Staircase (1969) Queer Film. Bring on the Queens! C-

DIRECTOR: Stanley Donen

Richard Burton and Rex Harrison play Harry C. Leeds and Charles Dyer—names that are, pointedly, anagrams of one another—an aging gay couple who run a perpetually empty barbershop in London’s East End. The emptiness of the shop, however, is the least of their worries: Charles is about to stand trial for the crime of appearing in public dressed as a woman. Adapted by Stanley Donen from Charles Dyer’s own play Staircase, the film remains essentially a two‑hander, despite being “opened up” to include the men’s mothers (Kathleen Nesbit, touching as Harry’s bedridden mum, and Beatrix Lehmann, in a performance so florid it borders on the grotesque) and a handful of passers-by. What remains is mostly the two men circling their long, volatile history and contemplating futures they may have to face alone.

There are tender moments, but the prevailing mode is bickering—yet not the kind that reveals love through irritation, as with Hume Cronyn and John Randolph’s unforgettable couple in There Was a Crooked Man. Those two old queens in an Arizona prison circa 1883 win you over instantly; their affection feels lived‑in and unassailable. Burton and Harrison’s relationship, by contrast, never quite convinces. Harrison leans into affectation and condescension, miles away from the sly, knowing homoeroticism he brought to Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. Burton fares better. Saddled with alopecia, he spends the film wrapped in a towel like a makeshift turban—an image that is unexpectedly funny—and he occasionally breaks through the film’s fussiness with moments of genuine emotional clarity.

The real disappointment is Donen. Throughout his career—from Singin’ in the Rain to Funny Face to Charade—he showed a light, sophisticated, and often queer‑friendly touch. Here, that touch deserts him. The material is treated as a soufflé, but no one seems to have checked the oven. The result collapses: a film that should have been tender, tart, and daring instead feels arch, uncertain, and oddly weightless.

A pity, because the ingredients were all there.

STREAMING: YouTube

https://thebrownees.net/88-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1968/

https://thebrownees.net/110-queer-films-from-the-new-hollywood-1968-1980/

My Fair Lady (1964) Cukor’s Late-Career Triumph A+ – TheBrownees

Funny Face (1957) Queer Film A+ – TheBrownees