"The Boys In The Band" was a break through for the gay community in 1968 representing gay
males as human beings. Today it is vilified as a negative, unrealistic
portrait with people like Edward Albee putting it down both, then and
now.  I hear it is outdated, full of neurotics, a class of guys that
don't exist today and I can walk into any gathering of gay men whether
in a bar, a political meeting or a birthday party and there is Emory,
Bernard and the rest of the 'band''

This
documentary talks about the impact of the play at the time of its
premiere and the film that followed. The 'talking heads' range from men
of the period like Albee and Larry Kramer to those involved in getting
the play done on stage to the young of today who, as a designer says,
think it is about a boy band involving the Jonas Brothers.

A
lot of the film revolves around the  author of the play, Mart Crowley,
who had a hard time dealing with the success and the failure to follow
up on it. He traveled to Europe, did a lot of drinking, wrote another
play that flopped and, eventually, due to a friendship with Natalie
Wood and Robert Wagner, became a successful TV writer and producer of
"Hart To Hart". There is no mention of a sequel he wrote a few years ago
to "The Boys In The Band" that premiered in San Fransisco and also
flopped.

There are interviews with Peter White and Laurence Luckinbill,
who were in the original cast of the play and movie, and what has
happened since including the deaths of the director and 3 of the
original actors due to AIDS along with the death of Cliff Gormen who was bitter with Hollywood for the way he was treated. No one knows what happened to Reuben
Greene,the black actor who played Bernard, and before he died Leonard
Frey continued to make a name for himself. The saddest story is that of Robert La Tourneaux, who played the hustler and couldn't get work after the play and movie, became a drug addict and took the role into his real life, eventually dying of AIDS.

"The Boys
In The Band" is an important part of modern gay history and the younger
generation needs to be aware of it but, more important, the play, and
the movie, is relevant today and entertaining for gays and nongays and should be seen. The documentary, "Making The Boys", will fit better on the television screen and you know I don't say that often!