The Boys in the Band
by William Friedkin
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DVD details
Actor: Cliff Gorman, Frederick Combs, Kenneth Nelson, Leonard Frey, Peter WhiteDirector: William Friedkin
Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
Cinematographer: Arthur J. Ornitz
Editor: Carl Lerner
Editor: Gerald B. Greenberg
Producer: Dominick Dunne
Producer: Kenneth Utt
Producer: Mart Crowley
Writer: Mart Crowley
Producer: Robert Jiras
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-11-11
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of The Boys in the Band
DVD Review: A painful, immature world--portrayed brilliantly
Summary: 5 Stars
I've seen this movie twice, and neither time did it disappoint. It's an amazing realistic depictions of a painful, harsh, cruel world--the world of a group of pre-Stonewall (and thus pre-AIDS) gay men in New York City. They are hurt, damaged, raging, hyper-sexualized, insecure, and to varying degrees out of the closet. They despise the straight world--yet often struggle to emulate it. They despise themselves--yet so easily and comfortably torture each other verbally and emotionally--in the most vicious of ways. They are brilliant and witty--yet adolescent in their genius. They are competitive and nasty--yet also desperate for each other's love. They wield thick and powerful facades--yet have an amazing capacity for dropping their guards and being honest.
It's not an easy movie to watch--because of the overt expressions of internalized homophobia and cruelty--but, damn, this movie is brilliant. And what's most amazing about it to me is that although the movie is dated in some ways (I think it originally came out in 1968), it's shocking how little has changed. How many gay men still have radical internalized homophobia, still have terror coming out of the closet, still marry women and have kids because they can't handle the rejection of their family and friends and disturbed society, still act out sexually in the worst of ways despite the risks and the horror, still abuse external substances to deal with their internal pain, still wish they were straight, still try to dissociate through religion, still play the camp game to defend against their self-hatred, and still despise and torment other gay men even worse, half the time, than do straight people.
Our world, both gay and straight, still has a lot of growing up to do, and that fact that so much has stayed the same in over forty years should be one hell of a wake-up call.
DVD Review: The Gay Bible!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are a gay man of a certain age, this is THE film. To the previous generation of gay men, this is our version of "Torch Song Trilogy". A must have!!DVD Review: The landmark gay film of the Stonewall era
Summary: 5 Stars
William Friedkin's 1970 adaptation of THE BOYS IN THE BAND preserved so much of the original Mort Crowley play that it's almost a filmed testament of that incredibly important off-Broadway play about a group of gay men at a birthday party. Except for the fascinating credits sequence, which opens out the play to the rest of New York as the men travel through Manhattan to prepare for the party, the entirety of the film is confined to Michael's city apartment and its patio (which were owned in real life by the Broadway actress Tammy Grimes), which allows Friedkin to retain the play's overheated atmosphere. Crowley also did the screenplay, and kept almost all of his lines from the play; best of all, Crowley insisted the film retain the excellent cast of nine men who performed the play off-Broadway and who all did themselves honor here with their layered performances. So it's as exact a realization of the play as one might hope for, yet the actors scale down their performances for the screen quite adeptly and Friedkin imagines to make the film quite cinematic, as when the bizarre character of Harold, the party's birthday boy, makes his showstopping entrance halfway through the movie: Friedkin introduces him by closeups on his shoes, ring and velvet jacket, which arrests the whole proceedings and alerts you to how important and powerful this character is going to be to the rest of the film.
This is a landmark gay film, and was greatly criticized during the Eighties as retrograde and weakening for the gay cause; even today many gay men will complain about this film and object that it portrays gay men as self-loathing and cruel, and that it shows nothing of the more positive aspects of the late twentieth-century American gay community. Yet other gay men have argued that it shows an important side of who urban American gay men not only were in the years before Stonewall (the film is set in 1967) but even since. The fact that it can generate such controversy was part of Crowley's clear original intention, and part of the intelligence in the film is its ambivalence regarding certain key points germane to the films politics: why did Alan call Michael in tears in the first place? What is the nature of Harold's relationship with Michael, and what did Michael write on the engraved photo he gives Harold as a gift? What is the nature of Donald's complex friendship with Michael?
The entire cast is uniformly superb, although Leonard Frey as the alarming Harold (who gets most of the film's best lines) really outdoes himself and makes the greatest impression. The screenplay (like the play's script before it) owes too much in terms of its structure to WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, particularly in its last fifteen minutes of monstrous games, shattering revelations, and (most regrettable of all) sobbing catharses, but the film still overcomes that structural drawback.
DVD Review: Very satisfied...
Summary: 5 Stars
I am completely satisfied with this purchase and would not hesitate to buy again from this seller.DVD Review: Great Flick - Still Relevant and not Dated!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my coming out flick on first date! It was nice seeing it decades later! Great print and great extras!
Description of The Boys in the Band
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 11/11/2008 Run time: 119 minutes Rating: RA sensitive yet humorous adaptation of the stage play, this 1970 film directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) is one of the first films to openly address gay issues in a matter-of-fact style that largely avoids stereotyping. Shot on one set and featuring a birthday party as the festive setting, a group of friends assemble to celebrate, reminisce, and discuss their lives and the travails of being gay, even as one friend insists he's straight. The night turns from a light celebration to a sometimes-vindictive ordeal of revelation and betrayal, as each man in turn must confess his true feelings. Performed by the original cast of the stage production, the film may feel dated to some, but it still manages to be truthful and entertaining as it explores a subject that to this day is not often addressed. --Robert Lane
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