Susie Bright: "I saw Marlene Dietrich
in Morocco when I was a teenager. I just was flipping
the channels and saw her and decided to settle in for
an old movie. And there's this scene where she comes
into a nightclub and she's just stunning in this tuxedo.
And the camera lingers, I mean, it wasn't like I was
catching this out of the side of the screen. It 's right
in the center. She has a romance with Gary Cooper in
this movie but that romance just went right out the
window for me. I was just like, who was that woman,
what had happened? I started writing a whole other script
for what was really going on!"
Arthur Laurents:"...the thing worked
for everybody of every sex. And what's amazing, I don't
think they've done anything as delicious sexually as
that since. They didn't pretend it was anything but
it was: she was doing it to turn on both the woman and
the man, which appealed to everybody. As it should.
It was so free."
Queen
Christina, 1933
Chancellor: There are rumors that your majesty
is planning a foreign marriage?
Christina: They are baseless.
Chancellor: But your majesty, you cannot die an old
maid!
Christina: I have no intention to, Chancellor. I shall
die a bachelor!
Rebel
Without A Cause, 1955
Stewart Stern, screenwriter: "People
talk about whether that was a homosexual relationship.
The intention wasn't that. But any film is at the same
time an expression of a writer and it's an offering
to an audience to create their own film. I think if
I were writing that script again today that I would
be much more specific about Plato. I would let him be
an outcast because the gang thought he was a faggot
and let his isolation come from that opinion."
Ben
Hur, 1959
Gore Vidal, screenwriter: "I said well,
look, let me try something. Let's say that these two
guys, when they were 15 or 16 when they last saw each
other, they had been lovers and now they're meeting
again and the Roman wants to start it up. Masala, played
by Stephen Boyd, wants to start it up with Ben Hur,
played by Charlton Heston, heaven knows why but he does."
