Brad Shreve: 0:00

This is Queer, we Are Hi. This is Brad. And what better movie to discuss during Pride Month than the celebrated 1970s the Boys in the Band. Some love it, some hate it, and we discussed both sides, but it cannot be argued. It was groundbreaking. I haven't been around with new episodes because I've been tied up on jury duty for an exhaustive murder trial. Court has been in session for one month and we still haven't begun deliberations. This is the first time I've ever done this. Given the trial, which has made me even later publishing my next novel, I've decided to put the show on summer hiatus rather than trying to get something out to you as time allows. I have great guests lined up for when Queer Re-Art returns, including Oscar winners, experts on the bear community, lesbian history and much more. I am excited and I hate that I had to put them off. Since I've had to reschedule guests, I'm providing another episode of the Going Hollywood podcast, where I discuss movies and television with film historian Tony Maeda. We converse about the positive and negative viewpoints of the boys in the band as well as take you behind the scenes. If you'd like to check out the Going Hollywood podcast and I hope you do there's a link in the show notes.

Tony Maietta: 2:30

Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve: 2:33

And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta: 2:36

We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Tony Maietta: 2:46

And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter, as does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood, Brad. Before we start, because I never see you except when we're recording these podcasts, and I wanted to invite you to this birthday party that I'm going to. I was wondering if you'd like to go with me. You know it's going to be a really tight group about nine guys. It's just a very small get-together and these guys are a lot of fun. They can be a lot of fun, and it's at this fabulous apartment with this huge terrace that overlooks the city.

Tony Maietta: 3:22

So, would you like to go with me?

Brad Shreve: 3:23

You know, tony, I get such a rare opportunity to get into the city now that I live outside, that I would love to come to one of your parties.

Tony Maietta: 3:30

Oh good. Well, it's not my party, it's for a friend of mine. It's his 32nd birthday. Oh, he's old. It'll be a lot of fun. But you know, I should probably mention, you know, that. Just a little caveat there is the slightest potential for humiliation, emotional scarring and devastation, but there'll be cake.

Brad Shreve: 3:52

Well, hey, cake's all that matters. I can deal with the rest of it.

Tony Maietta: 3:55

Happy Pride, everybody. Happy Pride. It's boys in the band. Did we give it away? Did we give it away too much there? Nothing to sing.

Brad Shreve: 4:04

You know, with this podcast being relatively new, tony and I were making all kinds of plans to you know what episodes do we want to do? When we brainstormed and finally Tony's like wait a minute, it's Pride Month, we need to do a Pride Month episode, and so we have just enough time to get this one in. What a good one to choose.

Tony Maietta: 4:40

Well, I think we kind of have to, and I was also saying to Brad too you know it's kind of redundant that we're doing a Pride episode because so many of our episodes have gay references, but I feel it was really important that we do this. Landmark film's a very, very. No matter how you feel about it, good or bad there's no denying it's a landmark and it needs to be discussed, I think.

Brad Shreve: 4:52

And I have a couple of things to say about it. I was, I had mixed emotions when you said it. I immediately said, oh God, we have to do it. It's a classic Right. But if you remember, I said well, what were you talking? I assumed you were talking about the 1970 film, but I didn't want to 100% assume that. I didn't want to watch the wrong thing. So I asked you are we talking about the 70 film, the Netflix 2020 film, or are we doing both? And you were like well, I only had my head in 1970. I said that's fine.

Brad Shreve: 5:17

So I had mixed feelings when you decided that this would be a good idea, tony. And the reason is I hate this movie. I've always hated this movie. It's disturbing. There's a lot about it I hate. So I said, when I sit down this time, I'm going to go with an open mind and put things in a different perspective. So I did that and later I will share with you if my feelings about this movie have changed. Okay, good, Good. But like any movie, right now I can tell you there are big pluses and big minuses, like any film, and we can certainly get into those along the way.

Tony Maietta: 5:48

Yeah, you know, I think this movie is important to do, just for its landmark value. You know, there's no getting around it, whether you love it or whether you hate it, it was the first time that gay characters were seen as quote-unquote normal people. Now I know there's people who are going to give me an argument about what normal is, but anyway, that weren't aberrants of nature, that gay people were just like everybody else. It was the first time in a mainstream film. Obviously, there had been gay characters in films and they usually were murderers or were murdered. You know Sebastian Venable getting eaten literally by a group of roving tree dirchins. So what's important about the Boys in the Band is that it was the first and, yeah, love it, hate it. It has that distinction. So I think that's why it's important for us to talk about.

Tony Maietta: 6:43

I have mixed feelings about this film as well, you know. It's funny because I think I was thinking about when was the first time I saw Boys in the Band and, regardless of what anyone might think out there, I did not see it in the theater in 1970. The first time I saw it, I know, was on VHS. It had been released on VHS, which was a horrible quality Horrible, horrible, but I had to see it because I heard so much about it. But I think I saw Cruising first. Okay, william Friedkin, for a supposedly straight man, and he was married four times, so I'm assuming he was straight. He directed the two most controversial films in gay cinema history the Boys in the Band and then, 10 years later, cruising.

Brad Shreve: 7:25

Oh, someday we'll do Cruising, but I'll have to get my stomach ready for that.

Tony Maietta: 7:29

I think I saw Cruising first, so Boys in the Band wasn't that scarring to me because nobody was being knifed to death in Boys in the Band. You know what I mean. So coming to Boys in the Band after seeing Cruising was like a breath of fresh air for me personally. Boys in the Band after seeing Cruising, it was like a breath of fresh air.

Brad Shreve: 7:45

for me personally, queer people were protesting, cruising. I know people that tell me they were out there with their placards.

Tony Maietta: 7:51

Well, queer people were protesting. Boys in the Band.

Brad Shreve: 7:53

Well, yeah, but Cruising was a flashback to basically gay men are all psychopaths.

Tony Maietta: 8:00

Yeah, it's a hard film to watch. Maybe we can do it sometime no-transcript.

Brad Shreve: 8:34

I'm going to get to that later but I'm going to give my description at first. Boys in the Band is a 1970 film based on a 1968 play by Matt Crowley and, to put this in perspective, the play came out the year before Stonewall and therefore the movie came out and I assume was being filmed during the time of Stonewall Interesting story there. So this is a pretty amazing time period.

