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Tea and Sympathy (1956) Film Review. A-

DIRECTOR: Vincente Minnelli BOTTOM LINE: The consensus today is that even if Deborah’s character Laura Reynolds, the mistress of a household of college boys, manages to “save” Tom Robertson Lee’ (John Kerr) from his sensitive (read homosexual) tendencies by seducing him, she cannot save herself from the fact that she married a gay man (Leif Erickson) and is trapped in a loveless union. Bill has…

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Mildred Pierce (1945) Film Review

DIRECTOR: Michael Curti BOTTOM LINE: Joan Crawford plays Mildred, and Ann Blyth plays Veda, the most ungrateful daughter in Cinema history in “Mildred Pierce,” director Michael Curtiz’s masterful adaptation (from an Oscar-nominated script by Ranald MacDougall and several other uncredited writers) of the 1941 novel by James M. Cain. it was Crawford’s first starring role for Warner Bros. after…

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Grey Gardens (1975) Film Review A+

Special mention to the TV movie “Grey Gardens” (2009) Special mention to the TV Limited Series” Feud: Capote vs The Swans” (2024) Big and Little Edie Bouvier have entered the hearts of gay men everywhere! Well, maybe not everywhere! The film “Grey Gardens” tells the story of Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier, the aunt and cousin of former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. When the…

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Casablanca (1942-1943) Here's Looking at you Kid! A+

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship Humphrey Bogart to Claude Rains in “Casablanca” DIRECTOR: Michael Curtiz BOTTOM LINE: After Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and Victor (Paul Henreid) are safely away on their plane and Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) is dead, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Captain Renault (Claude Rains) walk away together into the mist as Rick recites one of the movie’s…

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Entertaining Mr Sloane (1970) Film Review B-

The talented gay British playwright Joe Orton burst onto the scene in the swinging sixties with his brilliantly dark, satirical, and comedic masterpieces “Loot” and “Entertaining Mr Sloane.” Tragically, his career was cut short when he was murdered by his lover, Kenneth Halliwell, in 1967. Halliwell then tragically took his own life. These events were portrayed by Gary Oldman and Albert Molina in…

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Something for Everyone (1970) Film Review

Was legendary Broadway director and impresario Harold Prince gay? He had a long and supposedly happy heterosexual marriage, which resulted in two children. Of course, the marriage could have been of the lavender variety. Does it matter? Hal Prince, as he was more commonly known, collaborated with and mentored the creme de la creme of America’s artistic gay community for an astonishing seven…

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When we first meet FAGGOT he is pleasuring himself on Eastwood’s shoe. Who was the dog who played him? His owner, an effete Jack Cassidy, trained the little rascal to do that to every man who stopped by.

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Using Art Deco as a backdrop to the film’s narrative, the partnership of Bertolucci, Storaro and Scarfiotti changed the look of Cinema forever.

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Italian director Dario Argento’s supernatural horror sensation!  Jessica Harper is a ballet student whose school is a front for a coven of lesbian witches.

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Suspiria (1976) Dario Argento's Cabal of Lesbian Witches A+

DIRECTOR: Dario Argento BOTTOM LINE: Italian director Dario Argento’s supernatural horror sensation!  The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy but realizes, after a series of murders, that the academy is a front for a coven of lesbian witches who are presided over by legendary actresses Alida Valli and Joan Bennett in her final…

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The actors are in good form, with Raquel Welsh being particularly impressive in her one genuinely good film. Dyan Cannon is a thinly disguised Sue Mengers.

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The Last of Sheila (1973) Perkins and Sondheim Have Fun!

DIRECTOR: Herbert Ross. BOTTOM LINE: On a one-week Mediterranean pleasure cruise aboard the yacht of movie producer Clinton Greene (James Coburn), the guests include actress Alice Wood (Raquel Welch); her talent-manager husband Anthony Wood (Ian McShane); secretary turned talent agent Christine (Dyan Cannon); screenwriter Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin) and his wife Lee (Joan Hackett); and film…

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With the death of the Hays code in 1967, an astonishing 50 Queer Films burst out of the closet over the next ten years. From “Jason” to “Suspiria."

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Essay Two: Table. 50 Queer Films from 1967-1976: Queer Cinema Comes Out

Another example of Eastwood’s homophobia during his seventies heyday, he matured enough over the years to direct a sympathetic is not alltogether successful treatmenmt of J. Edgar Hoover’s long term relationship with Clyde Tolson in “J. Edgar” from 2011. TABLE SUMMARY OF 45 QUEER FILMS RELEASED IN THE DECADE AFTER THE HAYS CODE WAS REPLACED BY THE MPAA (1967-1976) DIRECTORS who directed gay…

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Alec Guiness, Dennis Price, Charles Laughton, and Laurence Harvey were all known to be gay. Their adoring public may have felt there was something!

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Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Charles Laughton, and Laurence Harvey were all known to be gay throughout their careers. Their adoring public may have felt there was something.

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Freebie and the Bean (1974) Film Review

Noted female impersonator Christopher Morley may have tried to give his character “The Transvestite” – he is not given a name even though he is the story’s main villain – some semblance of dignity in director Richard Rush’s off-the-scale homophobic/transphobic buddy-cop movie “Freebie and the Bean.” Our heroes, James Caan (“Freebie”) and Alan Arkin (“The Bean”), first encounter Morley in a…