All About Eve (1950) Film Review
Bette Davis in her greatest role with some of the best lines ever written. Both Addison and Eve are gay and he blackmails her.
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Category: 50s | 60s
Caged (1950) Film Review
“Hype the New Fish”. Innocent Eleanor Parker spends time in a women’s prison. With Hope Emerson and Agnes Moorehead.
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Young Man with a Horn (1950) Film Review
Lauren Bacall is Kirk Douglas’ young man with a horn’s society wife who is also a closeted lesbian. Bacall is very good in a risque role.
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A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Film Review
The best play to film adaptation of all-time with two of the greatest performances: Vivien Leigh as Blanch DuBois and Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski.
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Strangers on a Train (1951) Film Review
Hitchcock reverses himself here, having gay actor Farley Granger play the straight character and straight actor Robert Walker play the gay character.
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Film Review
It’s Howard Hawks again, this time adapting the Jule Stein/Leo Robin Broadway smash “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. With Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe.
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Niagara (1953) Film Review
The buildup to Monroe’s superstardom started here. The magnificent widescreen technicolor cinematography if by Joseph MacDonald.
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Johnny Guitar (1954) Film Review
A Western with two female leads is that rarest of cinematic jewels and, under Nicholas Ray’s direction, both Crawford and McCambridge play to the gallery.
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Rear Window (1954) Film Review
Stewart, Kelly, and Ritter are all magnificent. Kelly, looking radiant, gets to deliver one of the big screen’s all-time sexy lines.
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Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Film Review
Wood, Dean and Mineo form a nuclear family under the shadow of Griffith Park Observatory. Sal Mineo’s Plato is Hollywood’s first adolescent gay character.
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The Bad Seed (1956) Film Review
Nancy Kelly is ON 100% of the time straddling the twin minefields of camp and drama yet managing to accomplish both simultaneously.
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Written on the Wind (1956) Film Review
The film’s central tenet is that Kyle (Oscar Nominee Robert Stack) and his ruthless sister Marylee (Oscar winner Dorothy Malone) lust after the same man.
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Tea and Sympathy (1956) Film Review
One of Deborah Kerr’s most sympathetic performances. Both she she and John Kerr (no relation) originated their roles on the Broadway stage.
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Funny Face (1957) Film Review
“Funny Face“, the 1957 musical romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen, boasts Audrey Hepburn’s most charming screen performance.
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A Touch of Evil (1958) Film Review
Yes, that is Mercedes McCambridge as the unnamed lesbian gang leader getting her kicks while watching Janet Leigh getting roughed up in Welles’ other masterwork.
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Auntie Mame (1958) Film Review
Gay director Morton DaCosta (his real name) directs like he is still in the theatre – he did better in his second and final visit to Hollywood with “The Music Man”.
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Film Review
Richard Brooks respectable adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play opens with Brick (Paul Newman) pining and drinking in his bedroom for the memory of his best friend (read lover) Skipper.
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Vertigo (1958) Film Review
Anchored by an incredible performance by James Stewart as Scotty Ferguson a private detective and ex-cop who suffers from vertigo (fear of heights) after a coworker fell to his death, and Kim Novak is spectacular in the dual role of Judy/Madeleine.
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Suddenly Last Summer (1959) Film Review
The movie is risible, its few pleasures come from Hepburn’s regal (but very nasty) mother who will do anything to protect her son’s memory.
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Some Like it Hot (1959) Film Review
“Some Like It Hot“ was only the second (following Otto Preminger’s “The Moon is Blue” in 1953) mainstream Hollywood movie NOT to be submitted to the Hays Office.
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North by Northwest (1959) Film Review
Eva Marie Saint gives Grace Kelly in “Rear Window” a run for her money as Hitchcock’s most elegant leading lady and the chemistry between the two leads is more palpable than in any Hollywood picture before or since.
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Pillow Talk (1959) Film Review
Hudson’s characters has a gay alter ego named “Rex” and supporting actors Tony Randall and Nick Allen are constantly brushing off the gay ceiling.
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Ben Hur (1959) Film Review
If you believe Gore Vidal it was all because of a lover’s spat. Wyler and Boyd were in on the ruse, and Boyd played his scenes that way, but Heston was not.
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The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) Film Review
A beautiful adaptation of the William Inge play directed by Delbert Mann from a great script by Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch..
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Psycho (1960) Film Review
Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates made him immortal while, at the same, time, ending his career in Hollywood. A masterpiece.
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Spartacus (1960) Film Review
The Kirk Douglas/Stanley Kubrick epic has not aged well but the supporting cast,, particularly Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov, make it worth seeing.
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Victim (1960) Film Review
They say that this film did more to sway public and political opinion on homosexuality in England than any parliamentary discussion.
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A Taste of Honey (1961) Film Review
Although he was playing a teenager, gay actor Murray Melvin was almost thirty when he made “A Taste of Honey” with Rita Tushingham.
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The Children’s Hour (1961) Film Review
Not having the courage of his convictions, what started out as bravery ended in cowardice and it’s a shame.