Tony Maietta: 8:54

Yes, you know what Mark Crowley said. The reason he wasn't at Stonewall although I don't think he would frequent Stonewall, he probably went more for the townhouse. Knowing Mark Crowley went Stonewall, he probably would have been. He probably went more for the townhouse, knowing Mark Crowley. They were filming the boys in the band, you know, 20 blocks up from Stonewall, uh, when the writing began. So that's, that's kind of tells you what was going on. So the boys in the band began as one movie and ended as something very different.

Brad Shreve: 9:18

And you mentioned that you think he'd hang out at the townhouse. I'm sure you know he did in real life.

Tony Maietta: 9:30

Did he really?

Brad Shreve: 9:30

That was a shot in the dark. Yes, the apartment was based on an actress and I'll have to find her name Tammy Grimes. Tammy Grimes the exterior was actually filmed at her apartment. Right, the daytime Right. But they could not get the cameras inside her apartment. It was too small. So they built a set that they say matched it. So pretty, damn nice apartment. I'll tell you that.

Tony Maietta: 9:46

Gorgeous apartments on the Upper East Side.

Brad Shreve: 9:48

Nobody could afford that in New York today.

Tony Maietta: 9:50

No, certainly not. So what is this movie about?

Brad Shreve: 9:53

Okay. So the movie is about a birthday party and it is hosted by Michael, and Michael is a for lack of a better word I keep seeing recovering alcoholic. He doesn't usually really use that term. He pretty much just says I stopped drinking, but he's an alcoholic. You definitely learned that. He also is Catholic and seems to be struggling there. And he is hosting this party for his friend, harold. And I don't know what Harold does for a living. I don't think he's ever told. But Harold describes himself as an ugly, pockmarked Jew fairy. Michael and all his friends are all stereotypes and I don't see that as a negative because I'm firmly of the belief that stereotypes do exist for a reason and every one of these individuals is a stereotype. But I can also say I know every one of these individuals.

Tony Maietta: 10:37

Yeah, that's true. Well, that's very true.

Brad Shreve: 10:40

Yeah, I know every one of them. Michael is really struggling with his identity. Though you would never know it at the beginning, he seems the most stable. Harold is very self-loathing, bitter in his own way. Emery is super flamboyant, the decorator. Well they are archetypes. Yes.

Tony Maietta: 10:56

Now I hear what you're saying. They are archetypes. But I think it's important to point out, and Mark Crowley has said this, and I wanted to get a little bit in the background of and Mark Crowley has said this and I wanted to get a little bit in the background of I'm not gonna talk a lot about the play, but it's important because basically, what we're seeing when we see the film the Boys in the Band is the play, is the film version of the play, because it has the exact same cast, almost all of the same dialogue. So I want to talk about that. But what Mark Crowley? When he would get criticized for saying it was a bad representation of gay culture, he's like I'm not trying to represent gay culture, these are my friends. All of these characters were based on real people that Mark Crowley knew. Now, harold, he was an ice skater. I don't think he's still ice skating, but, as you said, you didn't know what he did. Harold was an ice skater. He was based on a very good friend of Mark Crowley's. Basically, what happened is let me go ahead and give a little background about. Can I go ahead and give a little bit of background about how the boys in the band came about and about Mark Crowley. Sure, let's go ahead and do that.

Tony Maietta: 11:55

So, anyway, mark Crowley grew up in the South and longed to be a playwright.

Tony Maietta: 12:03

He moved to New York when he was young and he somehow found himself being a PA on the set of Splendor in the Grass and being a PA primarily for Natalie Wood, and he and Natalie Wood became very close friends and when Splendor in the Grass was over, natalie Wood asked him to come back to Los Angeles with her and be her assistant. So he became Natalie Wood's assistant and he was very much in the Hollywood scene of the 60s, which was a fabulous, fabulous time to be in Hollywood, I think, and he knew all these people and he actually one of the things that she said if he came to Hollywood with her, she would give him a meeting with her agent at William Morris so he could get some work writing. And he actually wrote some screenplays, one of which was purchased by 20th Century Fox to star Natalie Wood, and Natalie Wood was going to play twins, one of the twins being a lesbian, which would have been incredible, but 20th Century Fox lost their nerve and it never happened.

Brad Shreve: 13:04

It was called.

Tony Maietta: 13:05

Cassandra at the wedding. Yeah, so Mark Crowley was kind of like a dilettante. He was in the room where it happened, he was with all these famous people, all these things were happening around him, yet he was not doing anything and he began to get very depressed and he began to drink. Well, he had this friend, this very good friend, named Howard Jeffries, who was a dancer and worked on all the big musicals in the 60s. He was in Funny Girl, he was the groom in the bridal scene, he was in Hello Dolly. He was a very, very accomplished dancer and he took Mart to this birthday party that was full of well, not full of gay men, a small birthday party of about a dozen gay men. And that was the first light bulb that went off in Mark Crowley's mind about what he could possibly write. That spoke to him as a gay man. And he said that he was lying in bed and he was very depressed and he just started writing lines, one after the other, after the other, and he just did this for days and days and days until he finally had a play that was based on the concept of a birthday party.

Tony Maietta: 14:14

It's Harold, who he based on his friend Howard Jeffries. Harold's 32nd birthday, all of these men come together to wish him a happy birthday and, of course, the night it turns into a long day's journey into night. It's, it's just how it happens, how it degenerates. But here's what I have a problem with, and maybe you don't agree with this. I have been to parties like this. You know, maybe they didn't degenerate to the point that they degenerate to in in the boys in the band, but I certainly there, certainly was. It was something in the air that I knew this was turning quickly. I got to get out of here. So that's why, when people say it's stereotypical, I don't know that that's necessarily true or that's necessarily a bad thing, because I think these people exist.

Brad Shreve: 15:00

When I say it's stereotypical, I meant the characters are stereotypes, okay.

Tony Maietta: 15:05

And yeah.

