Wilf Avery | David Is Homosexual / 1978

finding friends

by Douglas Messerli

 

Wilf Avery (director) David Is Homosexual / 1978

 

Shot during the swelteringly hot summer in Britain of 1976 by members of the Lewisham branch of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE), David Is Homosexual is not only an important document in Britain’s’ LGBT history, but stands as an early testament to the gradual transformations made by numerous lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transexual individuals during this period that would help to transform LGBTQ politics internationally.

     As always a contextualization of the situation is necessary to fully comprehend the significance of this documentary film’s narrative. It wasn’t until The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 that some criminalization of homosexual acts in Britain were abolished. Although the law maintained general prohibitions on buggery and indecency between men, it did decriminalize homosexual acts if three conditions were met: 1) the act had to be consensual, 2) the act had to take place in private and 3) the act could involve only people that had attained the age of 21. The age, it should be noted, was still higher that sexual acts permitted between heterosexuals, which was 16. Moreover, the issue of what “in private” meant was determined by the courts to mean only 2 people with the acts taking place in a private home. The courts took the law to mean the exclusion of hotel rooms, for example, or even sexual actions in a private home if a third person were present. 

    In 1977 an amendment to the Bill by Lord Arran would have extended the age of consent for homosexual acts to the age of 18, but it was rejected by 146 votes to 25. And the following year such a bill was reintroduced without any legislation being enacted.

      In short, when this documentary film began to be shot, not only were homosexuals of David’s age, in their early 20s cognizant of a very recent time when homosexual activities meant imprisonment and even worse punishments, but they still were criminals if they were to perform their sexual activities outside of a dark bedroom with no one else even in the apartment or home at the time. Moreover, the culture itself as still highly homophobic and parental acceptance was extraordinarily limited.

      Is it any wonder that the central figure of this picture, David (Ray MacLaughlain), who worked in an office and lived at home with his parents was a highly closeted young man who, as the narrator describes him, knew he was gay but at times even kept it secret from himself. When most others of his age were exploring their sexual beings, David and others like him were self-imposes celibates who attended parties, such as the office party to which David is naturally expected to attend, with terror, particularly as he watched the others, as the evening wore on, increasingly moving into sexual situations while he, quite noticeably, sat it out.

     A young man like David could presume that if he were to share the nature of his sexual desires with his office friends, he would have been made to feel even more ostracized and might possibly even lose his job.

     The scenes from his home life also accord with many British (and US) films of the time, when parents, in this case his father Ghishlain were almost violently homophobic. Early on in this documentary we see him watching the makers of this film, CHE, marching for equal age rights in which he grows so furious that he almost literarily growls at his son and wife as he switches the television off. David, like so many young men of the day, simply retreats to his bedroom, even more desolate about the possibility of coming to terms with their sexual urges.

     As Paul Flynn writes in The Guardian, the duo behind this film, Ray Crossley and Wilfred Avery, were a happy couple, Ray being a lawyer, 14 years younger that his companion Wilfred, who was a painter born in 1926. Although their union was totally illegal for a number of years before the partial decriminalization of 1967, they recount that they weren’t terribly bothered about it all. As Crossley explained to Flynn: “Our families were wonderful. There was never any trouble. They were always most welcoming. Even outside the law, we were just living and doing what we felt we had to do, and enjoying it.”

     What they “did,” in this case, was spend their weekends in the summer of 1976 filming the documentary about a newer, fictional member of the organization in which both had come to be deeply involved. The younger of the two, Ray, first became involved particularly after the dismissal of the London Holland Park schoolteacher, John Warburton, for being gay. Wilfred soon after also became active in the Lewisham group, becoming, as Ray suggests, “a kind of father figure to the group.

