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Lily Tomlin is the narrator of a very poignant documentary about gay images, stereotypes, portrayals & bashing in film history beginning in 1895, with two men dancing in "Edison's Experimental Film." Commentators who have either been in, written, directed, or produced films that portray gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or crossdressing characters speak frankly about what they experienced, learned, why they created GLBT characters they way they did, or how seeing GLBT characters in film affected them. These are the notable commentators (alphabetically): Jay Presson Allen, Susie Bright, Quentin Crisp, Mart Crowley, Tony Curtis, Richard Dyer, Antonio Fargas, Harvey Fierstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Farley Granger, Harry Hamlin, Tom Hanks, Will H. Hays, Mrs. Gustav Ketterer, Arthur Laurents, Shirley MacLaine, Armistead Maupin, Daniel Melnick, Ron Nyswaner, Jan Oxenberg, Paul Rudnick, Barry Sandler, Susan Sarandon, John Schlesinger & Gore Vidal. Archive footage shows these: Demetrius Alexis is an effeminate man with a mustache; John Marlowe is a blonde man who dances off with Alexis; Judith Anderson is Mrs. Danvers a housekeeper obsessed with the dead woman "Rebecca"; Steve Buscemi is Nick; Eric Campbell is Goliath, a stage hand; Charles Chaplin is David, Goliath's assistant; Edna Purviance is kissed by David while dressed as a boy; Al Jolson exclaims, "Boys will be boys!" as 2 guys dance together; Dick Powell is beside Jolson at the grandstand watching the scene; Johnny Weissmuller is Tarzan in an edited scene with a nude underwater male mate; Marlene Dietrich is a nightclub performer in a tuxedo kissing a woman's lips; Gary Cooper applauds Marlene Dietrich; Joan Fontaine is the second Mrs. DeWinter; Josephine McKim is Maureen O'Sullivan's double for a nude underwater scene; O'Sullivan is Jane, thrown from a tree into a lake; Doris Day is Annie Oakley; Shirley MacLaine & Audrey Hepburn are presumed to be lesbian teachers in "The Children's Hour"; Tony Curtis & Jack Lemmon crossdress in "Some Like It Hot"; Liza Minnelli is Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" whose roomate is gay & lovers with the same man as she; Michael York is Brian Roberts the bisexual man in "Cabaret"; Sandy Dennis is Jill Banford in "The Fox"; Divine is he/rself in "Hairspray"; Whoopi Goldberg falls in love with 'Shug' in "The Color Purple"; Richard Arlen plays David Armstrong; Margery Chapin watches as David Armstrong dies; Antonio Banderas & Tom Hanks play gay men in "Philadelphia"; Sharon Stone is bisexual in "Basic Instinct" & so on. The films depict same-gender intimacy & stereotypes in Hollywood's earliest history: 1912-Algie the Mixer has a same-gender scene; 1914-2 women leave 2 men & each couple dances; 1916-Charlie Chaplin is kissing a woman dressed as a man, as a man swishes as he does; 1923-"The Soldiers" fey guys with guns & limp wrists; in a silent film the screen reads after two men embrace, "I wonder if you're going out with the boys tonight?; 1930-"Morocco," Dietrich taunts both women & men crossdressed; 1933-in "Our Betters," Tyrell Davis is Ernest showing up in lipstick. Clips start from the earliest to modern day films. Commentators discuss how a man "sissy," was laughed at as comedy. How films depict GLBTs as swishy, sissy, murderous, deranged, murdered & in closeted code. Quentin Crisp says, "When a man dresses as a woman the audience laughs. When a woman dresses as a man nobody laughs." Gore Vidal describes the Hays Code: GLBTs censored from film.Read full review
Very interesting look behind the scenes of old Hollywood.
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