argument that escalates into a physical fight, symbolizing their decades of suppressed resentment.

How this managed to get eleven Oscar nominations only Hollywood knows. The plot is basically a rehash of the old Bette Davis-Miriam Hopkins warhorse “Old Acquittance,” and the Arthur Laurents script is painfully apparent. Worse, the two major supporting characters – both of whom received Oscar nominations – are ballet dancers who cannot act. Every scene that involves Browne and/or Baryshnikov is embarrassing to watch. Finally, the big Dedee-Emma confrontation is another rehash, this time it’s a catfight stolen entirely from the far more entertaining catfight five years earlier between Carol Burnett and Geraldine Page in “Pete ‘n’ Tillie.

When “The Turning Point” came away from the ceremony, 0/11, I rejoiced.

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69. THE GOODBYE GIRL (1977)

(C)

HERBERT ROSS

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Mark Bodine (Paul Benedict)

The flamboyantly gay stage director who wants Elliot (Richard Dreyfuss) to play the part of Richard III like a gay man or Bette Midler – need I say more!

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Herbert Ross

“The Goodbye Girl” left the ceremony with one Oscar – Best Actor for Richard Dreyfuss. To gay people, like me, this was insulting. In a Neil Simon world, filled with throwaway dykes and fags, Dreyfuss plays an aspiring actor whose big break comes when he is cast in the leading role in Shakespeare’s Richard III (the hunchback who lost the War of the Roses and put the Princes in the Tower). Unfortunately, his director (Paul Benedict) is a raving, mincing queen who insists that Dreyfus play the part like Bette Midler. Alright, this may seem momentarily funny, but did Simon stop to think for a second that gay people spend their entire lives trying to conform in a straight world? And reversing this process for a few laughs without a hint of irony seems callous and uncaring.

By the early 1980s, it had become clear that Marsha Mason’s four Oscar nominations in the Best Actress category were an egregious error, and that the Mason-Simon relationship was the most nauseating example of nepotism in Hollywood since Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg.

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70. CALIFORNIA SUITE (1978)

C+

HERBERT ROSS

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Sidney Cochran, the gay husband of Diana Barry (Michael Caine)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Herbert Ross

PAINTER: David Hockney

Following their insult to humanity, “The Goodbye Girl” the previous year, Neil Simon and Herbert Ross took their condescending, careless attitude toward minorities to another level with the blatantly racist treatment of the four Black characters in “California Suite.” Maggie Smith has her Oscar-winning moments as Diana Barry, the British actress nominated for an Oscar (she’s the dark horse of the bunch). Her tête-à-têtes with her gay husband, Sidney (Michael Caine), are the only reason to see this charmless four-part anthology comedy set in the Beverly Hills Hotel, complete with paintings courtesy of David Hockney. It’s the companion piece to Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” which was set in New York.

Jane Fonda gets the post-Hanoi Jane rehabilitation treatment in her segment with Alan Alda. Meanwhile, Richard Prior, Bill Cosby and their onscreen partners suffer through one cringeworthy slapstick sequence after another. Sequences that would have been deemed unworthy of the Three Stooges in their prime, Simon’s contempt for other non-Jewish minority groups knew no limits.

The fourth segment involves Walter Matthau doing his usual schtick.

Music by Dave Grusin.

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71. Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1978)

B+

Ted Kotcheff

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER:

Max Vandeveer: Robert Morley)

THERE IS A BOMB IN THE BOMBE

Natasha “Nat” O’Brien (Jacqueline Bisset) is a renowned pastry chef invited to London to prepare a royal banquet. Robert “Robby” Ross (George Segal), her ex-husband, is a fast-food mogul nicknamed “the Taco King,” representing mass-market cuisine. Max Vandeveer (Robert Morley) is the rotund, witty (read homosexual) editor of Epicurious magazine, obsessed with fine dining and responsible for assembling the world’s most fabulous meal. After he publishes an article highlighting his favorite chefs and their signature dishes, the chefs begin dying in grotesque ways that mimic their specialties. Chef Louis Kohner, known for baked pigeon, is found roasted in an oven. In Venice, lobster chef Fausto Zoppi is discovered drowned in his lobster tank. Each murder corresponds to the order of courses in Max’s ultimate menu, suggesting a deliberate pattern. Natasha and Robby, both suspects at different points, race across Europe to prevent further killings. Natasha realizes she is the final course—her famed ice cream pastry or bombe—making her the killer’s ultimate target.

Directed by Ted Kotcheff from a screenplay by Peter Stone (Charade) and based on the novel of the same name by Nan & Ivan Lyons, this is one of the great unsung Queer films of the 1970s. Featuring a sublimely queer turn by Robert Morley, an actor who played his share of gay roles over the years (see Essay One: 75 Queer Films Under the Hays Code: Oscar Wilde), but, reportedly, was not queer in real life. I am pleased to say that, for his work on this movie, Morley won the Best Supporting Actor award of 1978 from both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) and the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC).

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72. MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (1978)

C-

ALAN PARKER

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Billy Haynes (Brad Davis)

* Erich, a Swedish drug smuggler (Norbert Weisser)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Brad Davis

“Midnight Express” (1978) is a prison drama about American student Billy Hayes (played by Brad Davis), who is caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and endures brutal imprisonment before making a daring escape.

Hayes, a young American college student, is caught at Istanbul Airport with two kilos of hashish strapped to his body. He is sentenced to just over four years for possession. Still, after political pressure, Turkish authorities retried him for smuggling and extended his sentence to 30 years. Billy faced horrific conditions in the infamous Sağmalcılar Prison, which was rife with violence, corruption, and despair.

You would think that these horrors would be enough for screenwriter Oliver Stone and director Alan Parker to work with. Yet what they deliver to the viewer is mostly fiction. Billy’s long-term gay Turkish prison affair is deemed too much for audiences – there is a brief moment of intimacy between Billy and Swedish drug smuggler Erich (Norbert Weis), which Billy abruptly terminates – yet his chewing through a prison guard’s tongue and spitting it at the camera – something that never happened – is deemed OK! This is the worst kind of filmmaking, vulgar in the extreme. Only Giorgio Moroder’s Oscar-winning score and Davis’s earnest performance lift the movie above an F.

