UPCOMING FILMS

ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT
episode 3
& SURPRISE QUEER SHORT

Drama

Beeban Kidron

UK, 1990, 55′, English with English subtitles

“It is no exaggeration to say the Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit was a groundbreaking piece of television. First airing on the BBC in 1990, this dramatisation of Jeanette Winterson’s 1985 novel by the same title is a devastating tale of one girl’s power to overcome neglect and often violent prejudice” – says L Salzman on televisionheaven.co.uk. The series is also just as hilarious and brilliant as it is empowering in how it depicts a young queer turn a rigid world upside down with the force of her inner freedom, her charm, and belief in who she is.

In September we’ll screen all three episodes of the masterful BBC production, one at a time, so don’t miss your chance for three consecutive Thursday dates of the coziest kind!

In addition, before each episode we’ll screen one surprise queer short.

INTERSTELLAR

Adventure – Drama – Sci-Fi

Christopher Nolan

US / UK / Canada, 2014, 169′, English

After the release of OPPENHEIMER this summer, we are taking a look at two of Christopher Nolan’s earlier works.

<<<INTERSTELLAR>>>

Earth’s future is plagued by famine and natural disasters making it clear that the future of the human race is dependent on interstellar travel and the pursuit of finding a new world to inhabit. A newly discovered warm-hole in the edge of our solar system makes it possible for a team of astronauts, led by ex-NASA pilot Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), to travel through time and space in pursuit of a better future for human existence.

Christopher Nolan has been very vocal about his love for the sci-fi genre and particularly Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY which also features an elaborate, special effects heavy sequence of interstellar travel. In INTERSTELLAR, Nolan’s attention to detail and meticulousness is on full display with cutting-edge effects on full display.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI

Comedy – Drama

George Lucas

US, 1973, 112′, English

A group of teenagers in California’s central valley spend one final night after their 1962 high school graduation cruising the strip with their buddies before they pursue their varying goals.

“American Graffiti made George Lucas a directorial superstar and for good reason. Like a lot of great nostalgia pieces it seems to get better the further it gets from its original release date.

Lucas invokes the candy-colored pop ephemera of the fifties in his visual scheme. The green hues of the fluorescent bulbs that light the liquor stores, hamburger stands, and pinball arcades that the characters loiter around. The bright colors of the jukeboxes, diner neon signs, and the candy apple red and canary yellow of the hot rods that cruise up and down the main drag. Lucas poignantly parades all this in front of us with the added knowledge that all this glorious chrome and paint and pomade is about to go out of style and be replaced by space-age sixties chic.

George fills Graffiti with one clever stroke after another. One of the strokes that helped make the movie tremendously popular was the wall-to-wall fifties rock and roll soundtrack that can be heard in the film from beginning to end. Usually emanating from various car radios. The reason every new movie featuring young people from 1974 to the present features a wall-to-wall soundtrack of pop tunes (not to mention a soundtrack album collection of hits) is due to the influence of American Graffiti.”
Quentin Tarantino,
https://thenewbev.com/tarantinos-reviews/american-graffiti/ (Full review)

2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT

Adventure – Mystery – Sci-Fi

Peter Hyams

US, 1984, 116′, English / Russian with English subtitles

Existing firmly in the shadow of Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, 2010 is easily dismissed by many. While tasked with a nearly impossible mission of being a follow-up to one of the most ground-breaking and significant sci-fi films ever made, 2010 still has much to offer for fans of the genre and is taught with cold-war anxieties.

Starring Roy Scheider as American scientist Heywood Floyd who joins a team of Soviet cosmonauts (including Helen Mirren) to investigate whatever happened to the lost Jupiter mission from the year 2001. More of a procedural, plot-driven venture than its predecessor, 2010 manages to build on while not trying to duplicate the experience of the first film. This is thanks mostly in part to a sizable budget and close collaboration between the director and the author of both 2001 and its follow-up, Arthur C. Clarke.

