Homosexuality in Film - 1931

[@vgmaster831]

Gay started long, long before that.

[@alexysq2660]

*Coach Chris* ~uhhh...No, dear; it was *way* before THEN, actually! "S & G" were, really, just some silly old "sporting teams"...whose *coach* didn't know how to *properly conduct* himself, "in public"...if ya get my drift?!? Yeah, *That's it* ! THAT'S how it happened (... *See* !)!!

[@21stcenturyozman20]

@@coachchris548 Sodom and Gomorrah, as depicted in the Bible, had little to do with homosexuality; rather the "sin" of S&G has been interpreted by *intelligent and informed* theologians and historians as a lack of hospitality to strangers.

[@dan5660]

Unless I viewed it wrong, Cagney seemed a bit turned on to me.

[@MC32595]

@@dan5660 he seemed suspicious not turned on

[@dan5660]

@@21stcenturyozman20 Nope, it was perverse lifestyles that went way beyond homosexuality & lesbianism(bestiality, violence, rape etc.). They were disgusting.

[@ricardocantoral7672]

This scene was cut when the film was re-released in the 1950's.

[@misterhot9163]

Oh what a huge shocker 😐

[@guynorth3277]

I wondered about that.

[@bojack40]

its funny, we boomers grew up in the aftermath of the 50s and really for a long time presumed that visibility and acceptance was a slow trajectory upwards. In fact the immediate post war period set us back 100 years! Its a volatile path not a steady one.

[@taylorhauntus]

A scene like this one in a black and white picture can only be found in Pre-Code movies (1929-1934). After that, the Hays Code was enforced and the censors would have never let a scene like this go on screen, not until the late 60s when films in color started to dominate.

[@michaeltnewyorknights8413]

Not entirely true. After the summer of 34, the code became much stricter so filmmakers became more clever in terms of how to get around certain scenes. Also, sometimes the Hays code was asleep at the wheel with certain films.

[@Spillers72]

Not sure, it might be passed off as a refined gentleman.

[@eldritch1985]

I love the look on the shop guy's face when he says: "Oh, sir, here's where you need the room...Such a muscle!" Thank you for posting this neat clip! (Plus, the guy sitting in the chair is really cute! Love the hat and the little dark bow-tie.)

[@strafrag1]

Yes, very Mae West.

[@wisdom33-i1n]

Cagney's facial expression as he looks back while walking away is rather mysterious.

[@gilbertdaroy6080]

Mysterious? More like annoyance. But Cagney was quiet funny here. A natural.

[@ronnie6902]

the scene did suggest homosexuality, especially when the tailor made the comment on the muscle size. but compared to today's scenes in movies about being gay, this is so tame. Homosexuality was a no-no in that era.

[@MrCrowebobby]

Not according to the pansy restaurants that florished.

[@Boysoundtechniques]

Still we can determine it is gay and for 1934 that's too ahead of its time

[@Jo_Wardy]

The good old days where people wore nice clothing.

[@anarchomando7707]

Because it was too expensive to wear any other

[@greggi47]

The insistence on SIX buttons on the sleeve is proof of quality--it's understood that they will actually work, too--not just hang there for show.

[@Chamsk]

James was hot asf in his prime

[@carlorizzo827]

Def my idol.

[@wryrich]

Another classic example of a character's being gay but the movie not quite saying it 'out loud' is Joel Cairo, from The Maltese Falcon. The Dashiell Hammett novel openly calls Cairo by a few cynical epithets that are totally clear. In the movie, we're cued in by the fact that he smells of gardenias, by his mannerisms, and by the twist given to the soundtrack's music. (Honestly, I'm not sure how I'd take all this if I was gay myself. When they can be open, it's often such a bad caricature.)

[@greggi47]

Don't overlook his silly little lady's gun that is so easy to get out of his hand. the other coded character is Wilmer the Gunsel. That doesn't simply identify him as a gunman. A little guy tring to compensate by carrying those enormous 45s. My question is whether Casper Gutman was banging him, and if Wilmer was servicing Joel Cairo.

