Reflections on ... the Diva exhibit at The V&A Museum

 

/ Grace Jones with flowers at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, October 1981 by David Corio /

Who’s up for some “diva worship”? My quick review of the Diva exhibit at The Victoria & Albert Museum (Pal, Fenella and I went on Sunday 27 August). 

The first floor (featuring early divas of opera, stage, silent cinema and golden age Hollywood) is a treasure trove. Things fall apart somewhat on the second floor, which brings us to the present day and the concept of “diva” seems to stretch to any random modern female pop star with a vaguely “empowering” message (or at least the ones who’ve loaned outfits for the exhibit. Let’s be grateful at least that Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa weren’t included. I wonder if the V&A regrets the emphasis on Lizzo given her current blizzard of bad publicity and legal woes). We could all bicker about our personal favourites not being featured, but it feels like glaring omissions that Marlene Dietrich and Madonna are barely represented (surely the Cinema Museum in Berlin could have loaned a Dietrich costume from their permanent collection?). And Eartha Kitt is represented by just an album cover! If they’re going to declare Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Prince and Lil Nas x honorary “male divas”, then why not include Divine, who was a diva of both cult cinema and hi-NRG disco? 

Conclusion: The Diva exhibit is enjoyable but ultimately superficial and best approached as "eye candy". It’s on until 7 April 2024. 

Here are my highlights:

/  Theda Bara in Cleopatra (1917) /

/ Costume designed for Carole Lombard by Paramount’s Travis Banton, 1930s / 

/ Left to right: gown worn by Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall (1961). The cocktail dress Bette Davis wears as Margo Channing (designed by Edith Head) in All About Eve (1950) and a dress worn by Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (1945) by Milo Anderson (that particular costume choice feels a bit underwhelming, huh?) / 

/ Closer look at Davis' "Margo Channing" dress /

/ One of the costumes Marilyn Monroe wears as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot (1959), designed by Orry-Kelly /

/ Mae West’s Travis Banton-designed costume for I’m No Angel (1933) /

/ Costume worn by Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963) by Irene Sharaff /

/ Costume worn by Vivien Leigh in a stage production of Duel of Angels (1958) /

/ The “flame dress” Bob Mackie - maestro of the strategically-placed sequin! - designed for soul queen Tina Turner to wear onstage in 1977 /

/ Above: two Bob Mackie creations for his definitive muse and collaborator - Cher! /

/ Dolly Parton in doll form (circa 1978) /

/ Now THESE represent religious artifacts! Edith Piaf's little black dress (and tiny shoes!) alongside her comb, hairbrush, throat spray and make-up bag /

/ High priestess of punk Siouxsie Sioux’s harlequin catsuit by Pam Hogg circa 2007 / 

/ Deborah Harry's acid-yellow punk ensemble by Stephen Sprouse / 

/ Outfit worn by Lil Nas X to the MTV Awards, 2021 /

/ That's all that Queen Eartha Kitt gets - an album cover! (Albeit a gorgeous one!) / 

/ Wrapping things up on a high note: moulded acrylic breastplate by Issey Miyake as worn by glamazon Grace Jones /

Read more here. 

Reflections on ... Mae West: Dirty Blonde (2020)

 

/ Mae West in 1928 when she was appearing in her play Diamond Lil (which she later adapted for the screen as She Done Him Wrong (1933)) / 

Recently watched: the 2020 documentary Mae West: Dirty Blonde, a breezy, stylish and concise (only 52-minutes) valentine to cinema’s high empress of sex. Among the hipper than usual talking heads:  Dita Von Teese, Lady Bunny, Natasha Lyonne, Candace Bergen, gossip columnist Rona Barrett, Sex and the City’s Mario Cantone and the late Andre Leon Talley (who disappoints by lamely suggesting West foreshadowed “women who dare to be sexy” like Cher, Madonna, Rhianna and Beyonce. Let’s be grateful he didn’t include a Kardashian), plus film historians Jeanine Basinger and Molly Haskell. (And Bette Midler is an executive producer). 

