#nighthawks 1978

[celluloidrainbow]

NIGHTHAWKS (1978) dir. Ron Peck Jim, a London teacher by day, spends his evenings cruising bars and discos meeting men from different backgrounds and places, constantly on the lookout for any kind of connection. He tries to keep his personal life separate from his professional one, compartmentalizing his 'Gay encounters' and his 'friendships with school colleagues' in different boxes, but this status quo can't remain forever. (link in title)

[monkeyspanker69]

[actorsinunderwear]

Ken Robertson in Nighthawks (1978)

[marvelousmrm]

Doctor Strange #29 (Stern/Sutton, Apr 1978). Nighthawk recruits Strange to investigate a murder. Perhaps the Daredevil foe Death-Stalker is more mystical than we’d assumed!

[betogun]

“We all are innocent while we sleep” - Fotograma de “Nighthawks” (1978) de Ron Peck.

[mogwai-movie-house]

The Best of Tom Waits

Every album, ranked and rated high-to-low:

Swordfishtrombones (1983) ★★★★★★★★★★

Rain Dogs (1985) ★★★★★★★★★½

Closing Time (1973) ★★★★★★★★★☆

Frank's Wild Years (1987) ★★★★★★★★½☆

Bone Machine (1992) ★★★★★★★★☆☆

Real Gone (2004) ★★★★★★★★☆☆

Heartattack and Vine (1980) ★★★★★★★★☆☆

Mule Variations (1999) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Small Change (1976) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Blood Money (2002) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Nighthawks at the Diner (1975) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Blue Valentine (1978) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Orphans (2006) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Alice (2002) ★★★★★★★½☆☆

Bad As Me (2011) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

The Black Rider (1993) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Foreign Affairs (1977) ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

The Heart of Saturday Night (1974) ★★★★★★½☆☆☆

Night On Earth (1992) ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

One From The Heart (1982) ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

[garethllane]

FILM LOG || March 2024

★★★★★ - Blonde Ambition, Lem Amero and John Amero (1981) ★★★★☆ - Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini (1975) ★★★★☆ - Theorem, Pier Paolo Pasolini (1968) ★★★★☆ - Wild at Heart, David Lynch (1990) ★★★★☆ - Chatterbox!, Tom DeSimone (1977) ★★★★☆ - Barbara Broadcast, Radley Metzger (1977) ★★★★☆ - Peeping Tom, Michael Powell (1960) ★★★★☆ - Streets of Fire, Walter Hill (1984) ★★★★☆ - Women in New York, Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1977) ★★★★☆ - Shock Corridor, Samuel Fueller (1963) ★★★★☆ - Pumping Iron, George Butler and Robert Fiore (1977) ★★★★☆ - Rapture, Ivan Zulueta (1979) ★★★★☆ - Superstar: Karen Carpenter Story, Todd Haynes (1987) ★★★★☆ - Pumping Iron II: The Women, George Butler (1985) ★★★☆☆ - Muscle, Hisayasu Sato (1989) ★★★☆☆ - The Death of Maria Malibran, Werner Schroeter (1972) ★★★☆☆ - Reform School Girls, Tom DeSimone (1986) ★★★☆☆ - Hell Night, Tom DeSimone (1981) ★★★☆☆ - Angel III: The Final Chapter, Tom DeSimone (1988) ★★★☆☆ - Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore, Sarah Jacobson (1996) ★★★☆☆ - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Howard Hawks (1953) ★★★☆☆ - Death on the Beach, Enrique Gomez Vadillo (1991) ★★★☆☆ - Erotikus, Tom DeSimone (1973) ★★★☆☆ - I'm Going to Get You Elliot Boy, Ed Forsyth (1971) ★★★☆☆ - Mondo Trasho, John Waters (1969) ★★★☆☆ - Nighthawks, Ron Peck (1978) ★★★☆☆ - Bloody Muscle Body Builder, Shinichi Fukazawa (1995) ★★★☆☆ - Fortune and Men's Eyes, Harvey Hart (1971) ★★★☆☆ - She Devils on Wheels, Hershell Gordon Lewis (1968) ★★☆☆☆ - Jail Bait, Ed Wood (1954) ★★☆☆☆ - Athena, Richard Thorpe (1954) ★★☆☆☆ - Flaming Creatures, Jack Smith (1963) ★★☆☆☆ - The Hunger, Tony Scott (1983) ★★☆☆☆ - Jesus Christ Superstar, Norman Jewison (1973) ★★☆☆☆ - Beefcake, Thom Fitzgerald (1998) ★★☆☆☆ - Partners, James Burrows (1982)

Shorts:

★★★★☆ - La Ricotta, Pier Paolo Passolini (1963) ★★★★☆ - I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, Sarah Jacobson (1993) ★★★☆☆ - Le Plus Del Homme Du Monde, Jean Mineur (1948) ★★★☆☆ - Sins of the Fleshapoids, Mike Kuchar (1965) ★★☆☆☆ - Ed Fury on the Beach, Bob Mizer (1960)

[queerstuffonscreen]

Nighthawks (1978)

108 min.

