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When I was a kid, my folks cleaned office buildings at night to supplement their day job incomes, leaving me in the care of my sofa-bound grandmother who lived with my widowed aunt. The TV was always on, tuned to the soaps or Mike Douglas or old movies of any stripe, so I was raised in the same 10 inch screen world as Larry Duplechan (they sold these movies in packages after all), and I absorbed my share of The Women, “Busby Berkley” musicals, Mickey and Judy pics, The Wizard of Oz, Franklin Pangborn, Little Rascals, and other childhood delights, and I’m sure they had a hand in shaping my lavender viewpoint. But Duplechan connects the dots both personally and culturally, putting many films important to him in a commonsense context that’s factual, entertaining, and inextricably entwined with his life.
Duplechan’s essays are mostly grouped by movies usually seen during a major holiday like Halloween or Christmas or his personal film festivals tied to Pride Month or Black History Month, a structure that allows him to explore an astonishing variety of films within each of these chapters–especially the latter. What’s more, Duplechan is a pragmatist when it comes to watching these fifty-, sixty-, and seventy-year-old films through today’s lens. Take, for example, the egregious idea of “blackface.” It has to be confronted as so many ex-vaudeville performers of that time period “blacked up” for a minstrel show number. Duplechan does an excellent job of deploring the practice while being objective enough to put it into, again, context for its time. By the same token, Duplechan gives a positive spin to the coded mannerisms of “pansy” actors such as the aforementioned Franklin Pangborn. It may not be ideal representation, but for a time, it was all we had.
Indeed, he’s not afraid to deliver the unpopular take, either. Consider his critique of William Friedkin’s adaptation of Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band. Revisionist criticism rails against the self-loathing in the film but Duplechan wisely looks past that and sees the love between many of these men. Of course, it always helps when the reader agrees, which I do.
But more important than the opinions about film–we all have them, after all–is the personal thread Duplechan weaves throughout. He takes great pains to explore not only those opinions but how he came to form them, treating their origins with frankness and a wicked, wicked sense of humor. This is particularly relevant to the section of the chapter on Black History Month when Duplechan takes us through the process of having one of his books, “Blackbird,” turned into a film. The twists, turns, and unintentional ironies of the incident make me grateful none of my books have been optioned (that’s a lie, Hollywood–feel free to call).
We all have those movies that made us gay, and reading this will being even more to mind. Duplechan has crafted a wise, warm, and very knowledgeable exploration of some of his favorites. May the next volume be even longer.
JW
© 2023 Jerry L. Wheeler
Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews 
Nice post