During the forties there were clear intimations of it in Rope (1948), Victory and The Maltese Falcon. The fifties brought I Vitelloni, Strangers On a Train, Suddenly Last Summer, Serious Charge, and the decade was rounded off with two productions of the life of Oscar Wilde. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Spartacus were probably the last two Hollywood movies to have homosexual  inferences deliberately removed from the original. The character of Brick, played by Paul Newman in the film is unable to make Love to Elizabeth Taylor, but the film ignores the playwright Tennesee Williams’ reasons for this, i.e latent homosexuality, and replaces it with a drinking problem.

In 1962 the subject was bought right out into the open with Victim. In it servant Dirk Bogarde blackmails his master whom he knows to be gay. A Taste of Honey featured a sympathetic homosexual, ie, not a criminal, pyschopath or murderer; and Advise and Consent and The Best Man concerned allegations against American politicians. On the other hand Lawrence of Arabia was so shy in showing any signs of  its hero’s sexual make-up that it was difficult to know what estimate was being made (T.E. Lawrence was known to have had many gay relationships), but for good measure Peter O’Toole (what a  great name for a porn-star) was raped in Lord Jim.

By now universal romantic comedies were starting to make fun of the subject: in That Touch of Mink Gig Young’s psychiatrist thought he was in love with Cary Grant, and in A Very Special Favour Rock Hudson deliberately acted effeminately so that Leslie Caron would feel inclined to ‘rescue’ him.

Now the floodgates were opened: in short succession we had A View from the Bridge, with its male kiss; The Servant with its odd relationship between master and Servant (Dirk Bogarde again); The Leather Boys (what a title); Stranger In The House; The Fearless Vampire Killers (the bloodsucking vampire is gay) the miscast and unhappy Staircase, The Detective, which made New York appear to be a very gay city; The Gay deceivers, in which two men avoid the draft by pretending to be queer: Reflections In a Golden Eye; Midnight Cowboy; The Boys In The Band, the first sympathetic homosexual comedy; The Boston Strangler and Funeral In Berlin; If, Young Woodley, Tea and Sympathy, Riot, The Sergeant and Villain which revealed camp goings-on in school, prison and gangland. Girl Stroke Boy revealed the plight of parents unable to tell whether theirson is engaged to a boy or a girl.

In Myra Beckenbridge (adapted from Gore Vidal’s novel) homosexuality was lost in a welter of more spectacular perversions.

Historical figures Richard the Lionheart and Tchaicovsky had their sexual pecadilloes explored in The Lion In Winter and the Music Lovers respectively. Billy Wilder jokingly investigated The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. There has always been a homoerotic undercurrent to Holmes and Watson hasn’t there?

TV got in on the subject with That Certain Summer in 1973. There wasn’t much further to go as gays had their own porno films. 1978 brought the last curiousity: a Different Story, the love affair between a gay man and a lesbian.

A new era 

Harvey Fierstein’s semi-autobiographical The Torchsong Trilogy had less impact on the screen than on the stage. Fierstein did the voice of Carl on The Simpsons episode Samson and Delilah. ..Trilogy went hand in hand with a new camp sensibility that appeared in La Cage au Folles and its sequels, as well as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, some of Andy Warhol’s films, like Lonesome Cowboys, and the work of John Waters.

Aids

The mood changed in the eighties with AIDS becoming more prevalent and killing many young performers. British director Derek Jarman reacted by making a contemporary film of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II.

Younger directors

Working outside the mainstream in the early nineties were Greg Araki and Todd Haynes, who proclaimed a new ‘queer cinema’. Tom Kalin’s Swoon (puts the homo back in hiomicide claimed the publicity) looked at the Leopold Loeb murders from a homosexual viewpoint; Todd Haynes’s Poison looked at social and sexual deviance with the equanamity of Jean Genet. The Living End had two homosexuals taking revenge on a straight world; Mark Rappaport looked at Rock Hudson’s performances from a gay perspective.

Two examples of new queer cinema

Gus Van Sant enjoyed success with My Private Idaho, about a narcoleptic hustler, it starred River Pheonix and Keanu Reeves.

Director Isaac Julien’s Young Soul Rebels had a black and white male as its protagonists, unthinkable in mainstream cinema.

Philadelphia won an Oscar for Tom Hanks but upset many AIDS activists.

In 1997 Stephen Fry reminded us of past persecutions with Wilde, a role many would consider him born to play.

Dream casting: Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde

Meanwhile in the same year Rupert Everett concentrated on present pleasures as Julia Roberts’ gay companion in My Best Friend’s Wedding; Everett’s revelations that he was a rent boy made it difficult for his long term prospects as a film actor.

Most recently same sex love was depicted, albeit very cautiously, in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain 2005. 

When all is considered, this is not a subject mainstream cinema has been keen on investigating. The most groundbreaking productions have been for tv, witness Queer As Folk and Tipping the Velvet.