Country: UK

Genre: Drama, History

Language: English

A gay teacher is forced to hide his sexuality by day while living his secret life by night, in Great Britain in the 1970s, not mixing his professional and private life, until the day comes when his students and his headmaster find out.

Watch on Tubi or Kanopy

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Now Playing! Sunday, 26 March 2023:

Blue Valentine Tom Waits (Asylum) (released in 1978)

I first bumped into Tom Waits’ music in Carbondale listening to WIDB, the college radio station.  It would have been one of two songs I first heard: Better Off Without A Wife (from his live 1975 album Nighthawks At The Diner) or Romeo Is Bleeding from this album.  Ultimately it doesn’t matter which I heard first, both made a huge impression on me.  I had never heard anyone like this in my lifetime.  Someone singing about not wanting a wife (even if ironically, it felt subversive) and someone who sounded like this?  I bought both albums in 1978 and as often felt the case, most of my roommates made immense fun of me: ‘the man cannot sing!’  My take was always, are you kidding me?  Listen to those lyrics and listen to the emotion in that voice and music!  That my friends, is some serious singing.  Yes, albeit an unconventional voice perhaps, but certainly an emotional voice like I had never heard.  And for goodness sakes, the subject matter Waits was singing about.  It all impacted me and made me think differently about what music and singing really was.  College gave me musical insight I had not had before.  Sure, I was a dork who refused myself admission into the Ramones work and I bought London Town when I should have been buying Road To Ruin.  All these years later I no longer own the former, but I do own the latter.  We can’t be everything all at once.

I was astonished to discover he was on Asylum as I was a fan of the label.  It wasn’t until I realized that he was a California boy and not a New York boy that it made sense.  Essentially a singer/songwriter he just didn’t fit in the mold of that moniker. Waits was always so much more in my mind. 

I remember the very first time I put this album on and heard Waits’ version of Somewhere, the Leonard Bernstein/ Stephen Sondheim song which comes from West Side Story.  When my gay roommate heard that emanating from my room, he barged in and demanded to know who that was.  He thought Waits’ version was the most spectacular thing he had ever heard.  He got Waits and understood there is power in visceral emotion which impacts lyrical content in ways not even the most beautiful voice can deliver.  I was always a sucker for his ballads like Kentucky Avenue.  It was then I realized that Waits spoke heavily to the melancholia I’ve always felt deep inside myself.  There is something agonizingly beautiful about pain and sorrow and his work speaks to that in a manner unlike most artists are able to do.

I caught Waits’ live at Shryock Auditorium in Carbondale in 1979 and it was mesmerizing.  I’d never seen someone who had an actual set onstage as if there would be some kind of a reading.  It looked like a park with a park bench, a wire trash can, a tree, grass...Waits of course was not just musically performing, he was giving an acting performance as a drunken man muttering to himself about a litany of why life bothered him.  When Waits later became a fine character actor, I was not at all surprised.  It was just Waits and his piano and the park bench.  The audience would roar with laughter or they would be hushed as he whispered out his vocals, crushing us with emotions.  It was the most memorable show I saw during college. 

After college I lost sight of Waits’ work operating on a hit and miss approach to his albums.  Heartattack and Vine, Franks Wild Years, Bone Machine I bought and then I vanished for supporting his work.  The double release of Blood Money and Alice brought me back to his music and I proceeded filling in all the gaps in my collection of his work and then bought everything as it came out from that point.  Heaven knows I don’t play him enough, when you have as much music as I do, some artists suffer.  But here he is on my turntable now and the memories come flooding back from when I first discovered this fine work.  It means the same thing to me now as it did all those years ago. 

