MovieChat Forums > There Was a Crooked Man... (1970) Discussion > Shocking for 1970

Shocking for 1970

posted 11 years ago by silverr8c
9 replies | jump to latest

I do not recall ever seeing a movie made back in the 1970s that had a openly homosexual couple.

Kirk jumping into the rain barrel was also shocking.

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[–] MystMoonstruck 11 years ago

Did I miss something that said they are a couple? I'm generally not that dense, but I don't recall anything but long-time antagonistic friendship indicated. After all, the Hume Cronyn character didn't understand about the guard going after Coy. Don't you think he would have thought of that if HE was in a relationship? I guess I didn't think of them as being anything but cohorts.

Anyway, by 1970, neither same-sex pairups nor nudity was unusual in films.

Richard Burton and Rex Harrison play an elderly gay couple in "Staircase" (1969). Others are: "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971)(male); "The Fox" (1967)(women); "The Killing of Sister George" (1968)(women); "The Music Lovers" (1970)(men).

Leonard Whiting's Romeo had a memorable "backal" nude scene in "Romeo and Juliet" (1968). Charlton Heston has a couple of such scenes in "Planet of the Apes" (1968). When was "Women in Love", with the nude fireside wrestling match with Oliver Reed and Alan Bates? I looked it up just now: 1969. Now, THAT likely was groundbreaking!

By the way: Kirk was brave enough to go bare decades later in "Saturn 3" (1980).

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[–] UBSeveningnews 10 years ago

I got the vague impression Cyrus and Dudley (John Randolph and Hume Cronyn) were a couple from the way Dudley bickered about how they could have bought a home together but no, Cyrus wanted to keep on swindling people. But, like you, I wasn't sure after Dudley confessed confusion about the guard and Coy. (Although Cyrus said "you know why" (or maybe it was "don't be stupid"?) in a telling manner.)

Ultimately, the movie confirms their homosexuality when Kirk Douglas referred to them as "a couple of daisies" towards the end.

[–] Mad_Monkey 9 years ago

It never occurred to me that they were homosexuals and I still doubt that's what they were trying to portray them as. Even when Douglas called them a couple of daisies, I figured he meant they were not as hardened criminals as the rest of them.

[–] PussyCrusher_Principal 9 years ago

I have no doubt they were meant to be a couple. There were many other clues, but discussion of Hume Cronyn keeping house (cooking, cleaning) really stood out to me. That alone might not necessarily prove anything, but combined with Kirk's "couple of old daisies" comment and a bunch of other things left no doubt to me. Hume Cronyn was the "woman".

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[–] askmonroville 9 years ago

You know... maybe they are gay.

Or maybe.. just maybe.. 2 men can be lifelong friends without sex ever being an issue. Maybe it was just that they were so used to being with each other that the possibility for married life passed them by, and so regardless of anal sex, they may as well have been a married couple.

You know, you can love someone without "loving" them.

[–] Wuchakk 9 years ago

maybe.. just maybe.. 2 men can be lifelong friends without sex ever being an issue.

You mean without "sex" ever being an issue. Anyway, it's a good point.

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[–] Destinata (2600) 5 years ago

They made it perfectly clear they were gay. Douglas's character called them a couple of "daisies." Cronyn's character spoke of his plans to get a house, his partner would get a job, and he'd stay home cooking, cleaning, mending and "working his fingers to the bone." But no, his partner had to make quick money, and they wound up in that prison. Well, in the end he announced they'd set up housekeeping just as he'd planned. Cronyn would get a job, save up, find a little house, and he'd have it all waiting for his partner when he got out.

You also have the scene where his partner actually goes through hanging himself to convince Cronyn that he needs to come in on the plan of escape. Cronyn just sits there darning a sock and giving his partner such looks, and when the fellow kicked the bucket out from under himself, Cronyn was beside himself to save him.

Part of the point of their being a homosexual couple was that they were the Bickersons -- devoted to each other, but bickering like some old married couples do.

[–] jfegley1 8 years ago

In The Wild Bunch, Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones characters were a gay couple.

[–] Destinata (2600) 5 years ago

Believe it or not, I saw a version edited for television in the '70's and it didn't lose anything. Some things were just left to the imagination, which, frankly, can be much more powerful than having to look at it.

They say the women in the saloons in the Old West always had something draped over them...because imagining what was underneath was more interesting than having it just hanging out there.