Dodsworth (1936) Wyler’s Masterpiece A+
“Dodsworth”: William Wyler’s masterpiece, the best movie ever made about the fear of growing old. It was Wyler’s first Oscar nomination.
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Stage Door (1937) Queer Film A-
Director Gregory La Cava, fresh off My Man Godfrey (1936), directs with a light, improvisatory touch, and Hepburn and Rogers play off each other beautifully.
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Bringing Up Baby (1938) Queer Film A-
When Hepburn’s aunt asks him to explain, he replies exasperatedly, “Because I just went gay all of a sudden”
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The Women (1939) Queer Film A-
Every character in the movie, and every animal featured, was female. Great work by Crawford, Russell, Shearer and Mary Boland.
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The Wizard of Oz (1939) Queer Film A-
Judy Garland captured everyone’s heart with that voice, vulnerable yet confident. Innocent yet knowing.
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The Maltese Falcon (1941) Queer Film A-
Performances to savor. Mary Astor does a superb turn as Bridget O’Shaughnessy, a Celtic Tiger avant la lettre!
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Casablanca (1942-1943) Queer Film A+
Written on the fly by the fabulous Epstein twins and Howard Koch and directed by Michael Curtiz, this is one of the most romantic of all Hollywood movies.
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Cat People (1942) Queer Film B+
The finest achievement of producer Val Lewton’s legendary RKO horror cycle, Cat People (1942) occupies a foundational place in queer film history because it mobilizes horror not as spectacle but as a grammar of deviance, repression, and embodied otherness.
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The Seventh Victim (1943) Queer Film D+
Despite a loyal cult following, The Seventh Victim is a pale imitation of Cat People with numerous queer-coded characters, again, courtesy of queer screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen. The plot oscillates between the baroque and the faintly ridiculous, with Tom Conway reprising his role as the psychiatrist Dr. Judd and after a while, you begin to realize that The Seventh Victim is a weird sort of prequel to Cat People.
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Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Hitchcock A+
Alfred Hitchcock, the cinema’s greatest director, made seven perfect films in which every shot, every camera move, every editing sequence is, well, perfect. And this is one of them!
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Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Queer Film. Minnelli’s Masterpiece. A+
A favorite of gay men since its opening in the Christmas of 1944, it stars Judy Garland in her first adult role, singing three of her best songs.
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Laura (1944) Queer Film A+
“Laura” is one of the classic film noirs. Gene Tierney is born and Clifton Webb becomes a star in his fifties. Haunting Raksin score.
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Double Indemnity (1944) Queer Film A+
“Double Indemnity” is the best of the three great film noirs of 1944, the others being “Laura” and “The Woman in the Window”. The three leads are superb as is Wilder’s direction.
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Mildred Pierce (1945) Queer Film A+
Brilliantly filmed in high Germanic style by a cadre of Hungarian, German and Viennese émigrés—Curtiz, production designer Anton Grot and composer Max Steiner, in addition to Southern California natives cinematographer Ernest Haller and art director George James Hopkins—Mildred Pierce is one of the great noirs of the 1940s.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) Queer Film (A)
Albert Lewin directed his masterpiece, a superb adaptation of Oscar Wild’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” with the beautiful Hurd Hatfield.
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Gilda (1946) Queer Film (A)
“Gilda”: Rita Hayworth’s star-making performance, directed by Charles Vidor, with cinematography by Rudolph Mate and Jack Cole’s choreography.
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The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) Queer Film A-
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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Brute Force (1947) Queer Film B+
“Brute Force”: Our homosexual is interested in art and music. Hume Cronyn, a consummate actor, plays him to the hilt.
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Red River (1948) Queer Film A-
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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Rope (1948) Queer Film (A)
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 (1948) Queer Masterpiece Hidden in Plain Sight (A)
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 (1949) Queer Film (A).
“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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Sunset Boulevard (1950) Queer Film A+
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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All About Eve (1950) Queer Film A+
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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Caged (1950) Queer Film C-
“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) Queer Film B+
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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In a Lonely Place (1950) Queer Film (A)
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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A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Queer Film A+
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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Strangers on a Train (1951) Queer Film. Hitchcock. A-
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) Queer Film B+
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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