Straight-Jacket

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Straight-Jacket
Directed by	Richard Day
Produced by	Andrew Trosmans Michael Warwick
Written by	Richard Day
Starring	Matt Letscher Carrie Preston Adam Greer Veronica Cartwright Victor Raider-Wexler Jack Plotnick Michael Emerson Clinton Leupp (aka Miss Coco Peru)
Music by	Stephen Edwards
Cinematography	Michael Pinkey
Editing by	Chris Conlee
Distributed by	Regent Releasing here! films TLA Releasing
Release date(s)	2004
Running time	96 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

Straight-Jacket is a 2004 film written and directed by Richard Day, based on his play. Done as a pastiche of the Rock Hudson-Doris Day romantic comedy films, Straight-Jacket tells the story of Guy Stone, a closeted gay actor in the 1950s who is modeled on Hudson.

Tagline: Fame... Money... Girls... What's his secret?

[edit] Plot summary

Guy Stone is blissfully closeted, picking up tricks for one-night-stands, while capturing the country's heart as "America's most eligible bachelor" (while starring in such films as 'The Love Barrel' and 'I Married the Ghost'). However, Guy's carefully managed façade collapses when he comes up for the lead in S.R.O. studio's version of Ben-Hur. Things turn sour for the film idol when a fellow actor, Freddie Stevens (famous in the film for portraying "Captain Astro" in a succession of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon-type serial films), decides to steal the lead in Ben-Hur away from Guy by taking a picture of Guy exiting a gay bar. Freddie plans to out Guy to the world and ruin his career. Jerry, Guy's repressed lesbian ball-bustingly ambitious agent, connives to cover up the impending outing and ensure Guy the role in Ben-Hur by marrying her client off with great fanfare to the studio head's secretary, Sally, who just happens to be also be a slavishly devoted Guy Stone fan. There's one hitch in all this though... Sally isn't aware the marriage is a sham.

In order to avoid his adoring new bride as much as possible, Guy has Jerry sign him onto the next available film, which turns out to be 'Blood Mine' - a disastrously arch pro-union film about the corrupt goings on at a coal mine (with lines like 'how can they call this a MINE when everything is THEIRS!?!'). The studio head, in fear of the red-baiting going on in Hollywood at the time, decides - true to Hollywood form - rather than stopping production on the film to instead continue making it by watering down the pro-union content in this singularly pro-union narrative wherever possible. The young, idealistic, and terribly handsome writer of the novel that the film is based on, Rick Foster, quickly gets roped into convoluting the plot of this already-bad adaptation of his heartfelt book largely because of a chance meeting between himself the the film's star, Guy. The attraction the two men feel for one another is instantaneous and propels the rest of the plot forward.