Does anyone remember the name of the medic who escapes over the wall with Papillon and Dega - is it Maturette? In any case, he may mark the first time Hollywood created a gay character - at least in a big-budget film - who is sympathetic, not stereotypical or ridiculous or treacherous, and is given his fair share of personal dignity. First, Papillon wants to prostitute him to distract a guard so that he can escape: He lets Papillon know in no uncertain terms that he's "not a whore" and that "Between the two of us, I'm the one who's killed a man." Later, he shows bravery, solidarity, and resourcefulness equal to the two leads'.
It's a fairly large role, the actor makes a strong impression, yet (almost as important) the filmmakers don't showcase him in a self-congratulatory way ("Look how progressive we are!"). He's not offset by any more "typical" gay characters to lessen his impact, nor, thankfully, by one of those ritual gang-rape-of-the-male-lead scenes that seem to be obligatory in prison pictures (e.g., "The Shawshank Redemption"). This is all especially remarkable in that Hollywood movies at the time were still rife with abysmal gay stereotypes (see "Play Misty for Me," "The Eiger Sanction," "The Producers," any number of others in all kinds of genres.) I'd love to know if this was a conscious decision by Schaffner or the screenwriters (Trumbo and Semple both had good progressive credentials, after all).
By the way, if you're going to see this film, see it letterboxed - it loses much of its visual impact in a standard TV pan-and-scan format.