When gay actor Brad Davis, who suffered from major substance abuse problems, was not nominated for an Oscar, while everyone around him was showered with awards, you knew that something was up. He died a few years later from an AIDS-related illness.

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73. NIGHTHAWKS (1978)

B

Ron Peck

 LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Jim (Ken Robertson)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Ron Peck

SCREENWRITER: Ron PECK

SCREENWRITER: Paul Hallam

Directed by Ron Peck and co-written with Paul Hallam, Nighthawks is indeed a landmark in British queer cinema. Influenced by Nicholas Ray’s movies, particularly “Rebel Without a Cause” (see my essay on Queer Cinema under the Hays Code), Peck employs a relaxed cinema verité style, utilizing an innovative handheld camera and judicious close-ups.

The story follows Jim (Ken Robertson, in a brave, understated performance), a secondary school geography teacher who leads a double life. By day, he’s a quiet, professional educator. By night, he frequents gay bars and discos, searching for connection but mostly encountering fleeting encounters. Jim is open about his sexuality, but the film explores the emotional toll of his isolation and the societal pressures he faces.

THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY, THEY DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY THERE

– L.P. Hartley – “The Go-Between”

1978, you say. Not that long ago, you say. You had disco and Donna Summer. A gay couple was about to be on the cover of Time magazine, and London’s legendary gay dance club Heaven would open its doors within the year. And then it dawns on you that it was almost 50 years ago. What you worry about for Jim is his vulnerability and the nearly complete lack of protection he has from society. Homosexuality had been decriminalized in Great Britain eleven years previously. Still, there was virtually no way for someone in Jim’s position to blend their daytime and nighttime personas into a healthy unifying whole. And how loneliness and the soul destruction that goes along with it eventually take their toll.

A pivotal moment occurs when Jim’s students confront him directly about rumors of his sexuality. In a powerful classroom scene, he responds with honesty and composure, challenging their prejudices and ignorance. However, despite this moment of courage, the film ends on a sobering note: Jim is still alone, still searching, still navigating a world that offers little emotional refuge. “Nighthawks” doesn’t provide easy resolutions — instead, it captures the quiet resilience of a man living authentically in a society that barely tolerates his presence.

NOW STREAMING ON BFI and on YOUTUBE with FANDOR or DEKKOO

74. The Warriors (1979)

B+

Walter Hill

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*The Lizzies

In a stylized, nocturnal New York City ruled by street gangs, the charismatic gang leader Cyrus (Roger Hill) gathers delegates from across the city for a massive truce meeting in Van Cortlandt Park. His vision is simple: unite the gangs into a single, powerful force capable of controlling the city. During his speech, Cyrus is assassinated by Luther (David Patrick Kelly), the leader of the Rogues, who immediately blames the Warriors based in Coney Island.

With the truce shattered and chaos erupting, the Warriors are forced to flee into the night. Their leader, Cleon (Dorsey Wright), is beaten and presumed killed, leaving Swan (Michael Beck) to guide the remaining members home. The gang must cross hostile territory in the Bronx and Manhattan while being hunted by rival gangs and pursued by police. Each encounter becomes a test of survival, identity, and loyalty as they navigate encounters with groups like the Baseball Furies, the Lizzies, and the Punks.

After a long, dangerous journey, the Warriors finally reach Coney Island at dawn. There, the truth about Cyrus’s murder is revealed, and the Gramercy Riffs—having discovered the real killer—intervene to punish Luther and the Rogues, allowing the Warriors to walk away vindicated.

WARRIORS COME OUT TO PLAY

Luther (David Patrick Kelly): The Warriors

The Lizzies are unmistakably coded as lesbians. The film never uses the word, but the cues are so overt that the intention is impossible to miss. They’re framed as dangerous, deceptive, predatory, and aligned with violence.

So why do I still admire The Warriors? Why don’t I file it alongside the reactionary exploitation films of its era?

Probably because I read the Lizzies less as predatory lesbians and more as queer icons—or perhaps as a volatile mix of both – their power comes from their queerness. Although they spring from a 1970s exploitation trope, the Lizzies, like every gang the Warriors encounter on their journey from the Bronx to Coney Island—the Turnbull ACs, the Orphans, the Baseball Furies, the Punks, the Rogues—are granted their own iconography, their own aesthetic world, and, crucially, their own respect.

With Deborah Van Valkenburgh as the movie’s only heterosexual presence.

Screenplay by David Schaber and Walter Hill based on the novel of the same name by Sol Yurick, which, in turn, was based on Anabasis – the journey of the Ten Thousand from Greece to Persia in 401BCE – by the Ancient Greek soldier Xenophon.

Directed with great style by Walter Hill.

Cinematography by Andrew Laszlo.

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75. THE ROSE (1979)

B+

MARK RYDELL

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*The Rose (Bette Midler)

* Rose’s ex-lover (Sandra McCabe)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Alan Bates

Bette Midler made a spectacular debut playing The Rose, a rock singer who is emotionally unraveling during what she insists is her final concert tour. Battling exhaustion, loneliness and addiction, she is at the mercy of her manager (Alan Bates), who pushes her relentlessly, and things reach a climax when they visit her hometown.

The film is based on the life of bisexual singer Janis Joplin and is a must-see for fans of the Divine Miss M. Her voice is not suited to the big rock numbers like “Stay With Me Baby,” but she delivers them with gusto. This is star power at its most breathtaking. Nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, she lost to Sally Field in “Norma Rae”.

About thirty minutes into the movie, a candid and well-handled love scene between The Rose, who always refers to herself in the third person, and one of her old lovers, played by Sandra McCabe, is featured, which was quite daring for 1979.

With Oscar-nominated Frederic Forrest giving a sweet performance as an AWOL army sergeant whom The Rose thinks may be her one true love, and Harry Dean Stanton in a great scene playing a country music star who cruelly demands that The Rose stop performing his songs. Meanwhile, Allen Bates hams it up. If ever an actor appeared to be “doing it for the money,” this is it!

Director Mark Rydell keeps things moving, even if the concert sequences resemble outtakes from Spielberg’s “Close Encounters” – The cinematographer on both films was Vilmos Zsigmond.

