Obscure Movie.....help!!

[Okliehomo]

I seem to recall a scene in a movie where this rather effeminate middle aged guy ends up picking up a handsome kinda rough hustler in a bar and when they get back to the guy's apartment, the hustler says, "I know what you need.." Or "Your kind needs to be roughed up first.." as he is taking off his belt. Then all you hear is the guy saying, "No no no" as the hustler goes after him with the belt and the cut.

 

Obviously, this made an impression on me. A lasting one. Problem is I cannot remember the film. I thought for years it was "The Carpetbaggers" in which the the fictionalized Jean Harlow character's fictionalized husband, Paul Bern does pick up a hustler. So. I bought the dvd and there is no scene like that. I then went to the library and found a copy of the book and there is a scene exactly like that in the book.

 

So, then I decided it must be in the movie "Harlow"... Well, turns out there were two movies about Jean Harlow made approximately at the same time. The Carroll Bakker/Angela Lansbury version and a version starring Carol Lynley and Ginger Rogers. So, I bought the CB version from Amazon and found the Lynley version on Ebay.... from France of all places. Not that it matters, but the Lynley version is much closer to the truth though it was pretty low budget. Anyway, my remembered scene is not in either one of them.

 

So, I have an old VCR copy of "The Celluloid Closet". So I watched it thinking maybe I just saw a clip and not the actual movie. Nothing.

 

Does that scene ring a bell with anyone??? Not that I am even the slightest bit obsessive, but I really would like to find that damned movie.

[Diverdan]

Sorry, those descriptions do not ring a bell for me at all. You sure it is not from one of your home movies? (Just kidding, btw)

[thickornotatall]

Sorry, those descriptions do not ring a bell for me at all. You sure it is not from one of your home movies? (Just kidding, btw)

Midnight Cowboy..John McGiver as the older man.....?...I saw this while in high school at The Paris behind Bergdorf Goodman on Grand Army Plaza...after my bf and I went to Serendipty for lemonade...hope that helps..

[Zman]

Oklie are your memories positive ones of this scene? I always regretted seeing Midnight Cowboy and felt it was offensive. I couldn't even make allowances for the time period in which it was made.

 

Of course, there's still plenty of gay-bashing on screen, just checking out any schlock Alan Ball has perpetrated over the years.

[Diverdan]

I saw Midnight Cowboy on TV the other night... I don't remember what channel it was on, and it was very late night. However, I found it fascinating to watch and think about how different in so many ways life is like now, but also how similar situations to that movie still happen. I want to see it again, and I remember the first time I saw it right after it first came out, and it made a big impression on me in so many different ways.

[Tonyko]

Midnight Cowboy is a GREAT time capsule! It was 1969 it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to do it any way other than the way it was. It wasn't the story of a gay hustler it was a str8 hustler with unrealistic dreams who forced himself into G4P as MOST did. IF ppl found the effeminante girly boy character offensive well, HE was there to supply the shame and eventual violence the main character exhibited to dissassociate himself from "that" kind of queer. (STILL true to a much lesser extent nowadays but it's still there in "some" G4P escorts) Sorry, I think it's a great film. GREAT CHARACTERS. (Sylvia Miles lives a block from me gotta be 85 now looks like a crazy old broad with wild hair and torn opera gloves walking on two canes) C'mon, HER scene alone is worth the movie

*Wanna be offended watch "CRUISING" THAT movie is like a How-To manual for how to bash or murder queers.

[thickornotatall]

Midnight Cowboy is a GREAT time capsule! It was 1969 it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to do it any way other than the way it was. It wasn't the story of a gay hustler it was a str8 hustler with unrealistic dreams who forced himself into G4P as MOST did. IF ppl found the effeminante girly boy character offensive well, HE was there to supply the shame and eventual violence the main character exhibited to dissassociate himself from "that" kind of queer. (STILL true to a much lesser extent nowadays but it's still there in "some" G4P escorts) Sorry, I think it's a great film. GREAT CHARACTERS. (Sylvia Miles lives a block from me gotta be 85 now looks like a crazy old broad with wild hair and torn opera gloves walking on two canes) C'mon, HER scene alone is worth the movie

*Wanna be offended watch "CRUISING" THAT movie is like a How-To manual for how to bash or murder queers.

I was in school a few blocks from St Marks Place where the Electric Circus (disco) was filmed...The interior views were filmed late at night with extras being cast as you entered..I was to young to get I legally but always managed to back in....

