Franklin Pangborn

Susannah York, left, and Coral Browne in "The Killing of Sister George.”

Gays on camera

In the past, movies merely implied the existence of homosexuality, usually in a comic vein, now the films have become more blatant, treating the subject in all seriousness

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geant with only fairly recent longings for males, grabbed John Philip Law and kissed him full on the lips.

"The Sergeant" was to set no trend in movies, perhaps because it wasn't flamboyant enough. The screen at that time, as now, has no interest in a restrained exploration of homosexuality, but a sensational one.

One of the earliest steps was taken with "Tea and Sympathy," in which a young man, unsure of his manhood, is assured at the end by an older woman who has grown to hate her husband. She goes to bed with the youth.

Latent homosexuality is at the core of "Tea and Sympathy" and it is presented in a sympathetic light, or at least in an understanding one.

"Tea and Sympathy” did better onstage than on screen and no great successes were made in its image.

“The Killing of Sister George," which on stage intimated a lot but was fairly restrained, threw restraint to the wind when it was made into a movie.

Robert Aldrich directed. One scene involving some exploration of Susannah York by Coral Browne did a lot for the box office.

When it was showing in New York, the box office would list on a placard the moments at which this scene was scheduled.

A few moments before the appointed hour, tired businessmen would charge out of offices, pay their $4, go in, watch the scene and come charging out again to go back to work.

Usually they made this trip because they didn't trust the veracity of the people who told them this scene was actually in the movie. There was little repeat business.

Interviewing Aldrich in connection with the opening of the picture, I asked him why he had to be so blatant about the details of homosexuality, the play having done quite well onstage merely by implication.

"The people in the big cities would understand, but maybe not the people in Canton, O.” He said this possibly without realizing that I was from Ohio and that this might get back to Canton and turn people there against him on the ground that they don't like to be considered retarded.

It was a surprising answer, even considering that I understood he wasn't concerned about the people in Canton, O., alone, but with people in less advantaged communities everywhere.

It is a peculiar lack of trust from 2 moviemaker, but by not trusting the people in Canton, O., and putting this scene in, Aldrich made a lot of money. It is hard to underestimate the taste of movie audiences today.

It took awhile for moviemakers to realize Just how much audiences would accept. "The Killing of Sister George” let them know the bars were down.

The average run-of-the-box-office movies didn't do much with homosexuality as a main theme after that, but soft porn movies did. It got se there wasn't a soft porn made, so far as I could tell from seeing a smattering of them, that lacked a lesbian scene or two.

Male homosexuality remains unexplored in this detail on screen, probably because most of the people who go to these movies are males and straights; to them male homosexuality is offensive, lesbianism is less so.

"The Boys in the Band" was a translation to screen of a forthright play about male homosex. uality that had considerable dramatic impact but little effect on the box office.

Apparently, serious exploration of the an guish of homosexuality, which is at the heart of "Boys in the Band," made people uncomfortable.

As more homosexuality keeps showing up in movies, more people keep looking for it, with odd results.

“A lot of people say Hal, the computer in 'Space Odyssey,' is a homosexual," said Anger, the black-humor historian. "Consider: Hal kills the rest of the astronauts to be alone with the Keir Dullea character."