Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Currently streaming on Netflix is the documentary Tab Hunter Confidential, a 2015 film about 1960s matinee idol Tab Hunter, who was the picture of clean-cut American hunkiness all the while he was deeply in the closet. Hunter — okay, let’s just put it out there: he looks really good for his age. Which is EIGHTY FOUR.
The man could pass for late 60s, easily.
Anyway, Hunter is candid and incredibly lucid about his life as a movie star. He talks about the films, the studio system, how the director of Damn Yankees tried to get him dropped from the picture. The film deals with the various beards who pretended to date him over the years, including Natalie Wood and the delightful Debbie Reynolds, and also his relationship with the similarly closeted Anthony Perkins. Hunter comes across clear-eyed and while a bit regretful about a career spent hiding such a big part of himself, he’s remarkably un-morose about the whole thing. It’s a fantastic window into an era in Hollywood when star personas were even more carefully manufactured than they are now.
But hands down the best part of Tab Hunter Confidential is the part that covers his late-career comeback and association with avant garde filmmakers like John Waters and Divine. Hunter proved to be surprisingly game for Waters’ high-trash sensibility, and he signed on to appear as love interest to Divine in the 1981 film Polyester. This led to a rather campy revival for Hunter’s career, a swing which included 1982’s Grease 2. But by far the most delightfully outrageous of these films was another film where he starred opposite Divine: Lust in the Dust, a campy, kitschy comedy western starring Hunter as taciturn gunman Abel Wood and Divine as saloon singer Rosie Velez. Tab Hunter Confidential director Jeff Schwarz also directed the documentary I Am Divine about the larger-than-life drag performer, and it’s no surprise that Lust in the Dust factors into both films.
Divine’s entrance, falling off of the back of a mule in the middle of the desert, tells you everything you need to know about Lust in the Dust.
It probably says a lot about Hunter’s underrated skills as an actor that he was able to so intelligently adapt his style to these highly stylized camp classics. Of course, as good as Hunter is, he’s at best the third most interesting presence in the movie. Obviously, Divine is taking all the attention she can get. But don’t sleep on Lainie Kazan (yes, the mom from My Big Fat Greek Wedding), who ALSO gets an entrance worthy of hall-of-fame induction as saloon owner Marguerita Ventura:
And that’s before she performs a saloon ballad called “South of My Border.”
It’s rare that a documentary is as rewarding as Tab Hunter Confidential, but between all the Old Hollywood gossip AND the inspiration to finally rent Lust in the Dust on Amazon Video, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
