Harry Hay

A documentary on the group The Radical Faeries.

More than two dozen men and women of various backgrounds, ages, and races talk to the camera about being gay or lesbian. Their stories are arranged in loose chronology: early years, fitting in (which for some meant marriage), coming out, establishing adult identities, and reflecting on how things have changed and how things should be.

Harry Hay was one of the founding fathers of the gay rights movement, and for more than 50 years was synonymous with the term "gay pride." Director Eric Slade's documentary about Hay looks at both his life and the movement he did so much to define. In 1948, Hay founded the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles; the goal of the organization was to establish a "Golden Brotherhood," one that sought to redefine homosexuality as a normal, healthy way of life. The problem, Hay famously maintained, was not homosexuality itself, but the way it was treated by society. Dramatizations, photographs, archival footage, and interviews with original Mattachine Society members are all incorporated to tell Hay's remarkable story, one whose legacy continues to be felt in the treatment of gays and lesbians in culture today.

Three fellows dream of prize money and a chance for a real Hollywood contract by winning the Liberty-Pete Smith amateur movie contest. They work on a script, as their wastebasket and ashtrays fill. They head outside to shoot: down a manhole, up a telephone pole, through a keyhole, and at night using binoculars. Next they must edit their film, then it's time for a first screening of their product, "The Afternoon of a Rubberband." It's a montage of experimental images, including a razor blade cutting various objects, a baby in a cooking pot, and a snail in the path of a steamroller. After the screening, the boys wonder if that was their only shot at Hollywood fame. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.