The Naked Civil Servant (1975) Queer Film (A)

The Naked Civil Servant is a 1975 British made‑for‑television biographical drama based on Quentin Crisp’s 1968 autobiography. Directed by Jack Gold and adapted by Philip Mackie, it stars John Hurt in the performance that made him internationally known.

The film traces Crisp’s life from the late 1920s through the 1930s and beyond, focusing on his unapologetic embrace of effeminacy in a violently homophobic society. As a young man, Crisp rejects conventional masculinity, dyes his hair, adopts makeup, and insists on living visibly as himself—despite harassment, police scrutiny, and social ostracism.

He works briefly as a prostitute, then as a commercial artist, and eventually as a nude model in an art school—an experience that gives the film its title. His life becomes a kind of performance art: a defiant, camp assertion of individuality in the face of a conformist culture.

Hurt is phenomenal. One of the great queer performances as one of the great Queers.

A follow-up movie, An Englishman in New York, was made in 2009 by director Richard Laxton with Hurt reprising the role of Crisp. The film chronicles the years that Crisp spent in New York City and gets its title from the song written by Sting for the 1987 album …Nothing Like the Sun.

Streaming on YouTube and on Apple TV+ and AMAZON Prime, the latter two through BritBox.