In this era of Vietnam, Director Bruce Kessler, How to Beat the Draft is a heretofore an action game never before played cialist, is a bit awkward at so seriously and with such ingenuity. Fewer and few what is essentially drawer young men are relying room comedy, but the on flat feet or football film looks like it cost lots them more than it did. Most injuries to keep out of an unpopular war. Some encouraging of all, the are even prepared to take picture proves a low-budget that most drastic of meet exploitation company attempting to pass can cated so entertainment sophistiturn out sures, an one’s self off as a homosexual so totally free of the ual. “The Gay Deceivers” (at usually obligatory violence.

the New View, Hollywood and Starlight Drive-in, El Monte) is a hilarious yet surprisingly inoffensive comedy about two perfect- ‘THE GAY DECEIVERS’ A Fanfare Films production. Producer Joe Solomon. Associate producer Paul Rapp. Director Bruce Kessler. Screenplay Jerome Wish, from a story by Abe Polsky and Gil Lasky. Camera operator Don Birnkrant. Art director Arch Bacon. Music Stu Phillips. Film editors Renn Reynolds, Reg Brown. Featuring Kevin Coughlin, Larry Casey, Brooke Bundy, Jo Ann Harris, Michael Greer, Sebastian Brook, Jack Starrett, Richard Webb, Eloise Hardt, Jeanne Baird, Marishka, Mike Kopscha, Joe Tornatori, Robert Reese, Christopher Riordan, Doug. Hume, Dave Osterhout, Marilyn Wirt, Ron Gans, Rachel Romen, Tom Grubbs, Louise Williams, Randee Lynne, Meridith Williams, Harry Sidoni, Lenore Stevens, Trigg Kellv, Tony Eppler, Charles Aidikoff. Color. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes. MPAA-rated: Restricted (Persons under 16 should be accompanied by adult). ly normal guys (Kevin Coughlin and Larry Casey) who decide to do precisely that.

They camp it up enough to win the first round but are told ominously that if there’s any change in their rejected status they’ll be notified immediately. In these paranoid times the hint is not lost on them: they will have to be convincingly homosexual for any secret investigators until it’s time for Coughlin to go off to college. With a premise like this it’s not hard to see the possibilities for creating laughter, and screenwriter Jerry Wish, working from a story by Abe Polsky and Gil Lasky, has milked them all. The first order of the day is of course for the fellows to swear off girls for the duration and then to set up house-keeping in a chi-chi apartment managed (and decorated) by a giddy peony grower (Michael Greer). Every imaginable mishap occurs, yet never once is the humor cruel.

Indeed, the picture has been so shrewdly and amiably written that not only homosexuals but also hawks are not likely to be turned off. Coughlin and Casey are the oddest couple since Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and their “marriage” is just as funny. While Coughlin is a nice ordinary guy concerned about how to handle his parents and his fiancee (Brooke Bundy), Casey, a blue-eyed blond Greek god type, is an easygoing beach club lifeguard who worries mainly about how the ruse will cut into his lucrative sideline as a stud for the middle-aged ladies who flock around his pool, Greer, an accomplished scene stealer, has lots of fun with his part yet never loses the humanity of his character, He could even disarm a vice cop. For all its unconventional subject matter “The Gay Deceivers” in style and structure is about as Avant Garde as “Getting Gertie’s Garter” or “Up in Mahel’s Room,” which working Just fine,