Who knew that the same week Judy Garland died and our sisters rioted at the Stonewall Bar in the Village, a few blocks away William Friedkin was shooting The Boys In the Band — the first openly gay mass-market film? That is one of many little nuggets in Crayton Robey’s fun-packed Making The Boys. Another is writer Mart Crowley’s comment, “What did I have to lose?” to explain how a fey Hollywood failure wrote the play in a week, won a five-day workshop way off-off Broadway that turned into the event absolutely Everybody Had to See, then turned down big Tinsel town money to insist the 1970 film be made with its original, very brave, cast of unknowns.

This making-of documentary, though, is marbled with swirls of canny (and catty) commentary by a cast of well-known characters. The heads doing the talking include Carson Kressley (Queer Eye), Dan Savage, Michael Musto, Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and a now uncloseted Edward Albee. It is also candy-sprinkled with period clips. Worth the price of admission alone is footage of a Malibu beach party showing Mart Crowley cavorting on the sand at Roddy MacDowell’s house with Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Judy Garland, Rock Hudson and a dozen more of Hollywood’s gay glitterati and female admirers.

Maybe, like Larry Kramer, you thought Boys in the Band spread bitchiness and gay loathing. Or agree with John Cameron Mitchell that it was a breakthrough film showing spunky Sisterhood. Anyway, here’s one fun making-of doc. — MARK FREEMAN