The illuminative P.S. Burn This Letter Please, now streaming on Discovery+ after originally scheduled to premiere at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, shines a light on New York City’s 1950s drag scene. The documentary’s backbone is hundreds of handwritten letters, addressed to someone named Reno Martin and found in a storage locker in Los Angeles decades later. Authored by a group of drag queens, they paint a picture of a vibrant scene that only becomes more intricate with each successive correspondence. 

For five years, filmmakers Michael Seligman and Jennifer Tiexiera tracked down and interviewed as many of the different letter writers as possible, and the resulting film jumps around from one subject to the next, allowing us to know each and how they first became interested in drag. All took risks in dressing up in women’s clothing. They hailed from all over the country and ended up in the Big Apple, where they hustled to survive but also found a community in which they felt accepted.

Many of them went by descriptors such as “femme mimic” and “female impersonator,” as “drag queen” had specific negative connotations. While their community existed out on society’s margins, some of the most fascinating insights involve the mafia-run nightclubs, which were the only spots cross-dressing entertainers could perform legally. Here hetero- and homosexual nightclubbers actually crossed paths without incident, though the former tended to be tourists on-hand to gawk. The filmmakers also delve into the thriving drag scene in Harlem, which represented a rare space in which African Americans and whites interacted openly.

The film is full of vivid personalities, such as a pair of interviewees who dish about how they pulled off the theft of expensive wigs from the Metropolitan Opera. (The filmmakers allow viewers into their shoes, re-creating the robbery with a thrilling, first-person point-of-view animated sequence). But even then, we are constantly reminded of how these men faced discrimination, arrest, violence, and worse stemming from the social stigma around men adopting the perceived characteristics of women.

The filmmakers have considerable admiration for their subjects, who as one interviewee explains, did not hide who they were. On the contrary, they put themselves out there in a manner that demanded attention. At one point, the film juxtaposes verbal descriptions of how they were treated during the ’50s with images of pro-LGBTQ-themed protests today, implying they helped pave the way for all who followed. (The film points out that someone who performs in drag is not necessarily gay, though many of those who appear in P.S. Burn This Letter Please are.)

Once again, the letters are the crux of the film, especially how they bring long gone people back to life through their words. We find ourselves wondering what their ultimate fates were, and luckily, we find out, including at least one surprise reveal that is unexpected but richly satisfying.