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The Celluloid Closet Reviews

1995
1 hr 45 mins
Documentary
R

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Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the Oscar-winning team behind "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt," directed this witty history of gays in cinema, featuring interviews with actors and screenwriters, and archival footage. Narrated by Lily Tomlin, the documentary is peppered with wry remarks and clips from "The Children's Hour," "The Boys in the Band" and many other films.

A rare treat and a potential revelation for movie buffs of every persuasion. When Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet was published in 1981, its comprehensive compendium of gay stereotypes and subterfuges in movie history -- delivered with ruefully biting wit -- was groundbreaking. In 1996 it's old hat. That quibble aside, this film has one glorious asset Russo's book lacked: clips, clips and more clips. DRACULA'S DAUGHTER seducing a dewy young model. Jane Russell trying to vamp a gym full of curiously aloof bodybuilders in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. Laurence Olivier putting the moves on hunky slave boy Tony Curtis in SPARTACUS. Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean in the earnestly tolerant MAKING LOVE. The images are worth a thousand words -- particularly the ones pompously intoned by narrator Lily Tomlin at all the wrong moments.