Bette had a massive hit with the film’s title song, “The Rose,” written by Amanda McBroom, which failed to snag a Best Original Song nomination.

NOT AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING. AVAILABLE ON DVD FROM AMAZON.

76. LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1979)

C+

EDOUARD MOLINARO

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Renato (Ugo Tognazzi)

*Albin (Michel Serrault)

Renato Baldi (played by Ugo Tognazzi) is the owner of a drag nightclub, La Cage aux Folles. Albin Mougeotte (a.k.a. Zaza Napoli) (played by Michel Serrault) is Renato’s longtime partner and the club’s star performer. Laurent (Remi Laurent) is Renato’s son from a brief heterosexual fling, now engaged to a woman from a conservative family. To avoid scandal, Laurent begs his father to play it straight and hide his relationship with Albin.

Chaos should ensue as Renato and Albin attempt to “de-gay” their home, with Albin even trying to pass as Laurent’s mother. Unfortunately, what may have seemed like a scream fifty years ago now comes across as a little jaded today. Are they laughing with us, or are they laughing at us?

La Cage aux Folles was groundbreaking as one of the first international hit comedies centered on a gay couple. Its success led to two sequels (La Cage aux Folles II in 1980 and La Cage aux Folles III: The Wedding in 1985), inspired the Broadway musical (1983), and gave rise to the Hollywood remake (The Birdcage, 1996).

Surprise Best Director nomination for Eduard Molinaro.

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77. To Forget Venice (1979)

B+

Franco Brusati

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Nicky (Erland Josephson)

*Picchio (David Pontremoli)

*Marta (Hella Petri)

*Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Franco Brusati

Franco Brusati belonged to what might be called the second tier of queer Italian directors. Active in film and television since the late 1940s, he was a versatile journeyman—playwright, screenwriter, director, and producer who in 1968 achieved international recognition as the lead writer on Franco Zeffirelli’s hugely successful adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. If Zeffirelli, Visconti, and Pasolini formed the pantheon of Italy’s “tier one,” Brusati occupied the next rung: less flamboyant, more discreet, but no less significant.

Always a private man, Brusati revealed himself—if only obliquely—through his Best Foreign Language Academy Award–nominated To Forget Venice (1979). The film presents both a male and a female queer couple, and pointedly contrasts the tender, aesthetically framed depiction of gay intimacy with the raw, almost animalistic glimpse of heterosexual sex in its opening scene. In doing so, Brusati suggested that queer desire could be rendered with greater artistry and emotional resonance than the conventional heterosexual model.

The story follows Nicky (Erland Josephson), a middle-aged man living in Milan with his younger partner Picchio (David Pontremoli). They travel to visit Nicky’s sister Marta (Hella Petri), a charismatic former opera singer now residing in the family villa with her shy companion Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi). Completing the ensemble is Mariangela Melato—so often associated with Lina Wertmüller—playing a distant cousin whose presence adds a straight counterpoint to the queer pairings.

Chekhovian in tone, the group plans a trip to Venice, though the question lingers: will they ever arrive? The narrative is less about the destination than about memory, mortality, and the fragile bonds between people who live on the margins of society.

One lingering puzzle is Brusati’s choice of Erland Josephson, the great Swedish actor best known for his collaborations with Ingmar Bergman, as his leading man. Like many international productions of the era, To Forget Venice was shot with actors speaking their native languages or approximated dialogue, then dubbed in post-production for Italian release. Since dubbing was standard practice in Italian cinema—even for Italian performers—the decision likely mattered little to audiences. Still, it underscores Brusati’s ambition to lend his film a cosmopolitan gravitas.

I do have fond memories of this movie. It was my first profoundly queer film and my first glimpse of a gay relationship, albeit with an age disparity. It mattered to me. It’s beautifully acted and photographed (Romano Albani) and well worth seeing.

As for Brusati, he never had another international success and died from leukemia at the age of 70 in 1993. However, in the mid-1970s, he directed the sleeper hit Bread and Chocolate, which featured Nino Manfredi as an Italian man working illegally in Switzerland.

“To Forget Venice” is currently not available for streaming and is not available on DVD/Blu-ray in the United States.

78. Manhattan (1979)

A+

Woody Allen

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Jill (Meryl Streep)

LGBTQ+

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Santo Loquasto

YOU KNEW MY SEXUAL HISTORY WHEN YOU MARRIED ME!

Jill (Meryl Streep) to Isaac (Woody Allen) in “Manhattan”

One could go on and on reciting the glories of Woody Allen’s masterpiece, “Manhattan,” such as Gordon Willis’ magnificent black-and-white cinematography.

However, from a queer perspective, the standout among all the gifts that Woody gives us in this movie is Meryl Streep’s blistering, low-key, no-nonsense turn as Isaac’s (Allen) second ex-wife, Jill. When they married, she was bisexual. When they broke up, she was a confirmed lesbian. She left him for another woman, and now she is writing a tell-all memoir about their marriage.

Jill is portrayed as sharp, confident, and unapologetic. She cuts through Isaac’s neurotic self-absorption with icy wit, embodying independence and self-possession. Although she appears in only a few scenes, Jill’s character underscores the film’s themes of fractured relationships, shifting sexual identities, and the self-centered chaos of Manhattan’s intellectual elite.

With this performance, along with her work in Julia (1977), The Deer Hunter (1978), The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Meryl Streep had arrived as one of the greatest actresses of her generation. And she is still thriving!

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79. All That Jazz (1979)

A+

Bob Fosse

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Larry Goldie, a queer “suit” (David Margulies)

*Paul the piano player (Anthony Holland)

*The boys and girls aboard AIROTICA.

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Anthony Holland

MUSICAL ARRANGER Ralph Burns (On Broadway | Take Off with Us | Bye Bye Life)

COMPOSER: Peter Allen (Everything Old is New Again)

COMPOSER: John Kander (All That Jazz)

LYRICIST: Fred Ebb (All That Jazz)

All That Jazz (1979), Bob Fosse’s semi‑autobiographical musical drama about a brilliant but self‑destructive director/choreographer, is modeled after Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece “81/2”, and Fosse used the maestro’s cinematographer, Giuseppe Rotunno, to do the lensing, with fantastic results.

