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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Straight-Jacket Here!
TV, Director/Screenplay:
Starring:
Unrated, 96 minutes |
Beefcake
And Blacklists
Straight-Jacket (2004), written and directed by Richard Day, is an uneven and very goofy, but well-meaning, comedy about the Hollywood closet and Red-baiting during the 1950's. Matt Letscher stars as Guy Stone, the leading matinee idol for SRO Films. Guy is handsome and popular, and beloved by millions. Women swoon over him and he's Hollywood's most eligible bachelor. He's also as queer as a three dollar bill. |
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The studio finds itself in hot water with the Feds because the movie is pro-union. A rewrite is demanded and at that moment Rick Foster (Adam Greer), the author of the book that the film is based on, visits the set. He is a hottie and Guy begins to salivate the moment he lays eyes on him. (Jerry grabs Guy and says, "Here, go play with the extras," when she sees Guy staring at the hunky writer.) Guy suggests to Rick that he do the re-write and invites him to his mansion to go over the script, after first makong sure that Sally isn't there. |
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Does the boy get the boy? Of course he does. Do they get caught with their pants down? What do you think? This is when the film shifts gears as an offer comes to sweep the whole ugly mess under the rug - provided that Guy "names names." If he does this, he will save his own neck and still get to play Ben Hur. |
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Straight-Jacket was inspired by actor Rock Hudson's brief arranged marriage during the 1950s. A secondary plot involves the communist (and homosexual) witch hunts from that dark decade. Filmed in widescreen Cinemascope, Straight-Jacket looks great and captures the style of films from the period complete with its gloriously tacky decor and bubbly music. The art directors must have had a blast; the faux movie posters trumpet several filmic in-jokes and I especially loved one for a B movie that invoked the poster to Ed Woods' Plan Nine From Outer Space. It's a fluffy comedy with a serious intent but... | |
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Matt Letscher is major league cute, clean cut with a Cary Grant cleft in his chin and he certainly looks the part of a 1950s movie star. Guy's arrogance is, at first, amusing but then grates on your nerves after awhile. Guy is a jerk but do we have to see jump up and down like a little kid singing "I get to play Ben Hur, I get to play Ben Hur?" The dialogue is sometimes too stilted and lacks the touch of, say, Paul Rudnick in his prime. Michael Emerson as Victor the butler, and Veronica Cartwright as the agent, give the best performances and their more subtle deliveries help to make their characters less caricaturish. | |
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The witch hunt hysteria plotline is exaggerated, like everything else, but not by much (the investigator dreams of shutting down a movie studio). Things get a little more serious in the last act but these scenes are at odds with most of the buffoonery that came before. Martin Ritt's The Front (1976), starring Woody Allen and Zero Mostel, was a film about the McCarthy era that gets it right and proved that it is possible to explore the subject while balancing both the comedic and the serious (it helped that the director, writer and most of the cast were actually blacklisted during the 50s). As a popcorn or date movie there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half. There are a few laughs, a decent - if half-realised - storyline and lots of beefcake. Straight-Jacket is an amusing diversion and nothing more, nothing less. |