Brad Shreve: 15:05

I guess you could say the situation is stereotypical, but I don't know if I thought that at first. The self-loathing is certainly heavy. Yes, here's my challenge with this. So let me go back into the description that I've seen online, and this is where I have a challenge with this film. I'm reading I don't remember where the source was, but it's almost identical to everything else. I've seen A witty, perceptive and devastating look at the personal agendas and suppressed revelations swirling among a group of gay men in Manhattan. Harold is celebrating a birthday and his friend, michael has drafted some other friends to help commemorate the event. Here's where I have the challenge. As the evening progresses, the alcohol flows, the knives come out and Michaels demand that the group participate in devious telephone games, unleashed dormant and unspoken emotions.

Brad Shreve: 15:53

If that was this movie, I would like it better. That did not describe this movie. Those tensions and those antagonisms were right from the very beginning. They got worse as later goes on.

Brad Shreve: 16:05

Originally I didn't like this film because there was so much self-loathing. And then I looked at my own life and I'm like God. I had self-loathing for a lot of years. I relate to these people. Yeah, pretty common.

Brad Shreve: 16:15

But you know this is all before my time, but I've talked to guys in this era and they said there were two things about it. One, it was scary because you never knew who to trust. Yes, but despite all that and despite the pain and the suffering, when they got together it was very painful but there's also a lot of joy, yeah, and they really look on that fondly and I didn't see any of that in this movie Really. And what I would have liked to seen better, more is in the beginning. Maybe it would have been longer or there. Probably. I can think of a few things that could have been taken out. Nothing major. I would have liked to have seen more of that joy and the campiness, because I think the camp was much more over the top then Because they had to express themselves somehow. You don't think Emery was campy.

Tony Maietta: 16:55

Well, I Connie Casserole. Oh Mary, don't ask.

Brad Shreve: 17:00

No, no, I would like to have seen more of that amongst the whole group. And they did a little bit of it. They did a little dancing, they did the dance of Fire Island, reading each other and that kind of thing. To me it went downhill way too fast and it really started out with Michael and is it Donald? Yes, michael and Donald are friends, but there's that antagonism between them right from the beginning. So I wish it was a little more fun in the beginning and then pull this into the pain.

Tony Maietta: 17:28

Well, see, I find it so funny it's. You know, it's no accident. The two inspirations that Mark Crowley looks to or mentioned as his inspirations for this, for the play and for the film were who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Duh, I mean, it is the gay. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? If that's not redundant. I mean, the dialogue is that dense and cutting and it can turn on a dime from outrageous comedy to tragedy. And that's Virginia Woolf and that's the boys in the band. It's actually one of two plays that were put out on recording. I remember because I had both of them. They were actually made audio recordings on albums of Virginia Woolf and Boys in the Band and it makes sense because they're like bookends. He also looked at Rope, the Alfred Hitchcock film. There's a play that the Alfred Hitchcock film was based on because it takes place in real time, and the Boys and the Band also takes place in real time and if you've seen, the movie Rope.

Brad Shreve: 18:28

The play is much more blatant. It's a gay couple. It's not hinted at.

Tony Maietta: 18:33

So what I think is I find it hysterically funny in the beginning, because I don't know these lines. They're so bright, they're so sharp no-transcript.

Brad Shreve: 19:37

just give us a little more of that good time. I didn't laugh a lot through this, and I never have. I was reading the review of the 2018 Broadway, you know cause. It was originally off Broadway and then 2018, they brought it on Broadway and I was reading the review of that Right.

Tony Maietta: 19:52

Finally finally made it to broad. It finally made it to Broadway.

Brad Shreve: 19:55

Yes, it did, and they said the audience was saying the lines, the funny lines before they were. They were being spoken and were laughing and I'm like there are some great funny lines in there, but to me they were so overshadowed by the pain and maybe that's the part I'm missing, that you have that joy in the midst of pain and that is part more what I got from it later on.

Tony Maietta: 20:15

Well, here's the thing. I mean. This play was written when we could still be arrested. Obviously, it was before Stonewall. What was Stonewall? Stonewall was the police coming in and raiding a bar to arrest people. So this play was written in a time. Now here's the thing, though In the mid-60s, the culture was tearing, and what happens when things start to tear is other things start to seep in. So, as the culture is tearing in the mid-60s because of Vietnam, because of civil rights protests, suddenly there's a space opening up for these other things to happen, such as gay culture coming forward. So when the play was made, it was a very different time. It was still very oppressive.

Tony Maietta: 21:03

These men could find a family with each other. No matter how dysfunctional you may think it may be, it was still a family. You know, at the end of the play, after Harold absolutely decimates Michael with his words and Michael is a heap he's not quite a heap, but he's going to be a heap he turns to him and he says call you tomorrow Now, think about okay yeah, that's a pretty dysfunctional friendship, okay, but there's that sense of family there, that sense of love there that people have with people. They're close. That my own internalized struggles with my sexuality. I remember that pain, that self-loathing, that hatred. These people are personifying that.

Brad Shreve: 21:50

Oh yeah.

Tony Maietta: 21:51

And it existed. It's a historic fact. Still exists, still exists.

Brad Shreve: 21:56

And I agree, that's where I did connect is when I really thought wait a minute, you hated yourself just as much as these guys did. But again, what you described is not all that I saw.

Tony Maietta: 22:10

I wanted to see more of that in the film.

Brad Shreve: 22:11

As I said, I'm only going this from hearsay, from what men of that era have told me is the joy and the love of their adopted family or their chosen family, and I would have liked to seen a little. But they also talked about the pain and the fear and everything else, and I would have liked to seen just a little more of that chosen family love before that pain that obviously still did exist as well came in. That's all I'm saying, because it would have endeared me a little bit more to each of the characters. I get what you're saying. I wanted to care just a little bit more. The characters are hard to like.

Tony Maietta: 22:39

Like people, they're very complex characters. Michael, the character of Michael, who's played by Kenneth Nelson, was sort of kind of based on, you know, mark Crowley based him kind of on himself. Mark Crowley based him kind of on himself. Mark Crowley had issues with drinking. He became sober later in his life and he just God bless him he died. He finally won the Tony Award for the revival for Best Revival of a Play of the Boys in the Band and he died a little bit later.

Tony Maietta: 23:04

He had a heart attack, which is sad because he was a very, very funny, wonderful guy. So Michael is based on Mark Crowley at that time. As I said, harold is based on his friend Howard Jeffries, and there are other. Donald was based on another dear friend. Donald was played by Frederick Holmes, who was the Matt Bomer character in the revival and another good friend of his. So these were all friends of his and he was showing the facets of all of his friends.

