Closet of Heroes

British, business owner, mum of two, celebrating all the characters I love to watch and think about who have inspired me and helped me be more brave. I don’t need to hide away so much these days, but they’re still hanging in there for me if I need them.

[rainbowcity2025]

Movie Recommendation……🥰💖✨🌈🏳‍🌈🏳‍🌈

"The History Of Sound" (2025) 💖

Two young men during World War I set out to record the lives, voices and music of their American countrymen.

With the gorgeous Paul Mescal...🔥🔥🔥

[ssfoc]

Josh O’Connor interviews Andrew Scott (22.6.25)

[aclaywrites]

Saw this in a Victoria & Albert exhibit about censorship— how excruciating for Dirk to give this interview from the closet.

[closetofheroes]

The language they use is fascinating (and grimly toxic). And people wonder why Bogarde never felt comfortable coming out…? Can you imagine going through your adolescence, through your 20s, 30s, and most of your 40s knowing that your sexuality was illegal and being told over and over that it’s repulsively evil at worst and an unfortunate illness at best? How difficult would it be to have a healthy self acceptance of your own sexuality with that being the attitude surrounding you your entire life, with no real prospect of it ever changing? Especially if you’re already a rather private, introverted person, as Dirk Bogarde was. Isn’t it enough that he chose to star in Victim, which pretty much told the real truth to anyone ready to listen?

[dirkbogardes]

twitter seemed to enjoy it, so here you go tumblr: a melville farr fancam to maneater

[albertserra]

you shouldn’t be named dirk if your last name isn’t bogarde. paul thomas anderson failed to understand this when writing the script for boogie nights

[closetofheroes]

You speak sooth.

[alexsbrain]

Victim (1961)

    A commercial film done in the style of a thriller about a blackmail ring targeting homosexual men. No, it’s not the latest film at Cannes, it’s an English film from the sixties. Victim was made at a time when the physical love between two same-sex partners was punishable by law. By the late fifties many politicians and activists were questioning this law and fighting for decriminalization. Victim is a product of the nascent Queer rights movement in post-war England and the dramatic personification of the Wolfenden report which urged lawmakers to decriminalize homosexuality. Starring Dirk Bogarde, a gay actor and England’s favourite matinee idol, Victim not only transformed his career but helped sway public opinion, which resulted in the passing of the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 effectively decriminalizing homosexuality. The film would receive criticism upon it release and throughout the years, yet it remains the first English language film to openly portray the terror of being Queer.

Keep reading

[glendajackson]

Dirk Bogarde talking in 1996 about making Victim (1961), produced by Michael Relph and directed by Basil Dearden:

I said to Basil that I would do it, because it was written actually for Jack Hawkins, but Jack Hawkins at the last minute turned it down because his wife said it would prejudice his chances of a knighthood. So Basil called me at home, on Christmas Eve, can you believe? And said, ‘I'm in the shit. Will you stick your neck out if I bike over a script? Because we've got to start after the Christmas break, and he told me why.

He said, ‘Nobody else will touch it. Margaret Leighton has peeled off. So-and-so's peeled off.’ For a friend. I remember him saying that. ‘For a friend, will you do it?’

I said: ‘Look, I'm decorating the Christmas tree, Baz.’

He said, ‘Yes but I'll send it over, OK?’

So he sent it over. I read it, and it was a nice little story, but there was nothing Important in it at all. I called him back and said that I would do it if that was what he wanted me to do, but that it lacked two scenes: it lacked a confrontation with the wife at the beginning; and it lacked a scene at the end when the man said: ‘Yes, I wanted the boy.’

I remember that scene. It's a very powerful scene.

Basil said I would never get away with it. I wrote the two scenes, and nobody made a fuss about it, because Rank at that point were giving up anything to do with Allied Film Makers. Michael Relph was very upset, very worried, but aware that it might be an important thing.

