In the Chicago Sun-Times, Thomas Conner interviews William Friedkin upon the DVD release of the 1970 drama The Boys in the Band, which was adapted by Mart Crowley from his own 1968 off-Broadway play about a group of some very sad and very bitter gay men — and one token (self-proclaimed) straight guy — who get together for a birthday celebration. "I knew a lot of people like those people," Crowley later said of his whiny characters. "The self-deprecating humor was born out of a low self-esteem, from a sense of what the times told you about yourself."
I saw the film years ago and I actually liked it. Not sure if I'd feel the same today, so I probably should check out the DVD, which features an audio track with commentary by both Friedkin and Crowley. And I can't help but wonder if Crowley would have come up with a radically different play (and, as a result, a radically different movie) had he waited another couple of years — the Stonewall riots took place in 1969 — to write it.
"With a screenplay peppered with many memorable lines" writes Raymond Murray at TLA Video, "The Boys in the Band is a pre-liberation classic which is dated but hilarious and at times surprisingly offensive to current gay sensibility. It's also an important step in the depiction of gays in film."
In the cast: Kenneth Nelson, Peter White (who remains active), Leonard Frey (who would be nominated for a best supporting actor Academy Award the following year for Fiddler on the Roof), Cliff Gorman (who delivers the film's best performance), Frederick Combs, Laurence Luckinbill, Keith Prentice, Robert La Tourneaux, and Reuben Greene. As per the IMDb, five of the film's principals (Frey, Nelson, La Tourneaux, Combs, and Prentice) have died of AIDS-related complications.
Here's one snippet from the Conner/Friedkin interview:
Q. What reservations did you have about doing a gay film in the late 1960s?
A. Personally, none. I had a harder time setting up The French Connection and Exorcist than Boys. … I knew that gay characters had not been portrayed on film in any significant way at all, so I knew this would push the envelope in a lot of places around the country and to a lot of people. I was most surprised that most of the negative attitudes about it came from organized gay groups. All that's changed over the years. You look at [online] postings about it now and the reviews are fantastic. They view it as the way gay life was at the time and is no longer. A lot of critics felt it was trying to keep gay people in a kind of ghetto, in the closet, but now look back and see that it really opened doors to gay characters on TV and in all walks of life as people in the culture.
DOSTANA, THROUGH THE EYES OF PAINTER: Censorship
100 Films for the Ideal Cinematheque
LIFE Magazine Images Available on Google
Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL – Ultimate 2 Disc Edition
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET at the Academy
A STORY OF HEALING, THE LONG WAY HOME: Oscar's Docs
RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar
Waited for years to see this movie because of negative reviews I had heard…finally saw it on Turner Classic..and was pleasantly surprised..I dont know if I felt an attraction to the early seventies setting..the sexual carefree time..the Townhouse lol..but I feel the characters are the same as I experienced for years..I cant imagine having friends who treated each other the way they do in the movie..but then Im comfortable alone….but unfortunately witnessed the same behaviour over my years and have tried to avoid it…..I dislike hearing that the Men whine..but thats a critique..I am very private and rather miss the days of privacy..but then the young men have changed things drastically and the shame taught us by our parenst seems to be gone…the addiction issues are more concerning in the movie than anything else to me ..I think they bring on some of the other..and even though the movie can be disturbing I still find myself rewatching it and wondering what it would be like again without having to have safe sex…no labeled terrorists, no airline screening, all the STDs, etc….Ill be purchasing the Anniversary CD…
Marlon Brando plays a Jewish guru in the 1968 comedy "Candy" directed by Christian Marquand. Could that be it?
I remebver people talking about the movie back in the 70's and always wanted to see it so I was happy to find it in full on YouTube. It was a great play and a great movie. I have not experienced such intellectual stimulation for a while.
I have been trying to get a list of alternative American movies of the 1970's (I don't mean schlok horror, hippiesploitation movies and stuff, but genuine attempts to explore asspects not found in the main cinema) on the net but cannot locate one. The closest is the title of this website.
I remember one movie where I think it was a Jewish guru who had taken to living in a sack on a rooftop in New York and was famous for his philosophical work 'Hoffnungs Lozikeit' I can never track this movie down and can't remember the title.
I know that there were lots of movies made under the freedom gained by the pot culture but cannot find a list anywhere on the net. Some of these movies were shown in few cinemas and it would be great to bring them to light once again.
Blessed are those who put up films on YouTube, Woody's 'Small Time Crooks' for instance which I have watched several times.
Dated perhaps, but still gripping and very moving. Also, dated perhaps for big cities in more "liberal" countries. In many parts of the world, gays still go through the same self-loathing that those characters go through in The Boys in the Band. In fact, I know people right here in my hometown (not that small) that are just like them.