The 1964 British film The Leather Boys is considered an important film in the genre of queer cinematic even though it only touched on homosexuality obliquely. To put it in perspective it was still illegal to be gay in the UK, and also although it violated the Hollywood production code, is wast= still screened in the US.
Dot (Rita Tushingham) marries motorcycle buff Reggie (Colin Campbell) to escape from her parents, but the relationship never gets off the ground. She doesn’t do any housework and only cooks cans of beans. Reggie moves out and goes to live 
with his friend Pete (Dudley Sutton), whom Reggie begins to suspect is gay. He moves back when he hears that Dot is pregnant but discovers that she’s sleeping with another man. He and Pete decide to run off to sea, but a few realities about their relationship must be settled first.
The film was part of a genre known as ‘kitchen sink realism’ which was very much in vogue in the British movie industry at the time. It was based on a novel by Gillian Newman who had published it under the pseudonym Eliot George an inversion of the pen-name of the famous 19th-century female author, Mary Ann Evans, who was published as George Eliot.
At the time the New York Times critic A.H. WEILER. wrote They are not tackling new problems in “The Leather Boys,” but they and the director Sidney J Furie have given them the sincerity, reality and pathos of truth.. In 1966 the film was nominated for a Golden Globe.
The Leather Boys can be streamed on TUBI. ROKO Channel and Amazon Prime Video
Labels: 1964, 2023, classic, Dudley Sutton, Rita Tushingham, Sidney J Furie, The Leather Boys
