Gay night club employee?

I never noticed this until my most recent viewing of Little Caesar, but there is a brief scene in which the manager of the Bronze Peacock club and an employee, probably a head waiter, are watching Olga and Joe do a dance routine. The man expresses great enthusiasm over Joe, smiling and looking admiringly in his direction. When he remarks that Joe is really something, or words to that effect, DeVoss responds casually that " He's all right", to which the fellow replies with a huge grin, " I'll say he is!"

We never see this character again or learn anything about him. For the life of me, I can't put any other interpretation on this scene, except that the man is gay and likes the handsome Joe for more than just his dancing ability. I know that people are always reading gay content into movies where it might be just their imaginations, but it seems to me that must have been the intent here.

If I'm right, the next question would be why? Since many people have argued that Rico is actually a closet homosexual in love with his friend Joe, but could never admit it even to himself, it seems possible that the scene was intended to show an overt gay man expressing attraction to Joe in a way that contrasts with Rico's possessive, but nonsexual attitude toward Joe.

In the original W.R.Burnett novel, there was a scene in which several women who work at the club are discussing Joe, and expressing jealousy that Olga has acquired him as a boyfriend. They talk about how hot he is in pretty straightforward terms. I don't recall any male characters in the book acting toward Joe in the way the fellow does in the movie.

This is a pretty minor point, to be sure, but I'm curious to know if anyone else has noticed this, and what they think about it.

And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him