The Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: Querelle (1982) 15 June 2023

“The idea of murder often evokes the idea of sea and seafarers ...” 

Yes! To commemorate Pride month, on 15 June 2023 the FREE monthly Lobotomy Room cinema club (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People) presents Querelle, the great maverick German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1982 screen adaptation of Querelle of Brest, French literary bad boy Jean Genet’s notorious 1953 homoerotic novel. (It was Fassbinder’s last film. He died of a drug overdose aged just 37 before it premiered). Starring rugged Brad Davis and queen of European art cinema Jeanne Moreau, Querelle is a fascinating, hallucinatory experiment, a noble failure, a powerful study of decadence and a feverish (wet) dream of a movie! And considering queer underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger recently died aged 96, we’ll be throwing in a tribute to him on the night, too! Your attendance is compulsory, Mary! 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club devoted to cinematic perversity! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s cocktail lounge in Dalston! Numbers are limited, so reserving in advance via Fontaine’s website is essential. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar to avoid disappointment! The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered on time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest. Full putrid details here. 

/ Come appreciate Brad Davis' chest pelt on 15 June! /

Further reading

Reflections on ... Born to Be Wild (2023) by Ann-Margret

 

/ Portrait of Ann-Margret by Chantal Anderson for The New York Times, March 2023 /

82-year-old veteran sex kitten Ann-Margret dropped Born to Be Wild, her first new album in over a decade, last month (her previous one - God is Love: The Gospel Sessions 2 – came out in 2011). My notes! 

This is being referred to as Ann-Margret’s “first classic-rock album”, but her early sixties RCA recordings brim with delights like the girl group-style “I Just Don’t Understand”, her sultry cover of Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel” and her interpretations of R&B songs like “Roll with Me, Henry” and “Jim Dandy”. Ann-Margret has always rocked!   

On the wailing title track (a cover of the 1968 Steppenwolf song), A-M is backed by The Fuzztones – and it’s genuinely ferocious! (This isn’t her first foray into garage punk: “It’s a Nice World to Visit (But Not to Live In)” - her 1969 collaboration with Lee Hazlewood - still slaps hard). 

The musical backing is grittier, brasher and more rockabilly than you might expect. (On “Volare” A-M is accompanied by Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom of The Stray Cats). “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” belongs on every festive Spotify playlist! Her efforts at doo wop (“Earth Angel” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”) and “Son of a Preacher Man” are credible. (The latter won’t make you forget Dusty, but it compares favorably with Bobbie Gentry and Nancy Sinatra’s versions). 

Best of all: “Somebody's in My Orchard” is slinky cocktail jazz loungecore with “blue” lyrics (“Somebody digs my fig trees / Someone loves their juice / That someone with that sweet juice / Ain't nothing but bad news ….”). 

/ Portrait of Ann-Margret by Chantal Anderson for The New York Times, March 2023 /

Less happily: duets with Pat Boone and Cliff Richard represent bad kitsch rather than fun kitsch. There’s frequently a whiff of Branson, Missouri and karaoke. Can’t help but wish A-M would find hipper collaborators and material. Not a fan of his but consider how Jack White produced late-period Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson albums. Not that A-M ever worried about “credibility” – her priority is to entertain. 

Finally: with the recent deaths of her contemporaries like Stella Stevens and Raquel Welch, the time to love and appreciate Ann-Margret is now! Next, we need comeback albums from Joey Heatherton and Connie Stevens!

Further reading: 

I reminisce about seeing Ann-Margret's ultra-camp Las Vegas revue in 2005.

Ann-Margret's cookie recipe.

 

Reflections on ... Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll (2023)

Just before the new documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything hit UK cinemas, the BBC swooped in with its own feature length effort, Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll by James House. (Apparently many of the same talking heads appear in both. Nile Rodgers reportedly recycles the same anecdotes!). The film is streaming on iPlayer now. I watched it last weekend. My thoughts! 

With hideous inevitability, Keith Richards and Ringo Starr are featured, so we get too much emphasis on how the Beatles and the Stones couldn't have existed without Richard. Then Rodgers recalls how when they recorded the awful Let's Dance album together, David Bowie declared he wanted to “sound like Little Richard looked”. I always cringe when boomer cultural gatekeepers imply a Black artist’s greatest contribution is “inspiring” white musicians. (See also: “Tina Turner taught Mick Jagger how to dance!”). 

More happily, one of the more eloquent and knowledgeable talking heads is New Orleans’ fierce Big Freedia - truly a flamboyant androgynous Black performer in Richard's lineage. Then there’s the regal and fascinating pioneering transgender showgirl / comedian Sir Lady Java, who acknowledges an awkward fact: it’s correct and understandable that Richard is being embraced as a queer icon, but as far as we know the great love of his life was a woman - the spectacular stripper Angel Lee, who resembled an escapee from a Russ Meyer movie!   

Prepare to be enraged that Specialty (Richard’s record label) withheld royalties, and that the ultra-square Pat Boone’s white bread cover versions vastly outsold Richard’s originals. (Boone appears and I don’t know whether to admire his guts or marvel at his lack of self-awareness!). At the 1988 Grammy Awards, while presenting Best Newcomer with Buster Poindexter, Richard went gloriously rogue. “And the winner is … me! The winner is – still me!” Then he accurately points out, “Y’all ain’t never given me no Grammy, and I’ve been singing for years!” He plays it mock aggrieved, and the audience laughs, but behind the scenes, a friend reveals this lack of acclaim caused Richard genuine tears. I will never stop being fascinated by this man. 

Further reading: my reflections on Little Richard's obituaries in 2020. 

The Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: The Flame of the Islands (1956) on 18 May 2023

 

Let’s face it: spring 2023 has been a grey, dismal bust so far! To remedy that, this month’s Lobotomy Room cinema club whisks you away to torrid tropical climes with a presentation of Flame of the Islands (1956) - the irresistible acme of juicy, pulpy and garish fifties b-movie melodramas via poverty row studio Republic Pictures, shot on location in the Bahamas, filmed in scorching Trucolour and starring tough, sensual and glamorous atomic-era brunette sex goddess Yvonne De Carlo! Yes – that Yvonne De Carlo, television’s Lily Munster, in what I’d argue is her best screen role (and, yes, I am including her performance as Moses’ wife in Biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956)). 

Flame shares the same premise as many another fun campy film: a brassy good-time girl (usually some variation of “nightclub singer”) rocks-up in some exotic locale and her mere presence - and disruptive sexuality - can’t help but wreak havoc. Think of Marlene Dietrich in Seven Sinners (1940), Rita Hayworth in Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) or Jane Russell vehicles like His Kind of Woman (1951), Macao (1952) or The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956). De Carlo gets to sing (she has two kitschy calypso musical numbers, one of which is entitled “Bahama Mama”), conceal a painful secret, fight-off unwanted romantic overtures from multiple men and pursue the man she really loves, complete with spectacular wardrobe changes (including a fluffy angora sweater that Ed Wood Jr himself would covet). So, won’t you join us for “the hottest thing in the tropics” on Thursday 18 May? 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club devoted to cinematic perversity! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s bar in Dalston! Two drink minimum (inquire about the special offer £6 cocktail menu!). Numbers are limited, so reserving in advance via Fontaine’s website is essential. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar to avoid disappointment! The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered on time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest. For more info, see the Facebook event page. 

/ Seriously, you will want to see Zachary Scott wearing this outfit! /