Until very recently, James Crabe and David Watkin were the only cinematographers to have publicly come out in the 120-year history of motion pictures. Watkin is remembered for his collaborations with Ken Russell on The Devils and The Boy Friend, see above. The irony is that Crabe, whose openness required immense courage in a deeply closeted branch of the film industry, photographed Save the Tiger, one of Hollywood’s most homophobic movies.
THE YEAR IS 1973. THE SETTING IS LOS ANGELES
THE HEAD SEAMSTER MYER CAN NOT BE IN THE PLAYPEN WITH FAIRIES; EVEN TALENTED FAIRIES.
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.
Spanning over a century of filmmaking, and tracing the gamut from slasher to psychological to supernatural, TheBrownees ranks the 135 greatest horror movies from 1920 to 2026. The top 15 are: Psycho, Midsommar, The Exorcist, The Shining, Alien, The Road, Dead Ringers, Take Shelter, Under the Skin, Carrie, Halloween, Rosemary’s Baby, The Substance, Hereditary and Don’t Look Now. Directors Tod Browning, Robert Eggers, Roman Polanski, George A. Romero and James Whale are each listed three times. Fourteen directors are represented twice – Ari Aster, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Zach Cregger, David Cronenberg, Brian De Palma, Coralie Fargeat, Alfred Hitchcock, Tobe Hooper, Jordan Peel, Ken Russell, Steven Spielberg, Jacques Tourneur and Robert Wise. Fargeat, is one of five female directors on the list and the only one to be represented twice. The others are fellow French director Julia Ducoumau, British director Rose Glass and American filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Karyn Kusama. Be afraid! Be very afraid!
88 Queer Films Made During theHays Code Era (1934-1968). Six of the movies listed won Best Picture at the Oscars, while a further 11 were nominated in the Best Picture category
The death of the Hays Code and the rise of the New Hollywood saw an explosion of Queer Cinema from “No Way to Treat a Lady” to “Taxi zum Klo.” Here are 112 Queer Films from the New Hollywood.
Hal Mohr** is the only person to have won a competitive Academy Award without being nominated for it. Mohr was allowed to keep his Oscar and won a second.
Seven films in which every shot, every camera move, every editing sequence is perfect. Four of the seven movies star either Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart.
They were the darlings of the art house circuit. Their work in a language other than English is some of the greatest ever captured on film. But Hollywood…
Although Charles Laughton made only one and, therefore, final film, based on this film alone, he is of the Great Directors.
Number One: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet: 2007). Number Five: Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock: 1976).
Our heroine suffers through the most hideous body sculpting indignities, heaped on her by the effete and sadistic proto-plastic surgeon, Dr. Esthetique.
The story unfolds, in real time, almost entirely within the confines of Sardi’s bar in New York, where Hart spends the evening grappling with his fading relevance, alcoholism, homosexuality and mental health struggles.
After a while, though, you begin to feel beaten down by the sheer refinement of it all. The perfectly framed, perfectly edited tableaux. The exquisite, sparingly used music score. The subtle, to the point of being abstruse, performances of the stars.
As for Judy Davis she gives what is probably her most outstanding performance, which means it’s one of the greatest performances ever captured on film.
In “Kind Hearts and Coronets”: Alec Guinness has fun playing all eight (or nine) of the unfortunate D’Ascoynes, including Lady Agatha D’Ascoyne. The photograph shows Dennis Price with Joan Greenwood who plays that little minx Sibella.
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.
