The Strange One

An interesting look at gay themes from the 1950s. At the time this movie came pout, homosexuality was still a crime in most (maybe all) states. It had another decade and a half to go before being declassified as mental illness.

This opens with a drawing that looks like Tom of Finland. The people involved in making this may never have heard of Tom of Finland. It was the stylized gay zeitgeist. (I guess. I was not there.) Ben Gazzara plays the central character. He is a horrible, thoroughly unlivable bully. It all takes place at a military academy. A fey student who seems to worship him, despite his cruelty, is writing a novel based on his life. It's called "Nightboy." And John Rechy was still a youngster! It's a worthwhile movie. The acting is good all around. The plot is not entirely plausible. But it's exciting and consistently well done.

Jack Garfein made "The Strange One" in 1957. It was adapted by Calder Willingham from first his novel and then his play "End as a Man". Actually the title "The Strange One" doesn't really do it justice; a better, if somewhat declamatory, title might have been 'The Evil One' since its central protagonist, Jocko De Paris, is one of the most sadistic and warped anti-heroes in all of fiction. The setting is a military academy in the Deep South and Jocko is cock of the walk. He rules with a combination of charm and viciousness but it all goes belly-up for him when he targets a young cadet and his father, who happens to be an officer there. His scheme involves four other cadets whose fear of him he's counting on. It's a melodramatic scenario that culminates in a bravura, sustained passage of mounting hysteria but it's brilliant in the way that the best of Tennessee Williams or William Inge are brilliant. Willingham's dialogue has the ring of poetry to it and Garfein, whose first film this was, (he's only made one since), directs it superbly.

Of course, it would have been nothing were it not for its cast, many of whom were totally unknown at the time. Ben Gazzara may already have been a star on the New York stage, (he was Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), but was an unknown quantity in the movies, (it was also his first film). His performance as Jocko should have made him a much bigger star than he ever became and it remains a career-best performance. Those who fall under his spell include Pat Hingle, James Olson, Arthur Storch and George Peppard. They are all terrific; Peppard, also making his screen debut, shows real promise and Hingle in outstanding.

There's also one overtly gay character, (though the whole picture is suffused with homo-eroticism), a cadet who fancies himself a writer and who is obviously in love with Jocko. He's played by Paul Richards as a grotesque and flamboyant queen, part Truman Capote and part Gore Vidal. In any other film this character would be offensively out of place but here he's just one more poisonous plant in this insidious hothouse. The film wasn't successful and is almost impossible to see now, at least here in the UK but it's a masterpiece and one of the best American films of the fifties. Essential.

Back in the 1950s the movie Production Code in the U.S. censored topics and dialogue that it considered morally offensive or too provocative for a general audience. To get around this, Hollywood disguised the plot and dialogue in some films. The disguise allowed the presentation of underlying subversive themes, but in veiled form. "The Strange One" is a film with a provocative premise rendered opaque by its plot and dialogue.

A Machiavellian-minded Cadet named Jocko DeParis (Ben Gazzara) throws his weight around at a Southern military academy. DeParis is a terrible human being: bullying, manipulative, and sadistic, yet unemotional, always in control of the situation. In the film's plot, he carries through on a well-thought-out scheme to have a cadet he doesn't like expelled. He uses other cadets to implement his plan, so that he personally cannot be blamed. One of his puppet cadets is a visually unappealing Cadet Simmons (Arthur Storch), a guy with a mouth full of conspicuous teeth, who doesn't approve of alcohol and doesn't like women.

Another Cadet in Jocko's orbit is Perrin, (a.k.a Cockroach), a slightly effeminate guy, played by Paul Richards. Cockroach hero-worships Jocko, which thus allows Jocko to humiliate him in front of others. Yet, Cockroach, who refers to Jocko as "Night Boy", has his own plans, disguised by the script's dialogue, when he tells Jocko: "All I want to have is your confidence and your friendship". Well, you can see where this is headed in one sense, though the plot implies something else. The dialogue is heavy on subtext. And the film was quite subversive in its day.

The film's B&W visuals are rather dark, in keeping with the story's subversive theme. A jazzy score amplifies the seedy nature of these inter-relationships. The film's casting and acting are quite good, Arthur Storch's bizarre performance notwithstanding.

On the negative side, the plot doesn't explain why Jocko had such a grudge against others at the academy, nor do we learn the basis for his apparent political hold on the academy's higher-ups.

Yet these are fairly minor issues. And my overall impression of "The Strange One" is highly favorable. In addition to a deeply thematic story, we get to see a number of actors early in their careers, including Gazzara, Pat Hingle, James Olson, and George Peppard, among others. This is a film that would have been all but forgotten had it not been released recently on DVD. It's worth a look.

Calder Willingham started a career in Hollywood by writing the book, the Broadway play it was based on and finally the screenplay for his work End As A Man. Now on the screen with the title The Strange One it presents a really nasty picture of a southern military academy and some of the cadets there.

There's more than one strange individual in The Strange One. But the title refers to protagonist Ben Gazzara who is both charismatic and evil. A good old southern boy he holds the rest of his set in some kind of sway and they're all afraid of him.

What Gazzara has put in motion is a carefully laid out scheme to embarrass Larry Gates the second in command of the academy by getting his son Geoffrey Horne expelled. With the aid of some lower classmen and a couple of sycophants he gets Horne drunk and leaves him out all night on the parade grounds. Horne is expelled and later Gates loses control when confronting Gazzara.

But at some points all the worms turn. I suspect in both the novel and the play Gazzara gets worse than what he got here.

The play ran 105 performances on Broadway during the 1953-54 season and besides Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Paul Richards, Arthur Storch, and Peter Mark Richman all repeat their roles from Broadway.

Richards is a halfway out of the closet gay man who Gazzara just toys with, catch that deliciously erotic scene as Richards who fancies himself a novelist reads some of his writings to Gazzara as Gazzara plays with his ceremonial sword. The shy and introspective Storch is another closet case who is just crushing out big time on roommate George Peppard who was making his big screen debut as was Gazzara.

It seemed like half the Actor's Studio got involved in this project. But they all do a fine job especially Gazzara who is terrifying and twisted.

And these are the guys who will be defending America.

"The Strange One" is a very good film but its current score on IMDB would seem to indicate it's an average film and nothing more. Well, as for me, I loved it as the story was very compelling and it was a nice chance to see some very good actors before they became famous (such as Ben Gazzara, James Olson and Mark Richmond).

The story is set in some fictional southern military college...similar to VMI or The Citadel. The story mostly centers around Gazzara's character, an upper classman who is a sociopath who loves mistreating his underclassmen. He also is a master manipulator and all around jerk....and his latest 'prank; results in a cadet being badly beaten and framed for getting drunk....when the young man in question did nothing wrong and the alcohol was forced down his throat.

During course of the story you learn tow important things. First, he was caught tormenting underclassmen before. Second, his fellow classmates hated him...and it took this incident to bring this to the surface. And, in the end, the students come up with a great plan to deal with this jerk.

Well written, exciting and well worth your time. I found this sleeper on YouTube and hope you also give it a try.