Before Stonewall

Films like Word Is Out and The Times of Harvey Milk have done valuable lesbian and gay archaeology, but none so well as this documentary. Mixing up-to-the-minute footage with older material mined from Hollywood newsreel and home movie, it achieves a near-perfect balance between historical and political perspectives, and sometimes unconsciously hilarious archive footage. Its politics are sensible, the life stories touching, warm and funny, and the archive stuff camper than Butlin's empire.