Compassionate and courageous, careful yet very clear in its condemnation of bigotry, Victim is often credited with helping decriminalize British laws on homosexuality, its heartfelt objection most definitely sustained. Though never publicly acknowledging his own sexuality, he did potentially risk his career in this groundbreaking thriller, playing a lawyer who, after a young man’s untimely death, finds himself embroiled - and implicated - in a plot to out prominent gay men. Victim (1961) Dirk Bogarde in Victim.ĭirk Bogarde was a bona fide British matinee idol and, during his lifetime, a closeted gay man. In honour of this week’s London Pride festival, here are some of the films that helped fight society’s real perversions: prejudice, ignorance and intolerance.
What’s reassuring is that, even before grudging legal acceptance, British cinema had - carefully at first - pleaded the case for greater tolerance and, later, even proudly demanded it.
Before then, as in the world over, being “gay” was treated as, at best, a sickness, or, worse, a perversion deserving ostracism, even physical abuse. Homosexuality was decriminalized by British law in 1967 – only in private between consenting adults aged 21 or over, and only then in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland finally came out in favour in the 1980s).