BOYS DON’T CRY

Biography – Crime – Drama

Kimberly Peirce

US, 1999, 118′, English

“In 1999, just six years after the rape and murder of a young gender variant person, Brandon Teena, and two friends in a small town in Nebraska, Kim Peirce released her first film, a dramatic account of the incident. The film, Boys Don’t Cry, which took years to research, write, fund, cast and shoot, was released to superb reviews and went on to garner awards and praise for the lead actor, Hilary Swank, and the young director, Kim Peirce, not to mention the film’s production team led by Christine Vachon. The film was hard hitting, visually innovative and marked a massive breakthrough in the representation of gender variant bodies. While there were certainly debates about decisions that Peirce made within the film’s narrative arc (the omission of the murder of an African American friend, Philip DeVine, at the same time that Brandon was killed), Boys Don’t Cry was received by audiences at the time as a magnificent film honoring the life of a gender queer youth and bringing a sense of the jeopardy of gender variant experiences to the screen. It was also seen as a sensitive depiction of life in small town USA. Kim Peirce spoke widely about the film in public venues and explained her relationship to the subject matter of gender variance, working class life and gender based violence” – writes Jack Halberstam in a blog post addressing student protests against the screening of Peirce’s movie at Reed College (OR) in 2016.
The film was the very first realistic cinematic depiction of a gender variant character, and made an important point in portraying the events from a queer point of view, successfully eschewing the patterns of the male gaze dominant in Hollywood productions. We decide to screen Boys Don’t Cry not only because it is an important queer film, but also because our community needs to talk about narratives like this one from many different perspectives.

SALEM’S LOT

Horror – TV mini series

Tobe Hooper

US, 1979, 183′, English

Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine. Population 2.013. Evil vampires descend on town, and it’s up to a novelist and a horror fan to save it.
The last of three tales shown in September at Hypnos, set in quaint New England small towns with hidden horrors. Stephen King was a young man when writing this truly scary vampire novel. It was his second published novel, and one if his personal favorites of his career.

This adaption for television by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) is the full 183 minute version. Working for television, Hooper could not use the same amount of gore as most have come to expect from him. Instead he had to rely on atmosphere and spookiness, with the camerawork, music, special effects and story working together in creating a sense of dread. Now considered a cult classic and highly influential, Salem’s Lot is a must see for fans of the vampire genre.

MIRANDA MAGDALENA (LIVE)

CONCERT

Celebrating the release of Miranda Magdalena’s debut, self-titled album with an intimate, magical concert at Hypnos Theatre.

Miranda is an alt-pop artist from Malmö with a voice and presence that shimmers vividly in the decadent dark. Her mystical, intimate sound reaches the grandoisity of the cinematic. She has been called a female James Blake and her timeless folkloric melodies sculpted with classical instrumentation and electronic sounds build a world to lose yourself in.

_

Miranda Magdalenas självtitlade debutalbum ska släppas och det firar vi med en intim och magisk konsert på Hypnos theatre. 

Miranda är alternativ-pop artisten från Malmö vars röst och närvaro har ett älvlikt skimmer och ett dekadent mörker över sig som lämnar få orörda. Mirandas sound är mystiskt och intimt på samma gång storslaget och filmiskt. Hon har blivit omnämnd som en kvinnlig James Blake och hennes tidlösa folkloreska melodier blandade med både klassiska instrument och elektroniska ljud skapar en värld att gå vilse i.

Pre-sale tickets 60kr available here

Tickets at the door 100kr

THE THIN BLUE LINE

Documentary – Crime

Errol Morris

US, 1988, 103′, English with Swedish subtitles

Legendary documentarian Errol Morris investigates the story of a man who was imprisoned and sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. True-crime genre owes a great deal to The Thin Blue Line, which is also rated as one of the greatest documentaries ever made!

TALK TO HER

Drama – Mystery – Romance

Pedro Almodóvar

Spain, 2002, 112′, Spanish with English subtitles

Another masterpiece from the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar explores the predicaments of human feelings and passions.

Male nurse Benigno becomes infatuated with a dancer Alicia whom he watches practicing from the anonymity of his apartment. After being injured in a car accident, Alicia is brought to a nearby hospital, where Benigno serendipitously happens to be her caregiver. When wounded bullfighter Lydia is brought into the same ward, her companion, writer Marco, begins to bond with Benigno.

WINGS

Drama – Romance – War

US, 1927, 144′, silent with English subtitles

William A. Wellman & Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast

Cinema’s first gay kiss?

Wings is a romantic war drama that follows two air force pilots in WWI each vying for the attention of a beautiful young woman, whilst slowly discovering their own passionate love for one another. Referred to as a ‘friendship’ throughout the film, perhaps to dodge censorship regulations, it is abundantly clear that it is more of a romantic connection and one that ends with a dramatic kiss in each other’s arms.

Wings is known to feature the first gay kiss in cinema history and was also the first ever film to win the Academy Award for best picture.
(Callum Russell, Far Out)

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

THE NORDIC 24 HOUR HORROR-A-THON (2nd annual)

FRIDAY OCTOBER 6th to SATURDAY OCTOBER 7th

18:00 – 18:00

WARNING: MANY OF THE FILMS SCREENED IN THIS MARATHON WILL SHOW SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, GORE, CANNIBALISM, AND SADISM – ABSOLUTELY NO ONE UNDER 18 WILL BE ADMITTED.

