Hmmm, didn’t know that. It was definitely a recent interview, but I saw it a number of years ago, so I am obvioulsy mis-remembering something.
That was Letterman.
I’ve been beated to most of the good examples I know, but I think it is worth re-emphasizing that pre-Production Code films contained all sorts of “dirty” stuff that wouldn’t be seen in mainstream films again for decades. This site seems to have some good information on the topic, although the layout is kind of annoying. Just looking at the text of the Code and what it forbid should give you a good idea as to what sorts of things filmmakers had been including in their pictures!
I don’t think my favorite joke from Duck Soup hasn’t been mentioned yet: “I’m going back to clean the crackers out of my bed…I’m expecting company.”
It’s post-Code, but Palm Beach Story has a plot that revolves around divorce ( :eek: ), money, and how a good-looking woman could do her husband’s career a lot of good by being “friendly” to the right people. I can’t remember the exact line, but there is one scene where it sounds like an angry character says a very naughty word. I think he actually says “Kluck”, which is the name of another character, but in context the mistake would be easy for the audience to make. I remember my sister turned to me in surprise and said “I didn’t know they could say that in old movies!”
In Dorothy Sayers’ 1937 novel Unnatural Death, there was a strong implication that the murderer was gay. I won’t be more specific, for the benefit of you who have not read this excellent mystery.
In the “Bread and Circuses” episode of Star Trek, the Proconsul (Logan Ramsey) respects Kirk as a man, while denigrating the lack of manliness of Captian Merick (William Smithers). Exactly how Captian Merrick was “unmanly” was never specified, but the implication is pretty clear.
The 1959 movie Bell, Book, and Candle posits an urbane subculture of witches, who party in out-of-the nightclubs and can’t fall in love. It has been suggested that this is a metaphor for 1950s closeted gay life.
Oh, I forgot to add: in Psycho (which was not before, but during, 1960), that awful psychiatrist scene at the end briefly mentions transvestitism as a sexual fetish.
Oh, and the book of The Big Sleep is all about porn rings and gay sex.
Not only the murderer, but there’s that whole backstory about the two old ladies–dead before the story begins–who had set up house together like a married couple and ran a horse-breeding ranch for about 50 years.
With regards to subtextually or suggestedly gay characters in classic movies, take a look at Peter Lorre or the relationship between Sydney Greenstreet and Elisha Cook in The Maltese Falcon. A friend of mine who had just seen the movie for the first time recently exclaimed, “Everyone but Bogart’s gay!”
If you’re looking for information on Hollyood portrayals of gays, the documentary The Celluloid Closet has quite a bit of information and lots of clips from old movies. It was made in 1995 or so and covers some post-1960 movies too, but there’s plenty on pre-1960 stuff, including a bunch of the examples posted in this thread. It shouldn’t be too hard to find at video stores. I’ve seen it stocked in suburban Blockbusters, as well as actual good video stores.
What about Mary Aster?
Or Miles Archer, who was hot for Mary?
I have to admit, it is a little big creepy for Sydney Greenstreet to keep putting his hand on Bogey’s leg. And I really did think “gunsel” meant “armed thug”.
Not subtextual at all. Bogart calls Cook (in a conversation with Greenstreet) “your gunsel.” The word did not mean “gunman,” but rather a young man who was kept sexually by an older man. Greenstreet did not deny the relationship.
Bogart also remarks on the scent of Lorre’s business card – a flowery one that no “real man” would use in the 40s.
It was suggested to me once that there are homosexual innuendos in Gilda. I had seen that movie a dozen times and never noticed, but one more viewing convinced me.
The song Body and Soul has the line “I’d gladly surrender myself to you body and soul.” Very seductive song. From the 1940s? the 1930s?
“Prisoner of Love” made reference to shackles and “chains that bind me.” Surely Perry Como wouldn’t have been singing about bondage. Nyah!
In the mid-1950’s Little Richard shocked quite a few people with “Good Golly, Miss Molly! You sure like to ball!” I don’t think our parents could understand the lyrics and the girls my age had no idea what it meant.
Not a movie, but I remember Mad Magazine, in a puzzle where everything was backwards, showing a newspaper whose headline read,
“**Liberace Wins By KO in 5th” **
I later realized that was as close as you could come in the 1950s to calling someone a homosexual.
Well, I never thought that but I do know that all these things like Sexual Innuenndo are a little harder to find in older movies. I knew dirty jokes existed in older movies but after reading each reply I was surprised because it seems to be more common than I thought.
Anyway all the info is useful so far. 
Another great Groucho blink-and-you’ll-miss-it double entendre from Duck Soup {to the woman he’s wooing}, “I can’t promise you anything but a Rufus over your head.”
I understood my friend to be referring only to the men Mary hangs around with, which we agreed probably explained why she threw herself so deliberately at Bogie, knowing that her feminine wiles were utterly useless in manipulating the rest of the gang. Miles Archer (like the unseen Thirsby) is out of the picture so early on that we didn’t count him.
I’ve wondered if the general movie audience of the day understood the word “gunsel.” I didn’t until I read the explanation in one book or another about gays in film (The Celluloid Closet, or something similar).