/ Portrait of  Mae West by George Hoyningen-Huene, 1933 /

As Dirty Blonde underlines, West was already 40 years old when she made her film debut in Night After Night (1932). By the time she arrived in Hollywood the Brooklyn-born daughter of a bare-knuckle prizefighter and corset model turned vaudeville performer turned censor-baiting playwright (one review of West’s scandalous 1926 play Sex wails that it’s “a monstrosity plucked from garbage can, destined for sewer!”) had already amassed over three decades of show biz experience. This gave West the confidence to demand creative autonomy from Paramount, and her first starring vehicle She Done Him Wrong (1933) was such a smash it saved the studio from the brink of bankruptcy.

/ Mae West when she appeared on The Red Skelton Show on 1 March 1960 /

You can’t help but get the impression directors Sally Rosenthal and Julia Marchesi (understandably) yearn to hail the tough, independent West as a protofeminist, but she resists that interpretation. (They include audio of West explaining to an interviewer she’s always preferred male company and finds other women hard to relate to).

/ West with young male starlet Tom Selleck in 1970 when they both appeared in the film Myra Breckenridge /

Highlights: Dirty Blonde nicely scrutinizes the complicated depiction of Black maids in West’s 1930s films. While Talley notes that they are kindred spirits and co-conspirators who joke with West and have romantic lives of their own, someone else argues these characters speak in a “Hollywood version of Black vernacular” and Mel Watkins asserts there’s nothing to indicate West supported the civil rights movement in the sixties. But then West fought to have Duke Ellington cast in Belle of the Nineties (1934) and – although not mentioned – it’s widely understood West enjoyed interracial sex relationships long before they were deemed acceptable. And the doc also makes you reappraise West’s reviled later films Myra Breckenridge (1970) and Sextette (1978), asking the viewer why we are so horrified by West still flaunting her sexual appetites into old age. As Basinger claims, “There’s a wonderful courage and defiance” to West’s sheer stubbornness in taking what she had in the 1930s and trying to make it work in the 1970s.  Finally, Dirty Blonde frames West’s long-term relationship with bodybuilder Paul Novak as the great love of her life. (Novak met West when he was one of the oiled muscle men in her Las Vegas revue in the early 1950s and stayed loyal right up to her death in 1980). I watched Dirty Blonde on the streaming platform NOW TV. 

/ Mae West and Paul Novak in the early 1950s / 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies presents ... Sextette!

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the film club devoted to Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People), with an emphasis on the cult, the queer and the kitsch. This month we’re really scraping the barrel with perhaps the worst film we’ve screened to date – Mae West’s infamous final film Sextette (1978)! Wednesday 23 November in the basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine's! Think of it as an unintended camp classick – or a freaky Diane Arbus photograph come to life!

Full respect to screen legend Mae West (1893 – 1980): in her thirties heyday, she was a gleeful pioneer of sexual liberation and a true original who wrote all her own wisecracking material. West was also one hip cosmopolitan sister, drawing on African-American and queer subcultures for inspiration. By 1978 though the desiccated 84-year old diva was living in a seriously self-enchanted bubble (think Nora Desmond in Sunset Boulevard) with a seemingly shaky grasp on reality. 

Persuaded to make one last film, the geriatric sex kitten made zero concessions to her advanced age and cast herself as a much-lusted after bombshell surrounded by besotted male admirers (in some cases young enough to be her grandsons). Leading man is 34-year old Timothy Dalton as her husband -  50 years her junior.  (Presumably the future James Bond would love to burn every last negative of Sextette in existence! The truly oddball cast also includes Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, Tony Curtis and George Hamilton).

