MQFF REVIEW: Tab Hunter Confidential (2015, Dir. Jeffrey Schwarz)

If you would like proof of just how rabid baby boomer girls were back in the fifties check out the drooling, screaming, um, pulsating, throng that harried poor Tab Hunter through his studio-manufactured teen idol phase. Any red-blooded, clean-cut, men's-mag-sculptured all-American boy would have revelled in all that high-pitched attention, and Tab did to a point, but he also had a secret...

GAY!!!!

Cue tabloid style doco that attempts to rip the heteronormative veneer off the winding down of Hollywood's Golden Age.

There's a lot of fun to be had in Jeffrey Schwarz's gossipy film but try as he might he can't find much drama in Tab's now-too-familiar story. See, Tab Hunter, the affable lad who starred opposite Debbie Reynolds, Sophia Loren and Natalie Wood, really is that affable. He's taken all the homophobia that has impacted his acting career and his love life in his stride. If there's a reason he's never talked about it so openly in the past (something he alludes to early in the film), it is because nobody's ever bothered to give him the platform.

Schwarz's decision to go feather-light is probably advisable given the circumstances, especially in the face of the life and liberty threatening homophobia currently pressing the globalised public consciousness. Tab's roll-with-the-punches attitude deflects accusations of "first world cis-gendered white man" whining and allows for a good natured jaunt through the demise of the studio system with famous faces aplenty.

Despite the film's moniker, there are no earth shattering revelations, though the tidbits relating to Tab's relationship with his east coast counterpart, Anthony Perkins, are certainly entertaining. As is Tab's second career wind under the auspices of John Waters.

And, while Tab Hunter Confidential never gets too didactic, it's still topical, as Noah Wyle (NOAH WYLE!!! WTF!?!) reminds us - All them gays are still in the Hollywood closet! This isn't a film that's going to draw them out but I'm sure they'll be watching intently and enjoying the frisson.

★★★

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