"The Boys in the Band" DVD Review

Whether you're a defender of the film or not, it's hard to deny that The Boys in the Band is an aggressively unpleasant look at gay life in the late 60's. While these nine men (eight of whom are actually gay, as far as we know) range in temperament from easygoing to vicious, as the booze flows and the tempers flare each has an ugly moment or two (or, in the case of Harold, Emory and Michael, 30 or 40). And considering that the film is also unabashedly gay and discusses queer issues such as relative effeminacy, being closeted, and monogamy throughout, it would be easy to connect the relative unpleasantness of the characters to their sexuality.

Cliff Gorman and Reuben Greene
 

But this is ultimately short-sighted. Particularly from a perspective of 2008, the film works well as a look back at a generation of men who were unsure of their next steps. They were out and proud behind closed doors, but deeply closeted in the face of an old college friend or a high school crush. They hid behind witty bon mots and pop cultural references, designer labels and casual racial and religious bigotry. In the most extreme cases, their keyed-up survival instincts caused them to lash out against their own support systems, leading to an exhausting stalemate.

Thanks to the uncompromising script by playwright Crowley and brilliantly observed direction by William Friedkin (who would cross paths with gay audiences a decade later with Cruising), this is all impressively realized. It's a crackling, captivating couple of hours with a group of larger-than-life characters that pulls you in with promise of cocktail party delights and leaves you wrung out like a damp dishrag. It's not a pleasant film to watch, by any means ... but it is ultimately rewarding.

I was actually impressed with how well most of the characters and performances hold up 40 years later. With the exception of Emory (whose performance now seems overdone when compared to the rest ... and does he remind anyone else of Marty Feldman by way of Ellen Greene?), the characters are uniformly believable and most wouldn't seem out-of-place in a movie (or even at a party) in 2008.

Cliff Gorman and Frederick Combs
 

Thanks to the sharp script and excellent ensemble, the characters are highly accessible and fairly complex, which for 1970 was beyond revolutionary for a mainstream film tackling gay themes. Even from the perspective of someone who has grown up seeing gay characters in films, I found them to be an uncommonly well-rendered group.

Still, the games that these men play are not for the weak-hearted and likely beyond what many viewers will care to sit through. And while there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the scotch-soaked evening, the second half of the film is an exercise in psychological warfare that may be too much for some folks to handle. (It's no surprise that the original stage production was produced by the people behind Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

But thanks to the stellar performances and vital role the stage show and movie played in gay entertainment history, even gay viewers who generally aren't up for this kind of grueling dramatic exercise should give it a shot.