Gay Best Friend: Erich in "Midnight Express"

 a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Norbert Weisser co-stars as Erich in Alan Pakula's 1978 hit "Midnight Express."Our journeys into classic cinema has allowed us to explore the beginnings of the gay best friend trope and coding during the Hayes Code. Once the code was abolished, the late 60s and 70s were able to go wild. While sex, swearing and violence began to populate films, the depiction of gay people stayed relatively the same. Movies were able to actually define characters as LGBTQ+, but they were often villains or would meet a tragic fate. Sympathetic LGBTQ+ characters were tough to come by.

At first glance, the brutal prison drama Midnight Express would not seem like the place to find a nice gay best friend. But Erich (Norbert Weisser) stands out as a light among the considerable darkness. Erich acts as the confidant and guide for our protagonist, Bill Hayes (Brad Davis in a BAFTA & Globe nominated debut), who was sent to this Turkish prison for smuggling hashish from Turkey. His kindness is a wonderful tonic for the grim realities of the Turkish prison. 

However, once Erich acts on his desires, he is immediately removed from the narrative...

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: The Spy Who Stabbed Me

Jason Adams from MNPP here, continuing our little Pride Month run of LGBT-centric "Beauty vs Beast" contests -- we're turning our eyes towards the small screen this week for one of our favorite on-going queer series, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's fabulously twisted sapphic spy versus spy series Killing Eve. Deserving all of the awards we can violently fling at them in one corner we've got Sandra Oh as Eve, the hyper-capable but darksided intelligence officer, and in the other there's Jodie Comer as the psychopath but don't call her that Villanelle (god that name is so good), who's spotted a little something inside Eve she can't wait to dig her fingers around in.

survey services

PREVIOUSLY That low-cut tank-top on Brad Davis proved too tough for us to resist, tilting last week's Querelle poll perilously in his favor with a broad-chested 82% of the vote. I would shed a tear for Franco Nero but... he's Franco Nero, he's more than okay. Said FrenchToast:

"Team Brad Davis all the way!What a brilliant actor he was. Was it too much to ask for him to get Oscar nominated in 1979? I remember reading Genet's novel in high school and being mesmerized (and probably aroused) by his poetic writing. Even if Fassbinder's movie has its flaws, it's a daring and terrific adaptation."

Beauty vs Beast: Sailors Moon

Jason Adams from MNPP here using this week's "Beauty vs Beast" to memorialize a sad anniversary -- the great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder died of an overdose on this day in the year 1982. Unsurprising given his extraordinary output over the course of his 37 years on Earth Fassbinder's projects outlived his days, and one finished film came out a few months after he'd passed -- his gorgeously gay and strange Genet adaptation Querelle, starring Brad Davis as a sailor entangled in lusty criminalities in port, and that's where we'll rest our eyes today (since we're also covering LGBT films all June to boot). Much like Lieutenant Seblon (a perfectly mustachioed Franco Nero, awash in long eroticized pauses) can't keep his eyes off his charge, neither can we all these years later...

find bike trails

PREVIOUSLY The first week of Pride Month took us to sweet Translyvania, where Tim Curry's Dr. Frank N Furter easily swanned off with 0ver 80% of your Rocky Horror votes. Said kris01:

"Brad and Janet are cute and everything, but Frank n Furter can create life. Iron Man has a million suits to jerk off too, but can he make people!?"

The Furniture: Leering Through Querelle's Erotic Architecture

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

by Daniel Walber 

The films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, though they are many and varied, almost always have striking production design. The obvious examples include the ‘70s scifi chic of World on a Wire and the opulent apartment of Petra von Kant, but it's true of his whole catalogue. The design of Querelle is as bold as it is aroused. And as of this week it’s new to FilmStruck, a place where you can find tons of design classics (like La Ronde and Great Expectations, two of my favorites).

Querelle got terrible reviews when it opened in 1982. It’s often considered an oddity of excess at the end of a career built on precision, an oversexed and underwritten mess with little to say and too much to show. 

That’s nonsense. Sure, it's a lot, including the work of production designer Rolf Zehetbauer and art director Walter Richarz. But what most of the reviews seem to have missed is that Querelle isn’t just about sex. It’s about power, and the way that sex between men can be as much an exchange of control as it is an exchange of fluids.

Click to read more ...

April Showers: Midnight Express (1978)

Waterworks some nights at 11. This one is from the vaults from the first season. But it's worth a revisit as the film is currently available on Netflix Instant Watch.

I've always been a little bit a lot perplexed by the famous shower scene in Alan Parker's Midnight Express (1978). I'm not exactly sure why it's in the movie. Midnight Express strongest asset is arguably its expressive physicality and gritty tactile quality; you feel like you're right there in the grotty hellish Turkish prison, sweating and suffering along with Billy Hayes (Brad Davis). But the sexual vibes coming off of the movie are at times unfathomable. Is it gay? Is it bi? Is it straight? Is it just horny? Or is its ambiguous eroticism simply a by-product of casting a star as carnally charismatic as Brad Davis in the lead role?

As warm up to the famous shower scene we get a montage detailing the friendship of Billy and Erich (Norbert Weisser) a fellow prisoner. They've been in this hellhole for years. We see them do yoga togethe and bathe each other. They even duet on a private meditation mantra...

Click to read more ...