Cruising (film)
Encyclopedia
Cruising is a 1980 film directed by William Friedkin
and starring Al Pacino
. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name
, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a serial killer
targeting gay
men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.
Poorly reviewed by critics, Cruising was a modest financial success, though the filming and promotion were dogged by gay rights protesters. The title is a play on words
between 'cruising' in the sense of patrolling and 'cruising' in the sexual sense
, used particularly by gay men.
during the middle of a hot summer, body parts of men are showing up in the Hudson River
. The police suspect it to be the work of a serial killer who is picking up homosexual men at West Village bars like the Eagle's Nest, the Ramrod, and the Cock Pit, then taking them to cheap rooming houses or motels, tying them up and stabbing them to death. Officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino
) is sent deep undercover into the urban world of gay S&M and leather bars in the Meatpacking District
in order to track down the killer. He rents an apartment in the area and befriends a neighbor, Ted Bailey (Don Scardino
) a struggling young gay playwright. Burns's undercover work takes a toll on his relationship with his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen
), due to both his refusal to tell her the details of his current assignment and Burns building a close friendship with Ted, who himself is having relationship issues with his dancer boyfriend Gregory.
Burns mistakenly compels the police to interrogate a waiter, Skip Lee (Jay Acovone
), who is intimidated, beaten and forced to strip and masturbate in front of four detectives in order to provide them with a semen
sample. Burns is disturbed by this police brutality
, and comes to believe that the police are motivated by homophobia
. Outraged, he almost quits his job. However, he is convinced by his boss (Paul Sorvino
) to continue with the investigation. The semen sample clears Lee (the medical examiner had previously determined that the killer was sterile), meaning that the killer is still at large
At the film's conclusion, Burns thinks that he has found the serial killer, a gay music student who attacks him with a knife in Morningside Park. Burns brings the man into custody, but shortly afterward Ted's mutilated body is found. The police dismiss the murder as a lover's quarrel turned violent and put out an arrest warrant for Gregory, whom Ted had earlier described to Steve as controlling and possessive. With the police under the impression that the murders have been solved, Burns moves back in with Nancy. In an ambiguous finale, Burns begins shaving his beard in the bathroom while Nancy secretly inspects clothes that he left on a chair: a leather peaked cap, aviator frames, and a leather jacket that all look very similar to the outfit the killer wore. Burns, meanwhile, wipes off his shaving cream and looks directly at the camera.
, who had produced Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection
, approached Friedkin with the idea of directing a film based on New York Times reporter Gerald Walker's 1970 novel Cruising
, about a serial killer targeting New York City's gay community. Friedkin was not particularly interested in the project. D'Antino tried to attach Steven Spielberg
, but they were not able to interest a studio. A few years later Jerry Weintraub
brought the idea back to Friedkin, who was still not interested. Friedkin changed his mind following a series of unsolved killings in gay leather bars in the early 1970s and the articles written about the murders by Village Voice journalist Arthur Bell
. Friedkin also knew a police officer named Randy Jurgenson who had gone into the same sort of deep cover that Pacino's Steve Burns did to investigate an earlier series of gay murders, and Paul Bateson, a doctor's assistant who had appeared in Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist
, who had confessed to some of those murders. All of these factors gave Friedkin the angle he wanted to pursue in making the film. Jurgenson and Bateson served as film consultants, as did Sonny Grosso
, who had earlier consulted with Friedkin on The French Connection. Jurgenson and Grosso appear in bit parts in the film.
In his research, Friedkin worked with members of the Mafia
, who at the time owned many of the city's gay bars. Al Pacino was not Friedkin's first choice for the lead; Richard Gere
had expressed a strong interest in the part, and Friedkin had opened negotiations with Gere's agent. Gere was Friedkin's choice because he believed that Gere would bring an androgynous quality to the role that Pacino could not.
