by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince - £19.99 Blood Moon Productions (2010)
paperback
ISBN 13: 9781936003099 | ISBN 10: 1936003090
As late as 1958, homosexuality couldn’t even be mentioned in a movie, as proven by the elaborate lengths the producers of Tennessee Williams's swampy Cat on a Hot Tin Roof took to evade the obvious fact that its hero, Paul Newman, was playing it gay. And in spite of the elaborate lengths its producers took to camouflage its lavender aspects, in-the-know viewers during the late '50s realized all along that Joe E. Brown was fully aware that Jack Lemmon wasn’t a biological female (“nobody’s perfect”) in Some Like it Hot (1959).
That kind of baroque subterfuge ended abruptly in 1960, when cinema emerged from its celluloid closet with the release of Boys in the Band. Decades later came Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica, and Milk.
This comprehensive anthology documents it all, bringing into focus a sweeping rundown of cinema’s most intriguing Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and “Queer Questioning” films that deserves a home next to the DVD player as well as on the reference shelves of public libraries. Crucial to the viability of this book is the fact that new DVD releases have made these films available to new generations of viewers for the first time since their original release.
More than just a dusty library reference, this book shamelessly spills 50 quasi-closeted years of Hollywood secrets - all of them in glorious Technicolor.
(Price & availability last checked: December 2018)
In booklists: Film and Cinema, LGBTQ+ Arts, Media & Culture,
In categories: Media & Culture, Music & Performing Arts, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuality & Transgender,
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