The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)

Abstract

Smith examines the 1960 film The Trials of Oscar Wilde in the context of changing British attitudes towards male homosexuality. The film was made three years after the Wolfenden Report (1957) recommended the decriminalisation of sexual activity between consenting adult males, but seven years before legislation was passed to this effect in 1967. The film’s sympathetic portrayal of Wilde during the events leading up to his trial and imprisonment for ‘gross indecency’ in 1895 made a powerful contribution to the controversy that was raging when it was released. It reflects the concerns of the late 1950s and also the state of knowledge about Wilde at that time, based especially on H. Montgomery Hyde’s The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1948), whose title the film adopted.