I think that the character of the US Senator from Utah, Brigham Anderson, a married Mormon in the 1960s, might well have cut his own throat somehow (strange how the police seem to have simply accepted that his did this himself though) rather than suffer the humiliation of having his homosexual adventure exposed to the world. I don't think his behaviour is out of place in the film, or the time period. People did behave that way. Rather, the problem is that the time period in film suffers from a lack of other US films to balance out the reality and variety of US gay life of the time. It wasn't all about shame, blackmail, and suicide.
While suicide probably wouldn't be the way today's Brigham Anderson would exit the scene, he's certainly still out there. Witness toe-tappin' Senator Larry Craig. As long as homosexuality continues to be stigmatized in the US, there will be closet cases in the Senate. You would think that after 45 or so years we would have advanced a bit in how we treat gay people, and it's true that Craig didn't cut his own throat when his closet burst open, but surely the US can do better so Craig doesn't have to keep trying to convince us he's straight.
It's important to note that the movie isn't about homosexuality. It's about political corruption, and the ugly way that politics is done. I don't think the director could have done much differently, given the story. The blackmail was in the story. It wouldn't have worked if the Senator was a happy homosexual.
My only problem with the way Anderson's homosexual issue was dealt with in the film is that in that time period, I don't think a lot of people knew homosexuals existed, or that they usually passed as straight people. I'm not convinced that a simple picture of two men, not even touching (as far as I could tell), and a rather vague letter, would tip a wife off that her husband liked the guys, unless she already suspected it, but there's no hint of such a suspicion. (Apparently there is in the book). It did not seem reasonable that the wife would immediately get a look of horror upon reading the letter. I think it would take a long time for her to realize that there was something sexual being implied, because it simply would not compute that her husband could have been into men.
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ls1961
16 years ago
"My only problem with the way Anderson's homosexual issue was dealt with in the film is that in that time period, I don't think a lot of people knew homosexuals existed, or that they usually passed as straight people."
I think it's really interesting that you would say that, rg. What makes you think people were so naive such a short time ago? There have always been homosexuals and most people - particularly people who were educated - always knew about it. It just wasn't discussed in polite society. Gay characters in literature are certainly not a modern invention. Perhaps you are the one that is naive.
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goleafsgo27
12 years ago
rg: You mention Larry Craig and the ongoing stigma. Do note that said stigma is pretty much only among the more conservative party. Craig is an Idaho Republican. Others who have made a big deal of being anti-gay have then had trouble coming out. Meanwhile, Democrat Barney Frank has served happily in the House for many years since coming out. No stigma.
What strikes me as ironic is that two of the actors playing conservative Senators in this film were actually gay. LOL.
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO
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hobnob53
12 years ago
I assume you're referring to Charles Laughton and George Grizzard as the gay actors playing "conservative" senators. But if so, Grizzard actually played a liberal senator.
On the topic, it was extremely daring for Preminger to show a gay bar in 1962. Such things were decidedly still underground at that time. The fact that what he showed seems to some to be cliched (mostly very effeminate gays, or making the place look creepy) is regrettable, but at the time even Preminger could only go so far, and he needed to drive home the point about Brig Anderson's uptight, horrified reaction to the scene. Preminger, following author Allen Drury's book, resorted to suicide as Brig's only way out, but at the time this was not, unhappily, an unheard-of "resolution".
In fact, Drury based a part of Anderson's character on the story of the late Senator Lester C. Hunt of Wyoming, whose secretly gay son was caught soliciting sex in D.C. in 1954. Depressed over his son's arrest and probable public exposure, and with other personal problems, Hunt, a Democrat, shot himself to death in his Senate office in June 1954. He had apparently hoped that this act might make the newspapers bury anything damaging about his son, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Drury used some details from the Hunt family tragedy as a basis for Brig Anderson's storyline in the novel. But he treated the character very sympathetically.
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goleafsgo27
12 years ago
Actually hob, I'd not been aware that Mr Grizzard was gay. I was thinking of Will Geer, who I believe was gay (though, like many, also fathered children). So that makes 3 of the Senators played by gay actors, just not Don Murray, who plays the Senator who was, or might have been, or whatever. Perhaps that makes this even more ironic (though obviously not as ironic as rain on your wedding day, gay or straight, right Alanis?).
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO
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hobnob53
12 years ago
I never heard that Will Geer was gay. Grandma Walton put up with a lot more than we thought, I guess!
When George Grizzard died a few years ago, his obits mentioned how he'd had to spend much of his professional life disguising his sexual identity. He apparently did have conflicts portraying a gay-baiting senator in A&C, and so made van Ackermann as nasty as possible to make a point...much as refugee German actors who fled the Nazis in the 30s, then wound up playing Nazis in Hollywood movies, made a point of bringing out how evil such people were.
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goleafsgo27
12 years ago
Mr Geer was relatively open about it, considering the era. But, brace yourself, Grandma Walton, well, Ellen Corby, was also rumored to have batted for both teams. Unconfirmed, to my knowledge.
As to your latter point, one of the classic cases of that was actor Werner Klemperer, son of great composer Otto Klemperer, was a Jewish refugee who went on to play not just Col. Klink on Hogan's Heroes, but one of the ultimate Nazi scum, Adolf Eichmann. Now that's acting!!
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO
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hobnob53
12 years ago
You know, that rings a bell about Ellen Corby. Good casting.
I saw Werner Klemperer in that film (Operation Eichmann, 1962), but do you remember who played a visiting Nazi who watched prisoners dying in the gas chambers, then spent a pleasant evening laughing about it over dinner with Eichmann? None other than John Banner...Klemperer's future Hogan's Heroes co-star, who portrayed Sergeant Schultz! Klemperer often played villians in movies, but to see jolly John Banner playing this sadistic role was very unsettling, and the two of them together, as such evil characters, is, in light of their future roles, bizarre to say the least. I guess Banner's "I know nothing" catch-phrase came from observing real Nazis, like Eichmann, denying their past.
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mrmathexpert4
8 years ago
Walter Pidgeon was gay too.
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Walter Pidgeon was gay too.
I don't think so. You're taking the word of Scotty Bowers, a Hollywood hustler and sleazeball and the author of the scandal-book
Full Service, who claimed Pidgeon propositioned him at a gas station in the 40s. He made similar claims about lots of stars. Bowers's book has been widely exposed as mostly false, loaded with sensational but unsubstantiated innuendo over any semblance of fact.
It would also come as a surprise to all the young Hollywood women Pidgeon pinched and propositioned in his heyday, not to mention his two wives.
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