![]() ![]() They engage in some romcom hijinks when Wilde poses as a police inspector to rescue Bosie from a blackmailer. Bosie meets Wilde at the theater and gushes over him like a starstruck Eve Harrington. But Robert Morley’s Wilde and John Neville’s Bosie are given more leeway to explore their relationship. ![]() The actors give stiff performances and the script crams too many Wilde quotes into casual conversation. Gregory Ratoff’s Oscar Wilde (1960) was clumsily adapted from a stage play. When they briefly separate Wilde says “Sometimes, when I see the sunlight on an evening sky, or wander by the river and watch the dark waters, I seem to see him flitting by me in the darkness. The actors play a stronger bond but the script rarely lets them discuss it. The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) suggests that Bosie liked the money and Wilde liked the beauty. The four major Wilde films struggle to explain the relationship. They even reunited, briefly, when Wilde was released from prison. Yet his relationship with Wilde lasted for four years. Rupert Everett, actor, writer and director of The Happy Princeīosie was, by most accounts, an abusive prat. And he was a volatile, quite hysterical, and extremely spoiled boy. But he was a 22-year-old boy caught up in a huge scandal. I’m not against Lord Alfred… I think he definitely loved Wilde. WILDE: And then I turned my back on Bosie and got on a train to France.īOSIE: Are we going to mention the part where we tried to get back together? But I’ll pay your expenses… as long as you stay away from Bosie. Act Three: PrisonīOSIE and ROBBIE: Leave the country with us!ĬONSTANCE: I’m taking the kids. JUDGE: Oscar Wilde, I sentence you to two years in prison with hard labor. RENT BOYS: We’d tell you what Oscar did to us. (Fast forward through two more trials, using censored transcripts from the actual testimony.) PROSECUTOR CARSON (James Mason): Your writing is homoerotic.ĬARSON: Did you kiss 16-year-old Walter Granger?ĪUDIENCE: GASP! That means Wilde kisses pretty boys! QUEENSBERRY: Oscar Wilde is posing as a sodomite! MARQUESS OF QUEENSBERRY (retired boxer): Wilde, stop corrupting my son or you’ll be sorry!īOSIE: Go away daddy! I hate hate hate you!ĬONSTANCE and ROBBIE (Wilde’s wife and ex-boyfriend): Oscar, you really should dump him.īOSIE: Dump me? I’m not going to be ignooored Oscar! ( Threatens him with a knife.) OSCAR WILDE (Celebrated writer): Yes, I am.īOSIE (Disaster twink): Darling, lend me some money. (Oscar Wilde gives an opening night curtain speech that will be quoted in each major Wilde film.) Let’s take a quick overview in this spoiler filled recap. But gay actor John Fraser plays him honestly and provides a needed jolt of queer desire. His lover, Bosie, is written as a Fatal Attraction style villain. There’s none of the charm, vanity or showmanship that led to his celebrity. But Peter Finch’s Wilde suffers from the censored screenplay. I found Ken Hughes’s The Trials of Oscar Wilde to be the stronger of the two films. And that his relationship with his lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, be presented ambiguously. British censors required that the salacious testimony from the witnesses be kept off screen. ![]() Both utilized transcripts from the sodomy trials. In 1960 two competing films about Oscar Wilde were released. The UK laws forbidding sexual acts between men would not be disbanded till 1967. In May of that year, he was sentenced to prison for gross indecency. In February of 1895 his play The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London. However, there are significant changes to the tale, after the mother is rebuked.In 1890 Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde published the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The following video is a Russian language movie that roughly follows the Oscar Wilde story. This is the full text of the short story on which the opera was based. The story resolves only when the child loses his beauty and searches the world looking for the mother it rebuked. By the time the mother finds the child, she has lost her heavenly beauty and has the appearance of a common beggar. Unfortunately, the beautiful child is rotten to the core and ultimately comes to reject its mother who forsook her celestial position to wander the Earth looking for it. It was raised by a poor family who admired it for its incredible beauty. The titular child in this story fell to Earth as an infant. Instead, this story contrasts outer beauty with an inner state of ugliness. I later discovered that this opera had nothing to do with the Starkind story of which I was familiar. As I was looking for more information regarding the story, I came across an opera with a similar title Das Sternenkind. This is the tale of the orphan girl who is blessed by stars, after she selflessly gives away all her possessions to imperiled beggars. I adore the simple folktale concerning the Starkind. ![]()
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