[filmap]

Nighthawks Ron Peck. 1978

Buildings Ledbury Estate, Ledbury St, London SE15 1BA, UK See in map

See in imdb

[tornbluefoamcouch]

Artista: Whitesnake Álbum: Trouble Ano: 1978 Faixas/Tempo: 10/38min Estilo: Rock/Hard Rock Data de Execução: 24/08/2022 Nota: 5,0 Melhor Música: Nighthawk (Vampire Blues)

[actorsinunderwear]

Ken Robertson in Nighthawks (1978)

[marvelousmrm]

Defenders #59 (Kraft/Hannigan, May 1978). Kyle tests some upgrades to his Nighthawk gear, while Strange strives to prevent the impending xenogenesis. It doesn’t go great for either of them…

[pierppasolini]

Nighthawks (1978) // dir. Ron Peck

[redaynia]

ANOTHER COUNTRY: THE 1980s AND GAY CINEMA

by Alex Davidson

My Beautiful Laundrette, with its positive representation of a gay relationship, came at a radical time for LGBT rights in the UK and stands in the tradition of queer cinema flourishing in times of homophobic oppression. Victim (1961), Basil Dearden's drama about a lawyer (Dirk Bogarde) who realises his own homosexuality while investigating blackmail attempts against gay men, was made when homosexuality was still completely illegal in the UK. The sympathetic portrayal may have helped pave the way for a partial decriminalisation following the Sexual Offences act in 1967.

Gay Liberation flourished in the late 1970s and gay men on British cinema screens, who conventionally ended up miserable or dead by the end credits, started having fun. While Derek Jarman's Sebastiane (1967), an erotically charged take on the life and execution of St Sebastian, ended in tragedy, there was no doubting the film's gleeful celebration of gay sex. Nighthawks (1978) took British audiences into the gay clubs of Lindon and divided gay audiences, some of whom felt the main character -- sensitively played by Ken Robertson -- was an unappealing and downbeat figure. The film remains, however, an invaluable time capsule of 1970s gay nightlife. Television was more problematic, with TV schedules plagued by tired stereotypes typified by John Inman in Are You Being Served? (1973-1985) and Larry Grayson -- both, however, familiar, beloved faces on the small screen. The Naked Civil Servant (1975) was more provocative, with a Bafta-winning performance by John Hurt as the unashamedly flamboyant Quentin Crisp making a genuinely subversive statement.

With Margaret Thatcher's ascent to power in 1979 came a lurch to the right and a darkening of attitudes towards LGBT people in the 1980s. As the Aids epidemic spread, tabloids became bolder in their homophobia, with The Sun under the editorship of Kelvin MacKenzie calling Aids a 'gay plague'. Groups such as OutRage! and Act Up protested at the government's slow response to tackling the virus, noting how homophobia informed political decision-making. However, some progress was made. During the 1970s, Labour MP Maureen Colquhoun had been deselected after being as outed as gay by the press, and when Peter Tatchell stood as a Labour candidate for Bermondsey in 1983 he face a notoriously homophobic campaign from his Liberal opponents (the seat was won by the Liberals' Simon Hughes, who later came out as bisexual). Yet in 1984, Labour MP Chris Smith was the first minister to come out while in office. More LGBT people became politically active, such as Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), who inspired the award-winning film Pride (2014).

The most famous instance of the Thatcher administration's homophobic policy-making arrived in 1988, when Section 28 of the Local Government Act was passed. This legislation banned local authorities from publishing 'material with the intention of promoting homosexuality' as well as 'the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.' The law directly affected The Two of Us (1988), a mild BBC drama about two gay boys who must decide whether to leave their homophobic home town or stay and resort to conformity. The original had the boys continue their relationship but the broadcast version was changed: one headed back to heterosexuality, while the other is left alone. British filmmakers were quick to react to the wave of hostility that dominated the decade. Derek Jarman made unashamedly celebratory films about gay male lives in The Angelic Conversation (1985) -- a queer reading of Shakespeare sonnets addressed to a young man -- and Caravaggio (1986), a queered portrait of the renaissance painter. His 1989 experimental film The Last of England (1989) is a dark, poetic vision of a country in crisis and one of his most explicitly anti-Thatcherite films.

Production company Merchant Ivory has a (misleading) reputation for safe period dramas but its adaptation of EM Forster's Maurice (1987) was daring -- not because it was politically confrontational but because it had that rarest thing in 1980s gay cinema: a happy ending for its lovers. A further key British feature of the era is Another Country (1984), based on the early life of Cambridge spy Guy Burgess and starring Rupert Everett as a gay public schoolboy disgusted by his repressive environment. In both Maurice and Another Country, the protagnists are rich, white and male -- acceptable traits for audiences who had already embraced homoeroticism in the BBC's 1981 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. All three works were comfortably set in the past, as was Stephen Frears' follow-up to My Beautiful Laundrette, his admirably bawdy Joe Orton biopic Prick Up Your Ears (1987). This fondness for telling gay stories through the distancing lens of period drama makes the contemporary love story of My Beautiful Laundrette all the more urgent.