Sadly, there is still a perception that its more acceptable for a straight actor to play a gay role than vice versa. Indeed, I can think of no known gay actor to have been offered a role as a straight man, but hopefully that will change soon.

Detectives John M. Laymen, top, and Emmett Jones examine the body of actress Carole Landis in a bathroom (one of four) at her home at 1465 Capri Drive, July 5, 1948.

There is something not quite right about this picture. Landis died in July, so why is there is a fur coat doing on the chair? also what about the full size hairdryer and the array of medicine bottles on the dresser?

It all looks like an elaborately staged set from Citizen Cane, filmed by cinematographer James Toback.

Landis died of an intentional drug overdose and is said to have committed suicide after Rex Harrison refused to leave his wife for her. She started acting in A Star Is Born (1937) and appeared in several b movies including  I wake up Screaming and One Million B.C.

Her life was used in the book the Valley of the Dolls for the character Julia North, Jacqueline Susan is said to have had an affair with Landis. Landis legacy has been an actress who never truly became the star she deserved to be, however the sensational nature of her death mean she will always have a level of notoriety.

Sit down, have a seat. Take of those wet clothes. You look like you could use a rest. It’s been cold hasn’t it?

I’m surprised that you found us, we’re so tucked away. Yes, its a big place, its 100 acres beyond those trees. Well, how about a drink? I’ve got some whisky tucked away somewhere.

That’s better isn’t it?

You look hungry, here, I’ll find you some food. That bread was made yesterday, so its a little stale. I’d throw it away but it seems like such a waste. Its just me most days. A whole loaf is too much for me too eat.

Well now, what do you think of the place? We didn’t change much since we took over. The furniture is all the same since the last people moved out. I had the floorboards taken up last year, you’d be amazed at what we found, old bits of wood, newspapers and magazines from 100 years ago. Well, I thought it was interesting.

That’s ok, you don’t have to finish all of it. No, we don’t have a TV. There’s a radio somewhere. You can go upstairs if your feeling tired. I’ll show you where the room is. It hasn’t been used since they left. Well, I hope you get plenty of rest. I’ll be going up myself soon. I’m very glad you came. It gets lonely out here, it  certainly does.

I have been paying close attention to the recent Tom Cruise situation covered by a recent Vanity Fair article. Cruise is one of several A-listers to have joined the ‘religion’. Among the well-known celebrities to have joined are: John Travolta, Juliette Lewis, Beck, Nancy Cartwright and Jason Lee.

The church had always encouraged celebrities to join, claiming it can help them be more successful, it has not been shy in taking vast sums of money in exchan,
for this service. More interesting is the list of those who have left. It includes William Burroughs, Charles Manson and film-maker Paul Haggis. Notably Haggis quit the organisation in response to the San Diego branch’s public support of California Proposition 8 and other factors, including Scientology’s “indefensible actions, and inactions” and lies. There have been numerous whistleblowers and critics of the network. All oppose its naked desire for money. In a new book about to be published called ‘Going Clear’, Lawrence taps into the imprisonment felt by members of the church. Why, when they are not bound by actual chains, do they not walk off and leave. The answer lies in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, where prisoners become attached to their captors. Members of scientology who turned their backs on the religion were told they owed thousands of dollars, impossible for them to ever be able to pay back. They owned no credit card or bank account.And any living relatives they might call upon were disowned long after they committed themselves.

All of this was going on right under the nose of Tom Cruise, who according to Wright allowed Scientolgy leaders to pimp for him, among other favours. Young women were told they had been chosen for a special program and had to give up their boyfriends.

But not everyone in Hollywood has been so smitten. Steven Speilberg told Haggis that Scientologists seemed like the nicest people and Mr Haggis responded that ‘we keep all the evil ones in the closet’. This was close enough to the truth that Haggis was in hot water with the scientologist powers-that-be, but he didn’t quit.

What finally caused him to leave was its refusal to endorse gay marriage. Haggis has two gay daughters so one can see why this would be an issue he would feel strongly on. But he could have left over so many other things.

Founder Ron Hubbard died in in 1996. He was replaced by Miscavige. A close friend of Tom Cruise, he was best man at his wedding to Katie Holmes. Miscavige has been accused of denigrating his staff, physically assaulting them, and generally causing them emotional torment.

Sometimes the reports on Scientology are so mired in rumor it can be hard to get to the truth, the church is like a totalitarian empire, one funded by members of the Hollywood aristocracy. Tjis is exactly why Going Clear is such essential reading.

He was great wasn’t he. Watching neighbours was one of the highlights of my childhood. I can still hear the famous theme tune in my head. I used to watch it at 530 before eating my dinner. Sometimes I’d even watch it in the afternoon as well. Good times!

In Australia they treat Ian Smith as a national institution.

See his waxwork below

His dummy is more lifelike, hahha.

When I was six I and a good friend talked to a stranger in town. He bought us ice cream and gave us money. We knew we shouldn’t have done it and that our parents would disapprove but we did it anyway. a similar thing happened on holiday.

later we found an abandoned tire in a playground on a housing estate. It was not illegal but we knew we were up to mischief. we placed a flat piece of scaffolding on a wall and rolled the tire down a slide, the tyre went down the slide and up on the wood. It seemed to carry on forever. we went in to eat dinner after that.

