Xanadu

Sonny Malone (Michael Beck), a thin, long-haired 1980s hippie who likes to roller skate everywhere, wants to be a great painter, but he's stymied by his job reproducing rock album covers.

Kira (Olivia Newton-John), who is really Terpsichore, the Muse of Dancing inspires him to pursue his dream.  She inspired Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Beethoven, so she knows talent.

Wait -- why would the Muse of Dancing inspire painters, sculptors, playwrights, and composers?

 While wandering on the beach, Sonny hooks up with retired jazz musician Danny McGuire (dance legend Gene Kelly), who has also abandoned his dream of opening a jazz club (ok, well, he had one, inspired by Kira, in 1945).

 Danny openly, obviously courts Sonny, who obviously relishes the attention of a potential sugar daddy.  It becomes most blatant when Danny invites him home to his palatial mansion (apparently being a failed jazz musician pays very well), gives him "the tour," and looks just about to lead him into the bedroom, when Sonny inexplicably leaves.  With a look of consternation ("Darn! I thought for sure I was going to get laid!"), Danny sits down and fantasizes about Kira (apparently the next best thing).

 Sonny and Danny decide to pursue their dreams together.  But what sort of dream can be pursued by a painter and a jazz musician (played by a famous dancer)?

The answer is obvious: they open a roller disco!

Somebody didn't think this through.

Meanwhile Kira falls in love with Sonny -- chastely, with no sex, but still against Muse rules.  She has to return to Olympus, but the gods grant her one last night on Earth. She spends it singing.  But not to worry,  Sonny immediately latches onto a waitress at the club who looks like her. Or maybe she's a reincarnation.  Or maybe. . .

While watching, one continually thinks, who wrote this?  Who thought it was a good idea to put Gene Kelly on roller skates?  Who didn't shoot a retake when Kira calls Sonny Danny?  

Nothing about this movie makes a bit of sense.  Maybe that's why it was popular with gay audiences.  It was one big raspberry at the conventions of heterosexual romance.

On the Town: Three Sailors on Leave in a Gay City

Long before I ever visited New York City, I learned all about the Battery, the Bronx, the Empire State Building, Central Park, subways, seltzer, and delis.  Like Los Angeles, it was a magical place, gleaming with steel and glass, where you could escape the constant "what girl do you like?" litany of the adults.

I learned all that through tv programs like That Girl and The Odd Couple, and through movies like On the Town (1949).

Based on a 1944 Broadway musical scored by gay composer Leonard Bernstein, On the Town follows the adventures of three sailors on leave in New York City before they ship out: the naive Gabey (dance master Gene Kelly), the fast-talking Chip (future Rat Pack singer Frank Sinatra), and the dopey Ozzie (comic relief Jules Munshin). They just have 24 hours, and they want to see and do everything, especially meet girls.

Then Gabey falls in love with a girl on a poster, Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen), mistakenly thinking she's a famous actress.

So his friends obligingly give up their plans to help Gabey track her down.

They give up their plans to help a buddy?  Anytime a same-sex friendship trumps the quest for hetero-romance, you have some significant gay symbolism.

During the madcap scavenger hunt, female cabbie  Hildy (Betty Garrett) aggressively courts Chip ("Come back to my place!").

Ozzie is courted by anthropologist Claire (Ann Miller), whose mentor thinks she's a lesbian, uninterested in men; actually, she just prefers the big, brawny type ("Give me a prehistoric man!").

And Gabey catches the eye of  the gawky Lucy Schmeeler (Alice Pearce).

Butch, aggressive women chasing unwilling, feminine-coded men: the gender atypicality gives the musical even more gay symbolism.

And even more: all of them become friends, boys and girls both -- when was the last time you saw a platonic male-female friendship in a musical?

They all help Gabey search.  When he becomes despondent, they all invite him to "Count on me."  

Gabey eventually meets the Girl, and the "three couples" share a final song and a kiss.  But there's no marriage and children: when the 24 hours ends, the three sailors head back to their ship.  Hildy, Claire, and Iris wave goodbye.

But they're not alone.  Strangers yesterday, the three women have found each other.

This movie is not about hetero-romance at all.  It's about friendship.  That's what makes it a gay classic.

Plus the energetic dance numbers, the gay connections of actresses Betty Garrett and Alice Pearce, and New York City, the most important character, brimming with light and color.  No wonder the posters call it "Twice as gay as Anchors Aweigh."

The original musical is a favorite of high school and college drama departments.  Not a lot of beefcake, but Tony Yazbeck dances shirtless in the Broadway revival.