Le troisième sexe

What can you possibly say about a film that a) portrays homosexuality as evil and even diabolic and that b) was made by the infamous Veit Harlan, director of nazi-propaganda-films like "Jud Süß" and "Kolberg"? Well, it's surprisingly quite entertaining, despite (or because of) its reactionary message. An extremely simple plot, melodramatic twists, great villains and a great score and a guest appearance by Oskar Sala (...Hitchcock's "Birds", anyone?) provides you with the viewing pleasure you have the right to ask for. This is true document of German "Spießertum" (look it up in your German dictionary) ... :)

This film was meant as a condemnation of Adenauer's Germany and its vicious attack on homosexuals following WW2. Veit Harlan's film was cut to shreds and no version of it which is available can be trusted. It is still on the Banned list of films in the UK and nobody has submitted it again for certification. What is left of the film is still very well worth seeing. That the son is ' cured ' is a very debatable issue but what is not debatable are the cruel facts in Germany's LGBT history that punishment for homosexuals was in law up until 1994. It is a fact which is still a stain on supposedly Post-Nazi history. One small fact is that I received a shocking letter from a survivor of those times. He said that two men entering a room together were arrested. I believe him. Watch what is left of the film and realise that Fascism was still alive and well, and who gives a damn for Paula Wessely and her great actress reputation. It was a crime then to make any positive statements, and the film that is available shows a few if you watch carefully. It is not a cinematic masterpiece but is still relevant today as persecutions continue in many countries including Capital Punishment and with the rise of the extreme Right in Europe Germany itself could still learn from it.

Sixty years after it premiered, I saw the West German film, «Different from You and Me (Article 175)». Made in 1957 by "Nazi-friendly" filmmaker Veit Harlan, it is also known as "The Third Sex", which was its original title. Despite the time elapsed, it was like travelling in a time machine and listening to stone-age notions about human sexuality. Moreover, I felt I was watching a portrait of the repressive Panamanians who had recently marched in the streets with apocalyptic hatred in their hearts to exterminate all that does not fit in their 1957 notions of sex life. I do not doubt that the origins can be found even further back in time.

By 1962 when I was about 11 years old, "The Third Sex" was still in the local cinema circuit. I never saw the movie, and I did not even try in adolescence. By then I was more curious about Isabel Sarli's mega-bosom and her adventures in waterfalls and beaches, until the British Protestant boys appeared and seduced us all, with the Beatles and Malcolm McDowell leading hordes of rebels. Nevertheless, the influence of "The Third Sex" lasted everywhere.

The film was made as an argument against the 175 article, which criminalized homosexual acts, even in the privacy and with the consent of the adults involved. However it was mainly used to alert (straight) adults of the "dangers of homosexuality and its vectors", and to give parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and teachers basic instructions on how to "cure" the children of "the plague".

The leading characters are people that "moral majorities" always seem to follow and respect. Members of the petty bourgeoisie, social "wannabes" between being or not being, between having or not having, who go to mass but curse as soon as they exit the church, etcetera... you know them well. The film tells how a "decent" family mother (with the looks of not having sex in more than a decade, judging by the boredom inspired by her banker husband) "saves" her son from the grip of "homosexualism", inducing him to have sex with the maid.

The young man seems quite normal to me, a painter in the making, willing to live "la vida loca", but naïve enough to hang around with men who are either impertinent, foolish and corny, or depraved and corrupt. The wholesome proletarian girl serving the family is the perfect potion, according to mother, a practice that is still common in many homes, behind closed doors. Momma the Witch Doctor goes to trial accused of procuring and before a sentence is pronounced, we watch her story in flashback.

Despite being a piece that did not pass the test of time, «Different from You and Me» is fascinating to see, as not to forget how cruel we humans can be. In short, if we persist on reading only bibles and (disguised) Nazi manifestos to learn about our human essence, we will continue to live on this planet of the apes.

