Sleeping with Strangers: How the Movies Shaped Desire

Movies introduced the masses to the "voyeur delight" of exploring sexuality on screen from a safe distance, which allowed for many shades of sensuality and gender to find cinematic representation. Film historian Thomson (Moments That Made the Movies) specifically examines "feminine significance and power, macho confidence, and gay wit" in this context—a wide scope that includes recent films such as Call Me by Your Name and Phantom Thread but largely remains rooted in Thomson's ken of classic cinema. He ruminates on the sexual meanings of performers (Rock Hudson, Marlene Dietrich), directors (Alfred Hitchcock, George Cukor), and genres (male buddy Westerns) and whether all movies had a "gay air" that was suspicious of "America's approved romantic formulae." With a tone of academic remove, the book never gets salacious (though given its adult language and subject matter, it would earn a Hard R rating as a movie) or all that alluring, either.