Vincent Minnelli’s 1956 weeper Tea and Sympathy had the difficult task of adapting the stage play of the same name about a young gay man and the trials he faced at an all-boys preparatory school while working under a production code that wouldn’t allow any overt mentioning of homosexuality. That he managed to pull it off at all is amazing. That it is actually any good, and still holds up after all these years is a minor miracle.
Buy Tea and Sympathy from MovieZyngTom Robinson Lee (John Kerr) is one of those boys who just doesn’t seem to fit in. He enjoys the theater, likes to read books, and likes to listen to classical music alone. He never takes a girl to the dance, never even seems to talk about girls. He doesn’t go on mountain hikes with the rest of the boys, or join in when they are playing sports. He does play tennis, and he’s pretty good at it, but he hits the ball strangely; he doesn’t just wail at the ball like the other boys.
The other boys at his preparatory school find him to be odd, but don’t pay that much attention to him. But then one day at the beach, while the other boys are playing football, Lee sits with some of the faculty members’ wives. He helps one of them sew some buttons onto a shirt. When the other boys catch him doing this, they begin to call him “Sister Boy” and torment him relentlessly.
His father (Edward Andrews) is embarrassed by him. He tells him to get a crew cut like the rest of the boys, and begs him to fight back during a hazing ritual. He can’t even stand to watch him play tennis. Billy Reynolds (Leif Erickson), the school’s coach and housemaster to the dormitory Lee lives in, doesn’t know what to do with the kid, but thinks he needs toughening up.
It is only Mrs. Reynolds (Deborah Kerr) who shows Lee any kindness. She seems to understand who he is. She had a husband much like Lee, who was kind and thoughtful. He died in the war trying to prove his manliness. She helps him as best she can.
Because the film can’t overtly talk about homosexuality, Lee never speaks about liking boys. He’s not gay, but overly sensitive. He isn’t manly or masculine like the other boys. The film does a great job winking at the fact that these manly men sure like to horseplay with each other while half naked in the locker room and sweaty and topless on the beach. That hazing ritual I mentioned has Lee wearing his pajamas outside while the other boys try to strip him naked.
Mrs. Reynolds tries to set him up with a young woman she knows, and promises Lee that he’ll eventually find a woman who understands him. His roommate, Al (Darryl Hickman), is kind to Lee but wishes he was more manly. At one point, he’ll try to teach him how to walk and talk like a man, but quickly realizes it’s hopeless. He suggests that Lee get a date with Ellie (Norma Craine), who is known to sleep with most of the boys on campus. One night with her will turn the tide of public opinion. Mrs. Reynolds tries to keep him from going, knowing that a sexual encounter like that will do more harm to his psyche than benefit his status. But he goes anyway. It ends badly and causes everything to come to a head.
Minnelli handles everything beautifully. Sure, there are moments that feel dated by today’s standards, and a few things that will make young folks cringe. But for the most part, it works well, and one look at Twitter/X will show you how we still desperately need this sort of story. Deborah Kerr and John Kerr both give beautiful, sensitive performances.
Watching this film brought up a lot of feelings, remembering my own teenage years. I was a shy, strange, sensitive boy who didn’t go in for a lot of manly things. More than once I was called “gay” or “queer” or words we don’t use in polite society anymore. It didn’t matter that I liked girls and desperately wanted to be with one. I was different, and that was more than enough for some mocking.
I wonder what I would have felt about this film back then. I think I would have liked it. I think I would have found kinship with Lee, and maybe wished I had a Mrs. Reynolds to offer me a little tea and sympathy. I find myself quite moved watching it this past weekend. I hope that others who need this type of thing will find it in the future.
Buy Tea and Sympathy from AmazonWarner Archive presents Tea and Sympathy with a new 4K scan of the original negatives. It looks lovely. Vincent Minnelli and cinematographer John Alton make great use of color throughout, and they just pop in this new print. Extras include the film’s trailer and the animated short “Down Beat Bear.”
