233: "The Kremlin Letter" with George Sanders

“The Kremlin Letter” (1970)
Directed by John Huston
Screenplay by Gladys Hill, and John Huston, adapted from the novel by Noel Behn
George Sanders as “The Warlock”

John Huston’s films are usually a particular type of worldly, cynical entertainment. His films are made for a mature audience, and since here Huston takes advantage of the then recent loosening up of screen classification codes, “mature” can also mean a certain amount of “sexing things up”.
If you’re going to have a gay spy then it’s probably going to be a lot more credible to have a gay English spy. Particularly, as later in the film he’s having a relationship with a Russian. Other than showing him in a clinch, what more dramatic way of proving he’s homosexual than performing in drag in a gay bar? Otherwise “The Warlock” is a perfectly capable spy, so no sissy insinuations of incapability. It’s not played harshly for laughs, although Saunders is a rather bulky woman, and the big cigar avidly stuck in an older and partially de-dragged face makes for a deliberately grotesque contrast. I think you’d be hard-pressed, other than the twitching of the lips when he sights his prey in the museum, to argue that it’s a stereotypically gay performance, that Sanders plays it more queeny than any of his other roles. I’ve read one or two reviews that argue that playing in drag is a humiliation for sanders, to which the only reply is, “Have you seen the poor man in ‘Psychomania’?”

Should we see anything special in the bar being situated in San Francisco, in 1969? Probably not too much. It’s a very stylish brittle crowd (haughty faces and flapping hands), looking as though they’ve all escaped from “I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet” (circa 1966) – so maybe not that au courant actually.

232: "Theatre of Blood" with Vincent Price

from “Theatre of Blood” (1973)
written by Anthony Greville-Bell
Directed by Douglas Hickox

Vincent Price: Edward Lionheart
Diana Rigg: Edwina Lionheart
Coral Browne: Chloe Moon

If you haven’t seen “Theatre of Blood” then why not? Vincent Price plays Edward Lionheart, a murderous Shakespearian actor determined to avenge himself on a circle of critics. Each critic is killed off by Lionheart in a manner alluding to a particular play, and in each instance Lionheart indulges a taste for playacting.
Here we have Price as Lionheart pretending to a gay hairdresser called “Butch”. And Diana Rigg as a young women pretending to a snide male hairdresser (which is a sufficiently Shakespearian conceit in its own right).
Like Sellers’s performance, it’s a variant on the languorous primping, slightly predatory poof, leaning limply against the nearest support. There’s even a “duckie” thrown if for good measure. Some rather heavy emphasis when Butch says “gay” or “camp”, just so you don’t miss it. I’m going to pretend the Shakespeare quote featuring “faggots” is purely accidental.

231: "A Day at the Beach" with Peter Sellers (1970)

A surprise cameo by Peter Sellers and his good friend Graham Stark in “A Day at the Beach” (1970). The script was written by Roman Polanski who was due to direct the film too. Sharon Tate was murdered just as he was preparing. Polanski’s comedy, “The Fearless Vampire Hunters” also has a vampire played comic gay. “A Day at the Beach” had a very limited release. It is by all accounts a fairly sombre affair, and Sellers and Stark’s cameo is an unusual piece of relief with deliberately nasty dramatic overtones. Lord only knows how the two came to be in it (although Polanski was in Sellers’s “The Magic Christian” in 1969). Apparently Sellers was credited as “A.Queen”. It’s probably best to compare this gay couple to characters in other contemporary films like “Boys in the Band” and “Staircase”. Here we have two languorous queens who are rather too old, in several ways, for the fashions they wear, and so a little grotesque. Both flirt with / stare hungrily at the young man (Mark Evans) who plays along, if aggressively. A certain primping, fiddling with hair, and Stark’s heavily beringed, effeminate hands is par for the course. Sellers deep-throating the arms of his spectacles is not. Seller’s spiteful bitchiness towards his absent partner as a form of flirtation is not unrealistic, though it provides an excuse for threats by the young man towards Stark as a means of proving his superiority. So not quite comic relief, but much of it played for laughs of a kind. It's certainly a million mile away from the likes of Dick Emery.

230: Funny He Never Married #2 with extra Orson Welles

Dean Martin Show, 17 September 1970
written by Marty Feldman and Barry Took

Here’s an oddity. Orson Welles and Dom Deluise performing “Funny He Never Married” on the Dean Martin Show. I’m guessing this is from Welles’s appearance in 1970, since the sketch was originally performed by Marty Feldman in 1968. Tim Brooke-Taylor was the other original performer, and he had worked with Orson Welles in several projects in 1969, which is how I imagine Welles came to know the piece. It’s mostly the same sketch, but slightly more drawn out, since the two are playing it as fusty old clubmen, giving slightly more consideration to what they’re saying, rather than playing it as two old gossips. This has some additional business about scents and flowers not in the original.