Tony Maietta: 23:33

I think what I want to say about this and the historical importance of both the play and the film. This play first of all had a very I don't want to go into all the machinations of how it got on stage. It was a workshop that Edward Albee produced from the money he was making from who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, because he didn't want to give to the government. So he created this workshop and it was for five nights. And the first night of the show of the play, the house was half full this was in 1968. And the second night, the next morning after the first night, there was a line down the block of about 500 people waiting to see this play.

Tony Maietta: 24:14

So this play was huge, played five performances in the workshop and then it moved uptown to, I think, 55th Street and played for 1,001 performances. So this play was big and when the movie companies came to Mark Crowley saying that they wanted to buy it and make a film of it, because that was happening all the brave actors who literally put their careers on the line to play these parts Lawrence Luckinbill, who plays Hank, the one who was married but is bisexual and struggling with sexuality with Harry said that they all lost their agents because their agents all told them don't do this play. And they're like we're going to do this play. It's a brilliant play, so anyway, he wanted to reward them.

Brad Shreve: 25:17

I saw an interview. He said his wife at the time, robin Strasser. She said do you want to really do this? And he said I do. And she said, okay, there goes your career. Yeah, she supported him, but it's just like okay there goes your career, absolutely, absolutely.

Tony Maietta: 25:29

That was the thing you know. We talked a little bit about when I was acting and how I had to be. I had to play it straight. I don't know how successful I was, but I mean that's so. Can you imagine in the 60s, when we were still we could still be arrested? It wasn't good. Yeah, so he.

Tony Maietta: 25:43

But so Mark Crow studio Cinema Center Films, and the only thing that happened was they had to get a new director. They couldn't have Robert Moore because the studio said we can't have. Robert Moore was the original director of the play and Robert Moore was the actor director who played Phyllis's brother on the Mary Tyler Moore Show the one who's gay, by the way, ps, cute little aside. So William Friedkin came in. He had just directed the Birthday Party and he was one of these. You know, one of the young Turks coming to Hollywood in the early 70s, like Alan Pakula and Martin Scorsese, who revolutionized film business, and he used. These actors were able to create the roles they created on stage in film for posterity. Now here's. The sad thing is that most of them never hit the same heights again. Is it because of the characters they played? Is it because of this film? Did this film taint it? I don't know. They all worked after this film and Lawrence Luckinbill had a very illustrious career. He just wrote his memoir, I think other than Robert Letourneau who played Cowboy.

Brad Shreve: 26:58

The others did okay, they did okay, but they felt he just kind of vanished after 74.

Tony Maietta: 27:03

Yeah Well, they felt very confined. They felt very stereotyped, in particular Cliff Gorman, who plays Emery probably the bravest of them all. And Cliff Gorman was heterosexual, he was not gay. Cliff Gorman went on to play Lenny Bruce. He won a Tony Award for playing Lenny Bruce in the play version of Lenny, which was later made by Dustin Hoffman as a film. He was very angry about what Emery did to his career, was very angry about what Emery did to his career.

Tony Maietta: 27:33

A lot of these actors Robert Letourneau was as well. Robert Letourneau played Cowboy. Mark Crowley saw him at a tea dance on Fire Island and said to Robert Moore, that's Cowboy. He was a soap actor and he was very bitter about it, although I don't know if he would have had such a stellar career without the boys in the band or not. But a lot of these people you know. Leonard Frye was a great actor. He did Fiddler on the Roof. After this he was nominated for an Academy Award for that. He was also a very good looking guy. He's not at all like Harold. He's not like the ugly pockmarked Jew fairy he plays in this film. It's a brilliant character, if you think of the newer version.

Tony Maietta: 28:16

I him. It's a brilliant character If you think of the newer version. I think Zach Quinto is very handsome and he looked like Harold in the newer version. So, yeah, exactly. So these are two very good looking guys who definitely changed their appearance to play this part. And Peter White was on All my Children for like 30 years playing Link. I remember him from All my Children as a kid, I'm like, because the first time I saw the boys in the band I went that's Link from all my children. So, yes, they worked. Kenneth Nelson moved to London and did work in London on London stage for the rest of his life as well. So they all worked, but they never really they didn't really hit the heights that this play promised. I guess is the great way to say that.

Brad Shreve: 28:49

You mentioned Gorman, cliff Gorman being so brave to play Emery, who was the most flamboyant of the bunch. When I was reading the article that Cliff Gorman and his wife took care of Robert Letourneau when he was dying of AIDS, I'm like his wife, I'm like that had to be a typo. I'm like he was straight. Oh my goodness, I couldn't believe it.

Tony Maietta: 29:13

It's a little surprising, isn't it? Speaking of stereotypes, you talked about stereotypes. I do have my issues with his portrayal of Emery Cliff, gorman's portrayal of Emily. I mean you can draw a line. First of all, you can draw a line from Emery all the way down to Jack McFarlane.

Brad Shreve: 29:30

I mean hello.

Tony Maietta: 29:31

Same trajectory line, from Emery all the way down to Jack McFarlane of Will and Grace. I mean, hello, same trajectory, same character. You can see the beginnings of it. I feel like and Friedkin has said this too. William Friedkin said this he feels like he should have toned Cliff Gorman down a little bit. They were all theatrical. First of all, when William Friedkin agreed to direct this, he wanted three weeks of rehearsal and they were all like what We've been doing, this show for 1001 performances, we do not need to rehearse. But he had to rehearse them to bring them down for film. Now they're still all very theatrical.

Tony Maietta: 30:06

I think that's another criticism that people have of this film. It's very theatrically presented because it is based on a play. But there are ways to do it. Virginia Woolf is a prime example. Virginia Woolf is an incredibly theatrical play but a wonderfully cinematic film. I don't look at Virginia Woolf, the film, and think well, first of all, elizabeth Taylor was not a theater actress, so there you go right. Now you have a theater actress, so there you go, right now you have a film actress.

