Tolerance in the Movies

EXTERIOR BUCKINGHAM PALACE NIGHT

February 4 1954. A light dusting of snow blown by a strong wind swirls around a line of limousines, Rolls, and Bentleys, as they pass through the Palace gates. Supervising policemen and Household Cavalry Guards shiver in their uniforms.

INTERIOR PALACE HALLWAY NIGHT

A state dinner is scheduled to commence in 2 minutes. The Prime Minister’s chief Aide looks at his watch. Before the Queen can enter the banquet hall, all guests must be seated. Particularly the guest of honor, the Prime Minister.

The Aide stares at a door on which a sign in Gothic lettering reads: “ Gentlemen’s Convenience ”. As if in response to his anxiety, the door opens and 80 year old Sir Winston Churchill emerges, still sharp as a tack and looking forward to a grand evening.

The Aide, being a highly paid civil servant, trained in matters of etiquette and decorum in the pre-zipper era, sees that the Prime Minister has neglected to button up his fly. This will certainly be noticed when he stands to make the keynote address. Amongst the British upper classes of the time there was a euphemistic code for warning against this potential social embarrassment.

AIDE
Sir, you’ve…dropped sixpence.

Churchill glances down and observes his error.

CHURCHILL
Don’t worry. An old bird does not fall out of its nest.

INTERIOR CHURCHILL’S BEDROOM MORNING

Sir Winston rarely sleeps more than 3 hours at a time, so he is already up sitting at his credenza and going through Cabinet papers, when a knock on the door announces the arrival of his regular morning tea, toast, and a copy of The Times.

A servant enters, deposits a tray, and leaves. Accompanying him is the Aide
who was his escort the previous night. He has Sir Winston’s Times in his hand which he places on the tray. In those social circles it was impolite for one man to touch another man’s Times before he did.

CHURCHILL
Something of interest in today’s paper?

 

AIDE
Nothing of note, Sir. But the afternoon tabloids
and certainly next Sunday’s News Of The World
will be running a story that is of concern.

 

CHURCHILL
Not another war profiteer expose, I trust.

 

AIDE
No. I’m afraid last night one of our Defense
Under Secretaries was caught in Regents Park
with a young Guardsman. The Guardsman got
away, but the Under Secretary was arrested
and charged with gross indecency.

This could become a media football, given the rabid homophobia of the Lord Chief Justice Rayner Goddard, the recent arrest of renowned stage actor John Gielgud, (causing his Knighthood to be postponed for years) and the imprisonment of Lord Montague of Beaulieu for lesser offenses.

CHURCHILL
When was this?

 

AIDE
2.15 AM.

 

CHURCHILL
In Regent’s Park?

 

AIDE
Under a tree, Sir.

 

CHURCHILL
It was rather cold, I thought…last night.

 

AIDE
Coldest February day on record..according to the
Times, sir.

Churchill muses for a moment.

CHURCHILL
Makes you proud to be British…

*************

Both scenes come from very reliable sources, confirming Churchill’s progressive sense of humor on this issue. It occurred to me that his attempts to minimize damage to his government and to the 2 luckless individuals at the center of a potential sex scandal might make an entertaining political dramedy/thriller, set in a fascinating time of transition for the UK. The Korean war, anti-colonial insurgencies throughout the Empire. Major social change underway. Evocative of Hope And Glory and A Private Function. And Albert Finney would have the opportunity to continue his remarkable portrayal of Churchill.

But movies with gay themes amid sizeable period recreations are not easy to finance. I have produced and directed 2 gay-lite movies for the Here! Network. First, why did I do this?

Long time married, father of two grown sons, I am not gay, but I am gay friendly. By that I mean I support the normalization of gay relationships not only in society but in entertainment. One day there will be a few mainstream movies and television shows in which a gay character is The Hero, not just The Best Friend.

(Sidebar: Which studio chief was it in the 60’s who was asked “ What do you think of Ronald Reagan as Governor?” He thought he was getting a movie pitch, and responded “No, Jimmy Stewart for Governor, Ronald Reagan as Best Friend.” That would have been an interesting ticket…)

Personally, I don’t think people should have their character or their social worth judged by how they rub their pink bits together. Sexual identity should be no more important than the color of one’s eyes. So buried in my oeuvre are two obscure films: TIDES OF WAR starring Adrian Paul as a gay nuclear submarine commander in the don’t ask-don’t tell Navy, and IN HER LINE OF FIRE starring Mariel Hemingway as a lesbian secret service agent, in a shoot-everyone-in-sight Lesbian Rambo riff.
Gay issues percolate but are not dominant, and gay audiences probably were hoping for more content directed specifically at them. Each film is a formulaic genre homage in which the heroic character with whom we are intended to identify, when valiantly firing torpedoes or an M16, just happens to be gay. Because gay people have the same capacity for courage as straight people. It’s a truism, I know, but I was pleased to build an action movie around this thesis. Just doing my bit for social justice, one B movie at a time.

Next, how did I do this? With some difficulty but a lot of fun.

TIDES OF WAR is a gay twist on Run Silent, Run Deep in the Crimson Tide, cleverly written by a tireless writer Mark Sanderson who has now had six scripts filmed. Naturally the US Navy refused to offer cooperation. (How I was cited for Federal Trespass may be the subject of a future blog.) Their greatest objection to the script was that the sub commander’s lover was serving with him on the boat. Fraternization is a no no.

So, for interiors, we found a civilian floating dry dock with narrow corridors, then built, with Home Depot materials, control and sonar rooms in the grip/electric warehouse, dressed with a host of dials and gizmos on loan from retired naval personnel. Exteriors were stock footage, and tons of CGI from Blasini Imageworks. Uniforms were bought for us on base at discount prices by sympathetic servicemen. (We did unfortunately get some naval insignia wrong. Mea maxima culpa.) 15 frantic days of shooting all over Honolulu and the picture was in the can.

Then came the task of enabling the project to recoup its cost. This was done by making three versions of the film. (1) The Here! Network version (2) The “ straight” version, shorn of its gay content, for world video and television under the title: PHANTOM BELOW. It shipped 150,000 units in the US. (3) A Japanese version, also shorn of gay content - because of course there are no homosexuals in Japan - at the length required by that market: 97 minutes.

Actually I thought PHANTOM BELOW would have made a cool gay title. I even suggested we shoot a 4th version in which the same dialogue was spoken by a crew of submariners who were all openly gay. “ We could call it PINK TORPEDO - THE MUSICAL.” (Sommmmmebody stop me!) Could have been hysterical. The Ritz, at 40 fathoms.

IN HER LINE OF FIRE was easier, despite an even smaller budget limiting us to only 12 days of shooting in New Zealand and 2 in Vancouver. I am grateful for a bust-their-ass-for-you cast and crew, and the delicious chemistry between Mariel Hemingway and Jill Bennett.

 

It amused me in 2005 to conjure up, in the opening titles, an euphoric vision of Washington after the Bush Regime has been swept away. Working till the wee hours, Congress has passed universal health care unanimously. The Vice President, flying out on a world tour to promote environmental issues, is a good guy and not Darth Vader. One New York reviewer had no sense of the sardonic. The irony of the lesbian issue shared by the current Vice President and my fictional VP escaped him also. Never mind. The straight version, tragically shorn of two lesbian kisses, and the moment when the ex-marine Vice President gives girl on girl advice to his lesbian bodyguard: “Go for it!”, was released to international markets as Air Force Two.

I’m for Tolerance. You can still serve a cause in low budget popcorn. I think, on a sleepless night, Churchill would have enjoyed both movies.