Peter Finch gives a top drawer performance in the title role of the Trials of Oscar Wilde. It's the story of a man who was a celebrity raconteur and playwright and his fall from grace because of Victorian mores about homosexuality.
Today a man like Wilde would not be compelled as Victorian society did compel homosexuals to marry and have children and deny to the world who they were and how they love. Just think that a century later after the controversy surrounding Wilde, we are discussing gay marriage and it's being legalized in many countries. Wouldn't it have all been simpler if Oscar had been allowed to marry Bosy.
When the film opens Wilde is already a successful author of many plays and stories and maybe the most quoted man of wit in his time. He's married with two children, but he's got a side life as a gay man. He's got to take his partners where he finds them, a lot of street kids for the most part. And then he falls head over heels for Lord Alfred Douglas played by John Fraser.
Fraser is the son of the Marquis of Queensbury, the same guy who thought up the rules for prize fighting. He's a rough and crude man played with relish by Lionel Jeffries. Of course the thought of a gay son is an abomination to him. Can't be that young Bosy is gay, it's that Wilde guy he's hanging out with.
Queensbury calls Wilde a "sodomite" and Wilde foolishly decides to sue him for libel. And then the trials take place, first the civil suit and then the criminal trial because sodomy was indeed a criminal offense back in the day.
I often wonder why the real Wilde did not just deal with Queensbury in one of his plays. In real life and in the film Queensbury was a boorish lout who could have so easily been caricatured and laughed out of relevancy.
Queensbury retained as his attorney Edward Carson, maybe the best barrister of his day. Later on he led the Ulster contingent in Parliamant and was probably the man most responsible for those six counties of Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom.
Let's just say that Oscar Wilde uttered one witticism too many during his time on the witness stand and James Mason who gives a great performance as Carson just moves in for the kill.
With an international gay movement in full swing now Oscar Wilde and his story may seem quaint to some, but it is relevant today to show that it wasn't that long ago that being who you were was a crime. And a reminder of where gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgender folks will be if our hard won rights even as incomplete as they are yet are ever allowed to recede.
Today a man like Wilde would not be compelled as Victorian society did compel homosexuals to marry and have children and deny to the world who they were and how they love. Just think that a century later after the controversy surrounding Wilde, we are discussing gay marriage and it's being legalized in many countries. Wouldn't it have all been simpler if Oscar had been allowed to marry Bosy.
When the film opens Wilde is already a successful author of many plays and stories and maybe the most quoted man of wit in his time. He's married with two children, but he's got a side life as a gay man. He's got to take his partners where he finds them, a lot of street kids for the most part. And then he falls head over heels for Lord Alfred Douglas played by John Fraser.
Fraser is the son of the Marquis of Queensbury, the same guy who thought up the rules for prize fighting. He's a rough and crude man played with relish by Lionel Jeffries. Of course the thought of a gay son is an abomination to him. Can't be that young Bosy is gay, it's that Wilde guy he's hanging out with.
Queensbury calls Wilde a "sodomite" and Wilde foolishly decides to sue him for libel. And then the trials take place, first the civil suit and then the criminal trial because sodomy was indeed a criminal offense back in the day.
I often wonder why the real Wilde did not just deal with Queensbury in one of his plays. In real life and in the film Queensbury was a boorish lout who could have so easily been caricatured and laughed out of relevancy.
Queensbury retained as his attorney Edward Carson, maybe the best barrister of his day. Later on he led the Ulster contingent in Parliamant and was probably the man most responsible for those six counties of Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom.
Let's just say that Oscar Wilde uttered one witticism too many during his time on the witness stand and James Mason who gives a great performance as Carson just moves in for the kill.
With an international gay movement in full swing now Oscar Wilde and his story may seem quaint to some, but it is relevant today to show that it wasn't that long ago that being who you were was a crime. And a reminder of where gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgender folks will be if our hard won rights even as incomplete as they are yet are ever allowed to recede.