ANDERS ALS DU UND ICH (Different From You And Me), a 1957 gay-themed film from Germany, has always had a bad reputation due to it's Nazi-era director, Viet Harlan, who was said to have done for queers here what he did for Jews in his infamous JUD SUSS (1940), but, in fact, the opposite is true. This highly entertaining film would, despite it's ignorance (homosexuality can be cured by having sex with a woman), have been quite progressive if German censors didn't cut the parts they felt were "advertizing homosexuality" since those deleted and altered scenes (included on the DVD) were actually pleas for tolerance and understanding. For instance, someone tells a mother who's son is gay that it's fate but that was changed to him telling her she shouldn't just accept it and a gay lawyer, the picture of normalcy and the voice of reason amid all the hysteria, advocated either abstinence or monogamy (still relevant in this day and AIDS) but was excised altogether. Gay bars were also said to be condoned by the government so homosexuals could have a place to go but that was out, too, of course, and what's left is "artistic" teens seduced by a chicken hawk at parties where the floor is cleared for some Greco-Roman wrestling. In the uncut version, a mother goes to prison for procuring the services of the family maid to seduce her son (which shows how counter-productive the laws criminalizing homosexuality were) but in the cut film, what she did wasn't so bad and she only gets probation. Melodramatic, absorbing, and absolutely fascinating -a must see, I must say!

Former UFA director Harlan was cleared of war crimes in 1948, claiming he was only following orders and that Goebbels tampered with his JUD SUSS but judging by what the censors did to DIFFERENT FROM YOU AND ME (an implicitly prejudiced title changed from the original THE THIRD SEX) there might be some truth to that.

A German movie from the 1950ies, showing how a homosexual is "cured"? Directed by a notorious antisemitic Nazi director? Before we bash it with all our power let's take a closer look: A young man of 17 years is a gifted painter and feels misunderstood by his father, a bank manager who apparently doesn't know anything in life but money. His best friend is a young lyricist, living with his poor mother. The lyricist is the protégé of an homosexual art dealer who attracts the young painter, too, because he is obviously a valuable conversational partner for him. The father, suspecting his son's interest in abstract art and electronic music to be an expression of abnormal behavior, sues the art dealer to have seduced the son - without any reason, not to mention evidence. Meanwhile the mother, who shares her husband's fear that her son might be gay, also tries to "cure" him by successfully making a match between him (who never said of himself to be gay) and her maid. The art dealer gets to know about that and sues the parents for procuration, hoping in vain to defend himself from the father's legal attack. In the end the mother is convicted while the art dealer is arrested - still without any reason and admittedly without a warrant. All in all not as homophobic as many reviews want us to believe. It comes better: There are indeed many homophobic statements in the film, but if you watch carefully you'll see that they all are DUBBED (except for those of the father which intendedly characterize him as an unteachable square), and that the unmotivated arrest of the gay art dealer was obviously filmed later (maybe even by another director and/or DOP) because it matches neither the movie's style nor plot!

Fortunately the Filmmuseum München (Munich Film Museum) has undertaken the effort to find footage from the original version of the movie, called "Das dritte Geschlecht" ("The 3rd Sex"), and has just released a DVD of "Anders als du und ich" (European PAL, region code 0, German soundtrack with optional English subtitles) which provides the movie not only in stunning technical quality but also with extensive extra features including comparisons of all edited scenes with their original version. And these original scenes are far from homophobic! To give you just one example, in the edited version the lyricist's mother tells the painter's uncle (who joins the father in searching for his son) that she knows her son is gay and that she has learned to accept it, and the man replies that she mustn't accept it. In the original version he simply replies: Well, that's fate. A multitude of more examples prove without doubt that the original intention of the film was remarkably enlightened, and the superb and highly recommended DVD edition even contains a ROM part with documents that explain why the alterations were performed: The "Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle", a German film rating organization comparable to the MPAA, rejected the original version - for "advertising" homosexuality!

To get that straight (sorry for the pun): All this doesn't make Mr Harlan a saint. There are elements in the film that are hard to explain: Why is the art dealer filmed in a sort of demonic light during his all-male soirées? Maybe to parody the society's view on homosexuality? If so this would be a risky approach.

In the end we cannot accuse Mr Harlan of homophobia but certainly of naiveté: He, who always claimed that Goebbels (Hitler's "secretary of propaganda") had not only forced him to shoot "Jud Süß" but also destroyed his own non-antisemitic cut of the film (there are at least clues to support his version of the story) should have been warned that something similar could happen again and that this in conjunction with his reputation would destroy any noble message he may have wanted to communicate.

All in all a highly interesting and truly unique historical document of the situation of homosexuals in Germany very far "before Stonewall".