"The Boys in the Band is not a musical" read the film's original advertisements. The film is set in the apartment of Michael (Kenneth Nelson), a homosexual who holds a birthday party for his friend Harold (Leonard Frey). As Michael and his gay buddies prepare for Harold's arrival, Michael's old college chum Alan (Peter White) makes a surprise appearance. Alan is straight, so Michael tells the revellers to watch their step. Alan's uptight reaction to gay Emory (Cliff Gorman) foments a
confrontation. The embittered Michael tries to prove that Alan is a latent homosexual by staging a perverse game in which all the partygoers are required to declare their affections for the persons that they love the most. As it turns out, the person most injured by this game is Michael himself, who is incapable of loving anyone. As the first major-studio production to deal frankly with homosexuality, every member of the show's original Broadway cast appears in the film, including Laurence Luckinbill as an out-of-the-closet husband and father. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The characters' pathos and self-loathing were deplorable even in 1970, but the it is significant historically as one of Hollywood's first explicitly gay movies and an early work of Billy Friedkin just before making the Oscar-winner French Connection.
Unapologetic, ambitious, wonderfully vibrant, and more than deserving of a second chance from those who found it to be an unfair look at the lives of gay men in the 1960s.
Compelling but at times brutally grim drama is a view into the dark night of the soul. Committed performances and good direction keep this watchable but at times some of the actions are so cruel you have to wonder how these people could of been friends before and how could they still be friends after.
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