★★★★★
US: 82 min • JJay Prods. in association with Sundance Channel • 2010

Christopher Brocklebank is enamoured with the documentary Candy Darling and its depiction of the Warhol era.

With cruel irony, Candy Darling’s trajectory was fit for a star of Hollywood’s Golden Era, which Candy worshipped but was born too late for.

★★★★★
275 pages • Anthony Blond • 1961 [PB]

A gay love story about young working-class men, for a change (or at least it was back in the ’60s.)

The Leather Boys is a 1961 London pulp novel by Gillian Freeman, and later made into a New Wave Brit flick in 1963 by the aptly named Sidney Furie. It is about two late-teen, working-class, south London ton-up biker boys who find themselves surprised, unnerved & ultimately confused to discover they’re in love with each other.

Lovely Her: A Portrait of Jacqueline Susann

Christopher Brocklebank looks back on the life of Jacqueline Susann, the author of Valley of the Dolls who would have turned 90 this year.

Valley of the Dolls spent so long on the bestseller lists that it was eventually credited by the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling novel of all time. Hollywood quickly picked up the option, and produced a ludicrously high-camp adaptation in 1967.