Kip, a gay character?

I liked seeing their bedroom arrangement: two beds, per Hayes code, but one (the one he wakes up in) is at least a double and looks well slept in in the first bedroom scene. Probably as close as you could come to showing a married couple sharing a bed in 1949, even a couple of actors who were alleged to be involved offscreen ...

Awwww, I thought he was as funny as anything. A lot of movies in the 40s had husbands and wives with some other guy hanging around longing for the wife. One that comes to mind is Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, another funny film. I thought David Wayne looked cute with his crew cut. I especially liked the end of this movie when Tracy gets the best of them.

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The character is a pill. His non-stop remarks during the home movie assured me I was going to hate this character througout, although one of his lines was funny ("Tree-kissing. An old Connecticut custom!")

If this ass annoys you you'll never make it through 'Laura.' Clifton Webb plays a bitchy, condescending newspaper writer. I wanted to strangle him. He easily surpasses David Wayne in being an A-hole closet case.

That sounds about right. As the saying goes, this guy was queer as a three-dollar bill (not that there's anything wrong with that), but they could only go so far with the whole gay thing.




I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

While I agree that a 1949 US audience would probably see whatever they want to see in Kip, I think today's audiences (and gay members of the audience of the day) would immediately recognize the man as gay, and also understand the need to marry a beard, as one way to avoid suspicion and the anti-gay measures of the day (for example, see the notorious 1950 US Senate report "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government"). Even in the last few years we've learned of many such men in government and religion, although these days they tend to be more of the self-hating variety, rather than the self-defending.

First about David Wayne -- he did a great job of playing an annoying character. See him in HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE where he plays a somewhat mousy character. He was a great comic character actor.

Then about the "somewhat gay" portrayal -- I always thought Wayne's character was modeled after (the very gay) Cole Porter. Porter was in a marriage of convenience with a woman. "Gay identity" and the "gay community" as we've understood it for the past 40 years didn't exist in 1949.

Let's just say that David Wayne's character is "Metrosexual" (another term that certainly didn't exist in 1949).



"The good end happily, the bad unhappily, that is why it is called Fiction."

Reminds me of the famous reply of one performer who was asked "that question."
He said, "I'm over 60, I've never been married, and I work in musical theatre. You connect the dots!"