I remember in the scene that we did I told Sylvia Syms, ‘I'm just going to go for this, and let it go, and if I start choking or burst into tears, I don't know what will happen, just bear with me.’ And she said she would, she was that kind of girl. And I did get a thing in my throat, and cleared my throat a couple of times in the scene.

That's why it's so powerful. It has a rawness about it.

Yes, I know. I'd wanted to do it. I'd been trying to do that for years at fucking Rank. Basil came up after the take. I was shaking and Sylvia was fairly shattered. Basil was streaming with tears, which was strange because I didn't think it would move him.

But Michael Relph said, ‘I'm a little bit worried about the two clearings of your throat.’

I said, ‘But I meant those.’

He said, ‘I think we should go again.’

I said, ‘If we go again, I can't do it again.’

I knew that Basil knew I was right and that it was a spontaneous thing and effective. I mean we weren't kidding ourselves, we knew exactly what we had done, and I knew I could never do it again as a scene.

[robertmitchum]

DIRK BOGARDE in VICTIM dir. Basil Dearden 

[closetofheroes]

The puff of smoke slightly obscuring his face the moment the word 'homosexual' is first uttered - the first time in cinema - is pure art.

[robertmitchum]

Alright, you want to know. I shall tell you. You won’t be content until you know, will you? Till you ripped it out of me? I stopped seeing him because I wanted him. Do you understand? Because I wanted him!

VICTIM dir. Basil Dearden 

[robertmitchum]

VICTIM dir. Basil Dearden

[closetofheroes]

The way he looks so sad after explaining why Barrett is crying in the photograph then immediately tries to hide it... welp

[ludojudoposts]

Victim (1961) Dir: Basil Dearden

Starring-Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Donald Churchill, Peter McEnery, Dennis Price, Peter Copley, Anthony Nicholls, Derren Nesbitt, Norman Bird

Photo Set 3 of 3 (Photos 21-30)

[closetofheroes]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has noticed his military figurine collection. When stressed he goes to the mantlepiece and caresses the leg of the youngest and prettiest one. It's all there

[glendajackson]

Dirk Bogarde, on Victim (1961)

[hayaomiyazaki]

“Bogarde himself wrote the scene in which Farr admits to his wife that he is gay and has continued to be attracted to other men despite his earlier assurances to the contrary. He wrote years later in his autobiography that his father had suggested he do The Mayor of Casterbridge, ‘But I did Victim instead, […] playing the barrister with the loving wife, a loyal housekeeper, devoted secretary and the Secret Passion. It was the wisest decision I ever made in my cinematic life. It is extraordinary, in this over-permissive age [c. 1988], to believe that this modest film could ever have been considered courageous, daring or dangerous to make. It was, in its time, all three.’”

Dirk Bogarde as Melville Farr in VICTIM (1961) dir. Basil Dearden

[shesnake]

Victim (1961) dir. Basil Dearden

[closetofheroes]

If it was love, why should I want to stamp it out? It's like he's just honestly asking. Why? It breaks me every time.

[certainwoman]

Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

[oldschoolteenflicks]

Victim (1961) dir. by Basil Dearden

I don’t know. Yes, I think, perhaps… perhaps it was love. The only kind of love he could feel. 

[simplexaesar]

basically all I’m saying is that even though jeeves started to micromanage bertie’s life because he finds him “mentally negligible,” it takes him not very long at all to realize that bertie isn’t helpless and stupid, but that he relinquished control so easily because he hasn’t ever known anything besides friends who take advantage of his kindness and relatives who diminish his worth, and then along came this superhuman valet who actually took him somewhat seriously and genuinely put forth effort to help, and bertie was immediately like “this is a friendship.” and anyway like. once they figure one another out and push as many boundaries beyond typical servant/master behavior as they dare, they settle into this very calm rhythm of taking care of each other and being understood and listened to. in short there is a tie that binds and heaven bless it that it may continue to bind indefinitely fate’s happenstance may oft win more than toil as the fellow said