The Boys in the Band is a 1970 American drama film directed by William Friedkin. The screenplay by Mart Crowley is based on his off-Broadway play of the same title. It is among the first major American motion pictures to revolve around gay characters and is often cited as a milestone in the history of "queer cinema".
The ensemble cast, all of whom also played the roles in the play's initial stage run in New York City, includes Kenneth Nelson as Michael, Peter White as Alan, Leonard Frey as Harold, Cliff Gorman as Emory, Frederick Combs as Donald, Laurence Luckinbill as Hank, Keith Prentice as Larry, Robert La Tourneaux as Cowboy, and Reuben Greene as Bernard. Model/actress Maud Adams has a brief cameo appearance as a fashion model in a photo shoot segment in the opening montage of scenes.
Plot summary
The film is set in an Upper East Side apartment in New York City in the late 1960s. Michael, a Roman Catholic and recovering alcoholic, is preparing to host a birthday party for his friend Harold. His other friend Donald, a self-described underachiever who has moved from the city, arrives and helps Michael prepare. Alan, an old and presumably straight college friend of Michael's, calls with an urgent need to see Michael. Michael reluctantly agrees and invites him to his home.
One by one, the guests arrive. Emory is a stereotypical flamboyant interior decorator; Hank, a soon-to-be-divorced schoolteacher, and Larry, a fashion photographer, are a couple, albeit one with monogamy issues; and Bernard is an amiable bookstore clerk. Alan calls again to inform Michael he isn't coming after all, and the party continues in a festive manner. However, Alan does appear unexpectedly and throws the gathering into turmoil.
"Cowboy" — a male hustler and Emory's "gift" to Harold — arrives. As tensions mount, Alan assaults Emory and in the ensuing chaos Harold finally makes his grand appearance. Michael begins drinking again. As the guests become more and more intoxicated, the party moves indoors from the patio due to a sudden downpour. Michael, who believes Alan is a closeted homosexual, begins a game in which the objective is to call the one person you truly believe you have loved. With each call, past scars and present anxieties are revealed. Michael's plan to "out" Alan with the game appears to backfire when he calls his wife. As the party ends and the guests depart, Michael collapses into Donald's arms, sobbing. When he pulls himself together, it appears his life will remain very much the same.
Production
The bar scene in the opening was filmed at Julius (New York City)[1]. Studio shots were at the Chelsea Studios in New York City.[2]
Soundtrack
Songs featured in the movie include "Anything Goes" performed by Harpers Bizarre during the opening credits, "Funky Broadway" by Wilson Pickett, "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave" by Martha and the Vandellas, and an instrumental version of "The Look of Love".
Critical reception
Critical reaction was, for the most part, cautiously favorable. Variety said it "drags" but thought it had "perverse interest." Time described it as a "humane, moving picture." The Los Angeles Times praised it as "unquestionably a milestone," but ironically refused to run its ads. Among the major critics, Pauline Kael, who disliked Friedkin, was alone in finding absolutely nothing redeeming about it.
Vincent Canby of the New York Times observed, "Except for an inevitable monotony that comes from the use of so many close-ups in a confined space, Friedkin's direction is clean and direct, and, under the circumstances, effective. All of the performances are good, and that of Leonard Frey, as Harold, is much better than good. He's excellent without disturbing the ensemble . . . Crowley has a good, minor talent for comedy-of-insult, and for creating enough interest, by way of small character revelations, to maintain minimum suspense. There is something basically unpleasant, however, about a play that seems to have been created in an inspiration of love-hate and that finally does nothing more than exploit its (I assume) sincerely conceived stereotypes."[3]
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."[4]
Home video releases
The Boys in the Band was released on VHS by Fox Home Entertainment on December 6, 1980. It was later released on laserdisc. The DVD, overseen by Friedkin, was released by Paramount Home Entertainment on November 11, 2008. Added material includes audio commentary; interviews with director Friedkin, playwright/screenwriter Crowley, Executive Producer Dominick Dunne, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tony Kushner, and two of the surviving cast members, Peter White and Laurence Luckinbill; and a retrospective look at both the off-Broadway 1968 play and 1970 film. Previous DVD editions actually were copies made to recordable DVD sources from the original 1980 VHS release.
Awards and nominations
Nelson was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor. The Producers Guild of America Laurel Awards honored Gorman and Frey as Stars of Tomorrow.
References
External links