[@unclealand]

Have you forgotten how Joel Cairo caresses his cane?

[@DCFunBud]

Many male stars would not have done such a scene. They would not have wanted any gay association for fear of discovery.

[@guynorth3277]

It wasn't a big deal until I think it was Meyer that made it so.

[@gazebo46]

LOL! This scene was hilarious! I recently watched this film on DVD and this scene had me laughing in astonishment! So there use to be an acknowledgement of homosexuality in old pre-code Hollywood! Very interesting!

[@ericnelson9100]

The Hays Code was in the 20s, this was well afterward.

[@greggi47]

@@vintagegoldenage I think it's a toss up whether that kiss was gay or not. It seems odd now that men could have close emotional feelings for each other, and express those with what people now see as sexual physical intimacies. Horatio Nelson's last words as he lay dying on the deck of his ship were "Kiss me, Hardy" and that's an earlier example. It IS nice to think the men in WINGS were gay--certainly handsome enough for my fantasies--but I don't think we can conclude that. We should treasure the lost freedom of expression, and lament that that is gone.

[@vintagegoldenage]

@@greggi47 i concur!

[@lajas46]

I'm gay and would never put women down. I have a great beautiful MOM and sister and many other female family and friends.

[@crappyaccount]

@@BetamaxFlippy yikes

[@eggshells652]

wear anything you like is what i always say 🏳️‍🌈 be free in this life 🥰

[@michaelgaynor6866]

@@eggshells652 ,I have!

[@greggi47]

Where did that come from? Do you see some comment here that I missed?

[@foreoW]

I'm not sure about those measurements. I don't think the pint-sized Cagney could ever have had legs that long! Something tells me those tailors were a bit preoccupied.

[@folioio]

Oddly for someone who was pretty damn confident, onscreen and off, Cagney lied about his height his whole life, claiming to be 5'8" or 5'9" when 5'6" was probably closer to the mark. Perhaps this was the studio's suggestion initially, though indeed Cagney never seems to have gone to any real trouble to look taller onscreen. And he was a contemporary of Edward G. Robinson -- short leading men were hardly unheard of in the '30s.

[@youdownwithRPP]

Mr. Humphries would be proud of that inside leg! I'm free!

[@littlekiwi9724]

" ...and a haaalf".😝

[@maxklein1614]

Kind of hard to believe a 5' 5" man had a 42.5"' chest and a 33.5" inseam.

[@moriahjacobs6131]

If it's Cagney, I believe it!

[@sinogarcon]

And everything is a half!

[@saridout]

@FakeID81390 oh no, i'd say that this character was definitely meant to appear gay to the audience. this was before the hays code came into effect, and seeing more risque stuff in films was quite common.

[@russellbrown7028]

Before the infamous production code really took hold, they could get away with a lot more. A lot of the earlier movies were surprisingly frank portraying sexual orientation. By the 1950's it all had to be done in code, but the audience usually worked out the set-up if the directors and actors were skilled enough to evade the "evil in the eye of the beholder" of the censors.

[@michaeltnewyorknights8413]

Try 1934. Way before the 1950's.

[@CheCosaTesoro]

Oh...the good old days having your inside leg measured!

[@MrFrontrowkid]

Cagney was referring to his waistline to leave enough room where he could carry two revolvers...not his crotch.

[@guynorth3277]

Who was thinking of the 'crotch' anyway?

[@manray5140]

or booze

[@austinflores8552]

@@guynorth3277 Who wasn't LOL

[@MrThermostatic]

I thought he was planning on gaining weight.

[@x_L3xus_x]

I think that guy who is measuring is so handsome❤

[@craigsmith157]

37 1/2 waist? He didn't look that big. He looked more like a 34.

[@donaldmanthei3556]

He added a few inches. Remember Cagney asked for extra room more than once.

[@Meatcity-sf8fm]

Craig Smith I was thinking 33 but they wore their pants high up in those days.