Joe Gideon (superbly played by Roy Scheider, in an Oscar‑nominated role) is a Broadway director and choreographer, clearly modeled on Bob Fosse himself. Gideon is simultaneously staging a new Broadway musical (NY/LA) and editing a film (The Stand‑Up), mirroring Fosse’s real‑life juggling of Chicago and Lenny.

He is a chain‑smokingé, pill‑popping workaholic, a womanizer, and an alcoholic. His daily ritual includes popping Dexedrine, blasting Vivaldi, and staring into the mirror while muttering,

It’s showtime, folks!

Gideon pushes himself to the brink, ignoring health warnings and pleas from loved ones. His compulsive lifestyle leads to a heart attack, after which he undergoes surgery. In the hospital, he hallucinates elaborate musical numbers that blend past, present, and fantasy. The climax is a dazzling, surreal production number—“Bye Bye Life”—staged as Gideon’s farewell to existence.

Leland Palmer plays his ex‑wife and star performer, based on Gwen Verdon.

Ann Reinking plays his girlfriend, a character similar to her own in real life.

Erzsebet Foldi plays his teenage daughter, who struggles with his neglect.

Jessica Lange is a spectral figure representing death, with whom Gideon flirts throughout the film.

Cliff Gorman plays the “Lenny Bruce” character in the movie that Gideon is editing.

There are three stunning musical sequences: the opening On Broadway which manages to incapsulate all of A Chorus Line into ten minutes of screen time, the rehearsals for Take Off with Us which lets us into the little-known secret that, with the right choreographer (read Fosse) even a crappy song can be transformed into a dazzling musical number and the then there is the big Bye Bye Life finale, one, is not the most thrilling musical experience ever to grace the Big Screen.

In the Ladies and Gentlemen Welcome to Airotica segment of Take Off with Us there are BOY-BOY and GIRL-GIRL (in addition to heterosexual) greetings as “the passengers” are boarding the “airplane.”

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80. FAME (1980)

B-

Alan Parker

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER

*Montgomery (Paul McCrane)

LGBTQ+

SCREENWRITER: Christopher Gore

COMPOSER: Michael Gore

SONGWRITER: Michael Gore

SONGWRITER: Lesley Gore

SONGWRITER: Dean Pitchford

ACTOR: Gene Anthony Ray

Christopher Gore’s script gave us one cliched teenage story after another. However, actor Paul McCrane’s token gay character, Montgomery, stood out as an honest and moving portrayal of a shy, talented young man. Director Alan Parker’s occasionally vibrant take on The High School of Performing Arts in New York was helped immeasurably by Gerry Hambling’s editing and Michael Gore’s score.

The first movie to have two songs nominated from the same film.

Michael and Lesley Gore were brother and sister. Christopher was no relation—pure coincidence. Gore is a common Jewish last name.

Both Christopher Gore and actor Gene Anthony Ray died from an AIDS-related illness in 1988 and 2003, respectively.

Playing the role of a teacher, Anne Meara delivers one of her best performances.

And the incredible voice of Irene Cara, who played Coco.

Spawned the TV series The Kids from Fame.

Nominated for SIX OSCARS AND WON TWO

BEST SONG: FAME (MICHAEL GORE and DEAN PITCHFORD) (WIN)

BEST SONG Out Here on My Own (Michael and Lesley Gore)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (MICHAEL GORE) (WIN)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (Christopher Gore)

BEST EDITING (Gerry Hambling)

BEST SOUND

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Michael Seresin

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81. AMERICAN GIGOLO (1980)

A

PAUL SCHRADER

 LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Leon James (Bill Duke)

*Anne (Nina van Pallandt)

LGBTQ+ 

COSTUME DESIGNER: Giorgio Armani

VISUAL CONSULTANT: Ferdinando Scarfiotti

Julian Kay (Richard Gere) is a high-end male escort in Los Angeles who caters to wealthy, older women. His work supports his lavish lifestyle, but his emotional detachment and materialism leave him vulnerable to emotional distress.

I DON’T DO FAGS, I DON’T DO KINK

While on a job arranged by his gay male pimp Leon (Bill Duke), Julian is sent to Palm Springs for a sadomasochistic encounter with the wife of a wealthy financier. Soon after, she is found murdered, and Julian becomes the prime suspect. His alibi—another client—refuses to come forward to protect her marriage, leaving Julian exposed. Julian’s gay female pimp, Anne (Nina van Pallandt), is unsympathetic, and he is questioned by a Westwood police detective played by Hector Elizondo. As the investigation intensifies, Julian begins a romantic relationship with Michelle Stratton (Lauren Hutton), the wife of a California state senator. Their emotional connection deepens, but Julian’s world unravels as he realizes he’s being framed.

Julian may have broken half of his cardinal rule in Palm Springs. Still, writer/director Paul Schrader, despite his Calvinist instincts, his innate homophobia (at the time), and his seeing things through a Robert Bresson lens, not only encouraged composer Giorgio Moroder to write one of his most gorgeous electronic scores but also allowed his movie to be a blueprint for societal change. This is why “American Gigolo” is Schrader’s masterpiece.

Courtesy of Giorgio and Nando, two gay Italian men, glamor and fashion had returned to the world, not just Hollywood but THE WORLD.

Watching it for the first time as a teenager, I knew that, courtesy of Giorgio (Armani) and Nando (Scarfiotti), two gay Italian men, glamor and fashion had returned to the world, not just Hollywood but THE WORLD. “American Gigolo” altered the way we perceive our day-to-day existence.  Goodbye, 70s.  Hello, 80s.  Is giving pleasure a crime?  No. Hello fashion!  Hello life!  We will be spending an obscene amount of money in the decade ahead! And the magnificent cinematography by John Bailey didn’t hurt either!