The Motion Picture Association of America
originally gave Cruising an X rating
. Friedkin claims he took the film before the MPAA board "50 times" at a cost of $50,000 and deleted 40 minutes of footage from the original cut before he secured an R rating. The deleted footage, according to Friedkin, consisted entirely of footage from the clubs in which portions of the film were shot and consisted of "[a]bsolutely graphic sexuality....that material showed the most graphic homosexuality with Pacino watching, and with the intimation that he may have been participating." In some discussions, Friedkin claims that the missing 40 minutes had no effect on the story or the characterizations, but in others he states that the footage created "mysterious twists and turns (which [the film] no longer takes)", that the suspicion that Pacino's character may have himself become a killer was made more clear and that the missing footage simultaneously made the film both more and less ambiguous. When Friedkin sought to restore the missing footage for the film's DVD release, he discovered that United Artists
no longer had it. He believes that UA destroyed the footage. Some obscured sexual activity remains visible in the film as released, and Friedkin intercut a few frames of gay pornography
into the first scene in which a murder is depicted.
This movie represents the only film soundtrack work by the seminal Los Angeles
punk rock
band The Germs
. They recorded six songs for the film, of which only one, "Lion's Share", appeared.
Friedkin asked noted gay author John Rechy
, some of whose works were set in the same milieu as the film, to screen Cruising just before its release. Rechy had written an essay defending Friedkin's right to make the film, although not defending the film itself. At Rechy's suggestion, Friedkin deleted a scene showing the Gay Liberation
slogan "We Are Everywhere" as graffiti on a wall just before the first body part is pulled from the river, and added a disclaimer:
Friedkin later claimed that it was the MPAA and United Artists
that required the disclaimer, calling it "part of the dark bargain that was made to get the film released at all" and "a sop to organised gay rights groups". Friedkin claimed that no one involved in making the film thought it would be considered as representative of the entire gay community, but gay film historian Vito Russo
disputes that, citing the disclaimer as "an admission of guilt. What director would make such a statement if he truly believed that his film would not be taken to be representative of the whole?"
protested the production of the film. Gay people were urged to disrupt filming, and gay-owned businesses to bar the filmmakers from their premises. People attempted to interfere with shooting by pointing mirrors from rooftops to ruin lighting for scenes, blasting whistles and air horns near locations, and playing loud music. One thousand protesters marched through the East Village
demanding the city withdraw support for the film.
Al Pacino said that he understood the protests but insisted that upon reading the screenplay he never at any point felt that the film was anti-gay
. He said that the leather bars were "just a fragment of the gay community, the same way the Mafia is a fragment of Italian-American life," referring to The Godfather
, and that he would "never want to do anything to harm the gay community".
and had a weak domestic box office take of $
19,784,223. It was banned in Finland
, Iran
and South Africa
.
based on 27 reviews.
Critic Jack Sommersby's comments typified the contemporary criticism directed at non-political matters such as character development and the changes made when the film was transferred from a novel to a film:
The second major criticism of the film at its release came from gay activists that felt that the film had a homophobic political message that would lead to a rise in hate crimes against gay men. Vito Russo wrote that, "Gays who protested the making of the film maintained that it would show that when Pacino recognized his attraction to the homosexual world, he would become psychotic
and begin to kill."
Raymond Murray, editor of an encyclopedia of gay and lesbian
films titled Images in The Dark, writes that "the film proves to be an entertaining and (for those born too late to enjoy the sexual excesses of pre-AIDS
gay life) fascinating if ridiculous glimpse into gay life - albeit Hollywood's version of gay life." He goes on to say "the film is now part of queer
history and a testament to how a frightened Hollywood treated a disenfranchised minority."
