To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

To Wong Foo (1995) put three Hollywood leading men on screen as drag queens, which at the time was considered a serious risk. Vida and Noxeema win a competition in New York and set out to drive to Hollywood. They take Chi-Chi, who has not yet earned the title, along with them. The car breaks down in a small country town and the three are stuck there. What follows is built on the townspeople changing. That template looks too clean now: nobody is ever really in danger and the town is won over inside a week. The homophobia is present but easily resolved. What the film actually did was visibility. In 1995, a mainstream American comedy in which the drag queens are neither pitiable nor the joke, but the smartest and steadiest people in it, was not a small thing. Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes were action stars at the time and both took the parts knowing the career risk. John Leguizamo was nominated for a Golden Globe as Chi-Chi. The Julie Newmar of the title is a real actress and she appears at the end of the film. Priscilla had come out of Australia the year before, and the two are always mentioned together. It runs 108 minutes. Good for: nineties comedy, LGBT stories, and road movies. Less good for: the humour has dated, the resolutions come too easily, and some jokes do not hold up.