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Cruising the Movies: A Sexual Guide to Oldies on TV
A writer casts an acerbic, queer eye on the greats and the not-so-greats of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Ronnie Reagan's bizarre legs are sufficient reason to watch John Loves Mary (1949), a picture so ordinaire it needs this bizarre touch. When the faces in this historic still from the Museum of Modern Art are cropped, Reagan could pass for a butch lez from the Women's Army Corps who is about to put the old make on a fluff (Patricia Neal).
—from Cruising the Movies
Cruising the Movies was Boyd McDonald's “sexual guide” to televised cinema, originally published by the Gay Presses of New York in 1985. The capstone of McDonald's prolific turn as a freelance film columnist for the magazine Christopher Street, Cruising the Movies collects the author's movie reviews of 1983–1985. This new, expanded edition also includes previously uncollected articles and a new introduction by William E. Jones.
Eschewing new theatrical releases for the “oldies” once common as cheap programing on independent television stations, and more interested in starlets and supporting players than leading actors, McDonald casts an acerbic, queer eye on the greats and not-so-greats of Hollywood's Golden Age. Writing against the bleak backdrop of Reagan-era America, McDonald never ceases to find subversive, arousing delights in the comically chaste aesthetics imposed by the censorious Motion Picture Production Code of 1930–1968.
Better known as the editor of the Straight to Hell paperback series—a compendia of real-life sexual stories that is part pornography, part ethnography—McDonald in his film writing reveals both his studious and sardonic sides. Many of the texts in Cruising the Movies were inspired by McDonald's attentive inspection of the now-shuttered MoMA Film Stills Archive, and his columns gloriously capture a bygone era in film fandom. Gay and subcultural, yet never reducible to a zany cult concern or mere camp, McDonald's “reviews” capture a lost art of queer cinephilia, recording a furtive obsession that once animated gay urban life. With lancing wit, Cruising celebrates gay subculture's profound embrace of mass culture, seeing film for what it is—a screen that reflects our fantasies, desires, and dreams.
Ronnie Reagan's bizarre legs are sufficient reason to watch John Loves Mary (1949), a picture so ordinaire it needs this bizarre touch. When the faces in this historic still from the Museum of Modern Art are cropped, Reagan could pass for a butch lez from the Women's Army Corps who is about to put the old make on a fluff (Patricia Neal).
—from Cruising the Movies
Cruising the Movies was Boyd McDonald's “sexual guide” to televised cinema, originally published by the Gay Presses of New York in 1985. The capstone of McDonald's prolific turn as a freelance film columnist for the magazine Christopher Street, Cruising the Movies collects the author's movie reviews of 1983–1985. This new, expanded edition also includes previously uncollected articles and a new introduction by William E. Jones.
Eschewing new theatrical releases for the “oldies” once common as cheap programing on independent television stations, and more interested in starlets and supporting players than leading actors, McDonald casts an acerbic, queer eye on the greats and not-so-greats of Hollywood's Golden Age. Writing against the bleak backdrop of Reagan-era America, McDonald never ceases to find subversive, arousing delights in the comically chaste aesthetics imposed by the censorious Motion Picture Production Code of 1930–1968.
Better known as the editor of the Straight to Hell paperback series—a compendia of real-life sexual stories that is part pornography, part ethnography—McDonald in his film writing reveals both his studious and sardonic sides. Many of the texts in Cruising the Movies were inspired by McDonald's attentive inspection of the now-shuttered MoMA Film Stills Archive, and his columns gloriously capture a bygone era in film fandom. Gay and subcultural, yet never reducible to a zany cult concern or mere camp, McDonald's “reviews” capture a lost art of queer cinephilia, recording a furtive obsession that once animated gay urban life. With lancing wit, Cruising celebrates gay subculture's profound embrace of mass culture, seeing film for what it is—a screen that reflects our fantasies, desires, and dreams.
