Gazzara is electrifying in the lead, exuding a raw, unsettling sensuality. It remains one of the great curiosities of his career that only in his very next film, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), did he manage to recapture this level of charisma.
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“Vertigo” is anchored by the unforgettable performances of Stewart and Novak, Hitchcock’s masterful direction and Bernard Herrmann’s haunting score.
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Yes, that is Mercedes McCambridge as an unnamed lesbian gang leader getting her kicks while watching Janet Leigh getting roughed up in “A Touch of Evil.”
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Richard Brooks’ respectable adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” opens with Paul Newman mourning the suicide of his best friend (read Lover), Skipper.
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Director Morton DaCosta directs “Auntie Mame” as if he were still in the theatre. He did better on his penultimate visit to Hollywood (“The Music Man”).
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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” was only the second mainstream Hollywood movie not to be submitted to the Hays Office. Worth seeing just for Lemmon’s performance alone.
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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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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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“Compulsion.” Leopold and Loeb were lovers, and both Richard Murphy’s screenplay and Richard Fleischer’s direction lend the movie a queer subtext, evident in both dialogue and body language.
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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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Performances to savor. Mary Astor does a superb turn as Bridget O’Shaughnessy, a Celtic Tiger avant la lettre!
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Monty Wooley delights as the impossibly pompous Sheridan Whiteside in William Keighley’s wonderful adaptation of the Kaufman/Hart play.
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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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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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Gay writer DeWitt Bodeen skillfully creates a queer subtext that is both subtle and present, reflecting themes of isolation and existential despair.
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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” 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” 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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Brilliantly filmed in high Germanic style by a wondrously talented bunch of ex-pat Viennese uber talents: Curtiz, Anton Grot and Max Steiner.
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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”: Rita Hayworth’s star-making performance, directed by Charles Vidor, with cinematography by Rudolph Mate and Jack Cole’s choreography.
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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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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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“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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Director James Whale’s masterpiece is as close to Susan Sontag’s definition of high camp as the movies can deliver.
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The Best of the Astaire-Rogers movies. Cinematography: David Abel. Production Design: Carroll Clark/Van Nest Polglase. Songs: Irving Berlin.
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