Gay British films with interracial relationships were scant. A heavy hint of homosexual attraction followed the titular black and white characters in Two Gentlemen Sharing (1969), while the silly but lovable Girl Stroke Boy (1971) gave audiences a couple, played by Clive Francis and Peter Straker, where the gender of one half of the relation was supposedly ambiguous, but gay love stories featuring black and Asian characters appeared less frequently in the early 1980s. The political significance of an interracial gay relationship in a London blighted by the National Front adds fire to My Beautiful Laundrette and, despite the mildness of the scenes of passion, the film sparked controversy; when it was shown in New York, the Pakistan Action Committee demonstrated against it as 'the product of a vile and perverted mind'. Kureishi explored race and homosexuality again in his TV adaptation of his own novel The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) and interracial love informed some of the most interesting queer stories of the 1990s, in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels (1991) and Neil Jordan's The Crying Game (1992).

While Queer as Folk (1999) may be the most famous LGBT British TV series of past years, a handful of gay non-fiction series from the 1980s paved the way for its success. Gay Life (1980-1981) explored queerness in various contexts, while the delightfully right-on Six of Hearts (1986) offered docudrama profiles of gay men and women, most notable Andy the Furniture Maker, an unlikely star of the art underworld. Channel 4's magazine show Out on Tuesday (1989) gave voices to marginalised queer people -- a highlight was Khush (1991), which celebrated South Asian lesbians and gay men living in Britain, North America and India, and was directed by Pratibha Parmar.

Plenty of documentaries about lesbian lives were made in the 1980s but British fiction films about gay women were few. A rare example is Mai Zetterling's Scrubbers (1982), set in a female borstal, while towards the end of the Thatcher era Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1990), based on Jeanette Winterson's novel, was a huge hit. More elusive still in 1980s British cinema are depictions of trans lives. While the US has led in interesting depictions of trans people, gentle sitcom Boy Meets Girl (2015-2016) is a rare example of a British take on a transgender protagonist. Throughout British cinema and TV history, lesbian and trans viewers have had to be content with one-off episodes of TV anthology series or supporting roles in heterosexual-focused stories.

The activism of the 1980s, supported by British filmmakers, paved the way for the repeal of Section 28 in 2003 and the passing of the Civil Partnership Act a year later. Same-sex marriage followed in 2013 but writing today the situation for LGBT people is murkier. Following the referendum on Britain's EU membership in 2016, the most divisive recent political event, homophobic attacks rose by 147 per cent, while the 2017 general election resulted in the sitting government opting to rely on an openly homophobic party to achieve a Parliamentary majority and remain in power. At the time of this release, how an uncertain political climate will affect LGBT people remains to be seen but, with equipment and online platforms widely accessible, filmmakers have more opportunity than ever to confront homophobia through their art.

Alex Davidson is the film programmer at JW3 and a former curator at the BFI National Archive. He regularly writes for Sight & Sound and the BFI website. His specialty is LGBT cinema and television.

Article sourced from the booklet included in the BFI's dual format edition of My Beautiful Laundrette (2017).

[twiceblackvelvet]

happy pride month guys!

i’m sure most of you are aware of the history in regards to pride and how significant it is. but, if any of you aren’t then here are some resources for you to be able to educate yourself. because ultimately we are far more fortunate in this day and age than those who came before us within this community.

the helping lgbt carrd has a section for educating yourself here.

another carrd detailing the history of lgbtq+ people here.

if any of you would like to look into it further, i’m gonna list some books here that you may wish to purchase and/or read, some are about lgbtq+ history, others i just find important:

sister outsider: essays and speeches.

the men with the pink triangle.

transgender history: the roots of today’s revolution.

kenyan, christian, queer.

black on both sides: a racial history of trans identity.

crip theory: cultural signs of queerness and disability.

the stonewall reader.

trans britain our journey from the shadows.

aids: don’t die of prejudice.

we are everywhere.

how to survive a plague: how activists and scientists tamed aids

indecent advances: a hidden history of true crime and prejudice before stonewall

if movies are more your thing, then here are some films i recommend you watch this month.

gay usa (1978)

nighthawks (1978)

paris is burning (1990)

kumu hina (2014)

screaming queens: the riot at compton’s cafeteria (2005)

kiki (2016)

the celluloid closet (1995)

the watermelon woman (1996)

the queen (1968)

blackbird (2014)

before stonewall (1984)

tongues untied (1989)

naz and maalik (2015)

brother outsider (2003)

call me kuchu (2012)

the death and life of marsha p. johnson (2017)

we were here (2011)

milk (2008)

rafiki (2018)

whatever you do or however you celebrate it, it is important to acknowledge that others have struggled in order for you to be in the position you are today, and remember those who fought hard and may or may not have lost their lives, loved ones etc. in the fight for us to have the rights we have today. it’s also important to think of those who are still fighting and still yearn the privileges in which some of us are granted from those before us.