The Leather Boys **** (1964, Rita Tushingham, Colin Campbell, Dudley Sutton) – Classic Movie Review 7,580

A South London mechanic (Colin Campbell) marries a teenager (Rita Tushingham), but they drift apart, so he takes to going biking with his leather-jacketed gay biker chum (Dudley Sutton), in the trail-blazing 1964 British film The Leather Boys. 

Director Sidney J Furie’s 1964 British black and white romantic drama film The Leather Boys is a key, trail-blazing film in the history of the cinema’s checkered treatment of homosexuality. The kitchen sink drama follows in the wake of the original British ground-breaking gay film Victim (1961) with Dirk Bogarde.

The Leather Boys stars Rita Tushingham, Colin Campbell and Dudley Sutton, as well as giving roles to four of the screen’s most pronounced female performers of the era – Gladys Henson, Avice Landone, Betty Marsden and Dandy Nichols.

In the story based on the novel by Gillian Freeman, young repressed homosexual South London mechanic Reggie (Campbell) marries teenager Dot (Tushingham), but she soon turns into a dreary, nagging scold, and they drift apart, with her pursuing her own interests. So he takes to going biking with his leather-jacketed gay biker chum Pete (Sutton), and begins to explore his identity.

The Leather Boys is riveting early handling of a gay theme, lifting the lid on the mechanics of male friendship, though it is also highly intriguing as a comment on Sixties London working class life and feelings at the time.

Director Furie directs furiously rather than subtly, which may not be entirely appropriate to the material, but certainly holds the attention in the British realist style of the day.

London literary agent and publisher Anthony Blond had commissioned Gillian Freeman to write a Romeo and Romeo novel set in suburban South London and it was published in 1961 under the pseudonym of Eliot George. Freeman also writes the film’s screenplay, but under her own name ‘based on the novel of Eliot George’, ‘cleaning up’ the story in the book where the two boys get extremely friendly and have a sexual relationship. The screenplay changes the book’s plot, with only Pete gay and no crime story. In the book, Dot may be pregnant by another man, the gang is a crime ring, and a botched robbery climaxes the story.

Gerry Gibbs shoots in black and white, and the Production Design is by Arthur Lawson. Both are striking contributions to the film’s success and lasting value. Above all though, it is a vital, important early film of queer cinema (as well as of biker cinema incidentally) and a credit to the liberal-minded UK film industry of the day, as well as significant in the US as an early example of a film that violated the Hollywood production code but still gained an American release (by Allied Artists Pictures in 1965).

Maybe originally Gillian Freeman’s screenplay had its weaknesses. Rita Tushingham recalled that much of the dialogue was improvised after the actors complained that the script ‘was nothing like how the youth living in London spoke at the time’.

It is greatly enriched by its location work. Locations include the Ace Cafe, near Wembley, North West London; Wandsworth; Wimbledon; Kingston Cemetery, Kingston upon Thames. Butlins Holiday Camp and The Esplanade, Bognor Regis; and the Tidal Basin Tavern in Silvertown, East London. It was also shot in the studio at Merton Park Studios, Merton, London.

The Ace Cafe, situated next to the North Circular Road, it a notable venue in motorcycle culture. The original café opened in 1938 and closed in 1969 but re-opened in 1997. Rita Tushingham visited the Ace on its reopening, later doing so with both Dudley Sutton and Colin Campbell.

Talking bikers, The Leather Boys was released at a time where Marlon Brando’s biker film The Wild One (1953) was still banned in Britain.

Sidney J Furie had just made The Boys (1962), also with Dudley Sutton.

Rita Tushingham had previously starred in A Taste of Honey (1961), for which she won a BAFTA Film award as Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles and the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Leather Boys may well be an influence on Quadrophenia.

Campbell’s picture is on the cover of the German release of The Smiths’ single “Ask” and, as his Leather Boys character Reggie, on the cover of The Smiths’ single “William, It Was Really Nothing” (CD version) and with Rita Tushingham in the promotional video for “Girlfriend in a Coma”. Scenes from The Leather Boys are in the background of The Smiths’ music video for “Girlfriend in a Coma”.

Gladys Henson plays Gran, Avice Landone plays Reggie’s mother, Betty Marsden plays Dot’s mother and Dandy Nichols plays Mrs Stanley. Also in the cast are Johnny Briggs as boy friend Brian, Lockwood West as Reggie’s father, Brian Phelan, Carmel McSharry, Martin Mathews, James Chase, Geoffrey Dunn, Elizabeth Begley, Valerie Varnam, Jill Meredith, Oliver MacGreevy, Sylvia Kaye, Tracy Rogers, Joyce Hemson, and Kenny Salvatt.

The Leather Boys is directed by Sidney J Furie, runs 108 minutes, is made by Raymond Stross Productions, is released by British Lion (UK) and Allied Artists Pictures (1965), is written by Gillian Freeman, based on the novel by Eliot George [Gillian Freeman], is shot in black and white by Gerry Gibbs, is produced by Raymond Stross, and is scored by Bill McGuffie, with Production Design by Arthur Lawson.

Release date: March 8, 1964 (UK).

An official of the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) had set out its view of homosexuality in film: ‘To the great majority of cinema-goers, homosexuality is outside their direct experience and is something which is shocking, distasteful and disgusting.’

Basil Dearden’s 1961 British film Victim premiered in the UK on 31 August 1961 and in the US in February 1962. It was the first British film to name homosexuality explicitly and deal with it sympathetically.

But even in 1964 The Leather Boys was considered daring in its treatment of homosexuality with its gay motorcyclist character. It remains an essential film in the history of gay cinema and an important example of British kitchen sink realism, and, like Victim, a force for change. Neither film can be under-estimated or under-valued.

Dudley Sutton (1933–2018) stars as a gay biker in The Leather Boys.

RIP Dudley Sutton (6 April 1933 – 15 September 2018). His ground-breaking gay biker character in The Leather Boys turned him into a cult actor. He also appeared in Sidney J Furie’s The Boys (1962) as a frustrated teenager accused with his friends of murder.

RIP English actor Colin Campbell (17 January 1937 – 1 March 2018). His best-known role is the lead in The Leather Boys as the bored married man who starts hanging out with his biker friend, only realising belatedly that he is ‘queer’.

The cast are Rita Tushingham as Dot, Colin Campbell as Reggie, Dudley Sutton as Pete, Gladys Henson as Gran, Avice Landone as Reggie’s Mother, Lockwood West as Reggie’s Father, Betty Marsden as Dot’s Mother, Martin Matthews as Uncle Arthur, Johnny Briggs as Brian, James Chase as Les, Geoffrey Dunn as Mr Lunnis, Dandy Nichols as Mrs. Stanley, Carmel McSharry as Bus Conductress, Brian Phelan,  Elizabeth Begley, Valerie Varnam, Jill Meredith, Oliver MacGreevy, Sylvia Kaye, Tracy Rogers, Joyce Hemson, and Kenny Salvatt.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,580

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