Tony Maietta: 30:33

So maybe if they had gotten film actors to do this it would be different. But yes, it's a very theatrical presentation and they're all just slightly bit too theatrical. Same thing with Kenneth Nelson. I think he's just a bit too theatrical, needs to just dial it down just a bit. But then I don't know, maybe that's the essence of the play, maybe it isn't.

Brad Shreve: 31:00

I agree with you. I actually think it was. I'm not going to say a mistake. I didn't notice the difference. I don't want to go back and forth between the new Netflix version and this version, but I'm going to bring it up because I didn't really notice the theatricality of the original movie until I watched the Netflix series. And I'm not going to say the Netflix series was better, because it's not, but there were some. When I was looking at the casting choices in the different characters, I thought some were better in 70s, some were better in the newer one. But one thing I noticed is I felt like the characters were more real in the newer version and then I realized it's because these guys, the other guys are on stage and especially Gorman.

Brad Shreve: 31:32

He was playing Exactly. I felt like I was watching somebody play. I was watching somebody, an actor. I felt like I was watching an actor every time he was on. I didn't buy him.

Tony Maietta: 31:41

You just hit the nail. He was the character that I felt the least connected to. You just hit the nail on the head with that, which is what I was going to say, that which is I was going to say. You know, the interesting thing about the Netflix is it was the exact opposite problem. You have TV and film actors Matt Bomer, jim Parsons, zachary Quintero who are TV and film, now having to play on stage.

Tony Maietta: 32:01

Because I saw the Broadway version of the Netflix oh, did you? This was the. I saw it in New York with the same cast and they had the reverse opposite, the reverse problem that the original actors had. The original actors had to bring down their performances and the ones on the Netflix had to bring them up for the stage. So it makes sense that when you're watching the Netflix one that's their comfort zone yeah, they're all TV and film actors, so they can do that. It's the exact opposite with the film version and I think they all did a fantastic job. By the way, I really don't, like I said, I have some problems with Cliff Gorman, but that's more of a directing thing. William Freed should have said to him bring it down a little bit, bring it down a little bit, but he didn't. He wanted to capture this outrageous performance of Emery.

Brad Shreve: 32:48

Tony, I'm stopping our conversation real quick.

Tony Maietta: 32:50

Why of Emory, tony, I'm stopping our conversation real quick. Why?

Brad Shreve: 32:53

Why we're in the middle of a podcast, but this is about the podcast and it's very important. Okay, listener, whatever app you're listening on, whether it's on the computer or on the phone, reach your finger or your mouse over. It usually says follow. Some still say subscribe and click that, and what's going to happen when they do that, tony?

Tony Maietta: 33:10

They're going to get notified when a new episode is available and they can listen to us again. You know you don't want to miss that. No, can we get back to the episode that we were recording? Of course, please. Of course, all right, thank you. Don't forget to subscribe and follow. There you go.

Brad Shreve: 33:27

I have a question about Robin de Jesus, who played Emery in the Netflix version. I believe I've seen him in other things. He is a flamboyant man, am I correct? Yeah, well, I think he was in Tick Tick Boom. Okay, I know I saw Tick Tick Boom not too long ago, but I don't remember.

Tony Maietta: 33:41

The Jonathan Larson thing.

Brad Shreve: 33:43

Yeah, I know, I saw it because I really like Andrew Garfield as an actor. I believed him as Emery.

Tony Maietta: 33:52

I didn't feel like he was acting like Emery. The other guy felt like he was acting like him. I've seen quite a few productions of this play and Emery's always the tricky one. Emery can really divide people. You need a very, very technically skilled actor to play Emery, otherwise it comes up, especially now because we've had, you know all I said, the Jack McFarlanes. We have this idea. He's such a stereotype now. It's a very tricky part to play and I think Robin de Jesus did an incredible job. Yes, I agree. I also love the fact that they made him. You know that he wasn't this white gay guy anymore. They gave him. You know he's a man of color and I loved that. They did that with that, with that show, with that particular performance.

Brad Shreve: 34:29

And I think until somebody knows an Emory, they will think Emory is a gross stereotype. Yeah, but there are people like Emory. Oh, I know Emory. Yeah, that's the thing.

Tony Maietta: 34:40

I know what's up with him. So when people criticize this play about, oh, the stereotypes in it, but they're real, there are people who are like this, and they're also full of drama. Exactly, exactly. So I have a real problem when people say, oh my god they're so stereotypical.

Tony Maietta: 34:56

These people exist, every one of these people exist in my world, yeah, and I said, and I have been to parties that could have easily degenerated into a party almost as bad as this. So I think those criticisms are. They're all out there. You know, there's some validity to some of them and not so much to others. That's the way I feel about it.

Brad Shreve: 35:16

So let's talk about Cowboy.

Tony Maietta: 35:17

Okay.

Brad Shreve: 35:19

Robert Letourneau. I love his character. I'm very sad for his character. They are brutal. It's a very sad character, isn't it? Yes, he is, I don't know. He's basically a hustler. He was hired for $20 for the night.

Tony Maietta: 35:32

No, he was not basically a hustler. He's a hustler. He's not basically a hustler. He finds him on 42nd Street. He's a hustler.

Brad Shreve: 35:39

He's a hustler, yes, and he's not the brightest one that you've ever met. So he's hired for $20 for the night, which sounds like pretty good money. Back then he was a birthday present from Emery to Harold, the birthday boy. He is very dense, sometimes a little bit to the point of absurdity, but that's okay. He was still a fun character. But the others are so brutal to him, just so cruel and so condescending they are, and it'd be okay if it was a joke here and there, but my God, they just didn't let up.

Tony Maietta: 36:10

Well, there's a certain amount of jealousy there.

Brad Shreve: 36:11

Well, there is. That's exactly what I felt. First of all, there was the jealousy, and there was also the contempt that he didn't have the culture that they had.

Tony Maietta: 36:21

So it was a little of both. Well, I mean, that's such a gay thing. I mean that jealousy. What does Harold say? You know, this poor boy, his transitory beauty. Beauty is so transitory, you know, but you'd give up everything for just a little bit of that transitory beauty, wouldn't you, michael? I mean, I just paraphrased the hell out of it, but that's basically what—.

Brad Shreve: 36:35

It's so tragic what— he's saying. His face is so tragic, referring to the fact that it's going to become tragic.

