Plot
The film is set in an Upper East Side apartment in New York City in the late 1960s. Michael (Kenneth Nelson), a Roman Catholic and recovering alcoholic, is preparing to host a birthday party for his friend Harold. Another of his friends, Donald (Frederick Combs), a self-described underachiever who has moved from the city, arrives and helps Michael prepare. Alan (Peter White), Michael's (presumably straight) old college roommate from Georgetown, calls with an urgent need to see Michael. Michael reluctantly agrees and invites him to his home.
One by one, the guests arrive. Emory (Cliff Gorman) is a stereotypical flamboyant interior decorator; Hank (Laurence Luckinbill), a soon-to-be-divorced schoolteacher, and Larry (Keith Prentice), a fashion photographer, are a couple, albeit one with monogamy issues; and Bernard (Reuben Greene) is an amiable black bookstore clerk. Alan calls again to inform Michael he isn't coming after all, and the party continues in a festive manner. However, Alan does appear unexpectedly and throws the gathering into turmoil.
"Cowboy" (Robert La Tourneaux) – a male hustler and Emory's "gift" to Harold – arrives. As tensions mount, Alan assaults Emory and in the ensuing chaos Harold finally makes his grand appearance. Michael begins drinking again. As the guests become more and more intoxicated, the party moves indoors from the patio due to a sudden downpour. Michael, who believes Alan is a closeted homosexual, begins a game in which the objective is for each guest to call the one person whom he truly believes he has loved. With each call, past scars and present anxieties are revealed. Michael's plan to "out" Alan with the game appears to backfire when Alan calls his wife, not the male college friend Justin Stewart whom Michael had presumed to be Alan's lover. As the party ends and the guests depart, Michael collapses into Donald's arms, sobbing. When he pulls himself together, it appears his life will remain very much the same.
Read more about this topic: The Boys In The Band
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)