229: J.B. Handelsman

from “I Have Seen the Future and It Hurts” by J.B. Handelsman
in “Punch” 23 May 1973

Some panels from a strip by J. B. Handelsman satirising futurology. What sort of things might one invent for a ludicrous future? Why, such silliness as nude flights to Jupiter, underwater cities, talking fish, nonsensical aliens, gibberish as a new language, and drug induced interactive television. Anything else too ludicrous for words? Some sort of weird inversion of sexual roles must be on the cards? Yes, it's gay marriage and parenting. Both wear female clothes, and it’s a “male daughter-in-law” not “son-in-law”. The “I temporarily do” is a nice line, I think though.

228: Parody Engagement Card

from a parody of modern Hallmark greeting cards in “Janet Lives With Mel and Griff”, 1988

17 years later and the same “it’s not some much losing a son, as gaining another son” punchline from Alan Coren’s romance parody. It’s a little hard to tell, but it looks as though the figure on the right is wearing some sort of cap.

227: Alan Coren - Chapter VIII, Two Hearts Beat As One

"Chapter VIII: Two Hearts Beat As One"
by Alan Coren
in "Punch" 27 Jan 1971
(from a series of parodies inspired by a news story about modern romance magazines)

Mrs Belweather was nervous; and what mother would not be?

She had done their weekend cottage out from top to bottom, and the little house shone like a brass button; the scent of lavender and pine was everywhere and the rich brown parquet was a mirror of chintz and dimity, and the bright flowers of the spotless curtains, moving gently in the soft spring breeze, were for all the world like the real flowers of her lovely little garden beyond! The horse-brasses winked in the cosy ingle-nook, and the porcelain dog smiled beneath his lampshade, and her collection of reproduction Delft soup-plates sent the friendly rays of the spring sun dancing back into the room, and Crippen the cat sat on the white window-ledge blinking contentedly as he rubbed his furry paws over his fine long whiskers, and the bronzette kettle sang happily on the hob. Yes, thought Mrs Belweather, wonderfully presented for sixty, I have done my bit! Shall I have just a little glass of Stone’s Ginger Wine for my palpitations? After all, I do deserve it, and it isn’t every day that a mummy’s only son brings his fiancée home!

She had just washed up the wine glass and popped a Polo into her moth when the wheels of Nigel’s little two-seater rasped on the gravel, and his horn peep-peeped, the way it always did when he came down to Volehaven from his important job in the city. Hurriedly she smoothed her hair. The door chimed gently. She ran to it.

Nigel stood there smiling, filling the doorway with his fine, lean frame, his handsome face tanned form the drive, his grey eyes twinkling with customary merriment.

'Hello, Mumsy!" he said, with his wonderful voice. He put down his cricket bag and his squash racket and his riding boots and his gleaming twelve-bore, and threw his strong arms around her.

“Hello, darling!" cried Mrs. Belwether. My goodness, she thought, am I really about to weep? Silly old me! "Where's . . .”

Nigel laughed his rich laugh.

“In the car, Mumsy,” he replied. “No peeking! I wanted to have you all to myself, just for a minute."

They walked into the parlour, arm-in-arm, and Nigel was about to tell her about his job and his new flat in fashionable Fulham Road, when she slapped his wrist playfully!

"Nigel, I can't wait a moment longer! It really is too naughty of you! Look, there’s Father coming in from the radishes now."

“Very well, you silly old thing!" said Nige1, and, with a light laugh, he went out the door.

The lovers returned hand in hand, smiling over some private joke, as lovers will. Mr and Mrs Belwether waited by the fireplace.

"Mumsy, Father, this is Julian," said Nigel.

They all shook hands. Mr. Belwether, retired from the bank now but still sprightly, poured sherry, and looked Julian up and down, as fathers will.

“So,” he said, "this is the young fella who’s going to take our 1ittle boy away, is it?”

Everyone chuckled! He's so good with people, thought Mrs. Belwether hugging herself mentally.

“Don't think of it as losing a son Mr Belwether," said Julian. "Think of it as gaining a son."

Mrs Belwether nudged Nigel.

"I think Father wants to be alone with Julian," she said. "Shall I show you my cotoneaster?"

"Right-o!" said Nigel.

When they had gone, Mr. Belwether poured Julian another glass of sherry.

"Now, young fella-me-lad," he said. "This job of yours-pays well, does it? Good prospects?"

