Cruising – 1980 Now a gay Classic starring Al Pacino
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Cruising is a 1980 American crime thriller film written and directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, and Karen Allen. It is loosely based on the novel of the same name by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker about a serial killer targeting gay men, particularly those men associated with the leather scene in the late 1970s. The title is a double entendre, because “cruising” can describe both police officers on patrol and men who are cruising for sex.
Poorly received by critics upon release, Cruising performed moderately at the box office. The shooting and promotion were dogged by gay rights protesters, who believed that the film stigmatized them. The film is also notable for its open-ended finale, which was criticized by Robin Wood and Bill Krohn as further complicating what they felt were the director’s incoherent changes to the rough cut and synopsis, as well as other production issues.
Plot
In New York City amidst a hot summer, body parts of men are showing up in the Hudson River. The police suspect it to be the work of a serial killer who is picking up gay men at West Village bars such as the Eagle’s Nest, the Ramrod, and the Cock Pit, then taking them to cheap rooming houses or motels, tying them up and stabbing them to death.
Captain Edelson asks Officer Steve Burns, who is slim and dark-haired like the victims, to go deep undercover by into the world of gay S&M and leather bars in the Meatpacking District in order to track down the killer. Burns accepts the assignment, seeing the high-profile case as a way to rapidly advance his career. He rents an apartment in the area and befriends a neighbor, Ted Bailey, a struggling young gay playwright. Burns’s undercover work takes a toll on his relationship with his girlfriend Nancy, due to his inability to tell her the details of his current assignment and his developing friendship with Ted, who himself is having relationship problems with his jealous and overbearing dancer boyfriend, Gregory.
Burns mistakenly compels the police to interrogate a waiter, Skip Lee, who is intimidated and beaten to coerce a confession before the police discover Skip’s fingerprints do not match the killer’s. Burns is disturbed by the brutality, and tells Captain Edelson he didn’t agree to the assignment so people could be beaten simply for being gay. Exhausted by the undercover work, Burns is close to quitting, but Edelson convinces him to continue with the investigation. Edelson in turn reprimands the officers who interrogated Skip.
Following a new lead, Burns investigates students at Columbia University who studied with one of the previous victims, a college professor. Burns thinks that he has found the serial killer: Stuart Richards, a gay music graduate student who has schizophrenia. He breaks into his apartment and discovers a box of letters to his father. Burns later meets Richards in Morningside Park and cruises him for sex. After Burns asks him to pull his pants down, Richards tries to stab him, but Burns stabs him in the side, incapacitating him. Burns takes Richards into custody, where his fingerprints are a match for those discovered at one of the stabbings.
Shortly afterward, Ted’s mutilated body is found. The police dismiss the murder as a lover’s quarrel turned violent and put out an arrest warrant for Gregory, with whom Burns had an earlier confrontation due to Gregory’s jealousy.
Burns, now promoted to detective, moves back in with Nancy. As Burns shaves his beard in the bathroom, Nancy tries on his leather jacket, cap, and aviator sunglasses—exactly what the killer wore. Burns stares at himself in the mirror and then briefly looks at the camera.
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