SYNOPSICS
A Different Story (1978) is a English movie. Paul Aaron has directed this movie. Perry King,Meg Foster,Valerie Curtin,Peter Donat are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1978. A Different Story (1978) is considered one of the best Drama,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Episodic look at an unlikely couple trying to make it in L.A. during the late 1970s. He's Albert, an illegal alien from Belgium, serving as chauffeur and lover to a string of powerful men. She's Stella, a real estate agent with several women lovers. When he's out of a job, she temporarily takes him in. He becomes her cook and housekeeper, time passes, and they marry so he won't be deported. Later, after a boozy birthday celebration with him, she finds herself pregnant. They try to be a family, love grows, and she puts her career on hold as his career, as a fashion designer, takes off. Can this gay couple stay true to each other, and what happens when their hormones call?
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A Different Story (1978) Reviews
Appalling Nonsense
Since this film was made in the 70's when people understood very little about homosexuality, I suppose someone was bound to come up with this absurd scenario. A gay man winds up playing house with a lesbian, then they get married to prevent his being deported. After discovering each other sexually after a drunken birthday party, they are magically turned into full-fledged heterosexuals, becoming parents in the process. Once the guy begins working for a gay designer, we're setup to think he's going to go back to his old ways. (Spoiler Alert!) Well, he's having an affair all right, but with a female model. But all is well in the end. This film is written and acted with complete sincerity, making the whole thing look truly clueless by today's standards. Gay life is represented by our hero's largely sexual attachments to wealthy men and trips to a bathhouse, while the heroine has a relationship with a pathologically insecure closeted lesbian who threatens suicide. In other words, the film makes being gay look like a truly depressing dead end existence - one that you can choose to give up when the right person of the opposite sex shows up. I suppose the bogus "ex-gay" movement could use this film as a recruiting device, except that it's pretty dull.
A "different" story indeed!
In order to stop her homosexual friend Albert (Perry King) from being deported back to Belgium, Stella (Meg Foster) decides to marry him. The only other problem with that is that Stella herself is a lesbian. The two have their separate lives when one night after Albert's birthday party, they fall into bed and then into love. Later in the film after falling in love, Stella suspects Albert of cheating and shows up at his job one night late after closing. What she finds will leave the viewer stunned. This is a great film, very original. Perry King and Meg Foster are so good in their roles that it is amazing that they were not better recognized for their work here. Very controversial upon its release in 1978, the "R" rated film is now "PG" in this much more liberal time. Recently released on DVD, the disc contains a "Making Of" segment on the special features and in it it's stated that the film was based on an actual story so the viewers who say the film is not "real" are mistaken. Everyone is an individual and different people fall in love for different reasons-these are the issues explored in this wonderful film for everyone who has ever loved!
Oh no, it can't happen here!
This film was seen by my wife and I when it came out in 1978. It was a revelation to us. We actually thought that we were the only gay and lesbian couple who had ever married and had children. Obviously we were wrong. Love may come from where you don't expect it and maybe don't want it. But we both chose that love anyway. And no, it never changed our sexual orientation. That kind of stuff is for the Christian wackos. When we were young we both had affairs, but never with the opposite sex. As we aged we stopped having extramarital affairs. This story is not far fetched. However, the suggestion that they became heterosexuals seems pretty unrealistic to me. My wife and I have been sleeping together for the last 40 years. We are still gay. End of story.
A truly lovely experience- DO pick this up if you can!
This is a film for entertainment; I did not think the world made social commentary from one small film. I personally find this film funny, audacious, and memorable. It is a fantasy not unlike a cinder girl becoming a Princess. This film was done very well I might add, in the 70's a time of the best experiments in film with being able to mention a person's sexuality. This movie is not about a person being homosexual or not, it is however about love, in all it's strange forms. This film does show some of the realities of being gay in the 70's in Hollywood, or in California. Pretty boys being looked after by older not so pretty men. Women who had to stay deeply locked in the emotional closet or risk not having a career. Bathhouses were an integral part of the gay community. THEN the fantasy begins!! Let us mix a lesbian with a gay and add some liquor and what do we have? Well this movie, which in ANY way was better than that dismal redo "The Next Big Thing". Perhaps someone should have asked the entire crew to see this movie and then try to do better. I enjoyed this movie when I saw it in the 70's and it still brings a smile to my lips now. I heartily advise anyone who wants a funny, tender movie- to curl up with some popcorn and have some fun. Some people need to lighten up!!! And this is the film you should do it with!
Love can be found anywhere
This movie is as unique as it is overlooked......A Different Story is just that, it shows how out of the need to survive or maintain, one can find the capacity to love if you have an open heart as well as an open mind. I first saw this on cable in the late 70's and it truly depicted the limitations of the gay community at the time. I believe this movie was ahead of its time in depicting a little slice of an obscure way of life. It is truly a classic in the sense that it was a precursor to what is now depicted as the extended family. This film should be available on DVD/VHS so that not only the extra ordinary performances of Meg Foster & Perry King can be acknowledged, but to show how far we have come & still have to go where relationships are concerned.