Abstract
This chapter explores the cinematic depiction of postwar queer London, focusing on the portrayal of queer bars and clubs in Victim (1961), The Killing of Sister George (1968) and Nighthawks (1978). London’s network of queer commercial spaces emerged before World War II. But representations of these spaces in the media became more prominent in the 1950s and 1960s, when scandals involving high-profile figures and debates over the legal status of men who had sex with men generated new interest in the city’s sexual subcultures. Film responded to this public curiosity by dramatising the lives of queer men and women in the city. It also played a role in shaping an emerging gay and lesbian political agenda. During the 1970s, representations of queer London in film became political talking points, and, by the end of the decade, film was being used by gay and lesbian activists to critique the city’s existing queer subcultures based around commercial venues, and to lay claim to broader visibility in the public sphere.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Anon. 1970. The London Life. In Spartacus International Gay Guide, 36–37. Brighton: Spartacus.
Anon. 1978. Nighthawks. Gay News, August 24–September 7.
Babuscio, Jack. 1979. Every Night Fever. Gay News, March 8–21.
Baker, Roger. 1978–1979. Times They Were A-Changing. Gay News, December 14–January 10.
Bengry, Justin. 2009. Courting the Pink Pound: Men Only and the Queer Consumer, 1935–39. History Workshop Journal 68: 123–148.
———. 2014. Profit (f)or the Public Good?: Sensationalism, Homosexuality, and the Postwar Popular Press. Media History 20 (2): 146–166.
Bingham, Adrian. 2009. Family Newspapers?: Sex, Private Life, and the British Popular Press 1918–1978. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brunsdon, Charlotte. 2007. London in the Cinema: The Cinematic City Since 1945. London: British Film Institute.
Buckle, Sebastian. 2015. The Way Out: A History of Homosexuality in Modern Britain. London: I.B.Tauris.
Cant, Bob. 1978–1979. The Making of Nighthawks. Gay Left 7: 30–33.
Coldstream, John. 2011. Victim. London: Palgrave Macmillan/British Film Institute.
Cook, Matt. 2003. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2007. From Gay Reform to Gaydar, 1967–2006. In A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages, ed. Matt Cook, 179–214. Oxford: Greenwood.
Dyer, Richard, with Julianne Pidduck. 2003. Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Gardiner, Jill. 2003. From the Closet to the Screen: Women at the Gateways Club, 1945–85. London: Pandora.
Gay Left Collective. 1976. Within These Walls…. Gay Left 2: 1–5.
Hall Carpenter Archives. 1989. Walking After Midnight: Gay Men’s Life Stories. London: Hall Carpenter Archives.
Hankin, Kelly. 2001. Lesbian Locations: The Production of Lesbian Bar Space in The Killing of Sister George. Cinema Journal 41 (1): 3–27.
Houlbrook, Matt. 2002. Lady Austin’s Camp Boys: Constituting the Queer Subject in 1930s London. Gender & History 14 (1): 31–61.
———. 2005. Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Houlbrook, Matt, and Chris Waters. 2006. The Heart in Exile: Detachment and Desire in 1950s London. History Workshop Journal 62: 142–165.
Howes, Keith. 1976. Director Needs Gays for First ‘Real’ Gay Film. Gay News, January 29–February 11.
Jennings, Rebecca. 2006. The Gateways Club and the Emergence of a Post-Second World War Lesbian Subculture. Social History 31 (2): 206–225.
Kenyon, Barrie. 1976. Have You Joined the Gay Ghetto Yet? Gay News, March 11–24.
Leggott, James. 2008. Nothing to Do around Here: British Realist Cinema in the 1970s. In Seventies British Cinema, ed. Robert Shail, 94–104. London: Palgrave Macmillan/British Film Institute.
McAnnally, John. 1979. Your Letters. Gay News, May 3–16.
Medhurst, Andy. 1984. Victim: Text as Context. Screen 25 (4–5): 22–35.
———. 2006. In Search of Nebulous Nancies: Looking for Queers in Pre-Gay British Film. In British Queer Cinema, ed. Robin Griffith, 21–34. London: Routledge.
Mort, Frank. 1999. Mapping Sexual London: The Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution 1954–57. New Formations 37: 92–113.
Power, Lisa. 1995. No Bath but Plenty of Bubbles: An Oral History of the Gay Liberation Front, 1970–73. London: Cassell.
Robinson, Lucy. 2007. Gay Men and the Left in Post-War Britain: How the Personal Got Political. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Shiers, John. 1988. One Step to Heaven? In Radical Records: Thirty Years of Lesbian and Gay History, ed. Susan Hemmings and Bob Cant, 232–247. London: Routledge.
Upchurch, Charles. 2000. Forgetting the Unthinkable: Cross-Dressers and British Society in the Case of the Queen vs. Boulton and Others. Gender & History 12 (1): 127–157.
Weeks, Jeffrey. 1990. Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain From the Nineteenth Century to the Present, 2nd ed. London: Quartet.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
O’Rourke, C. (2017). Queer London on Film: Victim (1961), The Killing of Sister George (1968) and Nighthawks (1978). In: Hirsch, P., O'Rourke, C. (eds) London on Film. Screening Spaces. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64979-5_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64979-5_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64978-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64979-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)