304 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2015
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About the author
Boyd McDonald
22 books8 followersBoyd McDonald (1925-1993) had the makings of a successful life in the 1950s an education at Harvard, a job at Time/Life but things didn t turn out as planned. After 20 years of resentful conformity and desperate alcoholism, McDonald dried out, pawned all of his suits, and went on welfare; it was then that his life truly began. From a room in a New York SRO hotel, McDonald published Straight to Hell, a series of chapbooks collecting readers true homosexual experiences. Following the example of Alfred Kinsey, McDonald obsessively pursued the truth about sex between men just as gay liberation began to tame America s sexual outlaws for the sake of legal recognition. Admired by such figures as Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs, Straight to Hell combined a vigorous contempt for authority with a keen literary style, and was the precursor of the first queer zines decades later, and McDonald became a key figure of the American underground.
(Blurb from biography: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... )
(Blurb from biography: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... )
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 18, 2015
Without a doubt, Boyd McDonald was the best film reviewer ever. The thing is he wrote for a gay mag, and mostly on films he watched on TV late at night. He also had a zine in the 1980s that focused on homosexual sex "Straight to Hell." The brilliance of McDonald is that on a physical level he's very much part of an underground "gay" world, when there used to be one. Now, everyone is getting married and becoming taxpayers - but alas, there was a life that was lived in the shadows, and McDonald, a superb writer, captures that series of shadows that were shown on TV - mostly films from the 1930s to the 50s. The beauty of his work is that he mostly focuses on the actor's cock size or butt. But that is just the platform or foundation of his serious observations - here he marks the queer world where females act out certain passions, while men react to them. Or is it the other way around? "Cruising the Movies" touches on a lot of fascinating subjects - the nature of old films being shown on TV, before the world of VHS recording - in a way it is almost a coded, often secret, transmission from Hollywood to a gay man's sensibility. William E. Jones wrote a beautiful and insightful introduction.
July 13, 2013
Quite honestly, the funniest book I've ever read. Not everyone's cup of tea, but the late Boyd McDonald provides a steady stream of belly laughs with his keen observations on obscure films. I pull this down from the shelf at least twice a year, because I know I'll soon be laughing when I do. Recommended for fans of old films and the glam (Jane Russell) and not-so-glam (Ronald Reagan) stars, fans of camp, and fans of bawdy humor. A wicked good time!
November 17, 2016
I've rarely laughed as much reading a book than I did at this one. This is some biting, hilarious writing that is ostensibly about critiquing old movies based upon the "man meat" on display, but really also carries a biting political message against cruel conservatives who police norms--sexual and otherwise.
His two reviews on Ronald Reagan movies are worth the price of the book themselves. I was reading it while my wife was sleeping and had to try to stop myself from laughing, unsuccessfully, at his rants regarding "Reagan's sloppy ass."
His two reviews on Ronald Reagan movies are worth the price of the book themselves. I was reading it while my wife was sleeping and had to try to stop myself from laughing, unsuccessfully, at his rants regarding "Reagan's sloppy ass."
December 20, 2019
Any critic who devotes an entire film review to a discussion of one actor's (not even the leading man) butt hole is OK by me. McDonald's reviews are about as queer as they get, focusing on the actor's bodies and the actress' images. They're also very political, published during the Reagan era and never missing a chance to take a swipe at Ron and Nancy. And frankly, they're just plain fun. McDonald creates an entire aesthetic built around the male body and the naturalness of homosexuality (and the unnaturalness of heterosexuality). I usually read books like this in bed, but I kept laughing so much, I never wanted to go to sleep.
February 8, 2016
This is a great book-- a collection of the legendary Boyd McDonaldd's old TV mivie reviews. Smart, intelligent, sexy, funny with lots of queer insight. His obsession with David Nelson and Richard Widmark is especially interesting. Also Jane Russell. I've read a fair amount of film criticism, but this is the greatest. And he's got the dirt, too. I always seeing things in movies that aren't suppose to be there. Sometimes I think it's accidental, but others are certainly coded. After reading this, I'll never look at TCM in the same way again.