Tony Maietta: 36:40

Yeah, what a tragedy this boy's face is. Yeah, I mean. But you know, I know lots of gay men who talk that way.

Brad Shreve: 36:46

Who behave that?

Tony Maietta: 36:47

way. You know what I mean. There's a real jealousy. It's the same thing. It's you know what? Doesn't Michael say that fags are worse than women about growing older? And to them, growing older is 30. Oh, fags think their life's over at 30. And I'm sorry for dropping the F word, but you know that's what they say in the play.

Tony Maietta: 37:04

So I don't want to dance around, yeah, and you know, one thing I'm glad is I'm glad that's not true as much anymore. There are still guys in their 20s that are like, oh God, anybody over 30 might as well be dead. But what I like is that guys over their 30s and guys in their 40s and guys in their 50s and 60s no longer feel like they're dead. I think I hope that we get to the point. We're also in a different age, but I hope we've gotten to the point in our lives where we get to the point in our lives where we realize we do get better as we get older and we don't behave the way we do. I always think it's funny that they think I mean, these are all men clearly are in their 30s.

Tony Maietta: 37:45

You know, I always think it's funny that Harold's only 32 because he looks a little bit older than 32, if you ask me, think it's funny that Harold's only 32, because he looks a little bit older than 32, if you ask me. But that's one thing I like about the revival is that I don't think they play up on that as much. But you know, youth culture, gay culture, is no different than everybody else's culture, in that youth culture rules. And here is this young boy. Think about Cowboy for a minute, you know. You think about a hustler in Times Square. You think of what's his name from Midnight Cowboy you think of, like not Ratso Rizzo he wasn't the hustler but Joe Buck, John Boyd's character and same kind of thing. You know what I mean? This is a kid who's trying to make his way in life, who's maybe not the smartest, doesn't have the tools that these other men do, and he's invited into this viper's nest of a birthday party and you know what he comes out? He's the only one, basically, other than Donald, who doesn't play the game, who doesn't come out humiliated. You know, bernard, emery, they're all well. Hank and Larry don't either, because they have that kind of come together moment. But I mean he's just kind of like observing it and actually he comes out in the end in the best because he's going to make some money. Yeah, he's got to go to bed with Harold, but he's going to make some money, which I think is interesting.

Tony Maietta: 39:04

You know there was a scene that was cut that was not in the play that they wanted to film in which there was a kiss between Hank and Larry after they have their makeup and they go upstairs to Michael's room and Larry is walking towards the door and goes inside and Michael says what do you think is going on up there to Alan? And there was actually a scene they filmed that the actors were very ambivalent about. At first they agreed to do it and then they didn't want to do it. And then William Friedkin said let's just shoot it and see if we need it. And it was a scene of them kissing and they filmed it and they realized that they really didn't need it.

Tony Maietta: 39:41

It was superfluous. No, it would detract from it. It was, yeah, it was not important to the story, but it's interesting that these actors again so brave. How brave were these actors I was saying earlier about and they are, you know, matt Bomer, jonathan Bailey being so brave for doing these roles. Now, think about that in the mid-60s. How brave these actors were to do these parts. And of these nine actors, six identified as gay men and six and the director, robert Moore, of the play, died of AIDS.

Brad Shreve: 40:17

Actually Reuben Green died of a heart attack.

Tony Maietta: 40:19

Well, he disappeared. Nobody knows where he is. He's still alive.

Brad Shreve: 40:23

Oh, because I just— I have found very mixed stuff on him. So, yeah, you could be right, because I found that he's missing. I found that he died 20 years ago. I found that he died 10 years ago. So, yeah, you could be right, because I found that he's missing. I found that he died 20 years ago. I found that he died 10 years ago. So, yeah, I'll take your word that he's still missing.

Tony Maietta: 40:35

Yeah, william Friedkin said he hasn't heard from Ruben Green. Ruben Green plays Bernard. He's the African-American, the only African-American character, and he was a model. He wasn't an actor, he was a model. He did this part, he did a couple other TV shows and then he distanced himself from this film and kind of disappeared. All the cast members the surviving cast members say they have had no contact with him, don't know where he is, what he is. So, if he's alive, keith Prentiss, robert Letourneau, all died of AIDS. That is one of the most devastating, devastating legacies of this film. I think it's terribly sad.

Brad Shreve: 41:24

I'll tell you, when I was looking at each of these cast members and Kenneth Nelson I saw he died at 63 and 93 and, like 93, 93 and 94 were the two biggest years for AIDS deaths in the United States. Leonard Fry 49 and 88. Keith Prentiss he was 52 and 92.

Brad Shreve: 41:41

I started looking at these ages and looking at these years and my heart was sinking because I knew before, I saw how they died, right and sure enough, everyone one of them died of AIDS-related death and it just you know I've shared before that I was removed because of where I lived and being in the closet at the same time. Aids was this thing that went on elsewhere. You know, it was that thing that was out there that people were talking about. And to watch these characters and as much as I say they irritate the hell out of me I grew to like these characters at the same time and then afterwards to see that these actors, who I like their characters and I respected that they were able to do this, to see almost all of them died of AIDS, it just it's devastating.

Brad Shreve: 42:22

I was actually in tears. I was in tears.

Tony Maietta: 42:25

It really is the gut punch epilogue to this film.

Brad Shreve: 42:30

Well, when my friends tell me that we're out at that time, they say they lost almost everybody they knew. Well, you know that's kind of an abstract thing it is. Then I watch, I look at this movie and see all these guys are gone.

Tony Maietta: 42:40

I thought the same thing. I'm like, oh, I thought that's such an abstract concept. And then you see it in front of you.

Brad Shreve: 42:45

Yeah, that's exactly what it was.

Tony Maietta: 42:47

But it was that six of the people in this production we lost to this plague and I think that, oh, you know I do not agree with cancel culture at all. Obviously, if somebody does something heinous, like breaks a law, that's one thing. That's not cancel culture. When people talk about this film, you know what's the very famous saying those who ignore.

Tony Maietta: 43:15

History are bound to repeat it If people think that we are safe in this world and in our wonderful lives where we can get married now and adopt children and have wonderful Sunday fun days out partying, if they don't think that can change and we can go back to a time in the 60s when this play was put on, they're crazy. So that's why I say no. You don't cancel the Boys in the Band, you look at it and you say pay attention, because we have to fight for this every day, otherwise we end up right back here, and I feel the same way with AIDS.

