DANCING AROUND THE GAY ISSUE

By RICHARD CORLISS

Truly manly men do not dance. Howard Brackett knows this is so; he just heard it from a stern voice on a self-help tape. Yet Howard, a respectable English teacher in idyllic Greenleaf, Ind., can't stop the music in his feet. On the disco dance floor of his living room, Howard is the star, with supercool terping that recalls Travolta, Tommy Tune and a little Ann Miller. A dance solo like this is the stuff star careers are made of. Kevin Kline may never reach Cruisean heights, but this old boy can still bust a move. In In & Out he's a sweet gent with a Broadway gypsy in his soul.

Inside Howard is also an imp, one that can explode without warning, like the alien in John Hurt's belly. Howard's hand suddenly goes all frilly and limp; he refers to a crossroads as an "intersexual...homosection...intersection." Are these the symptoms of some rare disease--gay Tourette's--or merely the reaction of a gentle man under pressure? His life has been a mess ever since a former student of his, Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), won an Oscar for playing a homosexual. In his acceptance speech, Cameron thanked his inspiring English teacher back home. "And he's gay!"

Hey, wait a minute; Howard can't be gay. He's the track coach! And he's about to marry the sweet, desperately needy Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack). Though he plaintively denies he's gay, and though his parents (Debbie Reynolds and Wilford Brimley) support him, some people are intrusive or vengeful: a tabloid-TV reporter (Tom Selleck), the school principal (Bob Newhart) and a few students who think homosexuality is just too weird, man. As one solemnly declares, the human body has "in" holes and "out" holes, and "gay guys put 'in' stuff in the 'out' holes."

Of all the solid gags in Frank Oz's deft direction of Paul Rudnick's pointed script, the biggest one is that it's not just Howard who seems gay. So do the teachers, the town barber, Howard's stolid brother. And what exactly is the gay style in a time when bullying machismo rules on the street and on the screen? It is to be pleasant, considerate, gently witty--virtues once celebrated in American life and Hollywood comedies.

In & Out finds its model in the communal comedies of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges: films like Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Hail the Conquering Hero, in which a mild-mannered, small-town fellow is unfairly ostracized or lionized, and in which the prejudices of the vox pop are silenced in the last reel. Here it's a graduation-day ceremony that angrifies into a town meeting and then into a coming-out party. Everyone is happy, everyone gay.

That's pretty much what you'd expect from Hollywood, where as everyone knows, everyone is gay. And almost no one comes out. As a gay-themed comedy with mass-market aspirations, In & Out feels it has to be cautious. We do discover Howard's sexual preference but not whether he ever exercised it with anyone, or even if he knows what it is. Kline is denied a nice, fat double-life monologue; he's no Hoosier Hamlet here. It turns out that the movie isn't about being gay. It's about being tolerant of sweet-souled men--guys who love the Lake Poets, show tunes and all things Barbra.

Some other movie can tell what it's like to be gay without AIDS. In & Out, a smart, wonderfully played jape, is just out-and-out fun.

--By Richard Corliss