DMP Cinema and Hypnos Theater invite you to the cinema to experience TWELVE horror classics back-to-back! PLUS enjoy an exclusive concert film from legendary horror band GOBLIN, an EXTRA LONG HORROR MOVIE TRIVIA with awesome prize giveaways, drinking games, horror movie bingo, classic horror trailer shows, classic grindhouse intermission pauses, and MORE!

Full Marathon Ticket (All Inclusive): FREE for members of Föreningen Film i Malmö! Already a member? Then simply book your free ticket at checkout!

LINEUP:
Exclusive Goblin “In The Studio” Greatest Hits Concert Film
The Evil Dead (1981) – 4K, UNCUT
Evil Dead II (1987) – WITH HORROR MOVIE BINGO!
Army of Darkness (1992) – 4K, THEATRICAL CUT
It Follows (2014)
The Descent (2005)
An American Werewolf in London (1981) – 4K, UNCUT
The Thing (1982) – 4K, UNCUT
The Exorcist III (1990)
Braindead aka DeadAlive (1992) – RARE UNCUT EXTENDED PRINT!
Demons (1985) – 2K, UNCUT
Slugs (1988) – WITH DRINKING GAME!
House of Wax (1953)

Pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, and anything else to make you more comfortable in the cinema is welcome!

STRICTLY 18+

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

Crime – Drama – Film Noir

Alfred Hitchcock

US, 1951, 101′, English

t starts with the shriek of a train whistle… and ends with shrieking excitement!

“Hitchcock’s bizarre, malicious comedy, in which the late Robert Walker brought sportive originality to the role of the chilling wit, dear degenerate Bruno; it’s intensely enjoyable, in some ways the best of Hitchcock’s American films. The murder plot is so universally practical that any man may adapt it to his needs: Bruno perceives that though he cannot murder his father with impunity, someone else could; when he meets the unhappily married tennis player Guy (Farley Granger), he murders Guy’s wife for him and expects Guy to return the favor.

Technically, the climax of the film is the celebrated runaway merry-go-round, but the high point of excitement and amusement is Bruno trying to recover his cigarette lighter while Guy plays a fantastically nerve-racking tennis match. Even this high point isn’t what we remembered best, which is Robert Walker.
It isn’t often that people think about a performance in a Alfred Hitchcock movie; usually what we recall are bits of “business”, the stump finger in The 39 Steps, the windmill turning in Foreign Correspondent, etc. But Walker’s performance is what give this movie much of it’s character and it’s peculiar charm.

It is typical of Hollywood’s brand of perversity that Raymond Chandler was never hired to adapt any of his own novels for the screen; he was, however, employed on Double Indemnity and Strangers on a Train (which is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith). Chandler (or perhaps Czenzi Ormonde, who’s also credited) provided Hitchcock with some of the best dialogue that ever graced a thriller.”
Pauline Kael

MILLER’S CROSSING

Crime – Drama – Thriller

Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

US, 1990, 115′, English / Italian / Irish Gaelic / Yiddish with English subtitles

Tom Reagan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties.

“Miller’s Crossing, the Coen Brothers’ third film (following Blood Simple and Raising Arizona) introduced the kind of comedically-tinged approach they would employ for some of their darkest and most compelling films, including the critically-lauded Fargo and the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. A combined homage to the gangster films of the 1930s and the noir thrillers of the 1940s, Miller’s Crossing boasts intelligent, witty dialogue delivered by accomplished actors, a blood-soaked saga of Prohibition-era criminals double-crossing one another, and a gallery of offbeat characters who never fail to lose the essential humanity underlying their quirks.”
James Berardinelli, Reelviews

QUEEN CHRISTINA

Biography – Drama – Romance

Rouben Mamoulian

US, 1933, 199′, English

An iconic queer actor playing a real-life queer queen!

Greta Garbo plays the infamously queer Swedish 17th Century monarch in this pre-code film, Queen Christina. Christina is expected to marry but continuously puts off the obligation until falling for the Spanish Ambassador, an ineligible suitor. Although the plot may follow these hetero-presenting pursuits, both Christina’s undefined gender identity and passionate relationships with her female entourage make it a layered queer narrative.

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE

Documentary – Biography – Music

Amy Berg

US, 2015, 103′, English

Janis Joplin is one of the most celebrated rock singers of all time. A tragic and misunderstood figure who enchanted millions of listeners with her voice. She always followed her own path until her early death at the age of 27 in 1971.

Academy Award-nominated director Amy J. Berg explores the story of Janis on screen for the first time, presenting an intimate and insightful portrait of a complicated, driven and talented musician.

