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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
William Friedkin's polarizing 1980 cop thriller Cruising has
long since gone down in history as a rare moment where mainstream Hollywood
took audiences to a very extreme place, one that managed to upset both the
conservative right as well as the gay, lesbian and transgender community for
its portrayal of the leather bar scene. In an effort to try and
understand the co-existence of both of these otherwise uncategorizable films
and their place in mainstream Hollywood history, let us take a gander at just
what it was behind Friedkin's film that led to not only Arrow Video’s previous
2019 4K restored director approved blu-ray but also this newer 2025 4K UHD
release which differs from the 2019 release but should nevertheless be another
integral piece to the puzzle that is Friedkin’s neo-noir epic.
For anyone who didn't know, William Friedkin's spiritual
sequel to The Exorcist is an undercover cop story about a
straight new recruit (played by Al Pacino) who is assigned to infiltrate the
gay S&M underworld in search of a serial killer preying on gay men.
As he immerses himself in the heavy leather culture of whips, chains and Crisco
oil, the film shifts gears and becomes less about solving the murders than the
cumulative impact it begins to have on Pacino. Soon he grows distant from
his thankless girlfriend (Karen Allen) who herself begins to wonder what's happening
to her boyfriend, as he pops in occasionally decked out in a leather jacket
with chains and handkerchiefs. Are the murders ever really solved?
Is Pacino himself a closet homosexual, and perhaps a serial killer?
These are among the many questions Friedkin poses as we are
dropped in the middle of a fully functioning phenomenon. Opening with a
somber, light Jazz cue from Jack Nitzsche with subtle scratching and rattling
sounds, Cruising begins much like The Exorcist with
a near-silent, eerie note of dread, suggesting something both enormous and
adversarial. Now something of a time capsule capturing the waning days of
a bygone era of sexual revolution, Cruising turned Friedkin's
cameras directly onto the leather bar scene with many real patrons going about
their business with no direction from Friedkin.
It's worth noting nearly all of the sexual content onscreen
is unsimulated (though carefully edited around Pacino strolling through the
bar), which only serves to underline Pacino's innocence sticking out like a
sore thumb. Shot in deep blues, largely at night, the cavernous bars take
on a gothic quality, as if we're being pulled deep into the various circles of
hell. Sound design, consisting of grungy 80s punk rock, clanging chains
and thick leather boots stomping the sticky, sweat and semen drenched floors,
all work unilaterally to create an atmosphere full of unfocused dread and
unease. Death could come from any corner of these rooms, and we fear for
Pacino as he becomes ensconced in the pit of writing half-naked bodies.
Cruising was an
enormously controversial effort before and after it was released. When
word spread about a murder story taking place within the gay sex community
broke out, thousands of gay rights activists stormed the locations with sirens,
megaphones, and whistles to drown out the microphones and ruin any usable
sound. Further still, some protesters stood on rooftops with mirrors to
offset lighting in carefully lit shots. The utterly fearless and
undaunted Friedkin proceeded with production on Cruising until
its release was picketed by protests, with some theater owners flatly refusing
to accept the film for exhibition despite being passed with an R rating.
Reportedly over 40 minutes of gay porn shot in the leather
bars were excised from the film to avoid an X rating and remains unseen to this
day (don’t bother with James Franco’s pretentious art-fart Interior. Leather
Bar reviewed here). It's worth noting for an R rated picture, Cruising contains
subliminal flash edits of real unsimulated gay porn, which appear in the blink
of an eye during the murder scenes. Incidentally, years later those same
protesters would openly embrace Cruising for what it is, a
non-judgmental look at a brief moment in gay culture where sex and death seemed
inextricably linked and how easy it is to lose one's sense of self when coming
into contact with the scene. By the end of Cruising, do we
know who Pacino's undercover cop really is? Does he?
Cruising underwent
such an intense journey from the editing room to the silver screen including
but not limited to an opening subtitled prologue trying to explain away the
film’s content that it comes as no surprise that several versions of it now
exist on home video. In 2007, Friedkin
oversaw a digital restoration followed by a theatrical re-release of a slightly
re-edited cut of the film with artificial color correction and new 5.1
audio. That version proved to be so
different from the original theatrical release such as contrast boosting during
ether huffing in the clubs or slight color inversion to murder scenes that it’s
almost like Friedkin’s The Version You’ve Never Seen of The Exorcist.
Circa 2019 with Arrow Video’s first fully Friedkin
supervised 4K scan, the film finally hit high-definition formats though with a
slightly different title sequence than what was on the 2007 DVD with its side-scrolling
Planes, Trains & Automobiles title card. Now with 2025, Arrow Video have done yet
another new scan that is different from both the 2007 and 2019 transfers
including some slightly different editing with fade-outs as opposed to hard
cuts. Thankfully this version includes
the original mono track in addition to the 2007 remixes. On the 2007 disc were two archival
featurettes dubbed The History of Cruising and Exorcising Cruising which
were ported over to the 2019 release.
While there will invariably be controversy over which version of the
film looks the truest on home video, there’s no denying Arrow Video have gone
above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to extras for this 2025
release.
In addition to archival audio commentaries with William
Friedkin and another one co-moderated by Mark Kermode, the new Arrow includes a
newly recorded audio commentary with musicians involved with the soundtrack
album. There’s an alternative score by
Pentagram Home Video included, never before seen deleted scenes, on-set audio
of the protestors, censored reels and advertising materials including trailers
and TV spots. Going even further, the
extras spill over onto a second blu-ray disc including new interviews with
Karen Allen, former police detective Randy Jurgensen, editor Bud Smith, actors
Mike Starr and Mark Zecca, an archival interview with Wally Wallace who managed
the former Mineshaft club, a visual essay on hanky codes by David McGillvray
and a short film by Jim Hubbard featuring footage of the on-set protests. If that’s not enough, Arrow have supplied a mammoth
120-page hardbound collector’s book housed in the box.
While my personal preference to date still lies with the Arrow
Blu-ray transfer overseen by Friedkin, this new UHD won’t disappoint and comes
with so many extras that it almost constitutes a second full length feature
film inclusion. I’m not sure this is the
definitive home video transfer of the film but I will say there’s so much here
fans should absolutely acquire this anyway.
Friedkin’s film has lost none of its power to shock and enthrall as it wades
through a nebulous psychosexual Hellscape through the prism of a police
detective crime scene investigation thriller.
I myself still have my 2007 DVD on hand along with the 2019 Arrow
release, all of which shed a somewhat different light on one of the late
maestro’s most polarizing, divisive and immersive film experiences.
--Andrew Kotwicki