Despite being the number one single of 1980, “Call Me,” with lyrics by Debbie Harry of Blondie and music by Moroder, failed to be nominated for Song of the Year at the 53rd Academy Awards.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

John Bailey

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82. Times Square (1980)

(B)

Allan Moyle

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Pamela (Trini Alvarado)

*Nicky (Robin Johnson)

Sweet coming-of-age lesbian movie. Director Allan Moyle’s Times Square is a gritty, punk‑infused coming‑of‑age drama set in pre‑Disneyfied Manhattan, where the city’s chaos becomes a refuge for two teenage girls who don’t fit anywhere else. Pamela Pearl (Trini Alvarado), the lonely daughter of a moralizing politician, is placed in a psychiatric hospital for “behavioral evaluation.” There she meets Nicky Marotta (Robin Johnson), a street‑smart, magnetic punk runaway. Their connection is immediate—intense, protective, and unmistakably queer‑coded.

The girls start writing songs together and, with the help of Radio DJ Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry in one of his first roles after Rocky Horror made him famous) they form an underground punk rock band named The Sleez Sisters. Their version of Your Daughter Is One (Billy Mernit/Norman Ross and Jacob Brackman) where the CHORUS goes – Spic, nigga, faggot, bum/Your daughter IS one – is one of the movie’s highlights.

The soundtrack, which is a whose who of punk rock/new wave in 1980, has become a cult favorite:

TIMES SQUARE SOUNDTRACK -TRACKLIST

A1	Suzi Quatro–	Rock Hard	3:18
A2	The Pretenders–	Talk Of The Town	3:16
A3	Roxy Music–	Same Old Scene	3:54
A4	Gary Numan–	Down In The Park	4:20
A5	Marcy Levy & Robin Gibb–	Help Me!	3:37
B1	Talking Heads–	Life During Wartime	3:40
B2	Joe Jackson–	Pretty Boys	3:21
B3	XTC–	Take This Town	4:07
B4	The Ramones–	I Wanna Be Sedated	2:29
B5	Robin Johnson–	Damn Dog	2:40
C1	Robin Johnson & Trini Alvarado– The Sleez Sisters	Your Daughter Is One	2:10
C2	The Ruts–	Babylon’s Burning	2:34
C3	D.L. Byron–	You Can’t Hurry Love	3:04
C4	Lou Reed–	Walk On The Wild Side	4:12
C5	Desmond Child & Rouge–	The Night Was Not	3:08
D1	Garland Jeffreys–	Innocent, Not Guilty	2:13
D2	The Cure–	Grinding Halt	2:49
D3	Patti Smith Group–	Pissing In The River	4:41
D4	David Johansen & Robin Johnson–	Flowers In The City	3:58
D5	Robin Johnson–	Damn Dog (Reprise – The Cleo Club)	2:40

Both Alvarado and Johnson are wonderful, with Johnson giving what should have been a star-making performance. It wasn’t, which is a pity. The film was badly handled, and she was under a personal contract to the Robert Stigwood Organization (RSO) which, as the 1970s became the 1980s, begun to lose its magic touch. By the late 1980s she had given up on acting.

Alvarado did somewhat better, her most prominent role being Meg March in the 1994 Gillian Armstrong version of Little Women. She continues to work today.

Director Allan Moyle went on to make another cult classic, Pump Up the Volume, with Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis in 1990.

RSO

Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube.

83. Dressed to Kill (1980)

A-

Brian De Palma

LGBTQ+ CHARACTER:

*Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine)

“Dressed to Kill” (1980) is Brian De Palma‘s stylish homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo. Thanks to Ralph D. Bode’s cinematography and Pino Donaggio’s haunting score, it is both a visual and an aural feast.

The movie begins with Angie Dickinson in the shower, as most of Hollywood debated whether she was using a body double – she was! Angie plays Kate Miller, a sexually frustrated housewife who seeks excitement outside her marriage. After a brief affair with a stranger, she is brutally murdered in an elevator by a mysterious blonde woman. The only witness is Liz Blake (Nancy Allen, Mrs. Brian De Palma at the time), a high-end prostitute who becomes entangled in the investigation. With the help of Kate’s teenage son, Peter (Keith Gordon), Liz tries to uncover the killer’s identity. The prime suspect is Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine), Kate’s psychiatrist, who may be hiding a dangerous secret involving split personality disorder.

A stunning sequence in a museum mirrors the early scenes in Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo.

The LGBTQ+ link here is the Caine character. Like Tony Perkins in “Psycho,” he is most definitely Queer.

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84. NIJINSKY (1980)

C–

 HERBERT ROSS

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Vaslav Nijinsky (George de la Pena)

*Sergei Diaghilev (Alan Bates)

*Mikhail Fokine (Jeremy Irons)

LGBTQ+

DIRECTOR: Herbert Ross

WRITER: Hugh Wheeler

ACTOR: Alan Bates

Director Herbert Ross returns, showcasing the power dynamics within the Ballet Russes and the tragic story of the renowned ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. He is played by American ballet dancer George de la Pena, who is not quite up to the task, even if the ballet sequences are sometimes breathtaking. Alan Bates is shortchanged as his mentor, Sergei Diaghilev, who was a genius; however, in Hugh Wheeler’s script, he is pigeonholed into the role of a jealous lover.

Why does a great artist go crazy? Not a simple question to answer. Ross and Wheeler, however, take a reductive approach, blaming everything on the woman, Rolola de Pulsky (Leslie Browne from “The Turning Point”), who steals him from Diaghilev. With Jeremy Irons, making his movie debut as the great ballet teacher and choreographer, Mikhail Fokine.

The movie was co-produced by Ross’s wife, the ballerina Nora Kaye.

Cinematography by Douglas Slocombe.

After a series of mediocre but, in some cases, highly successful movies like “The Goodbye Girl” and “The Turning Point,” Herbert Ross delivered a masterpiece in 1981: his adaptation of Dennis Potter’s BBC series “Pennies from Heaven”. Although it was not a commercial success, it is thrilling, featuring some of the best musical numbers ever produced. Outside of the purview of this essay, it will be reviewed separately.

