The Golden Gate Murders (1979)

A weak murder mystery pairing David Janssen as a hard-bitten San Francisco detective, and Susannah York as a fresh and sharp young nun, assisting him. The film is unremarkable except for the amazingly unbelievable mockups of the bridge in the title ...

... and the fact that Richard O'Brien (of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) plays "Bridge Foreman", according to the Internet Movie Database. However I was unable to see him in the film, and he was not named in the titles at the end of the film version I was watching.

As part of the search for clues, Janssen and York (in street clothes) have to go to what seems to be an upmarket night club. There is a good-looking singer with a good voice; she is introduced by the MC as Laverne Smith.

After singing a number, she asks the audience, directing the question at York, "Do you want an encore?"

"Oh yes ... yes, please do." says York enthusiastically.

The singer whips her wig off, and ... gasp ... it's a man. He says, "I'd love to, Honey, but the tightwad don't pay me enough. Hang around, Honey ... I get off at three."

The female impersonator was Lavern Cummings. Lavern had a long and very successful career as a stage female impersonator. In this film, he was purposely made up to look less feminine after the sudden conversion to drag artiste (the third picture here) so as to heighten the shock effect, on York's naive character and on the 1979 audience. This included giving him a "bald wig" as at the time of the film, his own natural hair cut in a shag style would not have made enough contrast to provide the shock effect the film-makers sought. Cummings didn't include this wig removal in his normal act (although some others did); it was included in the film at the behest of the director.

At that time there was still an expectation among the cinema going public that right would prevail; gangsters had to end up in jail, or better still die by their own hand. Female impersonators appearing on a legitimate television show or in a film role always had to be portrayed in a funny way, or be killed or at least be portrayed as some kind of a crazy character. This was the kind of homophobic attitude of the people in charge of such material.

HF May 2005

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