1930s Derek Le Beau 1930s Derek Le Beau

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

Katharine Hepburn finds herself in some queer situations while disguised as a young man in gay director George Cukor’s 1935 film SYLVIA SCARLETT.

Read More
1950s Derek Le Beau 1950s Derek Le Beau

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)

Physique model Gary Conway becomes the monstrous object of fixation for the queer-coded Professor Frankenstein (Whit Bissell) in Herbert L. Strock’s 1957 horror film I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN.

Read More
1930s Derek Le Beau 1930s Derek Le Beau

TOP HAT (1935)

The 1935 Hollywood Hays Code-era Astaire & Rogers musical TOP HAT features three queer-coded side characters.

Read More
1950s Derek Le Beau 1950s Derek Le Beau

Some Like it Hot (1959)

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dress in drag, and find themselves in some queer situations, in Billy Wilder's classic 1959 comedy SOME LIKE IT HOT.

Read More
1950s Derek Le Beau 1950s Derek Le Beau

Young Man with a Horn (1950)

Lauren Bacall is Amy, a queer-coded heiress, in the 1950 Michael Curtiz film YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, based on Dorothy Baker’s popular 1938 novel of the same name.

Read More
1950s Derek Le Beau 1950s Derek Le Beau

CAGED! (1950)

The 1950 women-in-prison flick CAGED! was based on notes and observations made by writer Virginia Kellogg who spent time undercover in the US prison system.

Read More
1930s Derek Le Beau 1930s Derek Le Beau

Midnight (1939)

Rex O'Malley plays the queer-coded gay best friend in queer director Mitchell Leisen’s 1939 screwball comedy MIDNIGHT.

Read More
1940s Derek Le Beau 1940s Derek Le Beau

The Razor’s Edge (1946)

Clifton Webb is the queer-coded wealthy “bachelor” Elliott Templeton in Edmund Goulding’s 1946 adaptation of queer author W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel “The Razor’s Edge.”

Read More
1960s Derek Le Beau 1960s Derek Le Beau

THE GROUP (1966)

Candice Bergen, in her screen debut, plays a lesbian named Lakey in Sidney Lumet’s 1966 adaptation of Mary McCarthy’s 1963 bestselling novel “The Group.”

Read More
1930s Derek Le Beau 1930s Derek Le Beau

FERDINAND THE BULL (1938)

Ferdinand the Bull is a classic queer-coded character from Disney’s early days, featured in the 1938 animated short of the same name and based on Munro Leaf’s 1936 children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand.”

Read More