The Subversive, Queer and Iconic Covers to Films & Filming Magazine 1970-81

Films and Filming was published in the UK between October 1953 to March 1990. It was a special interest magazine for film-lovers who thought “Picturegoer unsatisfying and Sight and Sound unintelligible.”

Founded by publisher Philip Dosse Films and Filming was a stablemate to his other mags like Books and Bookmen, Dance and Dancers, Plays and Players, Art and Artists, and alike. Films and Filming was for a time the best and most subversive film magazine around. More so as Dosse had an agenda in promoting difficult and controversial subject matter, in particular, homosexuality which was until 1967 a criminal offence in Britain punishable by imprisonment or chemical castration.

h/t: flashbak

Films and Filming or rather F&F’s first editor was Peter Brinson, a smart young man who made no attempt to disguise his sexuality. He successfully edited the magazine to woo the gay market by including pictures of beefcake actors and personal ads for young gay men to hook-up.

Under the editorship of the magazine’s second editor, Peter Baker, F&F moved from just a coded gay film zine to a thoughtful, glossy and well-written magazine which quickly became a must-read of every serious cinephile.

This continued under the Robin Bean who became the magazine’s third and most successful editor. Bean allowed free rein over the written content while he focussed more on the photographs which hooked the buyer.

The seventies was a Golden Age for movies which was well-reflected by magazines like Films and Filming. As the eighties arrived, the quality of films changed. Art and ideas were replaced by action heroes, explosions, frat boy comedies, and CGI…