"Billie" was released when I was 15, and I only dimly remembered it, but because I admire Patty Duke's talents, and especially because I have in adulthood come to really appreciate Jane Greer's, I watched it again recently. It was all vaguely familiar, especially the horrible musical score, which came back to me like a bad headache. But there was no way, and I mean no freaking' way, that I could remember my 1965 reaction to "Billie," the story of a teen-aged tomboy. All I remember is Patty Duke, track and field, and bad music. Is "tomboy" even used any more? In the nearly half-century since "Billie" was made, Americans have been exposed to masculine girls from Cher in "Silkwood" to Ellen Morgan (a.k.a. DeGeneres) to Patty Bouvier. UPDATE, MAY 2017: Since I wrote that sentence, those choices seem almost quaint and old- fashioned. That's how far we've come from the days of a 'love that date not speak its name.'
"Billie" could never, ever be made again in Hollywood. Any modern teen-angst movie about a tomboy would inevitably, in 2010, raise questions of homosexuality. Not that Billie is a Lesbian. Gee, gosh, and golly, no. There isn't even a suggestion of it. However-- and accuse me of profiling, if you will, because I am-- my gaydar was spinning like Brian Boitano the moment Duke sprinted onto the track field, looking for all the world like a pint-size peroxide Pete Rose.
It's a formulaic movie, of course, and therefore pretty lousy, though Greer, Duke, Billy DeWolfe and Jim Backus all perform admirably. It's also a family movie, almost ridiculously so. In the end, not only does Billie end up with a boyfriend, but her mother and her sister both end up pregnant.
Meanwhile, I couldn't help but wonder what teen-aged girls at the time-- future Lesbians such as Christine Kehoe and Janis Ian and Suze Orman -- thought when boyish Billie passionately admits "I wish I was a boy," only to have her father reply frankly, "So do I." It was a moving moment when Billie was just a tomboy to 15-year-old me; now that I view her as possibly a latent Lesbian, it was quite a powerful moment.
"Billie" could never, ever be made again in Hollywood. Any modern teen-angst movie about a tomboy would inevitably, in 2010, raise questions of homosexuality. Not that Billie is a Lesbian. Gee, gosh, and golly, no. There isn't even a suggestion of it. However-- and accuse me of profiling, if you will, because I am-- my gaydar was spinning like Brian Boitano the moment Duke sprinted onto the track field, looking for all the world like a pint-size peroxide Pete Rose.
It's a formulaic movie, of course, and therefore pretty lousy, though Greer, Duke, Billy DeWolfe and Jim Backus all perform admirably. It's also a family movie, almost ridiculously so. In the end, not only does Billie end up with a boyfriend, but her mother and her sister both end up pregnant.
Meanwhile, I couldn't help but wonder what teen-aged girls at the time-- future Lesbians such as Christine Kehoe and Janis Ian and Suze Orman -- thought when boyish Billie passionately admits "I wish I was a boy," only to have her father reply frankly, "So do I." It was a moving moment when Billie was just a tomboy to 15-year-old me; now that I view her as possibly a latent Lesbian, it was quite a powerful moment.