Nighthawks

This extraordinary film was made in 1978 - almost forty years ago. The Sexual Offences Act in Britain had come into effect in 1967 decriminalizing sexual acts between two men in private at the age of 21.

Clearly, seven years on from then, a huge liberation had occurred, but homosexuality was still hampered by amazing ignorance and intolerance in general British society. There was still the fear of being branded 'queer' or 'bent', and becoming bereft of a livelihood and an income, and viewed as repugnant by family and those around where you lived.

This film cannot be valued enough. It's breathtaking in its lack of polemic. It's just about gay men getting on with their lives in their particular period. What's so interesting is that their sad search for love then is no different to the search now.

Nighthawks is an interesting study of gay life in London and at the time it was made it was those heady 70s, post liberation and pre-AIDS. This kind of film was not made again so soon either here or across the pond where Nighthawks originated.

This is a study of Kenneth Robertson who is a young geography teacher at one of London's inner city schools by day and by night he's living the life of a gay man whose only venue is the bar scene. We see him picking up a lot of men, but it's only a series of one night stands. Neither Robertson or Diane Keaton is destined to find Mr. Goodbar to spend a life with.

The climax of the film is when his students find out about him and confront him in class. He answers a lot of their questions, their most ignorant questions since these are kids who have not exactly been exposed to positive gay role models. Since then a lot of positive LGBT characters have been on the big screen, the small screen, and a ton of well known people in all walks of life have left the closet behind. And not for a hedonistic existence that Robertson enjoys.

Many films like Nighthawks fall into a category like this. Stonewall has come, liberation has come, we'll get our rights, but let the good times roll. That's the attitude that dates Nighthawks now.

Still it makes an interesting view of the times.

The problem with this look at late 70's British gay lifestyle, is that it is a little too realistic to carry off with any sort of interest. Like most stories about people on the hunt for romance/sex etc., it is incredibly introspective. Ken Robertson is a really quite dull, full of himself "Jim" - a teacher by day who looks for love in gay pubs/clubs at night. He picks up an array of folks, sometimes he has sex, sometimes not.... same old, same old... (regardless of your sexuality). If it weren't for the fact that it was set just before the dawn of Mrs. Thatcher's Clause 28 Britain, which at the time of course, this Ron Peck story would not have been able to anticipate - it would constitute little more than a melodrama with some very dodgy music and lacklustre tales of one night stands... As a semi-anthropological study of a gay man in London it is vaguely interesting, but any claims it may make to take a deeper look at the sociological themes of the time, or of attitudes are just bridges too far. It does have quite a telling Q&A style discourse at the end that illustrates the stereotypical attitudes of teenage kids that could have been made much more of, had the film itself not focused so much on the rather dreary existence of the subject.

This could almost be a documentary, it's depiction of the gay male lifestyle is so realistic. A brilliant film unlike any others in the genre. No fantasies here, just honesty (though obviously made before AIDS was an all-too common fear).

This film is the story of Jim, a man who's a comprehensive (middle) school teacher by day and gay man by night in the late 80's. It was the time before AIDS when Men wore Levi's and mustaches and before Calvin Klein made tighty whities sexy again.

Jim does the rounds, going to bars to meet men. The string of men lengthens one after the other; some attracted to him some he's attracted to. But, there's never a mutual attraction. As with so many bar-met men, getting to bed is easy, getting to a second date is not.

The film takes an interesting turn when one day in class, he's asked if he's ` Bent'. He answers yes and then proceeds to answer the other questions that the students pose.

Like most things in life, this film doesn't end with all the loose threads tied up neatly. However, for those of us that lived through this period, it is an interesting film.