April 26, 2023
"Nudity has great value only in a clothed society."
A bit repetitive, as collections of periodical work condensed into one volume often are. But McDonald's balance of bitchiness, anti-Reagan rage, and adoration for stars is endlessly charming and a great reflection of the expansiveness of film criticism when undertaken by an unpretentious obsessive.
A bit repetitive, as collections of periodical work condensed into one volume often are. But McDonald's balance of bitchiness, anti-Reagan rage, and adoration for stars is endlessly charming and a great reflection of the expansiveness of film criticism when undertaken by an unpretentious obsessive.
December 15, 2017
At some point between Nancy Reagan's butthole and the implication of a man in underwear grabbing his crotch, I knew that I had to own this book.
Boyd McDonald explores sexuality of homosexual men, by observing his own observations of men and women in film. These essays then can either be read as a collection of the queer gaze in cinema, or else a myriad of film reviews that are at times scathing and others that are downright pornographic. But what doesn't change throughout the collection is that Boyd McDonald consistently left me laughing, cracking up actually. When he describes Ronald Reagan's legs as the "proof of heterosexuality" or when he begs the reader to question who got to "smell the tights" of an actor following the end of his performance the reader is hopefully someone like me who will laugh at what can only be described a glorious bitchiness.
This collection let's the reader step back into a world of film review that is largely ignored for the more traditional "critical" sense, and they are able to see men who were watching films because they wanted to fuck, or didn't want to, a particular male actor because of his tights, because of loin cloth, because of his lipstick, because of his legs, or because of his obvious girth. McDonald's writing does not contribute much to a more traditional model of film criticism, but it does open the reader up to a world of male sexuality that existed the history of a film which has a charm all to it's own.
If nothing else, these collections are a lovely reminder that the word "butt-hole" really needs to make a comeback in film reviews.
Boyd McDonald explores sexuality of homosexual men, by observing his own observations of men and women in film. These essays then can either be read as a collection of the queer gaze in cinema, or else a myriad of film reviews that are at times scathing and others that are downright pornographic. But what doesn't change throughout the collection is that Boyd McDonald consistently left me laughing, cracking up actually. When he describes Ronald Reagan's legs as the "proof of heterosexuality" or when he begs the reader to question who got to "smell the tights" of an actor following the end of his performance the reader is hopefully someone like me who will laugh at what can only be described a glorious bitchiness.
This collection let's the reader step back into a world of film review that is largely ignored for the more traditional "critical" sense, and they are able to see men who were watching films because they wanted to fuck, or didn't want to, a particular male actor because of his tights, because of loin cloth, because of his lipstick, because of his legs, or because of his obvious girth. McDonald's writing does not contribute much to a more traditional model of film criticism, but it does open the reader up to a world of male sexuality that existed the history of a film which has a charm all to it's own.
If nothing else, these collections are a lovely reminder that the word "butt-hole" really needs to make a comeback in film reviews.
March 14, 2021
Boyd McDonald was a film critic, one with laser-like focus. He watched film classics on TV with an eye to performance and physical attributes. He had opinions about them and had little trouble expressing them. His writing is a testament to observation, as well as a time capsule of gay male perspective in the late 20th century (he died in 1993). McDonald writes of bodies, of butt holes and peckers, but his powers of observation go deeper, often to the subtleties of presentation. Throughout there are references to the focus on the film still-- who knew there used to be a massive library of them at MOMA! Nowadays we can freeze frame any scene to capture an image. McDonald had to really watch to capture a moment of visible flesh, but he spends more time going the extra distance to imagine Gary Cooper's reportedly sizable member. There is bitchery that these days would be called body shaming, and racial insensitivity that forms a document of a less woke era, but sometimes this all comes across as a writerly voice-- Boyd McDonald was a construct, a erudite character in the skin of a (not-so) common man. He scores great points for his constant derision of Ronald Reagan as an actor with a fat ass and spindly legs, observations that are open territory for a president with such sour achievements. On the opposite spectrum, his description of Gloria Graham's manicured lips is sublime.
