The Fruit Machine

A beautiful, powerful and very much underrated British gritty gay thriller from the late 80's, released in the UK as The Fruit Machine and in the US as Wonderland. It is passionate, resolute, beautifully directed, filmed and played that I would have thought it would have been higher in the book Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time than the ranking it was given.

The Fruit Machine is a wonderful and poignant tale of growing up, it combines the rite of passage, buddy flick with a road movie genres in perfect symmetry and also shoves in a bit of a thriller just for the sake of it. BAFTA winner Philip Saville directs Emile Charles and Tony Forsyth as Eddie and Michael, two gay mates on the very brink of adulthood as they head into the adventure of their lives. These two friends may both be gay but their sexuality is the only thing they seem to have in common. In all other respects, they are as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese, Eddie is soft, gentle, sensitive and fragile. He adores nothing more than watching old classic black and white movies with his mum. Michael is much more streetwise, tough, manly and loves video games.

The story then follows them as they head away from the mean inner city streets and enjoy the wonderful seaside exuberant Brighton! Its so lovely, wonderfully made, easy to view, moving whilst also being funny.

Read more and find out where this film made it in the Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time book, search on Amazon for Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time, or visit - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007FU7HPO

Two gays teens on the run after seeing a brutal murder. It deals with homosexuality, racism, friendship & love.... and handles them all well, what more could ask from a movie! The acting is sincere, the directing well paced. Overall this is a very entertaining movie

The film "Wonderland" (aka "The FruitMachine") is a surprisingly dippy, imaginative romp involving two gay teenaged boys who happen to witness a gangland murder and are forced to flee Liverpool for Brighton. The film takes many inventive turns, several of which involve Eddie's dream lover, a man-dolphin hybrid who actually appears at crucial moments in the film to save Eddie and his partner, Michael. There are many subplots and colorful supporting characters, and the ending, albeit sad, is inevitable. It's worth it if only for the dance sequence at the Fruit Machine, a gay showbar in Liverpool, in which Michael competes for thirty quid. His dance is both erotic and touchingly naive. Both boys, Emile Charles and Tony Forsyth, should have had big careers in film. Apart from one distracting editing lapse that blunts the finale, this is a superior film, in that it refuses to indulge in stereotyping and doesn't condescend to its lead characters.

After viewing "Silence Like Glass", I was fascinated by the strength of Mr. Payne's performance and wanted to discover his "film roots". The closest I could get to, (until I saw "Privates on Parade"), was "The Fruit Machine", or as its known by me, "Wonderland". Mr. Payne's "Echo" leaves ripples in his wake...

No plot spoilers. I saw this on tv when it was made,1988? Younger viewers might be surprised that Channel 4 used to make some great dramas as well as some awful ones. Now it shows reality crap and horse racing.

I recall liking and being a bit shocked when I saw this. There is not a lot to the story but it is a trip back to the 1980s I suppose. I had looked for a long time for the dvd and am a bit disappointed that I did not enjoy watching the film more than I did