[@benlucas3625]

I think he was measuring around his hips and seat, not his waist.

[@scottferrell4631]

The waist was 31 1/2, the 37 1/2 referred to his hips, his chest was 42.

[@davidbauler3159]

Quite a few examples exist from early cinema - 1930s. Film Historians have generally referred to them as "sissy characters". Starting in the 1940s, these characters were seen less and gay characters were often depicted more as criminals or sadists.

[@anarchomando7707]

Homophobic Haze code

[@MrFrontrowkid]

Movie floorwalkers in stores often were portrayed as fussy, slightly effiminate, and wore carnations in their button holes. The clerk in the men's store was portrayed this way because he was an expert in men's fashions. It would have been the same as if he were a dress designer.

[@wryrich]

Check him out in anything. I just watched Footlight Parade, where he's organizing Vaudeville-style pre-talking prologues with beautiful dames. He seems like he's about to bite someone on the hand for the entire movie, just out of nervous energy.

[@litofalcon6214]

eight inches and a half.....

[@clarkbraud7126]

I was waiting for him to say something like that as well. LOL

[@steamboatwill3.367]

Federico Fellini.

[@greggi47]

@@clarkbraud7126 We were lead to expect that.

[@sangielissa]

I remember this scene. The tailors were obviously that way. When Cagney tells the tailor, 'Plenty of room here", the tailor grabs his bicep and says,'this is where you need the extra room.'. At the end of Cagney's response, he says, "....... or you'll find out what it's used for.".

[@guynorth3277]

"That Way" !!! (was someone pregnant?)

[@tonyfrenolaski7731]

He needs the extra room around his waist to hold two revolvers

[@vHumboldt77]

@@tonyfrenolaski7731 it a pun, of course!

[@MrCrowebobby]

Cagney was cute here. This obviously wasn't his first brush with a man who wanted him.

[@FIVEOFEVER]

They wore their pants high up on the stomach in those days!

[@Fantomas4616]

until ca. 1950s

[@vHumboldt77]

And James Cagney was such a cutie!

[@dougreed2257]

I love Jimmy cagney. But if he was 33&a half leg, that would make him about 6'1" he was in fact 5:6"haahaha that tailor must have been too flustered to concentrate!

[@MrFrontrowkid]

Floorwalkers in department stores were always shown in pinstripe suits with a corsage in the button hole. Franklin Pangborn was the classic floorwalker in films, very fussy.

[@modonna65]

Cagney had it going on back in the day 🤤

[@YooTuba]

@FakeID81390 "French feminism joke" my Aunt Fanny. Of course the character is meant to appear gay. Gay characters during the pre-code era were extremely common in movies. Often they were played for laughs or to contrast with some really "masculine" character like Cagney here. I don't doubt that a lot of real life "men's fashion" experts were just like the stereotype in this and other movies, and in TV shows like "Are You Being Served" decades later.

[@hebneh]

This tailor IS supposed to be gay. Before the Hays Code was enforced for movie censorship starting in 1934, there were gay characterizations like this one, as well as fairly open acknowledgment of any kind of sex, in addition to scanty costumes on young women, and all kinds of good stuff. This kind of thing wouldn't be present in Hollywood films again till censorship fell apart in the 1960s.

[@hexum7]

I guess we're supposed to be pleased at a y suggestion of gay in early talkies, but at the same time, it's clear that the audience was expected to laugh at the vet mannerisms and slight advances of the tailor

[@FinkChrist]

There's nothing "astonishing" about homosexuality on or off film; it's just a part of nature. What I find funny in this scene is Jimmy's face the whole time! He's always so angry in this movie.

[@Ryan-on5on]

Films released before the moralism of the Hays Code came into effect in Hollywood could be surprisingly indiscreet in their portrayal of sexuality. The character of the tailor, so obviously a Gay queen, even making a sexually charged remark about Cagney's physique that removes all doubt as to which way he bends, would've never been allowed by the prudes at the Hays Office!

[@Triumph2024.]

it's funny because the gentleman portraying the tailor is a homosexual.

