Save the Tiger (1973) Queer Film C-

DIRECTOR: John G. Avildsen

Jack Lemmon and Jack Gilford slip into a porn theatre at the Mayan, attend a fashion show at the Biltmore, and navigate the collapsing finances of their small apparel company. But the most revealing—and disturbing—aspect of Save the Tiger is its treatment of its only gay character. The film is a time capsule of how brutal 1973 could be for a gay man working in the entertainment-adjacent industries of Los Angeles.

The head seamster, Meyer (William Hansen), is a Holocaust survivor who has endured pogroms and displacement. Yet he cannot bring himself to speak the name of his colleague, the company’s head designer, played by Harvey Jason. Instead, he refers to him only as “the Fairy,” with a venom that lands harder than anything else in the film. The tragedy is not that the character is flamboyant or coded—it’s that he is meant to be a real human being, and the screenplay treats him with absolute contempt.

The Oscar-nominated script by Steve Shagan is a study in contradictions. Shagan, an educated Jewish writer, was capable of nuance in other areas, but when it comes to homosexuality, he is firmly in the Stone Age. The 1970s were rife with gay caricatures trotted out for cheap laughs by the reigning kings of Jewish-American comedy—Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and their imitators. But Save the Tiger is different. Here, the gay character is not a punchline; he is a working professional whose very existence is treated as an affront. The film doesn’t mock him for comedy—it erases his dignity for drama.

And yet, there is much to admire. Shot on location in the garment district, the film has a gritty authenticity. Gilford is superb as the moral ballast of the story, and Thayer David steals his scenes as the arsonist with whom Lemmon and Gilford meet in the balcony of the Mayan while a porno film blares below. Lemmon, who won the Oscar, is slightly miscalibrated—too actorly, too aware of his own virtuosity—but still compelling.

John G. Avildsen directs with the same street-level realism he would later bring to Rocky, but the film’s queer subplot remains its most revealing artifact. Save the Tiger shows, without apology or self-awareness, how dehumanizing mainstream American cinema could be toward gay men in the early 1970s. It is not just a period piece—it is a reminder of the cultural violence that passed for normal.

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