Produced several years before the historic Stonewall Uprising for LGBTQ rights in 1969, director Nikolai Ursin's gently-activist short BEHIND EVERY GOOD MAN (196?) provides an illuminating glimpse into the life of an African American transperson. In strong contrast to the stereotypically negative and hostile depictions of transgender persons as seen through the lens of Hollywood at the time, the subject of Ursin's independent film is rendered as stable, hopeful and well-adjusted. At a time when cross-dressing in public was still illegal in many states, Ursin's unnamed subject shatters preconceptions by displaying confidence and resolve as an out transperson, despite curious stares and disapproving glances from fellow pedestrians on a crowded urban street. Stylistically, filmmaker Ursin artfully combines elements of cinéma vérité and subtle dramatization to bring his subject's deeply personal aspirations and mediations on love and acceptance to light. The resulting intimate portrait, possibly one of the earliest to honestly document an African American transperson, serves as a rare cultural artifact of transgender life and African American life in the U.S. at the mid-century. Significantly, the film also provides cinema and LGBTQ scholars with a previously unavailable bridge to later companion works, such as Shirley Clarke's landmark documentary PORTRAIT OF JASON (1967) and the problematic, but important pseudo-scientific study of a group transwomen, QUEENS AT HEART (1967). --Summary by Mark Quigley.