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85. Taxi zum Klo (1980)

A-

FRANK RIPPLOH

LGBTQ+ CHARACTERS

*Frank (Frank Ripploh)

*Bernd (Brend Broaderup)

LGBTQ+

ACTOR: Frank Ripploh

ACTOR: Bernd Broderup

DIRECTOR Frank Ripploh

SCREENWRITER: Frank Ripploh

In the city late tonight
Double feature, black and white (sic)
Bitter Tears and Taxi to the Klo
Find a bar, avoid a fight
Show your papers, be polite
Walking home with nowhеre else to go

Tom Robinson “Atmospherics” from the 1984 album “War Baby”

Singer/songwriter Tom Robinson immortalized this movie in his song “Atmospherics: ListentotheRadio” co-written with Peter Gabriel) from his 1984 album “Hope and Glory.” He pairs it with Fassbinder’s “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.” Presumably, for rhyming, Gabriel and Robinson say that both movies are in black and white. Sorry, guys, they are both in color.

Written, directed by, and starring Frank Ripploh, Taxi zum Klo (“Taxi to the Toilet”) is a groundbreaking semi-autobiographical German film that candidly explores the dual life of a gay man in West Berlin at the dawn of the 1980s.

Similar in theme and storyline to Ron Peck’s “Nighthawks” (see above), the protagonist Frank (played by Ripploh) is a Berlin schoolteacher by day and an openly gay man by night, navigating the tension between his professional respectability and his uninhibited personal life. Frank is a dedicated and charismatic teacher, but after hours, he cruises public toilets, bars, and sex clubs for anonymous encounters and Ripploh, the director, films these scenes with a sense of documentary-like realism.

He begins a relationship with Bernd, a more domestically inclined man who desires monogamy and stability. Frank struggles with fidelity and the constraints of a conventional relationship. Like “Nighthawks”, the film explores identity, sexual freedom, intimacy, and the psychological toll of living between two worlds. It’s both a celebration of queer desire and a critique of the emotional isolation that can accompany sexual liberation, and its sexual candor was shocking at the time.

Unfortunately, the film marked not the beginning but the end of an era. By the time it was shown at the New York Film Festival in 1981, several cases of AIDS (or as it was known then, GRID: gay-related immune deficiency) had already been reported. Seen through this new lens, Ripploh’s leading character (himself) seemed grossly irresponsible. This incredible piece of bad timing, together with the death of Fassbinder and with him, the New German Cinema in 1982, put a massive strain on Ripploh’s career. He only made two more films – one of which was a poorly received sequel – before dying of cancer in 2002 at the age of 51.

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QUEER CINEMA: HIGHLY RATED

Queer‑coded films often distinguish themselves through sophistication and intellectual depth. Because audiences approach them with heightened attentiveness—always searching for subtext or coded meaning—these works place significant demands on the viewer but also deliver exceptional rewards. This dynamic helps explain the consistently strong ratings, as reflected in my personal opinions, across the 85 films examined, with an average rating of B.

ESSAY TWO – TABLE 3
85 QUEER FILMS FROM THE NEW HOLLYWOOD -RATED

All That Jazz	A+	Fox and His Friends	B+	The Goodbye Girl	C
The Bitter Tear of Petra Von Kant	A+	The Great Gatsby	B+	Norman, Is That You?	C
Cabaret	A+	The Lion in Winter	B+	Pink Flamingos   Female Trouble	C
Carrie	A+	The Rose	B+	The Rocky Horror Picture Show	C
The Conformist	A+	There Was a Crooked Man	B+	Teorema	C
Deliverance	A+	To Forget Venice	B+	The Boston Strangler	C-
Diary of a Mad Housewife	A+	The Warriors	B+	Midnight Express	C-
Dog Day Afternoon	A+	Who Has Been Killing Off the Great Chefs of Europe?	B +	Nijinsky	C-
Grey Gardens	A+	Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *	B	Play It as It Lays	C-
Jean Dielman	A+	The Killing of Sister George	B	Save the Tiger	C-
Manhattan	A+	The Last of Sheila	B	Sebastian	C-
Picnic at Hanging Rock	A+	Nighthawks	B	Something for Everyone	C-
		Time Square	B	Staircase	C-
2001:  A Space Odyssey	A	Butley	B-	A Touch of Class	C-
American Gigolo	A	Entertaining M. Sloane	B-	The Detective	D+
Barry Lyndon	A	Fame	B-	Myra Breckinridge	D+
The Boys in the Band	A	Goodbye Colombus	B-	A Very Natural Thing	D
The Day of the Jackel	A	No Way to Treat a Lady	B-	The Music Lovers	D–
Going Places	A	Performance	B-
Little Big Man	A	Pete n’ Tillie	B-
Midnight Cowboy	A	Rachel, Rachel	B-
The Naked Civil Servant	A	Satyricon	B-
A Special Day	A	Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams	B-
Sunday Bloody Sunday	A	Women in Love	B-
Les Biches	A-	La Cage aux Folles	C+
Death in Venice	A-	California Suite	C+
Dressed to Kill	A-	Car Wash	C+
Farewell My Lovely	A-	The Damned	C+
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis	A-	In Celebration	C+
if…	A-	Ode to Billy Joe	C+
Next Stop Greenwich Village	A-	Once Is Not Enough	C+
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes	A-	The Ritz	C+
Suspiria	A-	The Sergeant	C+
Taxi zum Klo	A-	The Turning Point	C+

MY MAJOR INFLUENCES IN WRITING THESE TWO ESSAYS

• The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies: Vito Russo’s landmark 1981 non-fiction book.
• Queer & Now & Then: Michael Koresky’s series of articles on Queer Cinema in the magazine Film Comment.
• Homosexuality in Film Noir: Richard Dyer’s seminal 1977 article on Homosexuality in Film Noir in the magazine JUMP CUT
• I Lost It at the Movies (1965), Kiss Kiss Bang (1968) and When the Lights Go Down (1980): Three essential collections of film criticism by my favorite film critic, Pauline Kael.
• Lost Gay Novels: Anthony Slide’s 2003 Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century.