THE FLY

Drama – Horror – Sci-Fi

David Cronenberg

US / Canada, 1986, 95′, English with Swedish subtitles

The Fly is a 1986 American science fiction horror film directed and co-written by David Cronenberg.

Seth, a brilliant scientist, is elated when he successfully manages to teleport himself in his own invention, a transportation machine. But, unbeknownst to him, he was not alone during the process.

DRACULA’S DAUGHTER

Drama – Fantasy – Horror

Lambert Hillyer

US, 1933, 71′, English / German with English subtitles

Birth of the cold blooded queer villain!

The film centers on Countess Marya Zaleska, a mysterious and beautiful Hungarian socialite and artist who is actually a vampire turned by the infamous Count Dracula. Zaleska preys upon the people of London, with a particular appetite for beautiful young women, hypnotizing them with her gleaming red ring or sending her manservant Sandor to proposition them to seductively pose for her paintings. Zaleska is not proud of her exploits, however. After unsuccessfully removing her curse through the destruction of Dracula’s body, she seeks insight from a psychiatrist to cure her of her affliction. She is vague about her true nature, only confiding to the psychiatrist that she has an illness—a craving—she cannot shake. To a viewer with a keen “gay sensibility,” as coined by groundbreaking queer film historian Vito Russo, it is absolutely clear what her illness signifies: her undeniable queerness, of which she has a strong desire to be cured.
(Abigail Waldron, Gayly Dreadful)

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

HALLOWEEN PARTY

Opening short film: Nattskift
Love Ahlström Killgren
Swedish with English subtitles

Gas station employee Nuur’s tedious night shift turns into a battle for survival as strange incidents starts happening around the station.

Halloween
John Carpenter
1987, 91’ English

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

May
Lucky McKee
2002, 93’ English

Psychological horror about a lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her.

Trick’r Treat
Michael Dougherty
2007, 82’ English

Four interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: an everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the one guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a bitter old recluse receives an uninvited guest.

Hell Fest
Gregory Plotkin
2018, 89’ English

On Halloween night at a horror theme park, a costumed killer begins slaying innocent patrons who believe that it’s all part of the festivities.

BEETLEJUICE

Comedy – Fantasy

Tim Burton

US, 1988, 92′, English

Beetlejuice is an ultimate must-see classic from Tim Burton and a perfect Halloween treat!

Adam and Barbara seem to be a normal couple apart from that they are dead. As they are beginning to come to terms with their new condition, new tenants move into their house and ruin their peace. After trying to scare them, the couple decides to hire Beetlejuice to help them, but he might have more in mind than just helping.

ROPE

Crime – Drama – Mystery

Alfred Hitchcock

US, 1948, 80′, English

Hitchcock’s homicidal homosexuals!

Alfred Hitchcock stirred the pot for 1940s Hollywood censor boards with his release of the remarkably LGBTQ+ Rope. By casting queer actors as well as assuring the script and narrative would be queer-coded, Hitchcock inadvertently created an LGBTQ+ masterpiece that remains revolutionary more than 70 years later. Rope caused significant controversy at the time of its release but has sparked conversation in queer film study in the decades following. The film is adapted from a British play of the same name and based loosely on the true-crime story of Leopold and Loeb, two young gay men who decided to kill their cousin together in 1924.
(Zoe Jordan, Screen Rant)

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

DARK CITY

Fantasy – Mystery – Sci-Fi

Alex Proyas

US, 1998, 100′, English

Proto-Matrix dystopian SciFi Film Noir, about a man waking up without memories, wanted for a series of brutal murders. Trying to unravel the mystery, he stumbles on to a plot being perpetrated by a mysterious group of bald beings called The Strangers.

“I believe more than ever that “Dark City” is one of the great modern films. It preceded “The Matrix” by a year (both films used a few of the same sets in Australia), and on a smaller budget, with special effects that owe as much to imagination as to technology, did what “The Matrix” wanted to do, earlier and with more feeling.

“Dark City” by Alex Proyas is a great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like “Metropolis” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.” If it is true, as the German director Werner Herzog believes, that we live in an age starved of new images, then “Dark City” is a film to nourish us. Not a story so much as an experience, it is a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects–and imagination.”
Roger Ebert

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

Drama

Nicholas Ray

US, 1955, 111′, English

The original gay best friend!

Newly arrived in Los Angeles Jim Stark (James Dean) gets arrested for being drunk in a public space. In arrest, he meets Plato (portrayed by bisexual Sal Mineo) and Judy (Natalie Wood), both also teenage and rebellious. All of them lost any trust in their parents, searching for themselves in a world deprived of childish naivety and ideals. Jim falls in love with Judy and becomes friends with Plato. It’s Plato who accompanies him in his first days at the new school. But Plato doesn’t want to be just a friend to Jim, he has a crush on him.