Tony Maietta: 43:52

Obviously, I just got off AIDS life cycle, so I'm a little bit on my soapbox here. People think AIDS is over. It ain't over, it ain't over. People are still getting HIV Now, maybe they're living with it, but they have to take very strong medications for the rest of their lives. I'm not going to turn this into an HIV podcast either, but what I'm saying is that that pisses me off when people say negative things about this film and want to forget about it and erase our culture. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, and these men are a living example.

Brad Shreve: 44:24

I was reading in a Facebook group these very similar statements being made about Philadelphia and how it's so outdated, oh, absolutely.

Brad Shreve: 44:33

Boy. I jumped in on that. I said look, I just talked to Ron. Let me tell you what I think Good, and I don't know if I set them straight. I will say one thing I'm really happy happened. You know, I'm sure a lot of people were really upset that Ryan Murphy and Netflix decided to remake this film Because it is a classic and people hate it when classics are remade. But what I love about it is they've reached an audience that never would have gone and watched this 1970 film. I agree with you, they never would have looked at anything, but they see, ooh, matt Bomber's in it. They would have looked at anything, but they see, oh, matt bomber's in it and this guy's they're on, they're, they're on netflix and they saw a film that they never would have seen otherwise I agree with you.

Tony Maietta: 45:07

You know, and I have my issues with ryan murphy oh, I do um and some of the things he does, but I what I love about that is that it was a broadway play first. He put it on broadway where it finally. What a what a win. Thank god that mark crowley lived. To see his creation on Broadway, where it should have always been, and then to win the Tony Award as Best Revival and then to have it open to a wider audience on Netflix is wonderful.

Tony Maietta: 45:33

You know, mark Crowley didn't. After this he kind of went back to his dilettante life. You know what I mean? He was very much like Michael. He was traveling from city to city and the only place he was ever happy was on the goddamn plane. And it wasn't until Natalie Wood came to his rescue once again with Robert Wagner. By now they were remarried and said would you come to LA and work on Heart to Heart? And he produced Heart to Heart. And then, of course, the tragedy with Natalie Wood happened. And what's interesting about Mark Crowley is Mark Crowley did write a sequel.

Tony Maietta: 46:05

Did you know there was a sequel to this play Boys in the Band? No, I had no idea. Yeah, uh he, he wrote a sequel in 2002 called the Men from the Boys, and this is what's kind of interesting about that. So he's he's written it. Post AIDS the characters all get together for the funeral of Larry. Post AIDS the characters all get together for the funeral of Larry, who hasn't died of AIDS, he's died of pancreatic cancer. It had its premiere in San Francisco and it just never went anywhere. I think it's interesting that he didn't address the AIDS crisis. If you're going to address that, maybe it's because of these friends of his that he lost due to the crisis and he didn't want to revisit that so literally. So maybe he made the pancreatic cancer. But I find that really interesting that he wrote the sequel that totally did not deal with the AIDS crisis.

Brad Shreve: 46:55

Interesting. Yeah, that is really interesting.

Tony Maietta: 46:58

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know why he didn't do that, but maybe again. Maybe it's because he lost these dear, dear people.

Brad Shreve: 47:15

Yeah, I don't know why he didn't do that, but maybe again, maybe it's because he lost these dear, dear people, do you want to? Was in a soap opera, I guess, did a little role at the time and he went and cashed his check that he made at the soap opera and he passed the theater and he saw the line that he said was it was way down going down the street with 500 people, yeah, and he initially thought that the theater was burning down so instantly. It was popular then. And then the budget for this film is pretty amazing to me because, given the time, the topic and the time Now I'm getting two different numbers.

Brad Shreve: 47:50

Imdb said this movie costs $1.3 million to make. Every other source I see, including the movie database, is $5.5 million. Either of those numbers are pretty astounding when you consider that MASH MASH was $3.5 million to make, butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid $6 million to make. Now there were other bigger hits, but those were hits that were made on what today we would consider a very low budget and this movie wasn't that far behind really, especially at the $5.5 million. This is accurate, yeah, so the fact that it was given that much money, I don't know where it came from, you may know.

Tony Maietta: 48:25

It was Cinema Center Films which CBS owned, which was a CBS company, Okay, but I saw those figures too and I got to tell you I'm wondering 5.5 million in 1970 was a shit ton of money, yeah, For a one set film. This film takes place on one set. There were exteriors, fabulous exteriors of New York in the late sixties on the Upper East Side. There was a shot in Julius's bar in the West village which they replicated in the Ryan Murphy version, which I love, and Mark Crowley's in the in the on the in the bar scene. So if you watch it again, look for Mark Crowley, he's against the window. If you watch it again, look for Mark Crowley, he's against the window. So, yeah, I find it difficult to believe that they spent $5.5 million on this movie.

Brad Shreve: 49:09

I agree with you and I will say that I looked at five big hit movies from 1970. And the IMDb dollar amount matched all these other sites verbatim. This was the only one that I saw huge discrepancy and I, like you, I'm leaning more towards they used somebody's real patio and then they built one set. Yes, exactly, I am leaning towards more believing the 1.3 million, which to me still is a pretty big deal.

Tony Maietta: 49:33

These actors were not getting million-dollar salaries either.

Brad Shreve: 49:36

What would have been just a very cheap indie film that nobody would have saw normally.

Tony Maietta: 49:41

Yeah, I would tend to agree with the other thing and you know, because of its subject matter, you know it had very limited release. Obviously it played in New York, it played in Los Angeles, it played in the cities, but you know it wasn't about to play in Peoria, you know, or Omaha. So it's the fact that the figures I got of it it made $3.5 million, which seems a little more in line with, you know, if it cost about a million, $2 million to make, then it made a small, small profit which was a win, you know, considering it had such limited release. But here's the interesting thing about this and I kind of alluded to it before, about how this movie was being filmed 20 blocks away from Stonewall. At the same time this movie went into production in 1969 as a groundbreaking event.