ESSAY TWO – TABLE 5  85 Queer Films from the New Hollywood  Directors | Actors | Screenwriters  The directors and actors involved in the   HATED FIFTEEN are not listed here.   They are listed in Table 2.
DIRECTORS OF THE 75 FEATURED FILMS.  GAY DIRECTORS HIGHLIGHTED	ACTORS PLAYING GAY CHARACTERS.   GAY ACTORS HIGHLIGHTED	ACTORS PLAYING GAY CHARACTERS.  GAY ACTORS HIGHLIGHTED	Gay   Screenwriters and   Writers of   Source Material
Herbert Ross   (5)	Alan Bates   (2)	Hiram Keller   (1)	Rainer Werner   Fassbinder  (2)
Woody Allen  (2)	Helmut Berger   (2)	Robert La Tourneaux   (1)	Luchino Visconti   (2)
Lindsay Anderson   (2)	Michael Caine  (2)	Anne-Louise Lambert  (1)	Chantal Akerman  (1)
Brian De Palma   (2)	Rod Steiger   (2)  *	Frank Langella  (1)	Giorgio Bassani  (1)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder   (2)	Antonio Vargas   (2)	Robert Little Horse  (1)	Lawrence D. Cohen  (1)
Bob Fosse   (2)	Michael York  (2)	Laurence Luckinbill  (1)	Mart Crowley   (1)
Stanley Kubrick   (2) *	F. Murray   Abraham  (1)	Sandra McCabe  (1)	John Dyer  (1)
Alan Parker  (2)	Trini Alverado   (1)	Paul McCrane  (1)	Christopher Gore  (1)
Frank Perry   (2)	Harry Andrews  (1)	Peter McEnery   (1)  *	Paul Hallam  (1)
Ken Russell   (2)	Rene   Auberjonois   (1)		Christopher  Isherwood  (1)
John Schlesinger   (2)  *	Stephane Audran  (1)	David Margulies   (1)	Larry Kramer  (1)
Luchino Visconti   (2)	Bob Balaban  (1)	Marcello Mastroianni  (1)	Arthur Laurents  (1)
Chantal Akerman  (1)	Paul Benedict  (1)	Michael Meyers   (1)	Ron Peck  (1)
Robert Aldrich  (1)  *	Richard Benjamin  (1)	Melina Mercouri  (1)	Frank Ripploh  (1)
Dario Argento  (1)	Joan Bennett  (1)	Bette Midler  (1)	John Van Druten  (1)
John G. Avildsen  (1)	Robby Benson   (1)	Robert Morley   (1)	Hugh Wheeler  (1)
Max Baer  (1)	Dirk Bogarde   (1)   *	Kenneth Nelson  (1)
Bernardo Bertolucci  (1)	Karlheinz Böhm  (1)	Margaret Nelson   (1)
Bertrand Blier   (1)	James Bolam   (1)	Richard O’ Callaghan  (1)	
John Boorman  (1)	Max Born  (1)	Anita Pallenberg  (1)	
Franco Brusati   (1)	Bernd Brauderup   (1)	Estelle Parsons   (1)	
Donald Cammell  (1)	Carol Browne   (1)   *	George de la Pena  (1)
Gilbert Cates  (1)	Betty Buckley   (1)	Anthony Perkins  (1)  *	
Claude Chabrol  (1)	Richard Burton  (1)	David Pontremoli   (1)	
Jack Clayton  (1)	Michael Byrne   (1)	Martin Potter  (1)	
Vittorio De Sica  (1)	Margit Carstensen   (1)	Paul Price  (1)
Stanley Donen   (1)	Jack Cassidy  (1)	Keith Prentice  (1)	
Gordon Douglas  (1)	Jonathan Cecil  (1)	Douglas Rain   (voice only)   (1)	
Federico Fellini   (1)	Richard Chamberlain   (1)	John Randolph  (1)	
Richard Fleischer  (1) *	Peter Chatel  (1)	Robert Redford  (1)	
John Flynn  (1)	Lois Chiles  (1)	Rex Reed   (1)	
Melvin Frank  (1)	Pierre Clementi  (1)	Beryl Reid  (1)
William Friedkin   (1)	Eve Collyer   (1)	Ron Rickards  (1)	
Guy Green  (1)	Frederick Combs   (1)	Frank Ripploh  (1)	
Anthony Harvey   (1)	Hume Cronyn  (1)   *	Rachel Roberts   (1)	
Douglas Hickox  (1)	Tim Curry   (1)	Ken Robertson  (1)
Walter Hill  (1)  	Timothy Dalton   (1)	Anton Rodgers   (1)	
Derek Jarman   (1)	Brad Davis  (1)	Dominique Sanda  (1)	
Ted Kotcheff   (1)	Anthony Daws   (1)	Chris Sarandon  (1)	
Christopher Larkin  (1)	Gerard Depardieu  (1)	Jacqueline Sassard  (1)	
Richard Lester  (1)	Patrick Deweare  (1)	Hanna Schygulla  (1)	
Sidney Lumet  (1) *	Divine   (1)	Michel Serrault  (1)	
Joseph L. Mankiewicz  (1) *	Gwyda Donhowe  (1)	Tom Skerritt   (1)	
Paul Mazursky  (1)	Dennis Dugan   (1)	Robert Stephens  (1)	
Albert Maysles  (1)	Bill Duke  (1)	Vladek Sheybal   (1)	
David Maysles  (1)	Rainer Werner Fassbinder   (1)	Alexis Smith   (1)	
Edouard Molinaro  (1)	Peter Finch  (1)	Terence Stamp  (1)	
Allen Moyle  (1)	James Fox  (1)  *	Meryl Streep   (1)	
Paul Newman  (1)	Leonard Frey   (1)	Ugo Tognazzi  (1)
Alan J. Pakula   (1)	Cliff Gorman  (1)	Leonardo Treviglio  (1)	
Pier Paolo Pasolini  (1)	Vivean Gray  (1)	Jean-Louis Trintignant  (1)
Ron Peck  (1)	Reuben Greene  (1)	Alida Valli   (1)	
Larry Peerce  (1)	Helmut Griem  (1)	Nina van Pallandt  (1)	
Arthur Penn   (1)	Rex Harrison  (1)	Jon Voight  (1)
Harold Pinter   (1)	Hurd Hatfield  (1)  *	Michael Warren   (1)	
Harold Prince  (1)	Murray Head   (1)	Richard Warwick   (1)	
Dick Richards  (1)	Irm Hermann  (1)	Sam Waterston  (1)	
Frank Ripploh  (1)	Anthony Higgins   (1)	Rupert Webster   (1)	
Martin Ritt  (1)	Dustin Hoffman  (1)	Norbert Weisser   (1)	
Nicholas Roeg  (1)	Jason Holliday  (1)	Raquel Welch   (1)
Michael Sarne  (1)	Anthony Holland   (1)	Susannah York  (1)	
George Schlatter  (1)	Anthony Hopkins   (1)		
Paul Schrader  (1)	Bernard Hughes   (1)		
Michael Schultz   (1)	John Hurt   (1)
Ettore Scola   (1)	Jeremy Irons   (1)
Jim Sharman  (1)	Mick Jagger  (1)		
Jack Smight  (1)	Harvey Jason  (1)		
John Waters  (1)	Barney James  (1)		
Peter Weir  (1)	Robert Joel   (1)		
Billy Wilder  (1)*	Robin Johnson   (1)		
Fred Zinnemann   (1)	Erland Josephson   (1)	Timothy Carlton (uncredited) (1)	

