Mart Crowley: The Boys In The Band

Now there’s nothing
Comes from nothing
That’s what they always say
Didn’t mama tell ya
That’s the price you have to pay
Now you can’t have
Your piece of cake
And eat the sweet thing too
But that kind of understanding
Isn’t good enough for you
My my baby’s gonna cry
Eurythmics – My My Baby’s Gonna Cry

Shit! They did it. It’s finally here on DVD! OMG!

Oh um, a review. You need to know about this juggernaut. Wow!
When people ask me what is a Good Gay Movie I usually fling out several films that I love and that I know undoubtedly the person asking, straight or gay, will find something enjoyable about. That list usually runs like this.

Brokeback Mountain
Torch Song Trilogy
Tales Of The City
The Sum Of Us
The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert

Now these are all good movies. I highly recommend them. Some are even great gay movies. They handle various gay issues well and they are well written and produced and acted and hell, they are fun to watch. But… How do I say this nicely? They don’t have a lot of grit to them. They present Gay People and their issues from the outside but remain too slick to dig very deep.

And this one? Hmmmm well, I don’t think they figured out a sugar coating that would have worked in this case. The Boys In The Band was the first gay subject film released by a major studio in 1970. Written by Mart Crowley who wrote the play back in 1968. It is a time capsule of sorts, a movie that came out right after The Stonewall Riots but before the big 1970′s political movements in San Francisco (See Milk or Tales Of The City for that era).

The movie first presents itself just as you would expect, a dusty and dated period piece with the silly fairy humor (Remember when fairy was a “bad word”), and the closeted gay guys, and the deeply exaggerated characters. Can I say that 1970 was a horrible year for men’s fashion, not to mention the slang?

Then something starts to happen and the undiluted venom of the film, the surprisingly still accurate social commentary, kicks in inviting some comparisons to other powerful play driven flicks.

That whole “based on a play” in this case is some of it’s worst features really. It makes the setup of the movie feel artificial or forced to me, the apartment is claustrophobic, and the airing of each characters individual dirty laundry comes across very monologue driven and episodic. But isn’t that what we sorta like in All About Eve, or Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? we even idolize this same style in The Women?

Michael Connelly is throwing a birthday party for his gay socially prominent friend Harold. Unfortunately for Michael an old college roommate, who is straight, or so he says, arrives and throws the evening’s plans right out the window. Michael shows he is a mean alcoholic as we watch him fall off the wagon and he has one too many drinks as a result of the mess. One drink, after another, after another, getting more hateful and bitter with every sip. Everybody at the party gets a severe tongue-lashing. Leaving you wondering why anyone would stick around for this.

So as the movie progresses be prepared for really witty put downs, raw personal observations and emotional scarring shared by all. The party ends in a game of phone call “truth or dare” that Michael forces everyone to play. Michael eventually runs off each of the guests leading to some very dark “icks” for our host.

This movie has not been very well liked by the Gay Community (Which is probably why it just got released for the first time on DVD this last November 2008) and for good reason… it is not just dark this dang thing is pitch black. The major accusation being this movie can be seen as something of a throw back to the gay Pulp Fiction type stories of gay people leading these horrible suicidal lives and most negative comments about this film use similar reasoning. These characters are just one note stereotypes and as thin as cardboard cutouts.

The issue I have with that argument is that this movie seems far too aware of that point of view and does not simply blame homosexuality for the problems these people face. In fact Micheal in one of his tangents rejects that idea. “It’s not always the way it is in plays. Not all faggots bump themselves off at the end of the story!” No, this particular film is trying to speak about something else. If anything in my opinion this not about picking on any single type of character in particular but about the inherent problems in ourselves that we mask.

Kenneth Nelson plays Michael the bitter alcoholic.
Michael is an embodiment of various people I know who use drugs or alcohol to hide the pain they have. Even though Michael is out of the closet in this early era, he cannot seem to really enjoy the relationships he is in and he constantly lets his partner know this. He is sad and obviously dealing with a great deal of self hate but he does not come across to me as far from reality here.

The deliciously self-depreciating mincing Emory played by Cliff Gorman.
His well known line is “Who do you have to fuck to get a drink around here?”. Lot’s of men I know use this type of behavior and a joke a minute persona to hide the rejections they find in life. Emory in my opinion comes out of this film probably one of the strongest and most memorable characters.

Then we have the recently divorced (with kids) closeted schoolteacher and his studly photographer boyfriend with the commitment problems.
Like most couples in the gay community there is little or no support and respect for two people who are committed to each other and a lot working against them. If you see this film you will notice how they are subtlety attacked by their close friends as “not right for each other” and looked down on.

Last on the scene is the birthday boy Harold (Lenard Frey), the aging self-destructive queen.
The gay community is still to this very day youth oriented and ignores those who are not gorgeous or rich or young. Harold does drugs and drinks and is the most bitter ugly old man you ever met. He fully admits this.

As scary as it sounds I can see each and every character here getting updated easily. Just change the clothes and update the apartment interiors and dump all those “groovies”. It stuns me that we may have made drastic changes in gay politics, we may have changed the way we live, but let’s be honest, gay people and their internal conflicts have not changed that much.

That’s the reason why I think this film resonates so well even with it’s dated palate. It stays on track because out of dozens and dozens of gay films I have seen, this ancient B movie carries some brutal and honest gritty truth on how people deal with their homosexuality on the inside. It isn’t pretty and it ain’t trying to be politically correct because frankly there was no politically correct back then and like hell if it’s gonna be uplifting or positive about anybody’s issues. It’s all about the dirt people.

You would think they would have made darker, deeper, and more honestly searching gay movies on the subjects raised here by now. Sure it’s dark, sure it’s hateful to the gay characters, but there are layers here that say quite a bit about where gay people have been and where they are now. I see this as a comment on how far we may or may not have actually gotten and I am not talking so much about society in general accepting us (not that it does that so well even now) but in how well we accept ourselves, or don’t, and the inner demons we deal with.

The Boys In The Band takes nasty swipes at anonymous sex, gay marriage, drug use, forced outing, vanity, and growing old in the Gay Community, all still valid issues in my book. Maybe the problem with this movie is that it does not pat you on the head and tell you it’s going to be alright.

I can completely understand Michael’s dilemma at the end crying “I never understood any of it. I never did.” even if I don’t like him very much which makes two of us. So The Boys In The Band is not a good gay movie. It’s a bad gay movie that still kicks some ass with some of the most uncomfortable and unflattering dialog ever and I would not change a damn thing about it. Well, maybe the clothes and the slang.

Tags: Movie