Thomas Hescott | The Act / 2020

wanting more

by Douglas Messerli

 

Matthew Baldwin, Thomas Hescott, and Peter Lawson (screenplay), Thomas Hescott (director)

The Act / 2020 [18 minutes]

 

The standard description of this British short film is more than a little misleading:

 

“In 1965 the eve of decriminalization for acts of male homosexuality in the U.K. Matthews, a young gay man at odds with the world, discovers love, sex, and a new family in the backstreets and underground bars of Soho.”

 

     In fact, although the bill for decriminalization along the lines of the Wolfenden Report nine years earlier proposed in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Humphry Berkeley, it was not voted upon until 1966 and was defeated, with Berkeley, a well-known homosexual, also losing his seat in the 1966 reelection. The bill, known as the Sexual Offences Bill, did not pass until 1967. In 1965, when Lord Arran first proposed the bill in the House of Lords, 93% of the British population still believed that homosexuality was a form of illness that required medical treatment, a sentiment expressed as well in the bits and pieces of the speech read out throughout director Thomas Hescott’s movie, even though the year before that speech the North West Homosexual Law Reform Committee was founded, abandoning the medical model of homosexuality as a sickness.

     The real focus of the film, in any event, is not on the Sexual Offences Bill, but on a single individual named Matthews (Samuel Barnett), who it appears for the first time decides to explore a gay bar in Soho, probably named the Flamingo, its entry being defined by a small pink flamingo neon sign, into which, after being propositioned by a prostitute, the frightened businessman, scurries.

     Immediately he encounters the flamboyant black, “Edna May…Duchess” (Cyril Nri), Matthews responding with his last name, pause, “Mr.” After a joke about Matthews’ serious demeanor, wondering if he’d been caught down at the docks sucking fishermen by the cops—almost scarring our new friend off—the Duchess sweeps him back into the communal spirit of the place by permitting him to buy her a drink and explaining, “We are all family here.”    

     Matthews learns quickly, and soon after, in a public bathroom picks up Jimmy (Simon Lennon) and, after noisily being fucked by his pick-up in his own room—much to his landlady’s dismay— immediately falls in love with the tough, who like a many such uncloseted working men refuses to kiss and claims he is not “like Matthews,” meaning presumably a gay man—a strange thing to express indeed, since Matthews himself has evidently, after some deep soul searching, just come out, admitting to himself his true desires.

      Much of this beautifully filmed work involves, in between the fulsome and misconceived statements we hear from Arthur Gore, Lord Arran from the House of Lords* (“I understand that “it” is an involuntary deviation, not hereditary but due to some emotional factor during childhood”), Matthews’ attempts to form a relationship with Jimmy fail. He suggests he could financially help him, that Jimmy might even move in with him, all to no avail.

      In one scene, after they have had sex, he quite hilariously attempts to convince his new “friend” to attend a production of Orfeo with him at Covent Garden. When Matthews attempts to explain that Orfeo is hoping to rescue his wife with the possibility of losing his very soul just to be with her again, Jimmy innocently asks, “Has he got ‘goons’?” Matthews responding, “No guns, just a lute.” As Jimmy begins dressing to leave, Matthews asks once more, “Can I kiss you?”

       Meanwhile, Matthews is back at the bar sitting with Edna May as the jukebox plays “O Danny Boy.” He has become a regular.

        But finally, Jimmy begins demanding money. He hasn’t worked for the week and he needs money for his rent. Matthews suggests that if he gets a place, perhaps Jimmy could live with him, with the angry response, “I ain’t your little project!” Finally, Matthews confesses that he likes Jimmy “a lot.” “We allow ourselves to have friends and sex with strangers that doesn’t mean anything. And I am tired of feeling that it what life is.”

       “I ain’t like you,” Jimmy repeats.

      But Matthews has finally become outspoken in his love: “I want more. I look at you and I want more.”

       They argue, Jimmy almost beating him. “You want to be careful how you talk to me.”

       Matthews: “I appear to be in love with you. And I can’t just turn it off.”

       Another visit to a public bathroom ends in Matthews’ arrest, and soon after Jimmy turning against him, since he too has now been visited by the police after they have found correspondence between the two in Matthews room. Matthews loses his job and is forced to leave his boarding house. But he is still willing to “take the blame for ‘leading’ him,” which in British law stems from a presumption that gay men force their sexuality upon innocent others. The only question Matthews has of Jimmy is “at the other end, will you wait for me?” But again, Jimmy proclaims “I ain’t like you.”

      In Matthews’ interview with the police, we suddenly see the rise of gay liberation through the smallest of units, the simplest of acts. He insists on knowing how the letters are any indication of a criminal act. “Am I being questioned about what I do or…who I am? Your job is to consider whether or not I have committed acts of indecency and should be removed from society! If you’re asking if I’m an ‘invert,” yes, I am. I am not the only invert in this country. Your child’s teacher, your doctor, your bachelor uncle. …In the simple act of speaking out we change the world.”

       To see what this formerly timid man has become helps us to realize what only a few years later made transgender women, boys, and others rebel against the police attempting to close down their favorite bar in the USA, their only home (in this case Stonewall) once again. They had had enough. They wanted more! They had realized it was finally time to speak out.

       In the very last scene Matthews is back at the Flamingo, sitting with his now close acquaintance, Edna Mae. She complains that she waiting for her ideal man but that probably such a man would be a policeman. They toast. Suddenly her eyes catch a newcomer, crossing the doorway. Matthews turns to look and observes Jimmy entering.

      He quickly gets up and goes to him, this time is question of “Can I kiss you,” being answered with a kiss.

      Although Hescott’s film might seem to resound with British gay history, the real history in this fiction is made by the frightened businessman who has finally reached the end of his patient wait for things to change.

 

*To be fair to Gore, he sponsored the bill primarily because his elder brother committed suicide in 1958, reportedly because he was gay.

 

Los Angeles, February 4, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (February 2023)