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

Where is THE BAR?

[godot515 · 7/10 · 24 August 2009]

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?

Definitely a product of its time...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 28 January 2023]

... in that it is two years post Stonewall, but there is going to be time needed - about 17 years or so - before you can explore these kinds of themes more in depths as is done in "Torch Song Trilogy".

This film is set around Christmas time at a gay bar in New York City called, the Blue Jay. "Some Of My Best Friends Are..." had a very large cast and the story bounced around from character to character or relationship to relationship exploring the dynamics of the characters or the relationships as it pertained to their personalities, attitudes, and realities associated as gay men in 1971 (when the film was made).

There are several people that were familiar to me, but I couldn't recall their names. The four characters I did recognize were Rue McClanahan (a bar customer who likes to mock some of the clientele but realizes the bar is a safe haven for her since it's unlikely any patron will make advances to her), Fannie Flag (the coat-check lady that everybody loves), Gary Sandy (narcissistic stud who looked for some yum-yum on the side once he tired of his sugar daddy), and Gil Gerard (a pilot who comes off as straight, but loves being the 'rock' for his boyfriend). It wasn't a bad film, and I'd probably want to see it again to see if I could make other observations that might have passed over me the first time around. I'm not going to spoil anything here, but there is a fight scene toward the end of the picture, and the camera work with its quick movements in a tight space containing a lot of people is quite masterful.

Gay life post Stonewall

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 1 July 2019]

It's two years past Stonewall and now certainly a story like Some Of My Best Friends Are could now be put on the screen. Still it was only a very few straight players who would cast in a gay film. You will see however a couple of adventurous souls you might recognize from the cast.

This film if anything shows Stonewall was for the young. The young gay men hanging out at the Blue Jay bar on Christmas Eve aren't content to live life as was ordained by the sexual orientation and their elders up to now. Not sure of where the direction is going, but the younger ones don't want to settle.

The older ones are scared. Not just of the dominant straight society oppression. If anything they're afraid that the young with their agitation and demonstrations will bring down unwanted attention. The older gay men in this film are deeply closeted and are afraid of the door being even slightly ajar.

The fact that back in the day the gay bars were mob controlled was certainly noted. One of the great changes in the past 50 years was first the fact that the mob ran fewer and fewer of these establishments. And then as the community developed non-alcoholic venues bars themselves began to decline. Probably a good thing because drinking establishments everywhere by their nature bring gloom after the high wears off.

Some Of My Best Friends Are is kind of an expanded version of gay life in the early 70s that Boys In The Band showed in the middle 60s. One wonders how that group of gay men would have taken to Stonewall.

Had one line in this movie!

[dampjock · 11 February 2002]

This film now plays a lot of gay film festivals..billed as.... " The movie you love to hate"! Of course it now looks very politically incorrect. But there was a time that it really was like this. I know..I was there! P.S. It's so much fun to see so many people who went on to greater things. Michael Bluegrass

A depressing view of 1970s gay life

[starbase202 · 5/10 · 29 June 2019]

Yes, 1970s gay life was no picnic but it was not as bad as presented in this dark movie. But I suppose it could be this way in some situations. Too bad it was not more balanced through use of some positive characters. I was surprised to see some long-time as well as up-and-coming entertainers in this movie: Carlton, Rue and Gil. And the filming technique resembled the handheld shooting technique of more recent horror movies.

slow and boring

[rodinnyc · 3/10 · 29 June 2019]

I'd never heard of this film so I watched it last night on TCM, a premiere. So when I saw one and a half stars I thought this isn't going to be great but still out of curiosity. It represents a generation before me so they'd have to weigh in on its authenticity. I stuck with it as much as I could and finally gave up...although I kept thinking isn't that Candy Darling? Isn't that the guy who starred in WKRP.....Ben Mankowitz only mentioned Rue McClanahan and Fannie Flagg in his intro.

A time capsule of gay life - due a DVD release

[bakerjp · 9/10 · 1 April 2005]

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.

More cases of unhappy homosexuals (de rigueur for the 1970s)

[moonspinner55 · 1/10 · 30 May 2015]

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).

Another vote for a DVD release!

[lightkeeper-1 · 10/10 · 11 December 2006]

This title is just another of the many gay oriented flicks that needs to be released on disc. (Dinah East and Boys In The Band are two others.) I use to live in Birmingham where Flannie Flagg is from so when this movie first played there, we went to see it, not really knowing what to expect. I was thoroughly entertained, although every time I see Carlton Carpenter, I think of he and Debbie Reynolds doing "Aba Daba Honeymoon" in the 1950 Two Weeks With Love starring Jane Powell. Anyway, getting back to this movie, Rue, of course, went on to be known best for her Golden Girls role and Gary Sandy in WKRP in Cincinnati. Since it has been so many years since Some Of My Best Friends Are, was released, it's hard to remember that much about the movie so hopefully some film distributor can acquire the rights for a DVD release.

This ain't no Abba Dabba Honeymoon.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 21 July 2023]

He sits there as an innocent onlooker observing all the acerbic action going in, but the still handsome Carlton Carpenter is recognizable as the target of Debbie Reynolds' affections in "Three Little Words", and later singing about the big baboon one night in June with her in "Three Weeks With Love. He went onto mostly a stage career, but his quiet presence in this gay themed film is quite a change from those campy musicals. The film surrounds a New Year's Eve at a fictional Greenwich Village gay bar run by the lonely Sylvia Syms who has survived a health battle and considers most of these men her surrogate sons, adding a touch of humanity to a seemingly heartless world.