, distributed by Warner Home Video
, was released in Region 1 on September 18, 2007 and Region 2 on 25 Feb 2008. This release is not in its original director's cut, but does include some extra scenes not seen in the original VHS
release and additional visual effects added by Friedkin. Friedkin also added a commentary track to accompany the DVD. The only visible omission in this re-release, as compared to the theatrical and VHS releases, is the absence of the disclaimer at the beginning of the film stating that Cruising depicts a gay S&M subculture
and is not representative of mainstream gay life. The DVD also includes two featurettes entitled 'The History of Cruising' and 'Exorcising Cruising', the latter being about the controversy the film provoked.
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
and starring Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
. The film is loosely based on the novel of the same name
Cruising (novel)
Cruising is a novel written by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker and published in 1970.The novel is about an undercover cop looking for a homosexual killer in the world of sadomasochism leather gay bars in Greenwich Village, New York....
, by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker, about a serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
targeting gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
men, in particular those associated with the S&M scene.
Poorly reviewed by critics, Cruising was a modest financial success, though the filming and promotion were dogged by gay rights protesters. The title is a play on words
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
between 'cruising' in the sense of patrolling and 'cruising' in the sexual sense
Cruising for sex
Cruising for sex, or cruising is the act of walking or driving about a locality in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety...
, used particularly by gay men.
Plot
In New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during the middle of a hot summer, body parts of men are showing up in the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The police suspect it to be the work of a serial killer who is picking up homosexual men at West Village bars like the Eagle's Nest, the Ramrod, and the Cock Pit, then taking them to cheap rooming houses or motels, tying them up and stabbing them to death. Officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
) is sent deep undercover into the urban world of gay S&M and leather bars in the Meatpacking District
Meatpacking District, Manhattan
The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan which runs roughly from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street, although recently it is sometimes considered to have extended north to West 16th Street and east...
in order to track down the killer. He rents an apartment in the area and befriends a neighbor, Ted Bailey (Don Scardino
Don Scardino
Don Scardino is an American television director and producer and a former actor.-Acting:Born in New York City, Scardino began his career as an actor. His first Broadway credit was as an understudy in The Playroom in 1965. Additional Broadway acting credits include Johnny No-Trump, Godspell, and...
) a struggling young gay playwright. Burns's undercover work takes a toll on his relationship with his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen
Karen Allen
Karen Jane Allen is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...
), due to both his refusal to tell her the details of his current assignment and Burns building a close friendship with Ted, who himself is having relationship issues with his dancer boyfriend Gregory.
Burns mistakenly compels the police to interrogate a waiter, Skip Lee (Jay Acovone
Jay Acovone
Jay Acovone is an American actor who was born in Mahopac, New York as the son of a dry-cleaning business owners.-Career:...
), who is intimidated, beaten and forced to strip and masturbate in front of four detectives in order to provide them with a semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
sample. Burns is disturbed by this police brutality
Police brutality
Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer....
, and comes to believe that the police are motivated by homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
. Outraged, he almost quits his job. However, he is convinced by his boss (Paul Sorvino
Paul Sorvino
Paul Anthony Sorvino is an American actor. He often portrays authority figures on both sides of the law, and is possibly best known for his roles as Paulie Cicero, a portrayal of Paul Vario in the film Goodfellas and Sgt. Phil Cerreta on the police procedural and legal drama television series Law...
) to continue with the investigation. The semen sample clears Lee (the medical examiner had previously determined that the killer was sterile), meaning that the killer is still at large
At the film's conclusion, Burns thinks that he has found the serial killer, a gay music student who attacks him with a knife in Morningside Park. Burns brings the man into custody, but shortly afterward Ted's mutilated body is found. The police dismiss the murder as a lover's quarrel turned violent and put out an arrest warrant for Gregory, whom Ted had earlier described to Steve as controlling and possessive. With the police under the impression that the murders have been solved, Burns moves back in with Nancy. In an ambiguous finale, Burns begins shaving his beard in the bathroom while Nancy secretly inspects clothes that he left on a chair: a leather peaked cap, aviator frames, and a leather jacket that all look very similar to the outfit the killer wore. Burns, meanwhile, wipes off his shaving cream and looks directly at the camera.
