Mark Rappaport had been making short films since the mid-1960s before transitioning to full-length essay films in the early-1990s. He would emerge as a master of the form, much like Chris Marker before him, but in a more impish and accessible fashion. Though 1992's Rock Hudson's Home Movies remains his best-known film, 1997's The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender is a more sophisticated piece of work.
In the Hudson film, Rappaport explored the actor's status as a closeted gay man in Hollywood. Later, he would become one of the first casualties of the AIDS crisis. Though these facts color the way we see him now, there was more to Hudson than his sexual orientation. Rappaport's film leans on his comedies with Doris Day and downplays his other dimensions, like his portrayals of American masculinity at odds with contemporary morés in the deeper, darker films of Douglas Sirk.
The Silver Screen, on the other hand, casts a wider net to a more successful effect. Dan Butler, an openly gay actor best known for his role as Bulldog on Frasier, proves the ideal host for an exploration of same-sex attraction in Golden Age Hollywood. The premise may sound similar to The Celluloid Closet, an excellent primer on the subject, but Rappaport doesn't examine films featuring gay characters so much as those featuring characteristics perceived as gay at the time—usually to comic effect.
It's a tendency that continues today, but Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, in their popular "Road" pictures, made it a staple of their work. Though they played heterosexual men, an impression reinforced by the presence of female foil Dorothy Lamour, they never missed an opportunity to try on women's clothes, share a bed, or indulge in production code-friendly innuendo. Danny Kaye and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis engaged in much the same kind of behavior in their 1950s and 1960s comedies.
Rappaport also looks at gay-coded characters—urbane and self-absorbed—like Clifton Webb’s Waldo Lydecker in Laura and George Sanders' Addison DeWitt in All About Eve. On the other end of the spectrum: older side kicks, often played by Walter Brennan, with an intense devotion to virile leads, such as Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe. These old codgers often warned against the dangers of women. Rappaport compares these American archetypes to the feminized and/or fetishized characters played by Jean Marais, Alain Delon, Jean Belmondo, and Yves Montand in European films of the same period.
In addition to gay-coded characters, Rappaport has an abiding interest in Jewish actors and filmmakers who fled Nazi Europe, which he explores in the three bonus films included with the main feature: The Vanity Tables of Douglas Sirk (2014), The Double Life of Paul Henreid (2017), and Martin und Hans (2021). Rappaport's rigorous scholarship combined with his playful style makes this release a great bet for film studies students and non-academic viewers interested in LGBTQ and Jewish history alike.
Can this film be used in a library education program?
The Silver Screen would be a fine choice for library education programs about LGBTQ history.
Why should an academic librarian or professor request Public Performance Rights for this film?
Rappaport's humorous approach and lively film clips make The Silver Screen accessible for both film and history students.
What kind of film collection would this title be suitable for?
The Silver Screen would be suitable for LGBTQ documentary collections in public libraries.