CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Cruising (film)

1980 film by William Friedkin

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Cruising is a 1980 crime thriller written and directed by William Friedkin, and starring Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino and Karen Allen. It is loosely based on the 1970 novel by The New York Times reporter Gerald Walker about a serial killer targeting gay men, particularly the men associated with the leather scene. The title is a double entendre, as "cruising" can describe both police officers on patrol and men who are cruising for sex. It was an international co-production between West Germany and the United States.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cruising (film)” as 1980 film by William Friedkin. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 1970—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Cruising, film and William can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1980 film by William Friedkin. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1980 and 1970.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cruising (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cruising (film) primary sources, Cruising (film) archive and Cruising research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cruising (film)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cruising (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.