226: Adam and Steve

If at some time you haven’t had some supposed wit inflict: “If God had meant for there to be homosexuals, then he’d have made Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve” on you then you’ve been jolly lucky. To which wisecrack the only reasonable response is jamming your thumb into their eye, and then while you’re got their attention explaining the theory of evolution, punctuating the more important principles by slamming their head against the wall.
Aaanyyyyy-hoooo. Cartoons in which some typically male/female couple is changed to became an all-male gay pair.


“Larry” in “Private Eye” 5 November 1971.
Darby and Joan is an English phrase used to describe a couple who’ve been married for many, many years. Social clubs for pensioners were called “Darby and Joan Clubs”. "Darby and John" would have seemed like a workable pun.
There’s a handbag, and I think the chap seated in the window on the far right is wearing pearls.

David Austin in “The Spectator” 20 August 1983
A gay Punch and Judy for a gay audience

Michael Heath in “The Spectator” 7 July 1982

Michael Heath in “Punch” 17 March 1982
More of a crappy pun, to be honest, and less impressive than a cartoon I’ve seen from the ‘70s of a performance of “Oklahomosexual”

225: Ralph Steadman in “Gay News”

from “Gay News” 1977

“Gay News” ran these illustrations to accompany a series of articles giving guidance for gay couples on legal and financial matters about the housing market. How on earth Steadman became involved in this I don’t know? It might possibly be some show of solidarity by Steadman aginst the forces of repression as symbolised by Mary Whitehouse's blasphemy lawsuit against "Gay News" which was in full swing at this time. I generally don’t include cartoons from gay magazines, but given the eminence of Ralph Steadman it seems silly to exclude this. Certainly it’s worth comparing the men in these four illos with the homosexuals from my last Ralph Steadman feature. The Caesar haircut sported by the one partner is some acknowledgment of a prevalent gay hairstyle from the period.

8 April 1977 – The necessary dance of discomfort to avoid greater embarrassment and shame when living in rented accommodation.

22 April 1977 – A fantastic means of projecting the banker’s anxiety about gay men

6 May 1977 – Gay gnomes – not very impressive, if I’m honest

20 May 1977 –A visual metaphor for entanglement, as a long life together stretches out and the newspaper headline heralds society’s progress

224: Jack Chick - The Gay Blade

panels from “The Gay Blade” by Jack T. Chick, 1972

For more of the nearly ineffable and inexhaustible bigoted religious oddness of Jack Chick, why not start here, and then stare with befuddlement into the gawping horse’s mouth itself.

I think we can all tell that Mr Chick doesn’t want to deal in this sordid matter. No one should be confronted by this sort of especially sordid sin, let alone when it is wilfully flaunted by those who have rejected God’s law and grace. Mr Chick is driven to write about this distasteful matter by the depth of his concern for your soul. Isn’t that good of him? (Don’t forget to say ‘Thank you’.)

Are these caricatures or are they how Mr Chick really sees homosexuals. Mockery or verisimilitude? Rather than the variable comic effects of most of the things I’ve posted, in this instance the aesthetics of Mr Chick’s cartoon have a moral impetus. If you don’t already comprehend how wrong homosexuality is then this should put you off. Note how surprisingly old and raddled Mr Chick’s homosexuals are: balding, sagging and, at best, ridiculous. There’s not a hint of style or camp triviality about these homosexuals, because that might accidentally grant even a dab of attractiveness to this sinful and properly unspeakable behaviour. Copious and incessant Mr Creosote-like vomiting is surely the only reasonable disgusted response. And if you were unsure, well, he’s drawn a picture of that too, just so you’ll be convinced.


On one small point I will defend him however. Because Mr Chick likes to revise his efforts given new information, people have been accidentally led to misjudge this work on one point. The version to be found online gives this work a copyright of either 1984 or 2000. This has led to easy criticism that judging from the homosexuals he has drawn Chick’s cluelessness about modern homosexuality is frankly awesome and all-encompassing, and he can therefore be readily dismissed as a crank.

The original version of this dates from 1972. Mr Chick is prompted to knock up this airy confection in response to the newly burgeoning gay lib movement. It’s silly to castigate him for drawing his Gay Libbers as hippy types. Gay Lib at that type was a largely hippy/post-hippy movement (see here and here, oh and here). That they’re fat, greasy slobs is a judgement call by Mr Chick on hippies (cf Ronald Reagan’s crack: “A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane, and smells like Cheetah”.)

As homosexuality has proven a social problem that hasn’t gone away so this has stayed in print and been updated to take into account AIDS; it’s just that Mr Chick hasn’t taken the effort to update his representation of homosexuals as well. As the version you can read in full online as “The Gay Blade” is a bit of a hodge-podge of facts, social trends, and art from over almost 30 years, so it’s little wonder it doesn’t entirely all cohere sensibly