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.
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Category: Streaming
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.
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Myra Breckinridge (1970) Queer Film (F)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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Death In Venice (1971) Queer Film A-
Visconti’s best idea was changing Aschenbach’s profession from a writer to a composer opening up the movie to the Mahler Adagietto .
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) Queer Film A+
A landmark in both New Queer Cinema and the New German Cinema, Fassbinder’s examination of the dynamics of a lesbian love triangle was shot in der wunderkind’s apartment.
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know.. What Happens During Ejaculation *A-
Woody is one of the competing sperm determined to penetrate that egg. Our boys have been in training for weeks. But wait! What if it’s homosexual encounter? There’s also a Black sperm! How did he get in the mix?
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Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972) Queer Film B-
And then there Tillie’s other best friend Jimmy, the film’s token gay guy, played by René Auberjonois, who had one of the most memorable names in cinema.
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Play It As It Lays (1972) Queer Film C+
Unfortunately, despite a good performance by Weld, the film only comes alive when she is driving endlessly around LA’s spectacular freeways.
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Scarecrow (1973) Queer Film (F)
The sexual assault is shocking. No movie has done more to conflate gay identity with pathology and violence than “Scarecrow”.
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Save the Tiger (1973) Queer Film C-
The writer Steve Shagen, an educated Jew, is in the Stone Age when it comes to a human being who has a different sexual preference than himself.
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A Touch of Class (1973) Queer Film C-
Jackson’s character works in the garment industry, so we are on fairy alert. And, wouldn’t you know it, one of them does descend on her office just as Segal is visiting.
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Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973) Queer Film B-
The character Rita Walden, beautifully portrayed by Joanne Woodward, in what might be her finest performance, faces a midlife crisis.
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The Day of the Jackal (1973) Queer Film (A)
Another example of a gay character whose sole purpose in the movie is to be killed. Still, Zinnemmann and Rodgers treat his character with a modicum of respect.
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The Last of Sheila (1973) Queer Film (B)
The actors are in good form, with Raquel Welsh being particularly impressive in her one genuinely good film. Dyan Cannon is a thinly disguised Sue Mengers.
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Freebie and the Bean (1974) Queer Film (F)
Our heroes, James Caan and Alan Arkin, first encounter Morley in a bathtub. He’s preening and lisping, and you can see that he disgusts them.
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Female Trouble (1974) Queer Film C+ Solo The Sky’s the Limit at a Midnight Screening!
Waters’ favorite of all of his movies, with the incomparable Divine embracing ugliness, violence and spectacle in a bravura performance.
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A Very Natural Thing (1974) Queer Film D
There is massive footage of NYC pride parades that lend nothing to the proceedings. Today, it comes across as a failed curiosity that gets a D for effort.
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