DIRECTOR: Robert Wise

BOTTOM LINE: 

As a chic Greenwich village lesbian named Theo, whose couture is designed by Mary Quant, Claire Bloom is a knockout in Robert Wise’s 1963 movie “The Haunting”. A clever adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel, it is one of the best haunted-house movies. Theo is one of a panel of experts in the paranormal who are invited to spend a weekend at the notorious Hill House. The house has a long history of strange and tragic happenings. The locals think that it is haunted. Theo is always putting the moves on the film’s doomed heroine Eleanor (“Nell”) who is played by Julie Harris in her most emblematic screen performance. However, the moves are always subtle and done with great care and concern by Theo, making her one of the cinema’s most enlightened gay characters up to that point in time. Cheers Claire! You always were a class act.

POST TITLE:  55 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967) (Part 2) – TheBrownees 

CATEGORY: My Favorites

SUBCATEGORY: Queer Film

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