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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Category: Streaming
In a Lonely Place (1950) Queer Film A-
Bogart is superb playing a queer-coded male lead. He’s emotionally volatile, unable to be in a stable heterosexual relationship, deeply suspicious of intimacy and terrified of being “found out”.
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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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Calamity Jane (1953) Queer Film (B)
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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I Vitelloni (1953) Queer Film A-
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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Rear Window (1954) Hitchcock A+
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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Johnny Guitar (1954) Queer Film B
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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Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Queer Film A+
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 (1955) Queer Film B-
“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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Les Diaboliques (1955) Queer Film A-
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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The Bad Seed (1956) Queer Film B+
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 (1956) Queer Film A-
“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 (1957) Queer Film A+
“Funny Face“, the 1957 musical romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen, boasts Audrey Hepburn’s most charming screen performance.
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The Strange One (1957) Queer Film B+
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 (1958) Hitchcock A+
“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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Touch of Evil (1958) Queer Film (A)
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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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Queer Film B+
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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Auntie Mame (1958) Queer Film B-
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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Suddenly Last Summer (1959) Queer Film C+
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 (1959) Queer Film A+
“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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Pillow Talk (1959) Queer Film (B)
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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Ben Hur (1959) Queer Film (B)
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 (1959) Queer Film B-
“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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North by Northwest (1959) Queer Film. Hitchcock. A+
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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Rebecca (1940) Queer Film. Hitchcock. A+
“Rebecca”, marked the arrival in Hollywood of the man who was, or would eventually become, the greatest director in the history of cinema.
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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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The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) Queer Film A-
Monty Wooley delights as the impossibly pompous Sheridan Whiteside in William Keighley’s wonderful adaptation of the Kaufman/Hart play.
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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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