Staircase (1969) Queer Film. Bring on the Queens! C-
Harrison’s performance is all affectation and condescension. Burton does better. He spends the entire movie wearing a turban, which is funny.
Read More
Category: Queer Film/TV
Midnight Cowboy (1969) Queer Film (A)
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.
Read More
Z (1969) Queer Film (F)
Few seem to have noticed that “Z” is a virulently homophobic film in which the main villain is a homosexual and convicted pedophile.
Read More
Goodbye Columbus (1969) Queer Film B-
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.
Read More
The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) From Pookie to Sally. B-
Liza Minnelli’s Oscar-nominated turn as quirky, oddball and needy “Pookie” Adams is a preview of her Oscar-winning performance in “Cabaret.”
Read More
The Gay Deceivers (1969) Queer Film D+
Directed by race-car driver, TV director, adventurer and Howard Hawks protegee Bruce Kessler, the film sits squarely in the late-1960s draft-dodger queer farce, and his involvement appears to have been technical and opportunistic rather than personal. This was producer Joe Solomon’s baby in keeping with his other entries in the exploitation genre such as A Small Town in Texas (1976). The surprise, however, is that the gay couple is treated with a modicum of respect.
Read More
Satyricon (1970) Queer Film B-
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.
Read More
Something for Everyone (1970) Queer Film C-
Unfortunately, what should have been a gay romp and a fabulous showcase for its star, gay icon Angela Lansbury, falls flat after a promising opening chapter.
Read More
Entertaining Mr Sloane (1970) Queer Film B-
Beryl Reed and Harry Andrews are both marvelous, especially at the finale when BOTH end up “married” to Mr Sloane who doth protest too much.
Read More
Performance (1970) Queer Film B+
There will always be an argument as to who was the real auteur behind the camera. Roeg, one of the great cinematographers (The Masque of the Red Death, Petulia) who evolved into one of the great directors (Walkabout, Don’t Look Now), is the obvious candidate. Yet Donald Cammell—painter, provocateur, and Hollywood outsider—was the film’s conceptual engine.
Read More
Women in Love (1970) Queer Film B-
Future gay activist Larry Kramer’s 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).
There Was A Crooked Man (1970) Queer Film A-
Hume Cronyn and John Randolph are our happy and well-adjusted gay couple. Yes, they fight and bicker all the time. However, they are clearly madly in love with each other.
Read More
Little Big Man (1970) Queer Film (A)
Using humor and irony to critique prejudice, injustice and the destruction of Native American communities, “Little Big Man” is, together with “Bonnie and Clyde”, Arthur Penn’s best film. It helped redefine the Western genre, paving the way for more nuanced depictions of Native Americans.
Read More
The Boys in the Band (1970) Queer Film (A)
“The Boys in the Band” was a cultural milestone. As the AIDS epidemic approached, the lives of the actors involved was a collective tragedy.
Read More
Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) Queer Film. Eleanor Perry. A+
Starring a luminous Carrie Snodgress, the last movie that director Frank Perry and his screenwriter wife Eleanor made together is their best.
Read More
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) Queer Film A-
Excellent work by Robert Stephens (his best screen performance) and Colin Blakely (Dr. Watson). Geneviève Page gives a gorgeous melancholy performance.
Read More
The Conformist (1970) Queer Film. Nando, Vittorio and Bernardo’s Masterpiece. A+
Using Art Deco as a backdrop to the film’s narrative, the partnership of Bertolucci, Storaro and Scarfiotti changed the look of Cinema forever.
Read More
Myra Breckinridge (1970) Queer Film C-
A disastrous, adaptation of Gore Vidal’s novel, directed – if that is the right word – by Michael Sarne and starring Raquel Welch, John Huston, Mae West, and a pre‑fame Farrah Fawcett.
Read More
The Anderson Tapes (1971) Queer Film (F)
Hamming it up and mincing all over the place, this is a cringe-worthy performance from Martin Balsam who is not referred to by his given name, just The Fag.
Read More
Vanishing Point (1971) Queer Film (F)
In “Vanishing Point’s” most nauseating scene, Newman is briefly held captive by two exceptionally sleazy queers, played by Arthur Malet and Anthony James.
Read More
The Music Lovers (1971) Queer Film (F)
The honeymoon sequence, set to the “1812 overture,” a delirious mix of sexual frustration and nationalistic bombast, may be for Russell freaks only!
Read More
Death In Venice (1971) Queer Film B+
Visconti’s best idea was changing Aschenbach’s profession from a writer to a composer opening up the movie to the Mahler Adagietto .
Read More
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971) Queer Film A-
“The Garden of the Finzi Continis” is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by gay Italian writer Giorgio Bassani who is played in the film by Helmut Berger.
Read More
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Queer Film (A)
In “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, Murray Head plays a free-spirited bisexual who is having simultaneous relationships with Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. Finch’s closing monologue, delivered directly to the camera—“I am happy, apart from missing him”—is one of the great grace notes in queer film history: tender, dignified, and devastating in its simplicity. It is also one of the finest pieces of acting ever captured on film.
Read More
The Devils (1971) Queer Film C+
What Russell did to Glenda Jackson in The Music Lovers, he does to Vanessa Redgrave here. It’s not every director who can say that they have pushed not one, but two of the greatest actresses of their generation to the edge of humiliation – it’s debasement as an aesthetic. And Ann-Margret was next on his list!
Read More
The Boyfriend (1971) Queer Film C+
Although not explicitly gay, the film is filled with camp theatrical energy, exaggerated male dancers, coded glances and mannerisms, a backstage world where gender roles blur, and gay actor Max Adrian as Lord Brockhurst, the wealthy, eccentric aristocrat who attends the film’s show-within-a-show, bringing his trademark queer-coded presence. The Boyfriend is unmistakably queer in tone, style, and sensibility, putting it very much in line with Russell’s other 1970s work.
Read More
Diamonds are Forever (1971) Queer Film (C)
In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are the chief pleasures in a film that ranks among the most disposable entries in the Bond canon.
Read More
Cabaret (1972) Queer Film A+
Cabaret emerges from a remarkable artistic lineage: the 1966 Broadway musical by Kander and Ebb, itself drawn from Christopher Isherwood’s semi‑autobiographical Berlin Stories (1945) and John Van Druten’s 1951 play I Am a Camera. Under Bob Fosse’s revolutionary direction and choreography—and with Minnelli’s incandescent performance—the film stands as one of the defining achievements of the New Hollywood era.
Read More
Deliverence (1972) Queer Film A+
Beatty’s work is astonishingly brave for a debut role. He plays the aftermath of his sexual assault—shame, anger, and the need to reassert dignity—with a precision that keeps the film from slipping into caricature
Read More
Pink Flamingos (1972) Queer Film. (C) High Camp at a Midnight Screening.
A sick-and-twisted black comedy and the first part of Water’s “Trash Trilogy”, which also includes “Female Trouble” and “Desperate Living.”
Read More