For queer viewers, Rebel Without a Cause is seminal for Sal Mineo’s portrayal of Plato — whom he later referred to as the first gay teenager on film — but the entire movie is bathed in a gorgeously gay, Cinemascopic light. With a queer (and queer-friendly) cast and a bisexual director Rebel remains one of the most important films in the queer film canon.

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

SOME LIKE IT HOT

Comedy – Music – Romance

Billy Wilder

US, 1959, 121′, English

Challenging gender norms and circumventing the rules with comedy!

Today, Billy Wilder’s classic Some Like It Hot is generally regarded as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — comedies of all time, but upon its release it was condemned by the Catholic League of Decency for being “seriously offensive to Christian and traditional standards of morality and decency.”
Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon in an Oscar-nominated performance) are two down-and-out musicians in 1929 Chicago. When they accidentally witness a St. Valentine’s Day-esque Massacre, they hop town, in stilettos no less, joining an all-female jazz band heading to Florida, befriending vocalist Sugar Kane (Marilyn Manroe).
Some Like It Hot is far more than just one long cross-dressing joke. It flies in the face of sexual mores and stereotypes while subverting gender roles, all with tongue firmly in cheek.
(Les Fabian Brathwaite, IndieWire)

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

SPARTACUS

Adventure – Biography – Drama

Stanley Kubrick & Anthony Mann

US, 1960, 197′, English

Oysters, snails and bi-erasure!

Spartacus is Kubrick’s gladiator epic starring Kirk Douglas as Spartacus, the historic tale of a gladiator who leads a slave revolt against the Roman Empire.

Spartacus was censored before it was first released, and it is one of the last commercial films in which homosexuality was removed before the Hays code was changed. Geoff Shurlock, head of the Production Code Administra­tion (PCA), objected to the suggestions of homosexuality in the character of Crassus and recommended in a report to Universal that “this page clearly suggests that Crassus is sexually attracted to women and men. This flavor should be completely removed.”

This led to key scenes being cut from the original release until the uncut version was released 33 years later, in 1991.

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.

THE CHILDREN’S HOUR

Drama – Romance

William Wyler

US, 1961, 108′, English

Clear homosexuality on the big screen at last! Best make it as shameful as possible!

Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine star as two school teachers whose lives are ruined when they are unjustly accused of “sinful, sexual knowledge of each other” by a mean-spirited pupil.

Lillian Hellman’s play, The Children’s Hour, debuted amidst controversy in 1934. The play dealt explicitly with homosexuality, which up to that point, was illegal on the New York stage. But it was such a big, fat, stinkin’ hit, the powers-that-be let it slide. With dreams of box office receipts dancing in its head, Hollywood decided to adapt The Children’s Hour into a movie, but with the newly enacted Hays Code in place, the issue of homosexuality was completely scrubbed from the resulting film, 1936’s These Three, directed by William Wyler. Instead of a rumored lesbian relationship, one of the women was accused of having an affair with the other’s fiancé.
Wyler decided to give it another go in 1961, by which point, the Production Code had relaxed some. To depict homosexuality, or “sexual perversion”, however, one had to cast it in the most unsympathetic and unflattering light possible. And The Children’s Hour is a prime example of that.
(Les Fabian Brathwaite, IndieWire)

***QUEER THURSDAYS presents HOLLYWOOD’S QUEER HISTORY***

Join us over the next few weeks as we explore 10 pivotal films in Hollywood’s queer history. Much of the mid-20th century was censored under the guidelines of the Hays Code (1934 – 1968) which prohibited, among other things, “sexual persuasions”. This led to film makers ‘queer-coding’ their films, allowing the wider straight audience, and the production companies with the power to decide what films would be made, see the films as unthreatening while those with a knowing queer eye could decipher the true meanings to these pictures. In our selection we explore Hollywood before, during and after the code, as well as highlighting the many tropes that surfaced over the decades and have contributed to our modern understanding of queer representation in cinema.

Screenings in this series:

5/10 Wings (1927)
12/10 Queen Christina (1933)
26/10 Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
2/11 Rope (1948)
9/11 Rebel without a cause (1955)
23/11 Some like it hot (1959)
30/11 Spartacus (1960)
7/12 The Children’s hour (1961)
21/12 The Boys in the Band (1970)
28/12 Making Love (1982)

Interested in exploring more? All of these films, among countless others, were featured in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995) based on Vito Russo’s 1981 book of the same title.