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November 16, 2019No book has been more important and anchoring to me in the latter half of 2019 than Jones’ thoughtful edition of Boyd McDonald’s Cruising the Movies.
May 3, 2024
This book, a collection of cinema writings published originally in Christopher Street and other gay periodicals of the 1980s, comprises two main themes: contemplation of ‘the groins and butts of the actors’ as an approach to film criticism, and the hatefulness of Reagan-era Republicans. William E. Jones encapsulates McDonald’s attitude to the former in his introduction:
He holds that talent is not only irrelevant, but a distraction from the main point of movies, the exhibition of beautiful and exceptional people simply being rather than acting. A star is above all a person millions of spectators want to rim, suck and fuck.
I found myself vaguely remembering an entry in the Kenneth Williams Diaries, and went to look it up:
Thursday 12th February 1953: Met a cinema cleaner who told us that in his ashcan last night he found thirty-one fly buttons. This apparently signifies an exciting film, but we forgot to ask its title.
However, McDonald harps on so much about both these topics that I became restless. Fortunately, his style is digressive and gossipy, and some of his additional analysis is satisfyingly droll and perceptive; his takedown of Katherine Hepburn’s delusional noblesse oblige on the Dick Cavett show, for example, is very funny. The asides I liked, his main thesis I grew tired of. The more I heard about his imagined versions of his favoured actors’ ‘nipples, belly button… thighs… dick, nuts, and butt hole,’ the grimmer – to be honest – it all seemed, masturbatory despatches from the author’s twilight years.
The temptation with this kind of material is to rate it more highly than it perhaps merits so as to demonstrate your unshockability; I’m resisting this temptation (two point five stars is really what it deserves). Finally, the proofreading could have done with a touch more attention; and although I’m quite sure nobody involved in the preparation of this book was interested in making it either useful or helpful, it would have been both those things to have had a more detailed contents pages and/or an index, for example:
Wheat germ, and Warren Beatty 188
Whiting, Margaret 92, ‘informally married’ to Jack Wrangler 184-5
Wilcoxon, Henry 213, picks up sailor friend of author 169-73
He holds that talent is not only irrelevant, but a distraction from the main point of movies, the exhibition of beautiful and exceptional people simply being rather than acting. A star is above all a person millions of spectators want to rim, suck and fuck.
I found myself vaguely remembering an entry in the Kenneth Williams Diaries, and went to look it up:
Thursday 12th February 1953: Met a cinema cleaner who told us that in his ashcan last night he found thirty-one fly buttons. This apparently signifies an exciting film, but we forgot to ask its title.
However, McDonald harps on so much about both these topics that I became restless. Fortunately, his style is digressive and gossipy, and some of his additional analysis is satisfyingly droll and perceptive; his takedown of Katherine Hepburn’s delusional noblesse oblige on the Dick Cavett show, for example, is very funny. The asides I liked, his main thesis I grew tired of. The more I heard about his imagined versions of his favoured actors’ ‘nipples, belly button… thighs… dick, nuts, and butt hole,’ the grimmer – to be honest – it all seemed, masturbatory despatches from the author’s twilight years.
The temptation with this kind of material is to rate it more highly than it perhaps merits so as to demonstrate your unshockability; I’m resisting this temptation (two point five stars is really what it deserves). Finally, the proofreading could have done with a touch more attention; and although I’m quite sure nobody involved in the preparation of this book was interested in making it either useful or helpful, it would have been both those things to have had a more detailed contents pages and/or an index, for example:
Wheat germ, and Warren Beatty 188
Whiting, Margaret 92, ‘informally married’ to Jack Wrangler 184-5
Wilcoxon, Henry 213, picks up sailor friend of author 169-73
December 29, 2018
(Fucking) Priceless.
