THE BOYS IN THE BAND – QFest St. Louis Review

Review by Mark Longden

THE BOYS IN THE BAND screens Wednesday, Mar. 29 at 9:00pm at the .ZACK (3224 Locust St., St. Louis, MO 63103) as part of this year’s QFest St. Louis. Ticket information can be found HERE

As well as new movies, St Louis’ wonderful Qfest (now in its tenth year) also shows classics of queer cinema that blazed a trail and inspire all sorts of different reactions today. “The Boys In The Band”, an off-Broadway play that was transplanted with the entirety of its cast to the screen, is one such. A review from a revival in 1999 said that, even at the time of its release, it had “the stain of Uncle Tomism”, and it’s been called a minstrel show. But it’s much more than that.

 Despite occasionally wonderful direction from William Friedkin (who made “The French Connection” the next year) , its origins as a stage play are very evident, as a group of gay men gather for the birthday party of Harold (Leonard Frey). Central to proceedings is host Michael (Kenneth Nelson), a recovering alcoholic with a fair degree of self-hate; his friend Donald (Frederick Combs) is in the city for the weekend. Then there’s the super-flamboyant Emory (Cliff Gorman), the straight-acting couple Hank (Laurence Luckinbill) and Larry (Keith Prentice); Bernard, who works in a bookshop (Reuben Greene, the sole person of colour in the cast); and then there’s “Cowboy” (Robert La Tourneaux), who’s Emory’s present for Harold.

 Crashing the party and sending the elaborate house of cards crashing down is Michael’s old college roommate Alan (Peter White); who phones Michael in tears, desperate to tell him some news. He’s going to come, then he isn’t, then he just turns up – he’s straight, and apparently doesn’t know Michael is gay.

 And from there, we see the happiness of the party, the back-biting, the straight-up abuse, and the soul-searching. It’s interesting to see how this movie featured gay stereotypes before there were names for those stereotypes, but one of the most important and interesting sections is how Hank and Larry discuss their relationship and the issue of fidelity.

 While we’ve still got a long way to go, and are even sliding backwards in some areas, the attitude to this movie on its release is almost as fascinating as the movie itself, showing just how society has changed. For example, the LA Times gave it a glowing review…but refused to run this advert for it:

 I think you can (and should) admire this movie in two ways. One is as an extraordinarily well-filmed character study – Friedkin takes two sets and a limited number of angles and makes it cinematic. You get the feeling he relished the challenge (while being a huge fan of the script and the play). The actors had been together for three years at this point and knew the characters inside and out, and it shows in every scene. Given it was the film debut for most of the cast, it’s even more impressive.

 Two is as a fascinating groundbreaking historical piece. When this was released, there were basically no out gay characters in cinema, at all, and just having them as actual human beings with lives and interests was huge. Although even this movie is a victim of its own times – in between the start of the play in 1967 and the movie in 1970, the Stonewall riots happened so gay liberation became a much bigger topic.

 We hope it’s easier to come out now, and a similar group of characters in 2017 wouldn’t need to live this sort of life, clinging to a group of people who seem to dislike each other in so many ways. It’s important to remember, though, that this was reality for some gay people, and many lives of quiet desperation were led. One final tragic element, especially today, is five of the movie’s cast died of AIDS-related illnesses.

 Thoroughly enjoyable and important, it’s a great film to go and see at this year’s Qfest.