Reflections on ... Mansfield 66/67 (2017)

(I'm posting this particular blog entry  for several reasons: 1) I reviewed the documentary Mansfield 66/67 for queer art and culture website Hiskind when it had its theatrical release in May 2018. The piece is still online but I know from experience I'd better post it here as well in case it gets yanked down at some point. Loads of my online articles have vanished into the ether over the years! 2) Mansfield 66/67 was the Lobotomy Room film club's selection on 20 June, so this will serve as a bit of a "scene report" of that night, too. 3) This Friday - 29 June 2018 - represents the 51st anniversary of Jayne Mansfield's death, so it seemed like a timely valentine to her memory).

/ Did the devil make her do it? Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey /

Skulls. Pentagrams. Heart-shaped swimming pools. Chihuahuas. Mansfield 66/67 contains all the components essential for an irresistibly campy cult film-in-waiting. Think of Todd Hughes and P David Ebersole’s documentary as When the Sex Kitten met the Satanist. It speculates about just what happened when Hollywood’s doomed, bosomy platinum blonde starlet Jayne Mansfield (1933 – 1967) encountered charismatic young devil-horned founder of the First Church of Satan Anton LaVey (1930 – 1997) during the messy final year of her life – in particular, whether he placed a curse on Mansfield, causing her fatal 1967 car crash.

Even if you don’t buy into the central thesis about the satanic curse (Mansfield and LaVey were both voracious publicity seekers and self-promoters, and the film begins with the tongue-in-cheek disclaimer “a true story based on rumour and hearsay”), the wildly enjoyable Mansfield 66/67 plays out like a delirious hot-pink fever dream.  The story unfolds via vintage newsreel and film clips, animation, a twangy surf guitar soundtrack, the medium of interpretive dance and commentary from various talking heads. And what a roster of talking heads! The pundits are a kitsch / queer dream cast including John Waters (a life-long Mansfield devotee), drag performer Peaches Christ, underground filmmaker and occultist Kenneth Anger, Tippi Hedren from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, scary Warhol Superstar Mary Woronov, various Playboy playmates and Russ Meyer leading ladies and 1950s b-movie bad girl Mamie Van Doren (who at 87 gives a good indication of what Mansfield might have matured into had she lived to see old age). And for some reason Boy George’s 1980s gender bender pal and pop star manqué Marilyn. (Perhaps there’s a bit too much Marilyn, in fact).

The film works best simply as a celebration of Mansfield herself. Frequently dismissed by the unenlightened as a dime store Marilyn Monroe wannabe, today she looks modern and relevant. Mansfield approached her life and career like a twenty first century reality TV star. Her 1950s pin-ups are ubiquitous on Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest. Fifty years after her death, Mansfield can be reappraised as the punk Marilyn, the drag queen’s Marilyn, the anarchist Marilyn and a vivid precursor to what we now call camp. She also has considerable queer diva value: there’s a reason Kenneth Anger put her on the cover of Hollywood Babylon instead of Monroe, and John Waters deliberately fashioned Divine’s persona as a hybrid of “Jayne Mansfield-meets-Godzilla.” In a particularly brilliant piece of editing towards the end, Mansfield cavorting in 1959 is juxtaposed with Madonna as a peepshow performer in the 1986 “Open Your Heart” pop video. Jayne’s gleeful exhibitionism lives on.

Mansfield 66/67 gives Waters the last word: “I never thought of Jayne’s life as tragic, never. Her ending had blood. Guts. Headlines. A dead Chihuahua. It’s what she would have wanted!”

/ The devil has all the best tunes: Anton LaVey with acolyte / 

Scene report: It was gratifying to see the FULL-to-capacity house enthusiastically embrace the shocking-pink, ultra-kitsch vision of Mansfield 66/67 at the Lobotomy Room film club on Wednesday 20 June! (The night actually coincided with the DVD launch of Mansfield 66/67 - it's available now from Peccadillo Pictures!). Watching the antics of Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey over cocktails in Fontaine's Bamboo Lounge proved to be a devil worshipin' good time! As you can see, we even had our own Jayne lookalike on the night!

/ The girl can't help it! Cheyenne as Jayne /

/ Above: Cheyenne as Jayne and I /

/  Above: Vadim and Fenella /

Next date for your Lobotomy Room social calendar: the boozy, punky Mondo Trasho dance party returns on Friday 29 June in the basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine's! Admission is FREE and there is one complimentary signature Lobotomy Room cocktail on arrival for the first twenty entrants! Full putrid details on event page!

Further reading:

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