Le Piège à pédales

No, it's not the most right-on of movies, but it could have been so much worse. Michael Greer fought very hard with the producers and directors to soften the worst edges of stereotyping in Malcolm, and I think he injected a teensy-weensy bit of realism. Greer, who also played Queenie in 'Fortune and Men's Eyes', was, rare for the time, an out gay actor and his honesty and his activism should be acknowledged. Given his talent, he sacrificed a much more lucrative Hollywood career because he wouldn't 'tone it down' (ie. pretend).

Incidentally, Keith Howes 'Broadcasting It' says that this was the first film ever to be turned down by the BBC on the grounds that it was offensive to homosexuals, but no more details than that. Has anyone heard of this, and do they have any idea of when the BBC became so solicitous of our feelings?

When "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" came out in the summer of 2007, it jogged my memory about a movie called "The Gay Deceivers" that was out when I was in junior high and which I was too young to see. Netflix didn't own a copy, but evidently they keep track of who inquires on movies they don't have and send it out when they get it. So boom, "The Gay Deceivers" arrives by surprise in my mailbox six months later. Regarding the review headlined, "Offensive and Unfunny", I'm going to say just one thing, in my campiest voice, "Oh Mary, lighten up". (How dare they make a movie in 1969 that offends my 21st century sensitivities!) Yes, some of it is hard to watch, maybe for me especially. It was made about the time of my sexual awakening, and some of the stereotypes depicted underscored for me why I had grown up with so much internalized homophobia. But they were making a farce and all they had to work with was how gays were perceived at the time. It's a little too much to expect them to have transcended the thinking of the time in which it was filmed. But on the other hand, some of it is still laugh out loud funny. Especially the scene where Michael Greer makes breakfast. I laughed, then I turned to my partner of fifteen years and said, "I suppose as a gay man I ought to be offended, but it's just so silly!"

So two guys try to convince the army that they are gay to avoid being sent off to war. Of course, they decide they have to move in together, next door to the queeny landlord. Michael Greer should have received SOME award for this work. Lawrence Casey and Christopher Riordan were pretty much just hired to spend the movie with their shirts off. Kevin Coughlin and his big blue eyes do a great job in a very believe-able role. Watch out - that drag queen at the party is the butchest one in the flick. On the DVD from Dark Sky Films, there is a funny bonus interview with director Bruce Kessler. The big difference between this film and ones like "Chuck & Larry" or "Partners" is that this one treats the actual gays living in their natural habitat with a lot of respect, albeit with some stereotypes (the pink, the nudes, the ascots). I understand... at that time, that's how you knew who was gay and who was not. Fun for the most part. They spend so much time worrying about getting caught by their family, friends, or the army, that its a little more serious than it needs to be. Also some frontal female nudity and butt shots. Hats off to the actors for having the guts to make it.

I saw this via YouTube May 12, 2018. Not great, but also not as bad as some people say. It's a mildly diverting farce offering comedic bits of average cleverness that must have seemed more clever in 1969. "Stereotype" cannot begin to capture the degree of subtlety on offer here. Michael Greer's portrayal of the guys' landlord, Malcolm, just seems crazy today, but everyone else in the movie, whether straight or gay, male or female, old or young, civilian or military, is similarly broadbrushed. A farce will do that. The story ingredients combine the response of Vietnam era young men facing the military draft with the status of gay people as not "normal". This farcical recipe had the misfortune of being overtaken by events only a few years later. Centuries old customs and understandings, thought permanent without even having to think about them, changed very fast. The movie was released in the year of Stonewall. The draft ended January 1, 1973, the United States' involvement in the Vietnam war a few weeks after that. Later that year the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its catalogue of mental disorders. Gone in less than four years was the movie's gay vs. "normal" dialectic . Gone as well was the story's premise of a military draft. The focus of conflict between gays and the military shifted to that of barring gays wanting to serve in the armed forces. There is a limit to how much blame attaches to making what was at the time, strangely enough, a mainstream, financially successful R-rated movie. It's hard enough to make any movie, let alone one that can anticipate sudden changes in what plausibly appeared at the time of filming to be the established patterns of life, law, and thinking, however much things needed to change. And did.

I'm nuts about films from the 60s and this was a pretty adequate comedy about being gay to get out of going to Vietnam. It is interesting to see how gays were being represented in the popular cinema during a time when homosexuality was still pretty underground. But for me it was interesting knowing that the producer-director team of this film also made ANGELS FROM HELL, one of my favorite biker films. Weird, huh?