Tony Maietta: 50:35

By the time it was released and we're talking about a year, it was suddenly retrograde. It was suddenly somebody called it the gay Uncle Tom's cabin. That is how much society changed in the year between beginning of this film and the time it was released. So this film really kind of got a bum rap in that respect. And when they had the revival of it, the very first revival in 1996, off-Broadway, which I also saw, ben Bradley began his review with. I guess it's okay to like the boys in the band again Because it got a really bad rap, because people didn't want to be pushed back into the closet and so many people thought this film represented the closet.

Tony Maietta: 51:20

Well it did, because it takes place in a time where the closet was still very much a reality, and that's the criticism of this film represented the closet? Well it did, because it takes place in a time where the closet was still very much a reality, and that's the criticism of this film. I think you have to, as I said before, you have to separate that and you have to look at this as the historic time capsule of an era and hope to God we don't ever go back to that era again.

Brad Shreve: 51:42

I agree. And you know what? I can totally see why all that happened. This was just really bad timing for this, one year for this film. Yeah, because this was filmed before Stonewall. It came out after Stonewall. All of a sudden we're out and we're not all miserable and we're not all psychopaths. And you know, nobody was saying we're just like you, because everybody wanted to emphasize they weren't, but they were still okay. But when I say everybody, I'm always generalizing. I could see why somebody at that point were like, okay, we're getting out of that. And now, oh, look there, we're miserable again. I could see why somebody at that point would say, oh, why did why no?

Tony Maietta: 52:19

Yeah.

Brad Shreve: 52:20

I can understand why that happened. It was bad timing.

Tony Maietta: 52:23

It was. It was bad timing, it was. It was unfortunate, and that could be another reason why these actors' careers didn't exactly skyrocket the way that you think they would have when you're a part of this groundbreaking film. Think of Virginia Woolf. They all got nominated for Oscars for Virginia Woolf. This movie got nominated for no Oscars. Now, I'm not saying that Oscars necessarily equate with a good film, but you know they're a good barometer for it. And there were no Oscar nominations for this film and this film just kind of went away, you know, it just kind of died.

Tony Maietta: 52:57

It was that, the urban myth of this. You know of this, not this terrible film, but this film that paints us in such a bad light. You know of this, not this terrible film, but this film that paints us in such a bad light. And what I love is with the revivals in 96 and 2018 and the Netflix. And then they just recently released this film on DVD in a beautiful, pristine condition. The colors are gorgeous. This film is being looked at as with the respect it deserves. This film deserves the respect of every single gay man, every single queer person who watches it, because it was the first. It might not be the best, but it said it before. Anybody else had the guts to say it and put it out there for all the world to see. So for that reason I will always applaud Boys in the Band, always.

Brad Shreve: 53:45

And I will now get to you what my feeling is, because I told you what my feeling was about this movie before I watched it. Uh-oh, and I said I'm going to watch it with an open mic. Gird your loins, people. No, actually it's good. I still find it disturbing. It was much more disturbing than I anticipated. I thought, okay, Okay, you know what I was thinking in the past. No, it hurt me a lot more than I expected. But I have a huge respect for this movie and I didn't know how to verbalize it until I read it in. Maybe Washington Blade I don't know where I read this that what this movie did. Before this movie, gays were always depicted as the psychopath or the depressed, the sick individual. They were sick, Right, and this movie was the first, or at least the first, to garner attention. That said, we're not gay because we're sick. We're sick because we're gay because of how society treats us. Ooh, If we're unhappy, it's because of society, not because of who we are or what we are.

Tony Maietta: 54:40

That's a beautiful, that's beautifully put. Brad, I was almost going to have a quick comeback Like why don't you not tell me about it? But I like that that's, that's very, that's very beautifully put. Yeah, it's very true, it is very true. This movie may not deserve, this movie may not receive, uh, the glory your love as hell deserves your respect.

Brad Shreve: 55:02

Exactly, it's not a movie. I want to sit down and just relax and watch. It's not that at all.

Tony Maietta: 55:06

No.

Brad Shreve: 55:06

But I do have a huge respect for the film, absolutely.

Tony Maietta: 55:09

And I don't think any film can ask for more than that.

Brad Shreve: 55:12

Yeah.

Tony Maietta: 55:13

Well, I think that's great. I think we just did the boys in the band. How about that? I think we did. Thanks everybody. We still need an ending. Oh, I think I always wanted to mention okay, I should have mentioned this before. We have a playlist on spotify that brad has created and I add to uh for all the songs that I can't sing on this podcast. Um, you can go to our spotify to going hollywood uh podcast and listen to some of the wonderful songs that we talk about from a lot of these movies that we discuss and we pick and choose.

Brad Shreve: 55:44

I was putting a whole playlist and I realized, no, no, not all of that's good. So we do pick and choose from the films.

Tony Maietta: 55:49

You were. I looked at the one you did for Fellow Travelers. I was like Jesus man.

Brad Shreve: 55:53

How many songs do you have? I took all those out.

Tony Maietta: 55:54

I took only the ones that had vocals in them and don't forget to rate and review us, please. Oh, one last thing Thank you to all the people who have rated and reviewed us, given us five stars. That's really lovely. You know, brad and I. It may not be hard to believe, but Brad and I have other jobs that we do. We're both incredibly busy people and this is truly this podcast for me and I hope I speak for Brad is truly a labor of love, and to have your positive feedback and to have your encouragement means the world to us, and I just want to say thank you for that, for everybody who's taken the time to give us a five-star rating or to write a review. It's fabulous. So thank you very much, everybody, and for listening always.

Brad Shreve: 56:39

Podcasting is a lonely business because we sit here and we talk on microphones. We see each other, but then it goes out in the world and we may see people are listening to it or whatever. But that's it. Unless you let us know, you're just numbers and we don't want that and we appreciate it. I don't care about the numbers. I want to hear what your thoughts are and actually there's a way you can, if you'd like to tell what your opinions are of the movies and our thoughts on them. In the show notes of every episode it says text us your opinion or comment. Text it to us. We can't respond, but we will read it to you on the air, so make sure you tell us your name.

Tony Maietta: 57:13

Yeah, and if you want to give us a suggestion of a film to watch you know we were just talking about what our film choices would be let us know. I mean, that would be a lot of fun. Yes, thanks everybody.