The character played by Rue McClanahan is far from the seemingly happy center of attention she comes off as, clutching onto these willing men like a puppy in her purse, really taking them for granted and secretly probably more homophobic psychologically than hoodlums on the streets. Her character is definitely the dragon lady that one of the men describes her as, looking on at Candy Darling with bitterness when she's getting the attention. Then there's Fanny Flagg, the good natured hat check girl, outside of Syms the only genuinely happy and nice person in the room.

The boys? A sad group of men of varying ages, some in denial over who they are, and others so consumed with their obvious self hatred that it pours out of them like invisible blood. Gil Gérard and Gary Sandy are the only other familiar names in the film, although obviously most of these actors had more stage experience than film. Peg Murray, who won the Tony playing an antisemitic German woman in "Cabaret", plays a homophobic mother, while Robert Christian (whose character claims to be straight but understanding) is the black piano player, at one point seemingly making a pass at a pretty blonde young man. Darling gets bashed in a very dark scene, desperate throughout for someone to think she's beautiful, but her character doesn't seem to be one who will survive much longer the way she's living her life. Truly sad and depressing, even more of a downer than "Boys in the Band". Historically important but not a film that people will likely want to revisit unless they saw it 50 years ago and want to see how it comes off now.

A Dark Film

[drednm · 10 February 2018]

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.

gay life in 1971

[ksf-2 · 9/10 · 29 June 2019]

I wish we knew more about Mervyn Nelson, the writer and director of this one... apparently he wrote a ground-breaking film on jazz around 1950, and another ground-breaking chapter of gay life back in the day. This is totally a snapshot of gay (mostly underground at the time) life in 1971. some drag, some straight-acting, some camp. and a thank you to a very young Rue McClanahan and Fannie Flagg for being a part of this. This is a good picture of people in a gay bar at various stages of acceptance; some are at peace with who they are... some are in denial, some are having conversations about being unsure of just where things are in their life. Christmas Eve, in a gay bar. Emotions. The hustler chooses a dance partner, but then has buyer's remorse. Fights. Ups, Downs. laughter. sorrow. Probably the biggest name here is Gary Sandy, much better known as the station manager in WKRP. and Gil Gerard was also Buck Rogers. It wasn't an easy time for gay folk. even the bars could be dangerous, two years after the stonewall riots in New York City. an honest look at gay life in the city, back in the day. Good stuff. an honest picture of gay life in 1971.

A Time Capsule and cinema study of gay life in the 70's

[sinnerofcinema · 10/10 · 2 April 2023]

This is an important piece of cinema. Why? Because it exposes the overall gay experience in its different facets - in this film it is represented through the characters at a bar. They spectrum of characters is like the rainbow flag even if it may not be identifiable or labeled as it is nowadays it does not mean it did not exist, it just means it was all under a few banners of the rainbow at the time. The situations are real, the pain in overwhelming and what makes this masterpiece so poignant is that this may not all be happening at one bar during one night but the film is set up as such.

These are the events lgbt people experienced on a daily basis everywhere from unrequited love only answered in the dark to family troubles to straight identified men having their side lovers. It's all there as it it today all converged beautifully and cinematically in one bar for us all to remember and never forget how times have changed and how far we've come as a society.

A brilliant piece of cinema and case study of how life was for lgbt+ back in 1971. A fine and highly recommended film.

In a parallel universe

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 30 December 2022]

What we see on screen is the result of a series of off-Broadway workshops that involved the main cast. From what I understand, the workshops were meant to help the principle actors develop a strong sense of character-- which means that what we witness in the film is based on emotional aspects of the performers' own lives.

It wouldn't be a drama if they didn't experience psychologically devastating moments. Very few of these characters have happy lives. They meet and experience life inside a traumatic vacuum. Some of the personal anguish is kept close to the proverbial vest, some of it is shared openly. I'm not sure how much pride is taken in individual situations, even when they approach the world with fearless attitudes.

Most of the situations play out simultaneously. Occasionally the various conflicts overlap and collectively build into a bigger catastrophe. The action takes place at a bar on New Year's Eve in Greenwich Village. It could be any bar, really. Any night when a celebration is supposed to occur. Any time a group of troubled souls converge, regardless of their financial backgrounds or social standing.

It's a curious thing to watch, because none of them know how to solve their problems. They have secrets that come out before the clock strikes twelve, but no assurances are given that life in the subsequent year will be any better than it is now. As the night continues, it all develops into a blistering misery fest, where we watch them wallow in excess and pain...usually excessive amounts of pain...with plenty of self-loathing and loathing by others to go round.

Most of the characters are subtypes of a culture at large. Not every persuasion or part of the spectrum is represented, because not every persuasion or part of the spectrum had been defined yet in the early 1970s. So it's a time capsule with limits. But for 1971, this is a somewhat notable attempt at visibility post-Stonewall.

There seem to be two themes working at cross-purposes in Mervyn Nelson's opus. One is liberation. The other is hate. A memorable hate crime occurs in the movie, and it's not an easy scene to watch. There is also a scene where a disapproving mother enters the bar and causes a ruckus. Coming away from such a fuss, who would choose to be oriented this way? A masochist maybe. A person who feels they have no choice maybe.

As a tool of therapy for the participants, I suppose it has merit. But some of it does feel contrived and gimmicky. It's hard to rate the cast's specific performances, since much of it does not seem like acting per se...it's more like heightened cinema verite. For quite a few viewers, it will probably not be an enjoyable movie.

However, I think it's an important experiment. Some of my best friends are cinephiles that may want to watch the metaphoric train wrecks that unfold before us here. And some of my best friends might be watching something a bit more positive and life-affirming in a parallel universe.