Eight gay men gather for a Manhattan birthday party and a heterosexual visitor from the host’s past turns up, only to add more game-playing therapy sessions and vicious bitchiness to the awkward proceedings.
This stagey version of Mart Crowley’s off-Broadway hit was the first and most famous Hollywood film on the subject of male homosexuality.
Director William Friedkin captures early glimmers of gay liberation while dealing with the self-hating, straight-acting and overly camp stereotypes of the era.
It’s all very dated and gives the impression that all gay men are miserable, tragic, venomous queens.
But some of the lines are still hilarious, and Leonard Frey’s performance as the Jewish birthday boy is a kitsch classic.
Michael
Kenneth Nelson
Harold
Leonard Frey
Donald
Frederick Combs
Emory
Cliff Gorman
Bernard
Reuben Greene
Cowboy
Robert La Tourneaux
Hank
Laurence Luckinbill
Larry
Keith Prentice
Alan
Peter White
Director
William Friedkin