[@greggi47]

Are you sure. I know many str8 men who present as fey but aren't.

[@Triumph2024.]

​@@greggi47i'm sure.

[@eldritch1985]

49128 Please take this old saying to heart: "If you have nothing nice to say, do not say anything at all." Common courtesy, compassion, and tolerance are good virtures to learn about and take to heart as well.

[@franksantore2810]

Was the tailor Franklin Pangborn? If so, he was a well known gay actor.

[@greggi47]

No, not FB.

[@thewanderingamerican5412]

Actually it was well known right up until the 1960s that homosexuals would get jobs fitting people, as portrayed here, or working in fitting rooms. Kids used to be warned against letting these folks touch them. Just a fact I learned about 40 years ago.

[@therealjoebloggs]

@stammlager5 So were Greenstreet's and Elisha Cook Jnr 's characters, or didn't you notice? Bit more subtle those two lads, but queer as a thirteen-quid note the both of 'em.

[@thomashernandez8700]

Are you referring to this same film? Thanks.

[@greggi47]

@@thomashernandez8700 No--to Maltese Falcon.

[@rustydog1236]

Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Theodore Roosevelt's daughter) had a pillow embroidered, "If you have nothing nice to say, come over here and sit by me."

[@2020Bookworm]

Well at least the gay tailor had a career and didn't have to turn to a life of crime to earn a living and wind up dead at the end.

[@Hollogramit]

That's what I tell my wife when She goes shopping plenty of room down there

[@WCaron23001]

Precode ise films are so much fun.

[@Changojoni]

Check out the male nurse played by Frank Faylen in the Lost Weekend. Very subtle , but there.

[@greggi47]

That film was very close to the edge of what was acceptable.under The Code. If you want to see a movie that really played fast and loose, watch Bringing Up Baby. It is one long dirty joke about a lost "bone" and foot fetishism, with dinosaur vertebrae that are unmistakably phallic in the final scene.

[@jimjimmyjames59]

@jacobbenmichael "The man being measured"?! Please say someone has already smacked you for that one! James Cagney!!!

[@gilbertmartinez1504]

Cagney was a cutie!!

[@maureenm8462]

There r plenty of references to homosexuality in the old movies.

[@lordburlap4514]

The Great Cagney!!!!!

[@guynorth3277]

He was great, enjoyed seeing him for that brief moment.

[@jacobbenmichael]

LOL....TOTALLY gay. The man being measured looked extremely uncomfortable too!!!

[@reallife5638]

James Cagney???

[@NYJALB]

@FakeID81390 Where the hell are you guys getting the French connection from.....and I aint talking Gene Hackman either!!!!????

[@VanillaSwirlsOfDoom]

Now the whole WORLD knows James Cagney's measurements! Diabolical...

[@hjb103055]

Germany was way ahead of us. Type in paul and kurt different from the others

[@poopoopoopanlikemibikechri8695]

I certainly wouldn't use any radio other than a Brunswick.

[@rogerpropes7129]

Look at Eddie Cantor's early movies.

[@greggi47]

I prefer not to.

[@JerjerB]

Plenty of room down here

[@UncleBarnaby]

At least people who like to THINK they are hetero. Who doesn't?

[@MEATYOKERRable]

Things never change.

[@cha5]

Also in The Maltese Falcon is the Fatman's (Casper Gutman's) gunman Wilbur, Who Sam Spade constantly refers to as a 'gunsel' throughout the film, which supposedly means 'kept boy'. Wilbur tries to act like a tough thug but is always getting beaten on by Spade and put down by him finally being reduced to tears at the films end. By the end of the movie you kind of feel sorry for poor Wilbur.

[@amberonskja]

umm...that is not what gunsel means. It's a criminal who carry a gun. Usually a tough guy around to enforce what the head criminal wants. Spade keeps call Wilmer a gunsel because he seems him as weak and he knows that the kid wants to be this respected tough guy. A gunsel.

