"Make no mistake, this is the real Queer as Folk, but for all of Fassbinder's gripes with an elite gay culture's many sexual hang-ups, Fox and His Friends is first and foremost a riveting evocation of Social Darwinism in action." - Ed Gonzalez

A rather simple and obvious telling of a working-class fellow trying to fit in the upper class tier. I thought the ending might've been bad, but it turned out to be quite the striking image.

I knew Fassbinder was a very good director. This film shows that he's also a very good actor.

predictable, and very gay

That it's an unprecedented exposure of gays, complete with abundant full male nudity, is not what's daring. What's daring is that it's unflattering, non-naturalistic and couldn't care less about politics. A wonderful film, though definitely flawed: Much of Eugen's patronizing of Franz could have been trimmed, they really flog a dead horse there for a while. Also the ending is possibly a bit excessive. Still it's a brilliant, ice-cold melodrama the kind only Fassbinder is capable of.

Not that great. Seems a little too...earnest. Some interesting points but they are smothered by the overwhelming pathos. A mediocre film from his middle period.

Once more, the forces of Sirk/Brecht/Döblin collide in Fassbinder's mind and create an absolutely fantastic creation.

Fassbinder's sob story about an illbred homosexual sideshow performer, "Fox, the Talking Head", who lucks into a lottery jackpot and is bled dry by his deceitful, prissy, upper-middle-class lover. Fassbinder reproduces some right-sounding, catty, below-the-belt dialogue in the homosexual social circle, but this is merely a sidelight of the movie, a bonus. Essentially he uses homosexuality as a means of equalizing the characters, so as to move the focus away from the Sex War to the Class War.

DNF

A surprisingly blah film, one that put me off Fassbinder movies for years. He had a lot of nerve to give himself money shots (IKYWIM,AITYD) :-)

Biting attack on ultra conformist bourgeois gays, darkly hilarious, moving and, as usual for Fassbinder in his Sirkian melodrama era, gorgeously filmed.