Making Love (1982)

Director Arthur Hiller's bold breakthrough R-rated film with mainstream stars in a pre-AIDS era was significant. It was the first non-exploitative, gay-themed Hollywood film produced and marketed for a general audience, without vilification, to address openly and directly the bi-sexual male character.

The love story about a threesome was a courageous and honest attempt by 20th Century Fox to make a same-sex love story (or love triangle) commercially viable (as "one of the most honest and controversial films...ever released"). The trailer warned it might be "too strong" - and indeed it caused some audiences extreme upset and discomfort.

• in the film's opening, footage presented the three main characters directly facing the camera and sharing recollections during interviews
  • Zack Elliot (Michael Ontkean), a husband and LA doctor
  • Claire (Kate Jackson), Zack's loyal, ambitious and intelligent wife, a successful TV producer who was eager to have a child although the decision was often postponed
  • Bart McGuire (Harry Hamlin), a young, health-conscious homosexual writer and promiscuous, gay bar cruiser

The Three Main Characters in Opening Credits - With Matching Eye Placements
Zack Elliot (Michael Ontkean)	Claire Elliot (Kate Jackson)	Bart McGuire (Harry Hamlin)

• the opening scene was presumably filmed just after Claire and Bart had broken up with Zack; during the recollections, Claire and Bart both explained how they first became involved with Zack
• Zack, who had been married for eight years to Claire, began to express his long-repressed homosexual feelings for young homosexual Bart; Bart and Zack first met and became acquainted when Bart had a doctor's appointment in Dr. Zack Elliot's office, to examine a mysteriously-enlarged lymph gland
• in a milestone homosexual scene, Bart seduced Zack with the line: "Physician, heal thyself"; their passionate male tongue-kissing (a revolutionary scene for a major studio feature film) was shadowed by venetian blinds, followed by hugging and embracing each other in bed, and later ending up naked together

Milestone Sequence: A Kissing and Love Scene Between Zack and Bart

• inevitably, Zack's frequent absences caused Claire to begin to suspect that Zack was having an affair with another female
• in a climactic sequence in their home, Claire deliberately dropped a plate onto the floor to command Zack's attention, and then demanded that the increasingly-reclusive Zack be honest and share his obvious concerns with her: "We're gonna cut this out and we're gonna talk. You cannot do this to me. It's not fair. Now, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to hold you. I don't know whether I should even try to hold you. God, Zack! We've always gotten each other through, because we've never been afraid to share. You've closed yourself off and I feel helpless. I don't know what to do. You can't tell me. Are you sick? Are you in trouble? Look, whatever it is, I can handle it. I can handle it, no matter what it is. But I cannot handle the silence"
• Zack walked off from Claire without responding, but then the next day decided to come clean with her, when he admitted his repressed homosexual urges (that were surfacing): ("I find that I'm attracted to men"), and his infidelities with another man: ("I have stopped denying it. I've been with someone"); she was blindsided and disbelieving, thought he had betrayed and used her, and called him a fraud in addition to slapping him twice: ("What are you telling me? That our whole marriage has been a lie?"); she compared his breakup news to an incident of childhood abandonment by her father: "It's a helluva way to say goodbye"
• meanwhile, Bart had become exasperated with the cautious, hypocritical and fearful Zack for being dishonest, cowardly and reluctant to entirely reveal his homosexuality and identify as gay, instead of just being "curious" about the life style; Zack and Bart's forbidden liaison was ultimately short-lived after just a few days
• later in a motel room, Zack gave Claire a devastating ultimatum when he concluded that they couldn't just remain together in spite of his homosexuality: "I don't want a double life. One foot in one place, one foot in another, I don't want that"; Claire realized her marriage was really over and that she should let go, and that he had sincerely chosen to not lead a double life any longer; as the film came to a heart-wrenching close, Zack and Claire decided to separate and divorce
• Zack ended up in a more permanent monogamous relationship with a handsome gay partner named David (John Calvin) in NYC, while Claire remained in Los Angeles, remarried a man named Larry (Dennis Howard), and had a child named Rupert
• although sad about their circumstances and obviously still in love, Claire and Zack were able to reconnect during his visit to LA a few years later, and he met her new family; she had met her pledge to Zack to call her first-born Rupert after their favorite obscure poet