Though McDonald never pretends to be writing about anything more than his horned-up late night viewings of forgotten Hollywood pictures — and this book is capital-H Horny — he winds up delving into gender, sexuality and their expressions in what he calls the WWII “post-heterosexual era” with a wit both cynical and humanist. Invaluable as an artifact of criticism written at the time when Pop went Culture (Reagan’s disastrous presidency is liberally referenced) and when the LGBT community was coming into its own, it is one of the funniest, most insightful pieces of cultural criticism I’ve had the chance to encounter.
Though McDonald never pretends to be writing about anything more than his horned-up late night viewings of forgotten Hollywood pictures — and this book is capital-H Horny — he winds up delving into gender, sexuality and their expressions in what he calls the WWII “post-heterosexual era” with a wit both cynical and humanist. Invaluable as an artifact of criticism written at the time when Pop went Culture (Reagan’s disastrous presidency is liberally referenced) and when the LGBT community was coming into its own, it is one of the funniest, most insightful pieces of cultural criticism I’ve had the chance to encounter.
September 24, 2016
This book was probably really a 4... Parts were laugh out loud '5' and parts were quite dull. Some of the reasons for this may be 1) I'm a straight woman and 2) this was a very dated book. It came out in the 80s which made the stars Nick Nolte, Lucille Ball, Paul Newman etc. I got quite bored and then annoyed with the constant references to hatred of Ronnie and Nancy Reagan.
But - parts of it are hysterically funny. Too graphic, rude and downright 'mean Queen' to repeat here - but I had tears of laughter during some of the chapters.
But - parts of it are hysterically funny. Too graphic, rude and downright 'mean Queen' to repeat here - but I had tears of laughter during some of the chapters.
September 16, 2023
Funny, filthy, and full of straight talk about gay stuff in classic early 20th century movies - some less obvious than the rest. McDonald cuts through decades of “film criticism” crap about talent, scripts and artistic merit, and he knows why people really love movies - so we can watch gorgeous people do cool stuff and hit on each other. These pieces also bring attention to the way a lot of insecure straight, white men make loads of trouble for women, gays, minorities, and poor people, all in an effort to (arguably gaily) impress each other. Fun, glamorous, witty, and mixed with a dash of righteous anger.
October 7, 2019
This campy, snarky, and queer survey of old movies that McDonald watched in his low-rent SRO apartment on the Upper West Side in the 1980s is priceless—it’s also one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. I consumed it in one afternoon at a Starbucks in Northeast Seattle, laughing at McDonald’s outrageous commentary and delighting in the odd Hollywood PR photos he selected to accompany his subversive text.
March 8, 2019
This book is many things: funny, outrageously sleazy and openly political but most importantly honest, passionate and intelligent. It's a welcome reminder that heterosexual culture was sucked dry by puritanism (no, that's too sexual, it just withered away) but it probably doesn't have to be that way.
June 11, 2024
“Nudity has great value only in a clothed society.”
deliciously queer, political, and sexually slanted readings of old hollywood pictures. every bit as scandalous and gossip-y as hollywood babylon. mcdonald delightfully picks at the loose threads of the overly-coiffed, practiced displays of heterosexuality to revel in the delightfully camp and perverse pleasure of celluloid.
deliciously queer, political, and sexually slanted readings of old hollywood pictures. every bit as scandalous and gossip-y as hollywood babylon. mcdonald delightfully picks at the loose threads of the overly-coiffed, practiced displays of heterosexuality to revel in the delightfully camp and perverse pleasure of celluloid.
June 24, 2023
McDonald's ideal man is not my ideal man. Pity. Aside from that, McDonald offers salient and funny interpretations of movies that are mired in a heterosexual culture, yet optically brimming with queerness.
January 24, 2018
I spent a long time lingering over this one. McDonald isn't perfect but I'd like my movie writing to be a little more like his – personal, personality focused, campy, loud.
February 13, 2019
obsessive, petty, perfect
August 18, 2022
Slight, but often funny essays on movie stardom. Best bits were all the jokes about the Reagans.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews