STAIRCASE (1969)

Largely reviled, sparsely attended adaptation (slightly opened up by Charles Dyer from his ‘two-hander’ play) about a bickering, ‘swishy’ middle-aged gay couple, emotionally tethered in a miserable relationship, played by infamous heterosexuals Richard Burton & Rex Harrison.  A major success on the London stage (especially for Paul Scofield who declined the film), it’s one of those groundbreaking vehicles that lost its Zeitgeist between stage & screen.*  (It also missed on B’way with a brief 2 month run.)  Something similar happened with THE BOYS IN THE BAND by the time it reached the screen in 1970.  Reevaluated, it’s become an early ‘Pride Moment,’ revived for B’way & newly filmed.  Unlikely here, as the play, a sort of Strindbergian gay character study with a weak pair of crises subbing for plot (one chronic: Burton’s invalid mother; one acute: Harrison’s low-level summons on a morals charge), struggles to maintain interest.  To their credit, Burton & Harrison stay above the camp ad campaign (‘Whoops!,’ see poster), but never quite connect, either.  Director  Stanley Donen felt the project doomed with big budget expectations (both stars getting 1.25 mill) and loss of verisimilitude having to film in Paris for tax purposes.  (Liz Taylor shooting THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN one set over with co-star Warren Beatty driving Burton to distraction.)  Fascinating in a time-capsule kind of way, and an obvious inspiration for Ian McKellen & Derek Jacobi’s popular (if perfectly dreadful) sit-com VICIOUS, the film probably plays better now than it did at the time.  Just not better enough.

DOUBLE-BILL: A year later, a proper, dignified gay character, a credit to his sexual orientation and very well played by ‘flaming’ heterosexual Peter Finch, found critical and commercial acceptance in SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY/'70.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Pity the progressive idea, always slipping behind a sliding scale of modernity while dated period attitudes accepted as just part of their time.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: From Alan Jay Lerner’s memoir ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVE: (While in rehearsals for MY FAIR LADY, Lerner & Rex Harrison on their way to dinner.)  ‘Strolling down Fifth Avenue reviewing our past marital and emotional difficulties and his present one.’  (All told, fourteen marriages between them!)  ‘Suddenly Rex stopped and said in a loud voice that attracted a good bit of attention: “Alan!  Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we were homosexuals?!”’  A remark that gave Lerner the key to Harrison’s great second act number ‘A Hymn to Him/Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?’   Harrison’s work in STAIRCASE took a lot of heat, but I think this is exactly the spirit he was going for.