[@billgray2352]

great movie

[@greggi47]

I feel especially sorry because you give him a wrong name--it's Wilmer, not Wilbur.

[@robertsmith5970]

Have you seen "Palmy Days" also from 1931 ? .At the start of the film there is a bakery factory staffed by beautiful chorus girl types one of whom is a young Betty Grable. Anyway a very effeminate man orders a cake to be decorated with a pansy !

[@FIVEOFEVER]

right - except the character was Wilmer....not Wilbur

[@betozapata7354]

Amazing, James Cagney looks like Andy Bell!!

[@2020Bookworm]

Why is is always only male homosexuality they talk about?

[@ericnelson9100]

I think Tom's brother was hinted at being gay, no?

[@Hillers62]

Gay men always made the best tailors....

[@nadinefobes7015]

Did I miss something??

[@dumpmuch]

This is where Woke started

[@dburch7894]

Arther Treacher?

[@42nafam]

I can´t see the homosexuality in this movie. Where it is?

[@greggi47]

Some people can NEVER see what is right there.

[@Fromard]

Later on in the film Cagney hooks up with the tailor and smashes a grapefruit in his face while topping him.

[@greggi47]

Did Falcon Studio do a remake?

[@arnoldstollar5375]

Superman was. Not gay ?

[@rmdlgarcia]

It is acknowledged by making fun of the gay dude. It's like a slut taking an insult as a complement. You have a right to live your life, you don't have a right to groom others.

[@ralfrufus6573]

Who is the supposed gay in this scene? I see no explicit action. BTW: What did he say at the end about "cutting" and "nose"?

[@EagleRockers]

Yep, gay as pink ink!

[@antonellomartini330]

traducir al español por favor

[@John27346]

Ooh, suit you, sir

[@diasirea]

False myths about homosexuality.I guess contemporary pols want credit for "discovering" it.Reality is gay common in ancient Greece (where "going Greek" originates) same with ancient Rome where every powerful Roman man, had a gay lover,check mosaics @ Pompeii.Tutonic knights, w/ their "squires",gay,w/marriages mainly for heirs.NAZI movement full of gays (Hitler bisexual), to point that Stalin referred to homosexuality as the fascists' disease. Good & bad gay men have been part of human history

[@21stcenturyozman20]

"Going Greek" does not mean only homosex; anal sex with women was heterosexual Greek men's form of contraception.

[@greggi47]

You overlook the power dynamic in those relations. Powerful men could do what they wanted to lesser people--women, slaves, conquered warriors--while remaining "straight" in the social realm. Of course, any free man who submitted as a bottom was ridiculed.

[@GenerationX1967]

hebneh is correct...

[@stephenhoward8197]

,

[@davidbarker9327]

WHOS UP TO GET THERE FUDGE PACKED? Leave JAMES. Alone √

[@missuniworld]

00:40 starts

[@moncorp1]

Pillow Biters in Cinema

[@daleholbert3111]

Cake eater

[@cope3845]

Hollyweird has always been...weird.

[@fryoung1]

omg

[@FIVEOFEVER]

LMAO!

[@stevenlazo1875]

Who cares if they are homosexuals or not we don't know we don't need to know people's business if you're gay or not so what you're not special

[@greggi47]

Sweet man, that is a commendable declaration, but it misses the point of this as an example of queer representation in popular culture. It is a snapshot of a historical moment.

[@dolliekisshearts]

@@greggi47 thank you

[@shaneblankenship8193]

yeah its suggestive but nothing gay here. city folks even back then and today are soft.

[@Hollogramit]

That

[@fabiomastrecchia119]

Che orrore..povere persone

[@oceanblueheart1472]

You're kidding right?

[@larryhutchinson126]

Well, I am SHOCKED !!! ... And I haven't been SHOCKED since I was FIF-TEEN !!! ~~

[@johndeleon7637]

Such displays should be banned.

[@racheltait4201]

damn you came from the 30's with the film?

[@barnesjohn7657]

What - what are you saying or is this another joke that I’m not getting.