Cast
- Al PacinoAl PacinoAlfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
– Steve Burns - Paul SorvinoPaul SorvinoPaul Anthony Sorvino is an American actor. He often portrays authority figures on both sides of the law, and is possibly best known for his roles as Paulie Cicero, a portrayal of Paul Vario in the film Goodfellas and Sgt. Phil Cerreta on the police procedural and legal drama television series Law...
– Captain Edelson - Karen AllenKaren AllenKaren Jane Allen is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...
– Nancy Gates - Richard Cox – Stuart Richards
- Don ScardinoDon ScardinoDon Scardino is an American television director and producer and a former actor.-Acting:Born in New York City, Scardino began his career as an actor. His first Broadway credit was as an understudy in The Playroom in 1965. Additional Broadway acting credits include Johnny No-Trump, Godspell, and...
– Ted Bailey - Joe SpinellJoe SpinellJoe Spinell was an American character actor, who appeared in numerous films in the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:...
– Patrolman DiSimone - Jay AcovoneJay AcovoneJay Acovone is an American actor who was born in Mahopac, New York as the son of a dry-cleaning business owners.-Career:...
– Skip Lee - Randy Jurgensen – Det. Lefransky
- Barton Heyman – Dr. Rifkin
- Gene DavisGene Davis (actor)Eugene M. "Gene" Davis known for playing the psychotic killer Warren Stacy in the 1983 film 10 to Midnight with Charles Bronson; he also played a killer in another Bronson vehicle, 1988's Messenger of Death...
– DaVinci - Arnaldo Santana – Loren Lukas
- Larry AtlasLarry AtlasLarry Atlas is the author of eight produced plays. He is best known for the award-winning play Yield of the Long Bond, which premiered at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles starring Ian McShane and Byron Jennings. He directed the second production in this play at NY Stage and Film with Jennings,...
– Eric Rossman - Allan MillerAllan MillerAllan Miller is an American actor, best known for the role of Harland Richards in Santa Barbara.Miller was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Anna and Benedict Miller....
– Chief of Detectives - Sonny GrossoSonny GrossoSalvatore "Sonny" Grosso is a movie and television producer and former New York City Police Department detective, noted for his role in the case immortalized in the book and movie versions of the French Connection...
– Detective Blasio - Ed O'NeillEd O'NeillEdward Phillip "Ed" O'Neill, Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the main character, Al Bundy, on the Fox Network sitcom Married... with Children, for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes...
– Detective Schreiber (as Edward O'Neil) - Michael Aronin – Detective Davis
- James RemarJames RemarJames Remar is an American actor and voice artist. He has appeared in movies, video games, and TV shows. He is perhaps best known as Richard, the on-off tycoon boyfriend of Kim Cattrall's character in Sex and the City, as Ajax in The Warriors, as the homicidal maniac Albert Ganz in the 1982...
– Gregory - William RussWilliam RussWilliam Russ is an American actor, best known for his role as Alan Matthews on Boy Meets World.-Early life:Russ was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is the son of a naval officer...
– Paul Gaines - Mike StarrMike Starr (actor)Michael "Mike" Starr is an American actor. Starr is notable for his large size, standing 6 ft 3 1/2 in , and has typically been typecast as thugs or henchmen....
– Patrolman Desher - Steve Inwood – Martino
- Keith PrenticeKeith PrenticeKeith Prentice was a Dayton, Ohio-born American TV, film and stage actor, whose most famous role was the part of Larry in both the original stage and film versions of The Boys in the Band. Prentice also appeared on the classic TV soap Dark Shadows during the series final months in 1971...
– Joey - Leland Starnes – Jack Richards
- Robert PopeRobert PopeRobert F. Pope, Jr. is an American writer.His father, Robert Pope, Sr., a United States Army officer, was stationed in Asmara, Eritrea, East Africa when his son was born. His wife and children joined him when Robert, Jr...
