Review of Cruising (1980) by Joseph G — 24 Oct 2007

[B]"Cruising"[/B], starring Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, and directed and written by William Friedkin (The Exorcist), circa 1980, was angrily petitioned by the Gay Community for its depiction of Gays as sordid drooling monsters. Friedkin interviewed police officers and states that the story is based on actual events. (We all know how understanding of gays policemen are, right?) When body parts were found floating in the Hudson river, Friedkin states that he "was moved" to write this pile of unmentionable. But so was he possessed in his previous film "The Exorcist" -- another bag of hot air for the simple-minded of the world. (Menstruation is evil?? Huh?-) But, like so much junk, there are junkies who pay and make heaps of profits for the junk dealers. In this case, however, the movie only made money because of the publicity it gathered by the Gay Rights Movement's aggressive fight against it in 1980. Released once more a few weeks ago, it met with so much more sophistication about sexuality that it came and went like so much passed wind. But like Friedkin's Exorcist, it does have value as a very funny comedy. (Note: the script for "Arsenic and Old Lace" was originally written and sold as a serious drama! True story.).

This unintended (?) hilarity of a movie can only be a petrified view by a small town tourist (William Friedkin) of the homosexual community of New York. Al Pacino portrays Al(ice)-In-Wonderland and the proverbial princess-with-a-nightly-headache as he meanders homosexually-panicked through the gay walking dead (Vincent Price, where are you now that we need you!), while also pretending to be a representative of New York's Finest. But he can't fool us New Yorkers! He is an incompetent mouse sent in as a lure by an ignorant Police department so in the dark about homosexuals that their poor soul has to ask a Greenwich Village haberdashery clerk what the colors of handkerchiefs signify in the homosexual community. When informed, he chooses a yellow one (urination) and plants it into his left back pocket (a giver), and tries to make like an hors d'oeuvre in some gay saloon. When approached by an interested party, he announces that he is there to watch only, to which his disappointed courter advises him to take the damn handkerchief out of his pocket, you asshole!

Want more? Try this: Naked as a newborn, face down on a bed, his hands tied behind his back and his rump up in the air for his suspect to pounce upon, our Al-in-Wonderland chastises the backup squad, arriving like the cavalry to bash down the door, for arriving too soon! (Party Poops!) (He repeats this condemnation again -- my favorite line of the movie -- in the squad room where, to make his role "convincing", a muscular naked man in a cowboy hat enters to slap him in the face. Ahh, art! (Actually, Friedkin is said to have based this on an actual incident, and since there is so little of reality in this farce of a film this is something real, anyway, no?) (Al later admonishes the still naked man now sitting peacefully with his cowboy hat for slapping him, that silly beast of a hunk!).

Care to sample more? How about this: Visiting a "law enforcement" night where patrons must costume themselves from their customary leather to policewear, badge, handcuffs, batons and all, our sweet Al-Thru-The-Looking Glass arrives with his usual spanking (pun-pun) new leather jacket, failing to seize the moment to wear his real uniform, gun and all, probably forgetting that he's the real McCoy, and is ejected by a bouncer as being inappropriately dressed for the occasion. Ahh, literary irony! Art!

I'm sure even then (1980) the police department had gay officers (as all Departments of the World secretly have) who would gladly have traded their dull duties with poor old shaky Al and not experience headaches, or their period, every time some guy came on to them. All in a day's work, and all that! I can only assume that Al Pacino had second thoughts about doing the part and risking his reputation as a tough Mafia-to-be son. Problem is, Friedkin should have chosen a braver actor. Instead they probably changed the plot to accommodate Al(ice), from a terrified wimp enduring homosexual panic to a dedicated decoy who chooses a more "innocuous" option in the last scene -- less dangerous in the script's sense and in Friedkin's -- a testimony to Friedkin's judgement of homosexuality, and I won't reveal the ending here, which is indeed a shock. Disappointingly the bait-and-switch ending is presumed to be more desirable than the advertised notion of a sweet-kid-of-a cop coming out of the closet. (Anything for Al than homosexuality. Anything! Dear heaven, what would Godfather Marlon Brando think!) Reviewers who have expressed confusion over the ending should face reality and believe that a nice old guy like Friedkin would actually prefer virgin Al's preposterous option to the one we all expected. And there lies the moral cowardice of the adjusted-for-Pacino final version, or so I believe. So, both Friedkin and Pacino quaked their way through the film. (However, I believe that the Hollywood Gestapo would have it no other way.).

Bottom line: Do buy the DVD and add it to your permanent collection as one of the future great "camp" movies. If you're gay, you should get loads of knee-slapping hilarity, the more you view it each time, better than anything you'll ever see on Saturday Night Live!