Documentary about the career and eventual death from AIDS of actor Rock Hudson.
Eric Farr speaks to the camera as if speaking Rock Hudson's words from a posthumous diary. Film clips from more than 30 Hudson films illustrate ways in which his sexual orientation played out on screen. First we see tenuous and unresolved relationships with women, then clips of Rock with men, cruising and circling. Next comes pedagogical Eros: Hudson with older men. We see Rock with his sidekicks, often Tony Randall. We look in depth at comedies of sexual embarrassment and innuendo: films in which Hudson sometimes plays two characters, "macho Rock and homo Rock." He's masculine yet vulnerable, a hunk who needs taking care of. Last come cinematic reflections on death.—<[email protected]>
An enjoyable 'gaysploitation' feature about Rock Hudson. The narrator invites us to have a CLOSE look at his films, using some 30 clips of his career, and tries to convince us that Rock's homosexuality was glued to the screen from the start. Words, gestures and looks are re-interpreted. The results are sometimes amusing and often touching, revealing a Hollywood era where 'gay' meant only 'happy', or did it?