One time we were playing near our house. There was an old car by the side of the road. My friend wanted to see what was inside. He had a chain of keys, on which was a skeleton key. we opened the car but there was nothing inside worth taking. So we took a baseball bat and stones and smashed the hell out of it. There was glass and pieces of the car all over the place. A man came to tell us off but we got away on our bikes before he could do anything.

These events took place before my seventh birthday. At school the teacher laid out a set of bottles with varying amounts of water in them, to make differently pitched sounds. For some reason I decided to throw a cushion at the bottles. Some of the bottles smashed and there was water everywhere, to this day I still don’t know why I did it.

I destroyed more school property a few years later. There was a big pile of clay in the art room and we took our shoes of and jumped all over it, The clay was unusable after that. we payed for it out of our pocket money.

On April Fool’s day we decided to prank one of our friends whom we knew to be an easy target. We bought a can of shaving foam and knocked on his door, when he answered we sprayed the foam right in his face. I liked him and wish we hadn’t done it.  I was about eleven at the time.

Around the same time I kept a diary in which I would log what happened at school. I would keep track of my friends and award marks out of ten for how good a friend I thought they were, I left it out and the wrong people read it.

I did some things to my sisters that I regret, like pouring a bowl of cornflakes over my older sister when she wouldn’t allow me to watch what I wanted to on TV. Or the time when I hit my younger sister hard, just before we were about to have our photograph taken at school.

I never did anything devious or underhand though and I always expressed remorse, I guess that would separate me from a total psychopath wouldn’t it?

what else?

“Alfred Hitchcock Presents” The Glass Eye (TV episode 1957) – IMDb.

In 1981 Natalie Wood was on a yacht with her husband Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken. They had all been drinking heavily. The evening ended in tragedy when Nalie Wood fell off the boat and drowned.

This has long been one of Hollywood’s most mysterious deaths. Why was she arguing with Walken? And why was he on the boat in the first place?

Now new evidence has emerged that she had bruising on her arms. An addendum on her death certificate lists unexplained bruising on her arms and face as the reason officials changed the cause of death from drowning to “drowning and undertermined factors.”

“The location of the bruises, the multiplicity of the bruises, lack of head trauma, or facial bruising support bruising having occurred prior to entry in the water,” the amended report states. “Since there are unanswered questions and limited additional evidence available for evaluation, it is opined by this Medical Examiner that the manner of death should be left as undetermined,” Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran wrote in the report completed in June.

Wagner wrote in his diary argued that night. Did Wood leave the boat to get away from the argument? Wagner wrote that after the argument he went to bed. He woke to find that the dinghy that was attached to the boat and his wife  were missing.

Perhaps she was attempting to tie the dinghy back to the boat and slipped into the water? Nobody knows exactly what happened.

Lets face it, there are some books we will never get around to reading. Here is a list of books I know from the screen adaptations;

Pride and Prejudice/Sense and Sensibility/Mansfield Park

I haven’t read a single Austen novel. But directors seem to love her work. Every few years there is some kind of modern redux of Emma/PAP, so maybe I should give one of her books a try?

Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

I haven’t read this. But I do know the Merchant Ivory film, with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

This one pretty much every literary prize going. But I have only watched the Nicholas Cage film.

Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess. Both by Thomas Hardy

Hardy’s books are so depressing. The film version of Tess is by Polanski and makes short work of a very heavy going book.

Daphne Du Maurier

There have been several classic films loosely based on her stories. I like Don’t Look Now, The Birds and Rebecca the most.

Graham Greene

Apart from Stephen King, no twentieth century writer has had more of their novels turned into movies. Eg: Odd Man Out , Brighton Rock, The Third Man, The Human Factor, The End of the Affair and The Quiet American.

Dennis Lehane

I have only read one of his books. But Mystic River and Shutter Island were both based on books he wrote.

Edgar Allen Poe

His stories have been used for Hammer Horror shorts (Masque of the Red Death and The Black cat, to give only two.

House of the Spirits/Smila’s Feeling for Snow

Again, I have seen films based on both of these books.

Empire of the Sun – J G Ballard

I never finished the book, there is a Spielberg film with Christian Bale as the boy.

 Rodgers and Hart
Look at yourself, if you had a sense of humor
You would laugh to beat the band
Look at yourself, do you still believe the rumor
That romance is simply grand?

Since you took it right on the chin
You have lost that bright toothpaste grin
My mental state is all a-jumble
I sit around and sadly mumble

Fools rush in, so here I am
Very glad to be unhappy
I can’t win, but here I am
More than glad to be unhappy

Unrequited love’s a bore
And I’ve got it pretty bad
But for someone you adore
It’s a pleasure to be sad

Like a straying baby lamb
With no mammy and no pappy
I’m so unhappy
But oh, so glad!