In Celluloid Activist, Michael Schiavi's biography of gay film scholar Vito Russo, he points out that "Orson Welles's latest movie The Stranger opened the weekend of Vito's birth [in July 1946]."
This film about a Nazi war criminal (Welles) hiding out in a small Connecticut town has a scene mid-film in which two young men briefly appear. Edward G. Robinson, the FBI agent hunting for Welles's character, enters Mr. Potter's store. As Robinson seats himself at the lunch counter, these two men (obviously gay) leave the counter and exit the scene. Each man has a lustful smile on his face. Their exit happens so quickly, the censors back then probably missed it.
More importantly, Russo doesn't mention this scene in The Celluloid Closet. Maybe he missed it like I did the first few times I saw it on television.
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