Queersighted: Sick and Dirty
9 Episodes
“Sexual perversion, and any inference to it, is strictly forbidden.” Thus spoke the Hollywood Production Code, the system of censorship that defined the limits of the permissible during the studio system’s golden age from the 1930s to the ’60s. According to such dictates, queer people simply didn’t exist. Nevertheless, during the decades of the Code at its most draconian, movies with gay and lesbian themes, undercurrents, and unmistakable desire made it to the screen. The new book “Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness,” by Queersighted series programmer Michael Koresky, takes a close look at this history. In this conversation, Koresky invites author Mark Harris (“Pictures at a Revolution”) to discuss a selection of classic films from this rich, complicated period in American cinema, in which writers like Tennessee Williams (CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF; SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER), and directors such as Dorothy Arzner (DANCE, GIRL, DANCE) and Vincente Minnelli (TEA AND SYMPATHY) left a subversive, unmistakably queer mark on their films despite the Code.
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41:33Episode 1Queersighted: Sick and Dirty
Episode 1
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1:29:48Episode 2Dance, Girl, Dance
Episode 2
Directed by Dorothy Arzner • 1940 • United States
Starring Maureen O’Hara, Lucille Ball, Louis HaywardJudy (Maureen O’Hara) and Bubbles (Lucille Ball) move to New York City with dreams of ballet success, but Bubbles soon falls into a career in burlesque. And when Judy’s ballet company fails, sh...
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2:55:55Episode 3A Star Is Born
Episode 3
Directed by George Cukor • 1954 • United States
Starring Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack CarsonJudy Garland had no better showcase for her legendary singing and acting talent than as the title “star” of this classic Hollywood-plays-Hollywood musical spectacular. She dazzles as Esther Blodgett, ...
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2:02:10Episode 4Tea and Sympathy
Episode 4
Directed by Vincente Minnelli • 1956 • United States
Starring Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, Leif EricksonVincente Minnelli’s masterful direction gives stirring expression to the ache of outsiderhood in this taboo-shattering adaptation of Robert Anderson’s play, one of the first major films to deal e...
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1:48:06Episode 5Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Episode 5
Directed by Richard Brooks • 1958 • United States
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl IvesElizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman sizzle in this delirious adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play. She’s the hot-blooded Maggie the Cat whose voracious desires can’t be fulf...
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1:48:12Episode 6The Children’s Hour
Episode 6
Directed by William Wyler • 1961 • United States
Starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James GarnerA child’s lie has life-shattering consequences in this daring adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s celebrated play—previously filmed by director William Wyler as THESE THREE. Karen (Audrey Hepburn...
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1:54:24Episode 7Suddenly, Last Summer
Episode 7
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz • 1959 • United States, United Kingdom
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery CliftGay panic, incest, and a sprinkling of cannibalism: Tennessee Williams’s one-act southern-gothic shocker gets an appropriately lurid screen adaptation cowritten ...
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1:33:01Episode 8These Three
Episode 8
Directed by William Wyler • 1936 • United States
Starring Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, Joel McCreaPerformed to perfection by a top-flight cast, the first of William Wyler’s two adaptations of Lillian Hellman’s controversial stage play THE CHILDREN’S HOUR sidesteps the story’s then-explosive le...
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Crossfire
Episode 9
Directed by Edward Dmytryk • 1947 • United States
Starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert RyanThis gritty film noir made history as the first Hollywood film to confront antisemitism. Three of the era’s most celebrated Roberts—Young, Mitchum, and Ryan—star in the hard-hitting tale of a pol...