– DaVinci's friend - Leo BurmesterLeo BurmesterLeo Burmester was an American actor. Burmester worked for director John Sayles several times, including in Passion Fish and Lone Star , and also for directors such as John Schlesinger and Sidney Lumet, and as the Apostle Nathaniel in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ...
– Water Sport - Bruce LevineBruce LevineBruce E. Levine, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been in practice for more than two decades.Levine's most recent book is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite...
– Dancer - Charles Dunlap – Three Card Monte
- Powers BoothePowers BoothePowers Allen Boothe is an American television and film actor. Some of his most notable roles include his Emmy-winning 1980 portrayal of Jim Jones and his turn as Cy Tolliver on Deadwood, as well as Vice-President Noah Daniels on 24....
– Hankie salesman - James Sutorius – Jack (voice)
- Richard Jamieson – Spotter
- Jimmie Ray Weeks – Seller (as James Ray Weeks)
- David Winnie Hayes – Bouncer
- Carmine Stippo – Bartender
- James HaydenJames HaydenJames Hayden was a young, handsome American actor from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with a very promising career ahead of him. Apart from starring on Broadway, he is perhaps best known for playing Patrick 'Patsy' Goldberg in the 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America...
– Cockpit Coke man - Todd Winters – Tugboat Mate
Production
Philip D'AntoniPhilip D'Antoni
-Work:D'Antoni won an Academy Award in 1971 for the Best Picture, for The French Connection. He also won a Golden Globe award in 1972 for the Best Motion Picture Drama for The French Connection. He began his career on TV with the glamorous productions, "Sophia Loren in Rome," "Elizabeth Taylor in...
, who had produced Friedkin's 1971 film The French Connection
The French Connection (film)
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...
, approached Friedkin with the idea of directing a film based on New York Times reporter Gerald Walker's 1970 novel Cruising
Cruising (novel)
Cruising is a novel written by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker and published in 1970.The novel is about an undercover cop looking for a homosexual killer in the world of sadomasochism leather gay bars in Greenwich Village, New York....
, about a serial killer targeting New York City's gay community. Friedkin was not particularly interested in the project. D'Antino tried to attach Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, but they were not able to interest a studio. A few years later Jerry Weintraub
Jerry Weintraub
Jerry Weintraub is an American film producer and former chairman and CEO of United Artists. He now lives in Palm Desert, California.-Life and career:...
brought the idea back to Friedkin, who was still not interested. Friedkin changed his mind following a series of unsolved killings in gay leather bars in the early 1970s and the articles written about the murders by Village Voice journalist Arthur Bell
Arthur Bell (journalist)
Arthur Bell was a journalist, author and LGBT rights activist.Bell, an early member of the Gay Liberation Front and a founding member of the Gay Activists Alliance in New York City, wrote two books. Dancing the Gay Lib Blues was published in 1971 and he published Kings Don't Mean a Thing in 1978...
. Friedkin also knew a police officer named Randy Jurgenson who had gone into the same sort of deep cover that Pacino's Steve Burns did to investigate an earlier series of gay murders, and Paul Bateson, a doctor's assistant who had appeared in Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
, who had confessed to some of those murders. All of these factors gave Friedkin the angle he wanted to pursue in making the film. Jurgenson and Bateson served as film consultants, as did Sonny Grosso
Sonny Grosso
Salvatore "Sonny" Grosso is a movie and television producer and former New York City Police Department detective, noted for his role in the case immortalized in the book and movie versions of the French Connection...
, who had earlier consulted with Friedkin on The French Connection. Jurgenson and Grosso appear in bit parts in the film.
In his research, Friedkin worked with members of the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, who at the time owned many of the city's gay bars. Al Pacino was not Friedkin's first choice for the lead; Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
had expressed a strong interest in the part, and Friedkin had opened negotiations with Gere's agent. Gere was Friedkin's choice because he believed that Gere would bring an androgynous quality to the role that Pacino could not.
The Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
originally gave Cruising an X rating
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
. Friedkin claims he took the film before the MPAA board "50 times" at a cost of $50,000 and deleted 40 minutes of footage from the original cut before he secured an R rating. The deleted footage, according to Friedkin, consisted entirely of footage from the clubs in which portions of the film were shot and consisted of "[a]bsolutely graphic sexuality....that material showed the most graphic homosexuality with Pacino watching, and with the intimation that he may have been participating." In some discussions, Friedkin claims that the missing 40 minutes had no effect on the story or the characterizations, but in others he states that the footage created "mysterious twists and turns (which [the film] no longer takes)", that the suspicion that Pacino's character may have himself become a killer was made more clear and that the missing footage simultaneously made the film both more and less ambiguous. When Friedkin sought to restore the missing footage for the film's DVD release, he discovered that United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
no longer had it. He believes that UA destroyed the footage. Some obscured sexual activity remains visible in the film as released, and Friedkin intercut a few frames of gay pornography
Gay pornography
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual intercourse between men with the primary goal of sexual arousal in its audience. There is also a tradition, and continuing considerable output, of lesbian pornography....
into the first scene in which a murder is depicted.
This movie represents the only film soundtrack work by the seminal Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band The Germs
The Germs
The Germs are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1977 to 1980. The band's early lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and their most consistent drummer Don Bolles. Germs have since reformed in 2005 with Shane...
. They recorded six songs for the film, of which only one, "Lion's Share", appeared.
Friedkin asked noted gay author John Rechy
John Rechy
John Francis Rechy, , is an American author, the child of a half-Scottish and half-Mexican father, Roberto Rechy, and a Mexican-American mother, Guadalupe Flores. In his novels he has written extensively about homosexual culture in Los Angeles and wider America, and is among the pioneers of modern...
, some of whose works were set in the same milieu as the film, to screen Cruising just before its release. Rechy had written an essay defending Friedkin's right to make the film, although not defending the film itself. At Rechy's suggestion, Friedkin deleted a scene showing the Gay Liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
slogan "We Are Everywhere" as graffiti on a wall just before the first body part is pulled from the river, and added a disclaimer:
Friedkin later claimed that it was the MPAA and United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
that required the disclaimer, calling it "part of the dark bargain that was made to get the film released at all" and "a sop to organised gay rights groups". Friedkin claimed that no one involved in making the film thought it would be considered as representative of the entire gay community, but gay film historian Vito Russo
Vito Russo
Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian and author who is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet ....
disputes that, citing the disclaimer as "an admission of guilt. What director would make such a statement if he truly believed that his film would not be taken to be representative of the whole?"
Protests
Throughout the summer of 1979, members of New York's gay communityGay community
The gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...
protested the production of the film. Gay people were urged to disrupt filming, and gay-owned businesses to bar the filmmakers from their premises. People attempted to interfere with shooting by pointing mirrors from rooftops to ruin lighting for scenes, blasting whistles and air horns near locations, and playing loud music. One thousand protesters marched through the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
demanding the city withdraw support for the film.
Al Pacino said that he understood the protests but insisted that upon reading the screenplay he never at any point felt that the film was anti-gay
Heterosexism
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior...
. He said that the leather bars were "just a fragment of the gay community, the same way the Mafia is a fragment of Italian-American life," referring to The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
, and that he would "never want to do anything to harm the gay community".
Release
Cruising was released February 15, 1980 in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and had a weak domestic box office take of $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
19,784,223. It was banned in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
Critical reception
Upon the film's release, critical reaction was highly negative and gay activists had public protests against the film. However, critical opinion of it has tempered somewhat over the years as the film has been reassessed. As of August 2010, the film holds a 59% "rotten" rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
based on 27 reviews.