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Advice and Consent (1962) Film Review
Preminger always liked to be cutting edge and he was with “Advise and Consent” a beautifully written, acted and directed movie.
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Whatever Happened Baby Jane? (1962) Film Review
Both of Hollywood’s grande dames Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are in top form with Davis getting the showier role as faded child star Baby Jane Hudson.
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That Touch of Mink (1962) Film Review
In between the Rock Hudson movies “Lover Come Back” (1961) and “Send Me no Flowers” (1964), Doris Day paired up with Cary Grant.
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David and Lisa (1962) Film Review
In fact, many of Theodore Isaac Rubin’s beliefs have now fallen out of favor. Despite the film’s sensitive moments, it often seems dangerously simplistic and naive.
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Billy Budd (1962) Film Review
Many, including gay composer Benjamin Britton and his famous opera, maintain that there is an undercurrent of homoeroticism between the three leads.
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The L-Shaped Room (1963) Film Review
Writer/director Bryan Forbes lovely and faithful adaptation of the Lynne Reid Banks novel boasts Leslie Caron’s greatest performance.
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The Servant (1963) Film Review
A savage indictment of the waning British class system, it’s one of the most chilling films ever made. Winner of Best Screenplay of 1964 from the NYFCC.
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The Haunting (1963) Film Review
As a chic Greenwich village lesbian named Theo, whose couture is designed by Mary Quant, Claire Bloom is a knockout in Robert Wise’s 1963 movie “The Haunting”.
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The Best Man (1964) Film Review
“The Best Man” boasts three outstanding performances: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson and pre-code star Lee Tracy who returns to the screen.
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Seven Days in May (1964) Film Review
A peak entry in the American political thriller genre, the film boasts four of the greatest performances of the sixties.
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The Leather Boys (1964) Film Review
Canadian journeyman Sidney J. Furie, does a striking job with this “gay” love story set within the milieu of London’s biker subculture.
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The Loved One (1965) Film Review
Great fun was had by all adapting Evelyn Waugh’s 1948 short satirical novel about the funeral business in Los Angeles.
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Darling (1965) Film Review
“Darling” stars the impossibly beautiful Julie Christie, even if far more people saw in her as Laura in David Lean’s “Doctor Zhivago”.
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My Hustler (1965) Film Review
“My Hustler” is a hugely different film from Warhol’s previous offerings with a solid narrative and surprisingly good performances.
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Persona (1966) Film Review
Two of the world’s greatest actresses under the gaze of one of the greatest movie directors the world has ever known.
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Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) Film Review
John Huston’s favorite of all his movies. Brando does something amazing with his closeted gay character who is married to Elizabeth Taylor.
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Portrait of Jason (1967) Film Review
A true breakthrough and a film that has improved with age. Documentary filmmaker Shirley Clarke interviews gay African American hustler and aspiring cabaret performer Jason Holliday in his apartment at the Hotel Chelsea.
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The Swimmer (1968) Film Review
With a near-great performance by Burt Lancaster as the title character who “swims his way home” through his “river” of backyard swimming pools…
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The Fox (1968) Film Review
“The Fox” does interesting things with color saturation (Bill Fraker) and the Lalo Schifrin score has entered the jazz canon.
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No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) Film Review
“Dorian”, Gill’s hairdresser persona is, of course, gay with a classic sibilant-rich delivery. In the movie’s best scene, just as he is caressing the neck of his intended victim Miss Belle Poppie…
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The Detective (1968) Film Review
However, the awful script by Abby Mann – “Judgement at Nuremberg” – and the mediocre direction by Gordon Douglas put the kibosh on everything.
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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Film Review
In Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, HAL 9000 is the psychotic gay computer abord Discovery One. HAL is in love with Dave and quickly dispatches with copilot Frank.
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The Killing of Sister George (1968) Film Review
Beryl Reid is marvelous as “George”. That’s not her name. It’s the name of the character she plays in a beloved long-running BBC series.
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Rachel, Rachel (1968) Film Review
Highly regarded at the time of its release (NYFCC awards going to Newman as Best Director and Woodward as Best Actress), it seems a bit underwhelming today.
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The Sergeant (1968) Film Review
The subject matter, its release during the Christmas season, and a couple of scathing reviews by the major critics of the time, sealed its fate.
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The Damned (1969) Film Review
Luchino Viconti’s “The Damned” centers on the Essenbecks (read Krupp family) on the night of the Reichstag fire in early 1933.
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Staircase (1969) Film Review
On the stage Dyer may have been trying to project two sides of his own personality. However, any such subtlety is lost in translation.
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Midnight Cowboy (1969) Film Review
John Schlesinger’s American debut is only X-rated movie to win Best Picture. It boasts two great performances courtesy of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffmann.
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Last Summer (1969) Film Review
..but it is Hershey who is really stunning as the manipulative Sandy. Then, into their lives wanders Rhoda (Oscar nominee Cathy Burns)…
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Goodbye Columbus (1969) Film Review
The Queer element in the film comes from Brenda’s older brother Ron. Ron has the hots for Neil (Richard Benjamin) who he keeps inviting back to his room.
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