None of these films can answer why Wilde chose prison over exile. Everett plays a selfish Wilde who pits Colin Morgan’s Bosie and Edwin Thomas’s Robbie against each other. Rupert Everett’s The Happy Prince (2018) focuses on Wilde’s dismal life after prison. Here he’s such a sweetheart that it’s never clear why Wilde snubs his affection. Ross had appeared in the 1960 films but his relationship with Wilde was never spelled out. Michael Sheen played Wilde’s first lover Robbie Ross. Jude Law played the sexiest, and cruelest, of Bosies. OSCAR: “You know, that’s the first time you’ve ever asked me that question.” Oscar Wilde (1960)īrian Gilbert’s Wilde (1997) was given much more freedom. Now Bosie, you must go and catch your train.”īOSIE: “Oscar, I shall need some money… are you sure you can afford it?” They engage in some romcom hijinks when Wilde poses as a police inspector to rescue Bosie from a blackmailer. Bosie meets Wilde at the theater and gushes over him like a starstruck Eve Harrington. But Robert Morley’s Wilde and John Neville’s Bosie are given more leeway to explore their relationship. The actors give stiff performances and the script crams too many Wilde quotes into casual conversation. Gregory Ratoff’s Oscar Wilde (1960) was clumsily adapted from a stage play. When they briefly separate Wilde says “Sometimes, when I see the sunlight on an evening sky, or wander by the river and watch the dark waters, I seem to see him flitting by me in the darkness. The actors play a stronger bond but the script rarely lets them discuss it. The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) suggests that Bosie liked the money and Wilde liked the beauty. The four major Wilde films struggle to explain the relationship. They even reunited, briefly, when Wilde was released from prison. Yet his relationship with Wilde lasted for four years. Rupert Everett, actor, writer and director of The Happy Princeīosie was, by most accounts, an abusive prat. And he was a volatile, quite hysterical, and extremely spoiled boy. But he was a 22-year-old boy caught up in a huge scandal. I’m not against Lord Alfred… I think he definitely loved Wilde.
WILDE: And then I turned my back on Bosie and got on a train to France.īOSIE: Are we going to mention the part where we tried to get back together? But I’ll pay your expenses… as long as you stay away from Bosie. Act Three: PrisonīOSIE and ROBBIE: Leave the country with us!ĬONSTANCE: I’m taking the kids. JUDGE: Oscar Wilde, I sentence you to two years in prison with hard labor. RENT BOYS: We’d tell you what Oscar did to us. (Fast forward through two more trials, using censored transcripts from the actual testimony.) PROSECUTOR CARSON (James Mason): Your writing is homoerotic.ĬARSON: Did you kiss 16-year-old Walter Granger?ĪUDIENCE: GASP! That means Wilde kisses pretty boys! QUEENSBERRY: Oscar Wilde is posing as a sodomite! MARQUESS OF QUEENSBERRY (retired boxer): Wilde, stop corrupting my son or you’ll be sorry!īOSIE: Go away daddy! I hate hate hate you!ĬONSTANCE and ROBBIE (Wilde’s wife and ex-boyfriend): Oscar, you really should dump him.īOSIE: Dump me? I’m not going to be ignooored Oscar! ( Threatens him with a knife.) OSCAR WILDE (Celebrated writer): Yes, I am.īOSIE (Disaster twink): Darling, lend me some money. (Oscar Wilde gives an opening night curtain speech that will be quoted in each major Wilde film.) Let’s take a quick overview in this spoiler filled recap. But gay actor John Fraser plays him honestly and provides a needed jolt of queer desire. His lover, Bosie, is written as a Fatal Attraction style villain. There’s none of the charm, vanity or showmanship that led to his celebrity.
But Peter Finch’s Wilde suffers from the censored screenplay. I found Ken Hughes’s The Trials of Oscar Wilde to be the stronger of the two films. And that his relationship with his lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, be presented ambiguously. British censors required that the salacious testimony from the witnesses be kept off screen. Both utilized transcripts from the sodomy trials.
In 1960 two competing films about Oscar Wilde were released. The UK laws forbidding sexual acts between men would not be disbanded till 1967. In May of that year, he was sentenced to prison for gross indecency. In February of 1895 his play The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London. In 1890 Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde published the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
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