The Singer Not the Song

(Dir. Roy Ward Baker, 1961)
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, John Mills, Mylèle Demongeot

Westerns are about good and bad –meaning crime and justice–, unhinged villains versus the need for rules –meaning savagery versus state-sanctioned violence–. The best Westerns in fact cross that red line, and the wandering ‘outsider’ is often the hero, but the fact is that the genre has an in-built authoritarian vein. Is there room for queering? The gloriously camp Zachariah (1971), Calamity Jane (1953), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), and The Singer Not the Song (1961) prove that you can – and we’ve been at it since 1912, with the cracking Algie de Miner, which we screened in Season One. The Singer Not the Song is a two-hander, with John Mills literally playing straight, and Dirk Bogarde as cocky as cock. What a duel. What an ending.

SEASON 9: OFF THE WALL!

Join us as we celebrate the weird and wonderful and forgotten heritage of unclassifiable queer films. Unique propositions, with just one thing in common: a touch of divine madness.

Queer films have been thrilling and enlightening audiences since the prehistory of cinema (two women kissing in 1888 in Muibridge’s Plate 444, or two men dancing together in 1895 in Dickson’s Experimental Sound Film), and will continue to do so in the future of cinema (see Ximena Cuevas’ experimental lesbian videoart, or Yobert Yang’s cottaging simulation videogame The Tearoom, of 2017). Queer-friendly and LGBTQ filmmakers have made movies in every genre: romance, documentary, thriller, fantasy, drama, adventure, horror, musical. AND they have also made movies that are impossible to classify… Because they don’t want to be classified. Because they rather invent their own genres. Because they want to use a secret code. Because they don’t care if they’re seen as camp, mad, fab, or ‘gas’. The word “queer” originally meant ‘weird’. Join us as we celebrate the weird and wonderful and forgotten heritage of unclassifiable queer films. Unique propositions, with just one thing in common: a touch of divine madness.