Critic Jack Sommersby's comments typified the contemporary criticism directed at non-political matters such as character development and the changes made when the film was transferred from a novel to a film:
- [On the character of the serial killer] "The closest we get to a motivation comes from his imaginary conversations with his deceased, formerly-disapproving father, who tells his boy, 'You know what you have to do,' which sets him off to kill, and, again, we're baffled as to the connection Friedkin's trying to make. Was the father's disapproval pertaining to his son being gay, and is the son trying to win back his father's approval by killing men of a sexual nature the father has a seething hatred for? If so, there's no indication of any of this. In fact, we don't even know if the father knew his son was gay before passing on."
- [On the character of Officer Steve Burns] "Gone is the back story of his having harassed gays at an off-base bar when he was in the Army; also gone is his racismRacismRacism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, along with his seemingly asexual nature in the first half. Instead, he's been made a regular, happy-go-lucky guy with a steady girlfriend. One can easily surmise Friedkin's motivation here: using someone identifiable to lead us into the underworld of black leather and kinky sex... [W]e're brought up short, and the cop's emotional progression seems stunted, as if Friedkin simply didn't care. We see the cop engaging in some heavy vaginal intercourse with his girlfriend, but we don't know if he's normally this semi-rough, if he's doing so under the pretense that the rougher, the manlier he must be – fucking away any trace of gay, if you will. A week later, the girlfriend complains about his not wanting her any more, and he replies, 'What I'm doing, is affecting me.' How? Turning him off sex with women, or off sex altogether in light of what he's seeing and experiencing every night? Again, we do not know."
The second major criticism of the film at its release came from gay activists that felt that the film had a homophobic political message that would lead to a rise in hate crimes against gay men. Vito Russo wrote that, "Gays who protested the making of the film maintained that it would show that when Pacino recognized his attraction to the homosexual world, he would become psychotic
Psychosis
Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
and begin to kill."
Raymond Murray, editor of an encyclopedia of gay and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
films titled Images in The Dark, writes that "the film proves to be an entertaining and (for those born too late to enjoy the sexual excesses of pre-AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
gay life) fascinating if ridiculous glimpse into gay life - albeit Hollywood's version of gay life." He goes on to say "the film is now part of queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
history and a testament to how a frightened Hollywood treated a disenfranchised minority."
DVD release
A deluxe collector's edition DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, distributed by Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
, was released in Region 1 on September 18, 2007 and Region 2 on 25 Feb 2008. This release is not in its original director's cut, but does include some extra scenes not seen in the original VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
release and additional visual effects added by Friedkin. Friedkin also added a commentary track to accompany the DVD. The only visible omission in this re-release, as compared to the theatrical and VHS releases, is the absence of the disclaimer at the beginning of the film stating that Cruising depicts a gay S&M subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
and is not representative of mainstream gay life. The DVD also includes two featurettes entitled 'The History of Cruising' and 'Exorcising Cruising', the latter being about the controversy the film provoked.
Awards and nominations
- 1st Golden Raspberry Awards
- Nominated: Worst PictureRazzie Award for Worst PictureThe Razzie Award for Worst Picture is an award given out at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards to the worst film of the past year. Following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, including each film's distribution company and producer.-1980s:...
- Nominated: Worst DirectorRazzie Award for Worst DirectorThe Razzie Award for Worst Director is an award presented at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards to the worst director of the previous year. The following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, along with the film for which they were nominated....
- Nominated: Worst ScreenplayRazzie Award for Worst ScreenplayThe Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay is an award presented at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards for the worst film screenplay of the past year. The following is a list of nominees and recipients of that award, including each screenplay's author...
External links
- San Francisco Examiner "Lasting images of "Cruising" by Bob Stephens (1995).
- Q Network Film Desk "Cruising" By James Kendrick.
- Cruising: Re-examining the Reviled by Drew Fitzpatrick (Digital Destruction).
- A new stance on William Friedkin's Cruising by Trenton Straube
- Friedkin Out by Bill Krohn at rouge press