Some of My Best Friends Are... (1971)

Memorable, crazy movie

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

This story takes place on Christmas Eve in 1971 in an old-fashioned gay bar (there doesn't seem to be a "back room") in Greenwich Village.We get a bunch of vignettes as the major players tell their stories amid the increasingly uproarious night. No gay cliche is left untold. What defeats much of the film is a murky lighting and lines that are drowned out by noise.This is not to say that the film is a total dud. It's an important look at that pre-AIDS world and in many ways is a more honest look at gay and closeted-gay life than better known films like THE BOYS IN THE BAND or TORCH SONG TRILOGY or THE RITZ.There are also several very good performances. In his NY Times review, Vincent Canby noted that the women come off better than the men and he's right. Rue McClanahan is good as the aging "fag hag" who cavorts with gay men as a glamorous token female in a gay world. She dresses like a drag queen and drops acid lines with the best of them. But it's also a sex-free world and therefore a safe world for her.Sylvia Syms, not to be confused with the British actress of the same name, is excellent as the bar owner Sadie. She's sort of the over-arching mother of all the "boys" and she loves them all. At one point she poignantly tells that she never married, never had children, but she never missed out because she's always had her "boys." On the other hand, Peg Murray plays the hysterical Mrs. Nabour, who pitches a fit when she discovers her son is gay. She disowns him.Gary Sandy plays a gay hustler who constantly boasts (it seems to be a lie) that he swings both ways, but after a bad drug trip, his self-loathing turns into a blind rage as he beats a timid cross-dresser. The cross-dresser is played by Candy Darling. Fannie Flagg plays the cheerful hat-check girl with her hair stacked high (a la drag queen) and she even sings a number. David Drew plays a timid man who finally work up the courage to ask someone back to his apartment. Gil Gerard plays a gay man who poses as a straight guy in real life.James Murdock (billed as David Baker) plays a drama queen who has tricked a guy (Dick O'Neill) into meeting him at the bar by posing as a woman on the phone. Then there's Carleton Carpenter as a silent older man who simply watches all the action without ever getting involved. Paul Blake plays the sarcastic Kenny.Here and there a character utters a memorable line. One says "Facing death does not take courage. Two men facing a life together does." Another says "Everybody wants someone. Some want anybody."As a sign of the time, there's a cop prowling around and there's a sign warning the men about dancing together. Although the film takes place after Stonewall, it's still a dangerous time.If the film had had a central plot and central characters, this might have worked better as a film, As it is, however, it's worth a look into the dark recesses of this very dark bar.

It's the Blue Jay Bar at Christmas time, and the regular patrons (gay men and a few straight women) gather to swap anecdotes and insults. A.I.P.'s paltry, low-budget answer to "The Boys in the Band", written and directed--both poorly--by Mervyn Nelson, is so wretchedly filmed (with dim lighting and gloppy photography, static staging, flabby editing and amateurish performances) that any document on the rise of gay-themed films in 1970s cinema need not even mention this entry. It has attained some interest in the last two decades for featuring a number of future TV stars (Fannie Flagg, Rue McClanahan, Gary Sandy and Gil Gerard), none of whom kept this title on their resumes for long. There's nothing wrong within this milieu in 'letting it all hang out,' but first Nelson needed something to say. The picture has no enlightening attributes, no insight into why some straight women prefer to hang out with gay men, nor the slightest hint of verisimilitude when it comes to the 'colorful' characters (they seem to exist just to put each other down). Gay audiences who buy into the trap that homosexuals are only happy when they're flocking together--and yet still miserable because they can never attain what they want--have been watching too many melodramas on the late show. * from **** (for Gerard's subtle performance, which looks Oscar-worthy compared to those of his co-stars).

I typed the script for SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE right after grad school at UCLA for Mervyn Nelson. Moved to NY on 8/15/69 (missed WOODSTOCK at the airport) and eventually found a life in NY. When Mervyn made the film I had already been friends with Candy Darling through an incredibly interesting workshop Mervyn ran. Also in the class were Sylvia Sims, Thao Panglis (soap star) and Eric (Hank) Estrada.I was in a fantasy scene in the film, and found the whole shooting process a great deal of fun, especially with people like Fanny Flagg and Rue McClanahan around. It opened, disappeared and was never heard of again, unless Marty Richards knows who owns it now. I think as a piece of history in gay films, this should not be forgotten. The NY Times got it right in their initial review. Sad, sad, sad.....but it laid the ground for WILL AND GRACE and BROTHERS. SO WHERE CAN I GET A COPY OF IT?

I saw this at the London Lesbian and Gay film festival a few years back and it was the highlight of the festival for me. Similar to Boys in the Band, it deals with a large colourful cast of characters who are regulars at a local gay bar. These include Gil Gerard (who went on to be Buck Rogers) as the straight-acting hunk who everyone wants, Rue McClanahan (Blanche from the Golden Girls) as a spiteful fag-hag and Candy Darling (of the Warhol factory), playing a sensitive transvestite, who after being beaten up by a sexually-confused lout asks "Has anyone seen a contact lens?" The title theme "Where do you go" is suitably haunting and there are some excellent funny lines in this movie - I can't understand why it hasn't come out on DVD yet. Well worth seeing if you get the chance.