MovieChat Forums > Victim (1961) Discussion > When were the sodomy laws changed in Eng...

When were the sodomy laws changed in England?


I'm told this film plasyed a big part in their being changed.

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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Answer: 1967. And thy called it "buggary" (Google before you ask!)

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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I think you mean "Buggery".

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Ah, you noticed: I CAN'T SPELL...

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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It's worth noting that the sodomy laws weren't completely overturned in the US until 2003 (though they were in various states in the 60s, 70s, and 80s).

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...by a vote of 6-3. Everyone used invasion of privacy except SDO, who used constitutional rights.

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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Dirk Bogarde was warned about appearing in this movie. He would never be knighted and would lose his position as Number 1 box office star. He felt the picture had to be made, the 'blackmailers charter' as the law was called, had to be overturned. It was, picture was a huge success, won several awards, he became even a bigger star and was knighted in the eighties.

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I had no IDEA he was even thinking of knighthood that early!

"Thus began our longest journey together." To Kill a Mockingbird

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He was knighted in 1992 when he was 71 years old.
(He might as well think in 1961 - at 40 - that he would never be knighted.)

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He wasn't thinking of knighthood when he made the picture; his agent warned him about box office appeal and the possibility, down the line, of ever being knighted.

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Sodomy/buggery hadn't been seriously prosecuted for a long time in Britain when VICTIM was made. The law referred to was a late 19th century amendment to a sexual offenses that criminalized "indecency" between men, and imposed a maximum sentence of 2 years at hard labor for convictions. that was what brought down Oscar Wilde, most famously. It was NOT an easy sentence to serve.

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Isn't it also true that many (perhaps most?) states in the US applied the legal term "sodomy" to a far greater range of activities (and not just same-sex ones) than the term "buggery" in the UK (and its Commonwealth countries)?

I've read of instances, even recent ones, where (for example) hetero oral sex was prosecuted as "sodomy", on the grounds that "sodomy" meant pretty much anything that varied from standard procreative sex. So I'd guess that means the US has had a much more tangled knot to cut through on the legal charge of sodomy than the UK had with buggery.



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

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brianwt says > Dirk Bogarde was warned about appearing in this movie. He would never be knighted and would lose his position as Number 1 box office star. He felt the picture had to be made, the 'blackmailers charter' as the law was called, had to be overturned.
It's no wonder Bogarde wanted this movie made. He was, after all, gay. He probably had to deal with a lot of the same issues in his own life so any changes in the laws would have benefited him personally.

The other actors who were offered the role, and turned it down, were heterosexual so they would have had much more to lose than to gain. Yes, Bogarde was taking a chance but it would have been much more than just another job for him.


Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]

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