85 Queer Films of the New Hollywood (1968-1980)

https://thebrownees.net/85-queer-films-under-the-hays-code-1934-1968/

https://thebrownees.net/about-thebrownees/

URL links to 85 Queer Films from the New Hollywood.

No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) Film Review B- TheBrownees

The Detective (1968) Film Review D+ – TheBrownees

The Boston Strangler (1968) Film Review C- TheBrownees

The Killing of Sister George (1968) Film Review B – TheBrownees

Rachel, Rachel (1968) Film Review B- TheBrownees

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Film Review A – TheBrownees

The Sergeant (1968) Film Review C+ – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/if-1968-film-review-a-2/

Les Biches (1968): An Analysis of LGBTQ+ Themes – TheBrownees

Teorema (1968) Queer Film: A Deeper Analysis – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/the-lion-in-winter-1968-film-review-b/

The Damned (1969) Film Review B- TheBrownees

Staircase (1969) Bring on the Queens C- TheBrownees

Midnight Cowboy (1969) Film Review A – TheBrownees

Goodbye Columbus (1969) Film Review B- TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/satyricon-1970-film-review-b-2/

Something for Everyone (1970) Film Review C- TheBrownees

Entertaining Mr Sloane (1970) Film Review B- TheBrownees

Performance (1970) Film Review B- TheBrownees

Women in Love (1970) Film Review B- TheBrownees

There Was A Crooked Man (1970) Film Review B+ – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/little-big-man-1970-film-review-a/

The Boys in the Band (1970) Film Review A – TheBrownees

Myra Breckinridge (1970) Remake of a Classic Novel – TheBrownees

Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) Film Review A- TheBrownees

The Conformist (1970) Nando, Vittorio and Bernardo’s Masterpiece A+ – TheBrownees

Death In Venice (1971) Film Review A- TheBrownees

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971) Film Review A- TheBrownees

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Film Review A – TheBrownees

The Music Lovers (1971) Film Revue D – TheBrownees

Cabaret (1972) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

Deliverance (1972) Queer Film: A Deep Analysis – TheBrownees

Pink Flamingos (1972) Film Review: Trash! Trash! Trash! Rated C (Solo) High Camp at a Midnight Screening – TheBrownees

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ejaculation – TheBrownees

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) A+ Rated: Seventeen Fassbinder Films – TheBrownees

Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972) Film Review B- TheBrownees

Play It As It Lays (1972) Film Review C- TheBrownees

Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973) Film Review B- TheBrownees

The Day of the Jackal (1973) Film Review A – TheBrownees

Save the Tiger (1973) Film Review C – TheBrownees

A Touch of Class (1973) Film Review C- TheBrownees

The Last of Sheila (1973) Perkins and Sondheim Have Fun! B – TheBrownees

Female Trouble (1974) Queer Film C High Camp at a Midnight Screening. – TheBrownees

A Very Natural Thing (1974) Film Review D+ – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/butley-1974-film-review-b/

The Great Gatsby (1974) Film Review B+ – TheBrownees

Going Places (Les Valseuses) (1974) A – TheBrownees

Once is Not Enough (1975) Queer Film Analysis – TheBrownees

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Rated C (Solo) High Camp at a Midnight Screening. – TheBrownees

Barry Lyndon (1975) Film Review A – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/in-celebration-1975-film-review-b/

Farewell My Lovely (1975) Queer Film A- TheBrownees

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

Fox and His Friends (1975) B+ Rated: Seventeen Fassbinder Films. – TheBrownees

The Naked Civil Servant (1975) Queer Film Analysis – TheBrownees

Grey Gardens (1975) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

Jeanne Dielman (1975) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

The Ritz (1976) Film Review C+ – TheBrownees

Norman… Is That You? (1976) Queer Film (C) – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/car-wash-1976-film-review/

https://thebrownees.net/next-stop-greenwich-village-1976-film-review/

Ode to Billy Joe (1976) Film Review C – TheBrownees

Carrie (1976) Film Review A+ – TheBrownees

Sebastiane (1976) Derek Jarman’s Flaccid Directorial Debut C- TheBrownees

Suspiria (1977) Dario Argento’s Cabal of Lesbian Witches A- TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/a-special-day-1977-film-review/

https://thebrownees.net/the-turning-point-1977-film-review/

https://thebrownees.net/the-goodbye-girl-1977-film-review/

California Suite (1978) Film Review C- TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/who-is-killing-the-great-chefs-of-europe-1978-film-review/

Midnight Express (1978) Film Review C- TheBrownees

Nighthawks (1978) Film Review B – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/the-warriors-1979-queer-film/

The Rose (1979) Film Review B+ – TheBrownees

La Cage aux Folles (1979) Film Review. C+ – TheBrownees

https://thebrownees.net/to-forget-venice-1979-film-review/

https://thebrownees.net/manhattan-1979-film-review/

https://thebrownees.net/all-that-jazz-1979-film-review/

Fame (1980) Film Review. B- TheBrownees

American Gigolo (1980) Film Review A – TheBrownees

Times Square (1980) Queer Film: A Coming-of-Age Story – TheBrownees

Dressed to Kill (1980) Film Review A- TheBrownees

Nijinsky (1980) Film Review C – TheBrownees

Taxi zum Klo (1981) Film Review A – TheBrownees