Holmes & Watson, if that counts as a classic.
I’ve always thought there was a little something about Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Come on now. 
No one has mentioned Shakespeare so far, so let me be the first:
He leaves his wife and kids in Stratford, and goes and joins a troupe of actors – all of whom are male, even the ones playing women.
Then he writes a series of sonnets, which many of the critics think are addressed to a man that he is in love with, though they aren’t sure which man.
And take Hamlet: the prince who drives his girlfriend insane, and spends all his time with a male companion, Horatio. Not to mention Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Then there’s the lesbian subtexts, like Olivia being in love with Viola in Twelfth Night – not to mention the cross-dressing, with a boy-actor dressed as a woman dressed as a man.
It’s a wonder the homophobe right allows this stuff to be taught in schools.
This is a classic film, not a book, so I hope it’s not misplaced here.
It’s no secret that in Hitchcock’s 1948 Rope, Brandon and Philip were based loosely on Leopold and Loeb, and hence implied lovers. (In the film, aside from the dynamic being pretty obvious between them, there is a reference made, by their maid, to the two men ‘getting up on the wrong side of the bed’ for one, and there is only one bedroom in the apartment they seem to share).
What many may not know is that another gay relationship was intended by Hitchcock to be implied, between Jimmy Stewart’s professor character and “one of the boys” (presumably Philip). However, nobody told Jimmy Stewart that, and the film is somewhat marred (inasmuchas it is possible for Mr. Stewart to have marred a piece of film with his presence) by his failure to incorporate that into his role (as Hitchcock believed he could not successfully do anyway, which is why the information was withheld).
None of this is particularly queer-positive, of course; Brandon is a nervous, weak-willed nellie and Philip a stuttering, though charming, sociopath. Rupert’s amoral philosophizing leads Philip to plan the act he and Brandon committ at the film’s open, in a not-so-subtle suggestion that homosexuality is an inherently antisocial or immoral condition. However, aside from Stewart’s inappropriate but natural stodginess, they all still manage to feel like real people, not Evil Killer Fags.
Just as a total aside, Rope is also notable in that there are no cuts – it was shot in one long take, with the occasional duck behind a chair or a suitjacket in order to switch in a fresh reel.
No, I don’t think. You have to remember that most of the women he becomes involved with are insufferable in one way or another, ranging from soupy drippy Madeleine who thinks that every time a fairy blows its nose, a wee bit star is born in the heavens, to Florence who is a perfect comic monster. Upper class men did have live-in servants in those days, because you wouldn’t have expected them to do their own ironing and housekeeping–those things took a lot of work in those days. Moreover, given Victorian/Edwardian standards of propriety, it might well have been considered inappropriate for the servant to be female.
Regarding the OP I often hear Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope mentioned as having a gay subtext; primarily due to the two college students sharing that incredible penthouse. My initial reaction to this notion was one of incredulousness, since students live in shared quarters all the time. But given the magnificence of these quarters, one has to wonder why they don’t each get their own place if they can afford this together. And I think more perceptive people than I notice subtleties in the relationship between these two men that I tend to miss.
One of my favorite scenes in all filmdom is when calm mastermind of the two, in the midst of this party, puts on this ridiculously sappy accordion music, as they serve food off the very crate containing the dead body.
I see you mentioned Rope* while I was working on my post.
Are you sure about the single take? What I heard the last time I watched it, on TCM, was that it was a series of uninterupted 10-minute takes.
Is the sole qualification for presumed homosexuality that two men live in the same apartment?
Watson did get married eventually, after all, and leave, while Holmes was married to his work, and to his drug.
(BTW yes, it certainly does count as a classic!)
The story about Rope reminded me of an anectdote from the documentary The Celluloid Closet about the 1959 version of Ben Hur. Apparently there was an agreement between director William Wyler, uncredited writer Gore Vidal, and Stephen Boyd, who played Messala, that Messala should be in love with Judah Ben Hur. Boyd was to make this pretty clear in one important scene. They all agreed, however, not to let Charlton Heston in on it, because they knew he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it.
Not true regarding Roberta Wickham, though. He’s crazy about her.
It’s not something us “more perceptive” people dreamed up. It’s a fact. It’s loosely based on a play about Leopold & Loeb, who were murderous gay lovers in real life. No time to dig up cites for you now, but believe me, there’s nothing subjective about this interpretation. The script, like the play, would have been a lot more obvious if the ‘standards’ of the time had allowed it. Hitchcock certainly knew he was making a film about two gay men who murder another man, and the stuff about Rupert has been confirmed by the screenwriter himself, as was the stuff about not telling Stewart.
As for ten minutes…well, yeah. That’s how long a reel of film was then. The point is that there are few or no visible cuts; there are ten takes/reels.
Well he was, until she egged him into piercing Roderick Glossop’s hot water bottle with a darning needle, while the latter slept.* On another occasion, it was through her indirect efforts that Bertie ended up having to make a speech at a girls’ school. No wonder he decided that he was better off with out her as well, in the end. With humorous writing you have to remember that the “fix” or the “spot of trouble” is central to Wodehouse’s style, so naturally all Bertie’s girlfriends are objectionable in one way or another and he needs to be extricated from the relationship. To assume that there’s a gay subtext because of this overlooks the fact that a story about a successful, happy relationship would not provide the necessary humorous context for a Wodehouse story.
*(In the PBS TV series it was Professor Cluj’s bottle that got pierced.)
Watson gets married several times, if I recall aright, each time to a younger and prettier woman. He lives with Holmes between women.
The 1946 film version of The Big Sleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Sleep), OTOH, glosses over a couple of things made very clear in the book, and without which the plot doesn’t make much sense: (1) The mysterious “bookstore” where Marlowe’s investigation begins is actually a rental pornography business. (2) Carol Lundgren is Arthur Geiger’s gay lover and is acting to avenge his death.
Yes, but on each occasion he got engaged to Bobbie, it was enthusiastically, of his own free will, and initiated by him, unlike the case with regard to (most of) his engagements with Florence Craye, Madeleine Bassett, and Honoria Glossop.
Archie has his Lily, but I can totally see Wolfe and Fritz lovingly discussing recipes over wine in the kitchen. Heck, Wolfe has his own special chair in the basement, which is where Fritz’s rooms are. They even have lovers’ spats over herbs. When Archie goes to war, Fritz is lleft alone in the brownstone with Wolfe and even helps him get into shape so he can go to Europe and “kill some Germans.” They’re very sweet.
Theordore Horstmann, the orchid-minder, is a momma’s boy (he goes home to his mommy every weekend), though he is so unliked (by Archie, anyway), you have to doubt he’s getting any from anyone.
So what’s characteristically gay about bondage? Or about any eccentric sexual practice?
Serious question – never satisfactorily answered in this old GD thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=259693
I recall that discussion on an episode of The Sopranos – but I ain’t convinced. I think Claggart is presented more as Pure Evil than Frustrated Lust.
::SNERK::
Good one! 
This is possibly the gayest part:
Isn’t “spermacetti” a kind of pasta? With…ahem…special sauce?