There's gay film and there's
gay film.
My favorite gay films:
Rebel Without A Cause (1955) Poor Sal Mineo lusts after the hunky James Dean. It's a subplot of course, but it's also one of the most touching. Mineo's love for Dean and Dean's inability to save Mineo from himself just rings so true for any young man who's beginning to realize he's not going to fit into the world he so desperately wants to.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Everyone in this film is gay except Karloff and he's a monster. The director, James Whale, was gay. At the time it was released nobody but nobody could figure out what the hell was going on because
Bride of Frankenstein was so completely over the top. The censors didn't catch it, and the few critics who did catch it, kept their mouths shut. Only much later, sadly after Whale's death, was BoF remotely appreciated for what it was: a story of gay love in a time when there was no such thing.
The end of Whale's life was told in,
Gods and Monsters (1998), with Ian McKellan and Brendan Frazier looking very hunky. More shocking than seeing Gandalf feel-up mummy buster Rick O'Connell, was how frankly the film dealt with the end-of-life many gay men face. It is a very frank, frequently frightening film about loss of youth (in more ways than one) and dying alone.
I've got to hand it to George Cukor. Everyone in Hollywood knew he was gay but, as is usual in Hollywood, he made so much money for the studios that they kept him on. Cukor has a string of A-list films to his name, but one of his best is 1939's
The Women. The cast is amazing: Joan Fontaine, Marjorie Main, Ruth Hussey, Hedda Hopper, Paulette Goddard, and, get this, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, and Norma Shearer. Imagine every top female star being in one movie and you'd get the idea. How did they get such talent? Two names: Luce and Loos. As in Clare Boothe Luce and Anita Loos, the original playwright and screen adapter. They don't write movies like this any more and it's a pity they don't. I've heard there's going to be a remake and let me tell you: it will suck. The only reason
The Women was overshadowed was because it was released the same year as
Gone With The Wind and
The Wizard of Oz. This movie also holds a fascinating record. It's the only feature length film with no males in it. There are no male actors, none. There are no male animals, no photographs or paintings of males, no figurines of males, and no male extras. As you might imagine, this film was not popular with men, but as gay men, we're immune to all that pussy and can just lay back and enjoy the fun. Cukor had to direct this film because, let's face it: only a gay director could have kept the peace on this set.
Here are some outtakes.
My honorable mention goes to the low budget but sensitively done,
Latter Days (2003). Steve Sandvoss naked.... mmmmmmmmmmmm. The acting isn't great and the plot is vaguely trite but it's got heart and some very touching moments. Of the purely gay gay films, it's one of the better ones.
