Stanwyck gives one of her most controlled, lethal performances, and Douglas’s debut is astonishing – he plays Walter as a man who has been dying for years, a man whose entire identity is built around Martha.
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The term “MacGuffin” originated with writer Angus MacPhail and was popularized by Alfred Hitchcock. The MacGuffin in “Notorious” is the Uranium.
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“Brute Force”: Our homosexual is interested in art and music. Hume Cronyn, a consummate actor, plays him to the hilt.
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Working with master cinematographer Lee Garmes, director Edmund Goulding produced one of the GREAT film noirs, a genre he had never worked in before and would never work in again.
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1948 was the year of Montgomery Clift. In addition to Hawkes “Red River” there was Fred Zinnemann’s “The Search” and William Wyler’s “The Heiress”.
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The story, which is based on the Leopold and Loeb case is irresistible. Granger and Dall are perfection and Jimmy Stewart is also amazing.
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The Red Shoes is also one of the richest queer‑coded films of the 1940s, and a queer‑theory framing doesn’t just “fit”; it clarifies the film’s emotional architecture. Anton Walbrook is magnificent as the queer impresario, and his performance is the major reason to see this movie. Along with George Sanders’ Addison DeWitt in All About Eve Walbrook’s Lermontov is one of the perfect queer-coded villains.
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“Adam’s Rib” boasts marvelous acting by Tracy & Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Jean Hagen, Hope Emerson, Tom Ewell and, as Amanda’s “gay best friend”, David Wayne.
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In “Kind Hearts and Coronets”: Alec Guinness has fun playing all eight (or nine) of the unfortunate D’Ascoynes, including Lady Agatha D’Ascoyne. The photograph shows Dennis Price with Joan Greenwood who plays that little minx Sibella.
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Sunset Boulevard is a queer film not because of representation but because of sensibility, structure, and performance style — the same way All About Eve, Mildred Pierce, Imitation of Life, and The Red Shoes are queer. Norma Desmond is the archetype of queer camp: her theatrical excess, her self-mythologizing, her diva worship and her performance as identity.
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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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“Hype the New Fish”. Innocent Eleanor Parker spends time in a women’s prison. With Hope Emerson and Agnes Moorehead.
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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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Bogart is superb, but it is Gloria Grahame who is the revelation – this is widely considered to be the finest performance of her career and she is sensational. As Laurel, she brings a weary, deeply nuanced vulnerability that perfectly balances Bogart’s aggressive volatility.
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The best play to film adaptation of all-time, with two of the greatest performances: Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois and Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski.
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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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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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The Best Queer Song in the History of Cinema: Day’s spectacular delivery of the Sammy Fain-Paul Francis Webster masterpiece “Secret Love.”
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The buildup to Monroe’s superstardom started here. The magnificent widescreen technicolor cinematography is by Joseph MacDonald.
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The film blends neorealist observation with a nostalgic tone, supported by a lush Nino Rota score. Like Fellini’s later autobiographical work, it captures a vivid sense of time and place.
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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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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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Wood, Dean and Mineo form a nuclear family under the shadow of Griffith Park Observatory in Nicholas Ray’s masterpiece “Rebel Without a Cause.
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“The Big Combo” features a gay couple (played by Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef) whose chosen profession also adds to their fascination and their sexiness.
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By late 1956, it had become the highest-grossing French film released in the United States. It is also one of the most successful queer films of all time since, although queer coded, something is clearly going on between Christina and Nicole!
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.”Written on the Wind”: The film’s central tenet is that Kyle (Robert Stack) and his ruthless sister Marylee (Dorothy Malone) lust after the same man.
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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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“Tea and Sympathy” has aged well. What could not be said under the Hayes code lends it beauty and delicacy, especially in Deborah’s sublime performance.
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“Funny Face“, the 1957 musical romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen, boasts Audrey Hepburn’s most charming screen performance.
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Unlike their American counterparts, French critics, including Godard and Truffaut, adored Jean Seberg in “Bonjour Tristesse.”
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