Rock Hudson's Home Movies (1992)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Really Surprised!

Overrated and overhyped

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Writer-director Mark Rappaport and actor-narrator Eric Farr lead us through selected clips of actor Rock Hudson's movies from the 1950s, '60s and '70s, highlighting the subtext in the dialogue passages with gay conjecture. An amusing idea, but not enough research was done. For instance, there's far too much coverage of the Rock Hudson-Doris Day-Tony Randall comedies--what about 1965's "Strange Bedfellows", which had some dandy lines rife with innuendo? There's some amusing footage of an unnamed movie where Burl Ives (in a bath towel) acts like Hudson's jealous lover (it was 1962's "The Spiral Road"), and the film-ballet of scenes involving Hudson removing his shirt or putting on his pants (usually in front of other men) is funny. Unfortunately, the film clips appear to be third-generation, VHS-recorded sequences that look even worse when they're freeze-framed for emphasis, and Farr's wilted delivery doesn't bring out Rappaport's intended sting. *1/2 from ****

This is one man's adolescent self-involved riff of what he imagines to be all things gay hidden in the films of Rock Hudson, narrated as if he is Rock Hudson speaking in the first person. Criterion has inexplicably included this on the DVD & Blu-ray of "All That Heaven Allows", as if it's assumed the target audience for this film must have an arch camp sensibility that primarily appreciates Douglas Sirk (or Hudson or Wyman, or who knows? Agnes Moorehead?) from that angle. This is offensive and insulting to anyone who really likes this film or the people involved. It is disrespectful to the memory of Rock Hudson and a joke to gay people, film students, and any true lover of cinema. I used to think Criterion and others included supplementary material and audio commentaries of more abstruse scholars with the intention of being cutting-edge and providing an intellectual platform for further discussion. With "Rock Hudson's Home Movies" I wonder now if the purpose isn't just to include space for whoever can display the most spectacular masturbatory display towards the subject. There is nothing remotely intellectual or even intelligent in this supplement. Finally, I can't imagine who would actually enjoy watching this, outside of some stoned skateboarder steeped in "Cruising" while dressed in a poodle-skirt. Yeesh!

This amateurish documentary is a hodge podge of Rock Hudson's life and films cruelly twisting context and clips to suit the tedious narration. Some weird person pretends to be Rock Hudson speaking from the grave and then misuses the clips sought to prove whatever it is the narration has him speak. It is an awful documentary with creepy a host and a mean spiritedness about it all. The misuse of clips is particularly annoying. The terrible quality of the clips makes it worse. This doco is a disgrace. The truly galling thing one is left with is the shoddiness of the source materials and the overall tone of sleaziness is appalling.

"Rock Hudson's Home Movies" is a compilation of film clips by Mark Rappaport that shows many of the gay references and innuendos in Hudson's films. Rappaport is the voice of Rock. It's a snide narration; he doesn't sound like Hudson, and he beats us over the head with the obvious.The film clips are very enjoyable. In fact, however, you can go through the career of just about any actor and pull these sorts of clips. It's true that because people like Douglas Sirk and Ross Hunter knew about Hudson's sexuality, however, there are probably more in-jokes in Hudson's films.An actor's screen image and an actor's true personality and sexual proclivities are completely different things. Hudson projected the heroic looks and physique of a movie star, and what he got were movie star romantic leading man roles. If he'd looked like Wally Cox, the film clips would be quite different. Straight actors have played gay roles, and gay or bisexual actors have played straight roles for years. It's called acting. Hudson lived as he wanted in his private life, and by all accounts, enjoyed himself. The sad thing is that he had to go through a sham marriage and put forward something different than he was for the fan magazines. That was the price of fame when he was a star. He paid it.