QCA Film: The Boys In The Band

There was a long period in film in which homosexuals were either portrayed as laughable dandies or loathsome predators. William Friedkin’s The Boys in the Band was a groundbreaking rupture to this humiliating trend. It was film in 1970 based off the 1968 Off-Broadway production of the same name and portrayed pre-Stonewall life among seven gay men and a hustler gathering for a friend’s birthday (cocktails, drama, and a cat-and-mouse game of Out-The-“Straight”-Guy ensue).
There’s plenty to love in the film. The chemistry between friendship and desire is palpable and understandably so. Not only is each character adorably fractured, but they’re also played the original cast of the stage play’s initial run. Robert La Tourneaux as the “Cowboy” (the hustler) is both sexy and di, and Leonard Frey as Harold (the birthday boy) is majestic in his self-possessed bitchiness. The film, The Broken Hearts Club has been called a modern homage to The Boys In The Band, although one that was definitely more mainstream and upbeat.
Well, lucky you… The Boys In The Band is due out for the first time on DVD November 11th. In a San Francisco Chronicle review of a 1999 revival of the film, Edward Guthmann recalled, “By the time Boys was released in 1970 . . . it had already earned among gays the stain of Uncle Tomism.” He called it “a genuine period piece but one that still has the power to sting. In one sense it’s aged surprisingly little – the language and physical gestures of camp are largely the same – but in the attitudes of its characters, and their self-lacerating vision of themselves, it belongs to another time. And that’s a good thing.”
Watch several film clips after the jump and decide for yourself…