Sissies, Pansies, Fairies, and Other Exotic Fruits

[Matt]

I'm putting together a presentation on Great Sissies of the 1930s Cinema, so I want to appeal to the group brain for ideas for clips to include in this presentation. What are your favorite "pansy" scenes of the 1930s? Scenes featuring Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore, or Edward Everett Horton are ideal, but I'm also looking for scenes featuring other actors. Bonus points if the actor is wearing a small mustache and/or a carnation in his lapel.

And yes, this is a serious request, and no, this is not an occasion for arguing issues of representation or making unwise jokes.

[domino harvey]

It's borderline with your timeframe, but 1929's otherwise worthless Bulldog Drummond features Claude Allister (better known perhaps from Monte Carlo) as the tough-guy's effeminate foppy pal whose numerous attempts to keep up with his masculine pal would seem to fit your presentation's requirements perfectly

[Narshty]

James Cagney's tailor in The Public Enemy.

[Morgan Creek]

The park bench scene with Jack Buchanan and the hairdresser in Monte Carlo.

[Shrew]

My Man Godfrey.

[ltfontaine]

I suspect you’re focusing on Hollywood films, but in Ozu’s Walk Cheerfully (1930), Saito Tatsuo shows up in a pool hall sporting a small mustache, eye makeup, a cute little hat and carrying a tiny dog. There may be a carnation involved, I don't recall.

[Michael]

The dresser in The Broadway Melody. It's a 1929 film though.

[HerrSchreck]

Ernest Thesiger, of course... the elephant in the room I guess..

Keep your eyes all over von Sternberg's pics-- unusual stuff like the dwarf in Empress, though not neccessarily pansyish.

There's an outwardly queer character in Hotel du Nord, but that's 30's Carne ("Oh I didn't recognize you with a woman!").

[Matt]

You guys are great. Keep 'em coming. Examples from non-Hollywood films are welcome, especially if, like the Ozu and the Carné, they demonstrate a clear stereotype. I was already planning on including the "invert" character from La Règle du jeu.

[Jonathan S]

Cukor's Our Betters (1933) - the hilarious final sequence with the queeny dance instructor named Ernest (Tyrell Davis).

As dglink on imdb writes:

Ernest is not only dressed like a dandified pouffe, but he has thickly rouged lips that form a rosebud beneath his tiny clipped mustache. His broad effeminate mannerisms would embarrass a drag queen, and perceptive viewers can smell the lavender perfume that reeks from the screen.

[HypnoHelioStaticStasis]

I'm gonna kick myself for not remembering this guy's name, but the mark (con target) in Trouble in Paradise. A wonderful, thoroughly sissified performance.

In case your unsure of who I mean, he was Astaire's second banana in Top Hat.

[jesus the mexican boi]

You may have already seen this, but Mark Rappaport's film THE SILVER SCREEN: COLOR ME LAVENDER has plenty of examples of Pangborn, Horton and others in effeminate roles. Presumably there's a list of the clips' sources in the end credits.

It's also available for instant viewing on Netflix.

[Morgan Creek]

Rex O'Malley's Gaston in Camille.

And you might have a look at Vito Russo's Celluloid Closet (the book and film versions) for other examples.

[myrnaloyisdope]

There's the scene in Wonder Bar, where one guy cuts in on a couple dancing, but instead of dancing with the girl he dances with the guy.

There's also the gay bar in Call Me Savage.

[fiddlesticks]

I'm gonna kick myself for not remembering this guy's name, but the mark (con target) in Trouble in Paradise. A wonderful, thoroughly sissified performance.

Edward Everett Horton.

[Jonathan S]

There's a wonderful Pangborn moment in Stahl's Only Yesterday where he arrives at a party with his latest conquest, telling the hostess: "The name doesn't matter very much - but he's very thirsty!"

And don't forget Eric Blore in The Gay Divorce: "I have an unnatural passion for rocks!"

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rolfe Sedan is another dapperly dressed moustachioed prissy actor who often wore a carnation, but I'm damned if I can think of a film to get a clip from. Can't even find a decent picture from his heyday.

[Matt]

Rolfe Sedan is another dapperly dressed moustachioed prissy actor who often wore a carnation, but I'm damned if I can think of a film to get a clip from. Can't even find a decent picture from his heyday.

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife would be perfect since he plays a department store floorwalker, but it's one of those Lubitsch pictures maddeningly unavailable on DVD.

The Celluloid Closet and Screened Out are being very helpful to me, but they aren't comprehensive. For example, there's a wonderful moment in Gold Diggers of 1937 that features a split-second shot of the perfect pansy, but it's too brief (or too obscure) to rate a mention in the books.

[jesus the mexican boi]

Not the moustachioed pansy, but Eddy Hart in a bit role as the queer prison cook (Turkey!) in Rowland Brown's HELL'S HIGHWAY (1932) almost steals the show.

[Jonathan S]

For example, there's a wonderful moment in Gold Diggers of 1937 that features a split-second shot of the perfect pansy, but it's too brief (or too obscure) to rate a mention in the books.

I haven't seen that film for ages but I suspect it's the shot of the great gay/drag cabaret artist Ray Bourbon. It's mentioned on the website devoted to him.

http://www.coolcatdaddy.com/bourbon-filmography.html

Bourbon was a big name on the cabaret circuit but made very few film appearances. If you look above the reference to Gold Diggers of 1937 you'll see an entry on the 1934 RKO short Hip Zip Hooray! in which he has a proper supporting role as a gay designer of ladies underwear. The owner of the Bourbon site had never even heard of this film until I sent him a copy of the video recording I made nearly 30 years ago. The film isn't listed on imdb.

Fortunately, Bourbon made many recordings (on independent labels) of his witty and very risque songs, full of gay double-entendres. I was amazed to discover that Robert Mitchum, of all people, wrote the lyrics for some of them before his film career took off (mentioned in Lee Server's biography of Mitch).

[Sloper]

Don't forget Donald Meek (right name?) in Stagecoach.

Also, slightly darker example, the guy with the weak stomach in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang - the one who gets slapped around and then, um, dies.

[Tommaso]

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife would be perfect since he plays a department store floorwalker, but it's one of those Lubitsch pictures maddeningly unavailable on DVD.

Try Germany or Spain.

[GringoTex]

In Lubitsch's Monte Carlo, Jack Buchanan's Count Rudolph Falliere pretends sissy to gain Jeanette MacDonald's trust by transforming himself into "Rudy the Hairdresser." It's the first Hollywood movie I know of that addresses the fag hag phenomenon.

[HerrSchreck]

Don't forget Donald Meek (right name?) in Stagecoach.

Also, slightly darker example, the guy with the weak stomach in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang - the one who gets slapped around and then, um, dies.

-- I haven't pulled the film out in a while, but I don't remember that guy as being tagged gay in the text. What makes you say he is?

Don't forget, of course (I assume this isn't limited to men) Madchen en Uniform, Leontine Sagan's masterpiece from the early German sound era about boarding school girls.

Brooksie-- although this was late 20's-- appeared in two german silents (Pandora & Diary) which both featured lesbians.

Josephine-Joseph in Freaks would be an interesting, undefinable oddity in any discussion of sexuality in 30's cinema.

[GaryC]

Ferdinand Gottschalk in Female (1933) - except he gets an entirely gratuitous scene where he appears to be coming on to a woman. Presumably that means that he isn't gay, surely not, so as to appease local censor boards.