Reflections on ... Anne Baxter in Ritual of Evil (1970)

 

I am evangelical about my love for the Sam Pancake Presents the Monday Afternoon Movie podcast, devoted to the 1970s and 80s l'âge d'or of made-for-TV movies. In his latest installment, the effervescent Sam Pancake interrogates barely comprehensible but undeniably diverting occult nonsense Ritual of Evil (1970). 

For me, it’s chiefly noteworthy for a truly wild ripsnorting guest star performance from veteran Hollywood diva Anne Baxter as washed-up alcoholic actress Jolene Wiley. Buggin’ out in ensembles of gold lamé and marabou feathers, permanently boozy or hungover, constantly availing herself of a crystal decanter of scotch and tinkling the ice cubes in her rocks glass, no one hams it up quite like Anne Baxter in full cry. Reference points here might include Grayson Hall in Dark Shadows or Baxter herself a few years later in “Requiem for a Falling Star”, the 1973 episode of Columbo she appears in. 

We’re first introduced to Jolene on a dark and stormy night. The power has gone out and she’s wielding a candelabra straight out of Liberace’s mansion. “I think I’m going mad,” she slurs to suave French-accented psychiatrist David Sorrell (played by suave French-accented Louis Jordan). “You wanna drink?” She starts regaling him about a party she attended earlier: “I got loaded! You know how sometimes you get loaded very quickly and other times (world-weary pause and eye roll) it takes all night?” then cackles "This is absurd! I'm too sophisticated for this, I really am!" (No matter how tipsy Jolene is, Baxter’s old-school transatlantic diction is flawless. I suspect she went to the same elocution teacher as Eleanor Parker). Her finest moment: Jolene has an embittered meltdown reclining on a fur bedspread, lamenting “I’m not so old, you know. I just wear this middle-aged body on the outside. Inside, I’m really young.” Who among us can't relate to those sentiments?

You can watch Ritual of Evil on YouTube (in a beautiful sparkling print) here. 

Remembering Jackie Curtis (19 February 1947 – 15 May 1985)

 

/ Above: portrait of Jackie Curtis by the late, great Leee Black Childers /

“The first time I ever really spoke to Jackie, I saw her walking along Christopher Street, this bizarre creature with frizzy red hair, a ripped dress, no eyebrows, bee-stung lips. A Puerto Rican queen yelled out, “Girl, I could read you from blocks away!” The other drag queens didn’t really understand Jackie. She wasn’t trying to be a woman; she had this totally individual freaky style … She walked around in ripped stockings and big tears in her dresses with threads hanging off but, in her mind, she thought she was Greta Garbo. She knew she was eccentric, a freak, but in some weird way she visualised herself as Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. She had that combination of trash and glamour, and it made a really big impression on me. A lot of her dresses were from the 30s and 40s, things that she’d pick up from thrift stores for 25 cents, and most of them had big BO stains under the arms, because Miss Curtis was not renowned for her personal hygiene. She wore old lady shoes that she sprayed silver, and her tights were always ripped … nobody else was dressing like this at the time. Jackie was a total innovator. She wasn’t trying to pass as a woman; she developed her extreme style as a direct result of the way she lived. I took that idea from her; my whole attitude towards clothes and make-up and everything changed. Everyone started to deck themselves more and more. But it all started with Jackie, really.” 

/ Jayne County reflecting on the influence of her friend Jackie Curtis in her 1995 memoirs Man Enough to Be a Woman, co-written by Rupert Smith / 

To paraphrase the Ramones: Jackie Curtis was a punk rocker! The pioneering, visionary and outrageous gender-bending underground actor, playwright, Warhol superstar, amphetamine enthusiast and Max’s Kansas City habitué (19 February 1947 – 15 May 1985) died on this day 40 years ago. Search out the 2004 documentary Superstar in a Housedress.