[Okliehomo]

Thanks guys. Really appreciate your help. I have seen MC and will watch it again to catch that scene. I seem to recall when the movie came out, it was rated X which at the time was supposed to kill a mainstream movie.... but then it went on to win Best Picture, I think. I also remember when I finally got to see it on VHS thinking, "What's the big deal??" There really wasn't much nudity, but I guess, it was the kind of sex... I do also remember being disappointed at how disgusted Jon Voight's character (Joe Buck?) was by "the queers".. It kind of played to my all ready internalized homophobia. Ah, the 60s.

 

Anyway, thanks again.

[TruHart1]

Oklie are your memories positive ones of this scene? I always regretted seeing Midnight Cowboy and felt it was offensive. I couldn't even make allowances for the time period in which it was made.

 

Of course, there's still plenty of gay-bashing on screen, just checking out any schlock Alan Ball has perpetrated over the years.

Midnight Cowboy is a GREAT time capsule! It was 1969 it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to do it any way other than the way it was. It wasn't the story of a gay hustler it was a str8 hustler with unrealistic dreams who forced himself into G4P as MOST did. IF ppl found the effeminante girly boy character offensive well, HE was there to supply the shame and eventual violence the main character exhibited to dissassociate himself from "that" kind of queer. (STILL true to a much lesser extent nowadays but it's still there in "some" G4P escorts) Sorry, I think it's a great film. GREAT CHARACTERS. (Sylvia Miles lives a block from me gotta be 85 now looks like a crazy old broad with wild hair and torn opera gloves walking on two canes) C'mon, HER scene alone is worth the movie

*Wanna be offended watch "CRUISING" THAT movie is like a How-To manual for how to bash or murder queers.

Thanks guys. Really appreciate your help. I have seen MC and will watch it again to catch that scene. I seem to recall when the movie came out, it was rated X which at the time was supposed to kill a mainstream movie.... but then it went on to win Best Picture, I think. I also remember when I finally got to see it on VHS thinking, "What's the big deal??" There really wasn't much nudity, but I guess, it was the kind of sex... I do also remember being disappointed at how disgusted Jon Voight's character (Joe Buck?) was by "the queers".. It kind of played to my all ready internalized homophobia. Ah, the 60s.

 

Anyway, thanks again.

 

It's interesting how each of us had different takes on Midnight Cowboy. I went to the movie theater in my small college town for the thrill of surreptitiously seeing an "X-Rated" movie about a naïve male hustler from the South, who believes he will make a fortune in the Big Apple with his body. What I took away was something so much different! I fell in love with Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as actors. In my final analysis, I felt the crux of the film was really about the non-sexual love that developed between the clueless Southern boy and the gay, drug addicted, homeless street person.

 

[spoilers!] The final scene on the Greyhound bus when Joe Buck has not yet realized that Ratso has passed but the audience already knows, had me trying to keep silent while crying my eyes out. Very few movies have reached into my soul like this movie!

 

Yes, the film is quite dated now, but, unlike some of the above opinions, I found this film a watershed experience of my youth!

 

TruHart1

[Tonyko]

AND let us remember the scene with the (very young) actor Bob Balaban (his Dad was head of production at the studio :-) as the nervous boy who lies and has no money after sex in the movie theater with Jon, in THAT scene he fights his frustration and desire to bash the kid for tricking him and his underlying gentle soul wins and he (albiet angrily) lets the boy go. The culmination of that anger/frustration etc of course comes out in the eventual violent scene with the old man Barnard Hughes. WHAT I NEVER totally got was the John McGiver (sic) character the one Hoffman says is a "male" escort's agent and tricks Jon out of his money to set up a meeting with. He TALKS like he IS a pimp he's going to work him hard he's got a good body he'll do well etc THEN he turns into the religious nutcase with a home altar etc and I NEVER got what was really happening. WAS he a pimp who also was a Jesus freak for pennance?? Or was he just supposed to be a nutjob?? Never really got that scene.

[+ poolboy48220]

I went to the movie theater in my small college town for the thrill of surreptitiously seeing an "X-Rated" movie about a naïve male hustler from the South, who believes he will make a fortune in the Big Apple with his body. What I took away was something so much different!

I had the same experience with Fight Club. I went mainly to see Brad Pitt in the shower (based on the 'Soap' promos). I was very surprised.

[Diverdan]

I haven't seen the movie.. what was surprising about the shower scene with Mr. Pitt?

[+ poolboy48220]

I haven't seen the movie.. what was surprising about the shower scene with Mr. Pitt?

That there wasn't one. I went just looking for a beefcake movie, instead it was a much more cerebral, nihilistic, play-with-your-mind movie.

[Diverdan]

I have seen snippets of the movie in ads, etc., but now I guess I can pass. Mr. Pitt is not always my favorite actor anyway. Thanks for the information, poolboy..

[+ Keith30309]

The closest he gets to a shower in the flick.... I'd scrub his back.