Anyone out there get the sense that Laughton's character is strongly implied to be homosexual?
1) His "cotton frock" story masking the real reason for his wife's suicide: an unconsummated and loveless marriage
2) His expecting nothing sexually from Gladys: his stipend paying for her company and cover as a homosexual's "beard"
3) His meek reaction when Penderel steals her away with his ardently heterosexual attentions
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Charlie
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>Why do homosexuals constantly comb for every nuance in every movie to prove that every character in the history of film is homosexual?
All the other characters in the movie are heterosexual. Happy now?
A homosexual director casts a homosexual actor playing a character who pays a woman to pose as his consort but has no sexual designs on her, as is made explicitly clear in dialogue that would certainly have not passed the Hays code censors two years later. Calling Porterhouse homosexual is not a stretch.
Why do heterosexuals bristle like soaked cats at the very mention of homosexuality? (EVERY nuance, EVERY character, EVERY movie >STAMP< >STAMP< >STAMP<!!!!)
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Charlie
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>Got your goat, as they say
Come to think of it, Ernest Thesiger's character is quite the fruit, too.
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Charlie
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A homosexual director casts a homosexual actor playing a character who pays a woman to pose as his consort but has no sexual designs on her, as is made explicitly clear in dialogue that would certainly have not passed the Hays code censors two years later. Calling Porterhouse homosexual is not a stretch.
I seriously doubt that his character was meant to be homosexual, just a nice older man who hadn't too much interest in women since his wife died. And quite personally, I'M tired of when people make stupid points about movies to try and prove their half baked theories that the characters are something other than what the directors put on the screen.
shareHalf baked theories Indeed. WELL said!! I couldn't agree with you more. Seems there is aLOT of this going on with the boards on this site.
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"Half baked theories that the characters are something other than what the directors put on the screen".
So, what was it that the director "put on screen"? It is obvious Laughton has no interest in her beautiful wife so he´s apparently either gay or asexual - and the latter appears to be more rare than the former. Also, one couldn´t put blatantly and openly gay characters on screen back then in the first place - so whenever there was intended to be such a figure, it could only be communicated through innuendo. In short, it is not entirely unreasonable to assume Laughton´s character was indeed a fairy.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
"just a nice older man"
lol, he was 33 years old
He truly loved his wife and is still depressed over her loss. He has this woman parade around with him so it appears that he is a man with everything. As to his "meek reaction" he didn't love her to begin with, so it's no big loss to him.
In the night...In the DARK...
#28
Whether or not he's gay is kind of besides the point when someone is trying to set you on fire.
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Absolutely. And a very gay pic, it was. Loved it!
I've been reading the novel by JB Priestley, and the film certainly lends itself to the homosexual interpretation more than the book. The book made Sir William's genuine love for his dead wife very clear. Given that Whale was gay, and regularly infused his films with gay subtext, and given that Laughton was gay, too, I don't think the suggestion that Porterhouse (in the film) was gay is too outlandish.
"Queer" is the most used word in the book, btw, and it is definitely open to a queer (by the modern definition) interpretation over all, with its themes of otherness, darkness, secrets etc.
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I'm open to discussions of implied homosexuality in older films. It is certainly true there were a fair number of such cases. (And in the Pre-Code era, it was sometimes really pretty blatant.)
In this case, however, I find your reasoning to be problematic / flawed because it is entirely circular. You assume that your thesis is true as a major step in trying to prove that it is true. Purely as a matter of symbolic logic, that is not valid.
1) His "cotton frock" story masking the real reason for his wife's suicide: an unconsummated and loveless marriage
Simply put, Porterhouse is probably not gay. I got a strong impression from his wife's suicide story that he did indeed love her very much. Also, his "meek" reaction I didn't take as being meek. He was visibly angry about DuCane shacking up with Penderel, but I think it was more because he was her friend and he wanted to make sure that Penderel treated her right, kind of like a big brother.
Peace is not the absence of affliction, but the presence of God. ~Author Unknown