Boys in the Band

What makes this film work exceptionally well, is the fact that the entire cast was originally in the Stage version of the play - which lends to the characters cohesiveness and full understanding of the role. I have rarely, if ever, seen such a whirlwind of acting talent combine to create one of the most human prtrayals yet on celuloid. Despite the "gay" theme of the movie, TBITB is about being human - we all have our particular baggage, but we are all human.

Author Marv Crowley writes from the heart - as all of the lines can clearly be seen to issue from the depths of his psyche. A film like this would never be made today, because it questions too much, there are no easy answers and nothing is wrapped up at the end - all tidy with a bright bow.

This is a film for the ages, while at the same time capturing a time and place that never can (or should?) be repeated. And it certainly was never equalled again by director William Friedkin who went on to helm the disastrous and insulting "gay" film "Cruising".

While most film adaptations of stage plays often seem wooden or fall under the weight of their own material - TBITB is perhaps the best reworking of a play for the cinema, in that the utter claustrophobia of the plot and characters works exceptionally well in the one apartment set - (i.e. "closeted"?).

Unfortunately, most of the cast is dead, so there wont ever be a reunion - but this film will live on as one of the greats.


Gay Cinema 101 - Classic   September 18, 2007
Michael McCLain (West Chester, Pennsylvania United States)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Having seen this movie over 10 years ago, I began the long search to find it on DVD. Learning that it was only put on DVD outside the USA, I managed to find it and track down what I thought never existed - a crisp clean copy of it on DVD is something to behold.

Yes, this is pure bitchy gay camp - but even more important, it shows a slice of gay life that is rarely seen. Every character in this movie works, pays bills, wants a partner, wants to be loved, and struggles to get through their past life and the life that they are now living.

This is a classic example of how a play should be adapted, given that most of the cast appeared in the original show, it lends freshness and a real quality that no one else could have played. The lines delivered by anyone else would seem forced...the natural ease with which they deliver their performance is something to behold.

I have now seen this movie more times than I want to admit to, but I will watch it whenever I need a good laugh, and a reminder that gya men can play gay men and make a decent movie. Hollywood needs to take note of this movie and let me write the updated version of it. Made with the current gay actors in Hollywood today, this movie could be a huge success...there are no parts for Nathan Lane to jack up - since he would not be a fit for the movie!

Seek it out on VHS or DVD, whenever/wherever you can get this movie, pay the price for it and be happy with this piece of cinema that every gay man should own and watch once a month.




There Are Straight Fans Too   August 25, 2008
Pelaphus (Long Island City, New York USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

I, as well, eagerly acquired a fullscreen DVD of this film from a VHS master. I discovered this play via the film when I was a teenager. (I had a VERY progressive-minded grandma, for an old-world Russian immigrant, who took me to see it -- and her only question, when it was over, was, "If you're with people like that, could you be like them?" I assured her it didn't work like that, which she seemed to need to hear. Over her, happily many, remaining years she could not have been warmer to my gay friends and colleagues.) I thought it was just swell, bought the cast album (which I still own) and while I agree it can be viewed as an artifact of another time, it was pretty powerful stuff for a young and naive straight male to see IN its time, because it was really the first compassionate, coherent mainstream presentation of a subset of society that had otherwise been marginalized, ridiculed, handled dismissively or simply inaccurately. The film is a somewhat darker experience than the play (Friedkin and/or Crowley introduce an unexpected rainstorm into the proceedings, which forces a patio party into the living room where Michael's claustrophobic variation of the Truth game takes place) but it sure is something to experience the energy of those original guys.

A good number of the play's original cast (and its director, Robert Moore) did indeed perish of AIDS-related illnesses, as reported here by others, but not all. Cliff Gorman (Emory), married and hetero (whose biggest claim to fame was playing Lenny Bruce in Julian Barry's play LENNY on Broadway, not long after the film of TBITB put him in the public eye), died of non-AIDS related cancer; Laurence Luckinbill (Hank), former husband of Robin Strasser, currently husband to Lucie Arnaz, is very much alive, and has remained active as actor, writer, director and producer (he has played historical figures in one-man shows, some of which he authored, including Lyndon Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt and Clarence Darrow); and Peter (Alan) White (orientation unknown to me) has pretty much never stopped working as a ubiquitous TV character actor.

For those interested, Crowley wrote a published and Amazon-purchaseable sequel to this play called THE MEN FROM THE BOYS (in a volume called THE "BAND" PLAYS). The sequel is set 30 years later and, though interesting, really depends on your knowing the first play for any genuine impact.


A "Must" for all Gay Men   June 18, 2004
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

As a friend once put it, the first time you see it (usually in college or freshly minted out-of-the-closet) you're horrified because it is full of self-loathing queens. The second time, in your twenties or after a bit moving in the stream of gay life, you're into it because it's campy and fun. The third time, once you've been around a block more times than you can remember, you love it because it's TRUE! While certainly not to be included in any catalogue of PRIDE-ful moments (and as such was the source of great controversy in the 1970s), this is a film that touches on crucial aspects of gay identity that have remained fairly constant in the post-Stonewall period, a series of questions: sexual and emotional fidelity, pride, self-hatred, fraternal destruction, and gay friendship. Or, another way to put it and to borrow Adrienne Rich's phraseology, "lies, secrets, and silence." The telephone game is the dramatic high point of the film (don't try this at home kids, unless you're three sheets to the wind and have an old rotary phone in the garage!), underscoring the complicated histories gay men bring to their desires. For others, this is the low point of self-loathing, but I find the actors rescue the scene with tenderness and emotive power. For me, the saving grace of the film and its central message is the denouement of Harold's committment to his friendship with the hideous lush Michael, who, after suffering a night of Michael's Gin and Ton witticisms honed to a razor sharp edge while languidly flipping through "The Films of Joan Crawford" (a nice touch), and after reading him within an inch of his life, tells Michael, with real feeling, "Call you tomorrow." And who can't appreciate friendship like that? With this, the film brings to the fore the essence of gay survival, which is friendship, and for that is worthy of viewing and LOVE (and a DVD).