      Both Ray and John Warburton perform in cameo roles in David Is Homosexual at the 1976 Gay Pride event. By this time David, having read a small announcement of CHE activities in a local newspaper, had gotten up the courage to actually speak on the phone to a member of the organization named, without any particular revolutionary intent, after Che Guevara. And already by the time of the march, David has found new friends with whom he feels comfortable for the first time, both lesbians and fellow gay boys whom he has met at the organization’s Monday night gatherings.

 

     David quickly becomes involved, working on the lead banner for the march, a Mardi Gras fundraising event, and finally even serving as an opening speaker to the gathering of friends and even heterosexuals who have gathered to celebrate the organizations activities.

      We watch as David comes out to his parents, his mother Debbie remaining mostly quiet while his father rails against his son, demanding that he rethink his vile behavior. The equanimity with which David faces these trials is remarkable. His answer is to simply escape for the night and hand them a book to read about homosexuality the next morning at breakfast.

      Although his father still refuses to even open the book, it’s clear that Debbie is curious about what it might say. And to give due credit to the couple, they have not tossed their son out into the

streets or violently attacked him for his “appalling” announcement. By the end of the film, David reports that they are gradually “coming around” to comprehending him, particularly since they can watch the positive changes in his own personality as he comes to self-acceptance and sense of greater joy and purpose in his life.

      At the office, the accidental discovery by a fellow worker of his copy of The Gay News is met with her revelation that she is a lesbian, allowing both of them to further reinforce the sense that they are not totally alone even in the workplace. David invites her to the CHE activities.

      And the film ends in a series of rather joyous events including the march, David’s first time going public with his new gay identity, and the Mardi Gras party. One might, in fact, criticize the film for focusing on someone who, once he has decided to involve himself in the CHE organization, moved seemingly quite effortlessly to full self-acceptance. The movie, however, does explain that perhaps David is a kind of special case, noting that there are still hundreds of others unable to even make the first telephone call.

      The film itself is rather amateurishly made with sound that perhaps was never very good but has now seriously deteriorated. Nonetheless, one can sense the film’s importance and the fervor of its creators if one realizes the context and recalls just how difficult it was for some individuals in 1976 to face their homosexuality in such a hostile society.

      It is fascinating, moreover, to read in The Guardian essay that British director Ron Peck found the film, as he reported to its director Avery, “impressive.” Soon after, he begin work on his own film Nighthawks (1978), now perceived as a British LGBTQ classic, which takes us on a painful voyage of a schoolteacher’s nightly visits to gay bars in search of love. After all, Flynn proffers, this was still a time in which most people thought Freddie Mercury and the Village People were straight.

      Crossley insists everyone in the film, including David’s parents and the homophobic men at a bar who later demand David and his friend leave the place, were actually gay.

      They shot the film on 50ft Agfa film cartridges which had to be sent away for processing. And they were particularly worried when any part of the film wasn’t returned. The one gay sex scene in the movie was carefully shot so that it wouldn’t appear to be a “blue movie,” but nonetheless it was never returned from the processers. Avery was quite worried, Crossley reports, commenting “Well, we can’t put a report into Agfa saying it’s a film of guys kissing because they would have raided us and taken the film away, even though it wasn’t blue.”

       As they started to film the scene again, it suddenly showed up in the mail in an old, crumpled envelope, obviously watched by someone many times over and over.

       The final film was briefly aired in May 1978, but then seemingly was lost. Avery died in 2016 at the age of 90. Over the years, he and his companion Crossley had often wondered what had become of their early work.

       Actually, a copy had been kept by the film’s cameraman, Dave Belton, who, having a heart condition, was attempting to contact people who might have been in the film to see if anyone might take the copy for safe keeping.

       About 6 months after Avery’s death Crossley received a call from the official CHE historian, Peter Scott-Prestland, who had passed on the film and materials to the British Film Institute, who had cleaned up the film, digitized it, and catalogued it into their library holdings. Showings of the film followed, people rediscovering this important piece of the vast history of LGBT individuals of the period.

 

Los Angeles, May 18, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).