/ “She won’t be satisfied until she’s loved by all mankind - one man at a time!”/

Bewigged, carefully shot in ultra-soft-focus, virtually immobile and never making eye contact with any of her co-stars, West frequently looks like she has been mummified or taxidermied. Just how nuts was West? When West and Dalton duet on the Captain and Tennille soft rock hit “Love Will Keep Us Together” (did I mention Sextette is a musical?), West insisted the original lyric “young and beautiful / someday your looks will be gone” be changed to “young and beautiful / your looks will never be gone!” 

/ Any gerontophiles out there? /

Fun facts: Sextette is directed by Ken Hughes – who also directed sixties children’s classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! The awful musical numbers are choreographed by the same guy who did The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins! West’s gowns are by legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head! In the segment where West serenades a gang of semi-naked bodybuilders, some of the baby-oiled muscle men are alumni from the world of seventies gay porn! For everyone involved, Sextette represents the nadir of their careers!

/ Who's up for an evening of old-school muscle worship, Mae West style? /

Gasp in astonishment at the mind-boggling Sextette – one of the most wildly misjudged films ever made! See the movie that made The New York Times declare, “Granny should have her mouth washed out with soap, along with her teeth!"

Wednesday 23 November at Fontaine's. Admission: Free! Doors to the Bamboo Lounge open at 8 pm. Film starts at 8:30 pm. Arrive early, order your cockails and venture downstairs: I'll be projecting grainy black and white vintage homo porn and playing punk music before the film starts.

Events page

The trailer for Sextette:

Read more about celluloid atrocity Sextette here

6 December 2010 Christmas Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Wishing you a Jayne Mansfield Christmas ... /

For the first of our two Christmas extravaganzas this month (this one was at The Paradise in Kensal Green), Dr Sketchy’s glamorous promoter and stage manager Clare Marie emerged from behind the scenes to emcee the night herself. Marianne Cheesecake (who’s done three Dr Sketchy’s in a row and is starting to feel like Dr Sketchy’s burlesque artiste in residence!) charmed the crowd with a great Santa’s little helper routine in green sequins. Considering it was a Christmas spectacular, we spiced things up with a grand total of four beautiful models: Marianne Cheesecake, Ruka, Violetta and Ellie.

Later on there was high drama when a woman in the audience accidentally set her hair on fire! She was leaning back to get a good photo of the performers onstage and leaned right back into the candle on the table behind her! I was DJ’ing and distracted, when I heard a woman scream, there was a puff of smoke and suddenly the air was filled with the stench of scorched hair. What was cartoon-like was the people surrounding her spotted her hair was on fire before she did and started screaming. She was initially oblivious. Horrifying, but mercifully she wasn’t hurt or even lost much hair! Also luckily it happened toward the end of the night. Once we realized she was OK we tried to get on with the rest of the show and pretend nothing had happened, but it was hard to ignore the smell of singed hair. She even said, "I feel like Michael Jackson!" She also said she was wearing lots of hairspray -- it could have been much worse. It was a very John Waters moment, actually! So please remember the hazards of combining long hair and candles this Christmas season, ladies.

Musically, it was a great opportunity to go heavy on the abrasive kitsch Christmas tunes. Things started off quite elegantly, with the focus on 1950s cool jazz (Chet Baker’s Christmas album – think Christmas standards played at sultry junkie tempo) and exotica / lounge (an ethereal Martin Denny track, a bossa nova interpretation of “Jingle Bells”, Marlene Dietrich huskily exhaling Christmas carols while still sounding like she’s straddling a chair backwards and wearing fishnet stockings). Later on I ramped up the campiness and sleaze appeal: Christmas novelty songs,Christmas doo wop, Christmas surf instrumentals, Christmas raunch (Mae West’s 1966 Christmas album),Christmas rockabilly (Elvis Presely, Billy Fury, Jack Scott), Christmas rhythm & blues (Little Esther, Dinah Washington), glitzy Vegas Christmas (Wayne Newton, Dean Martin), sex kitten Christmas (Julie London, Eartha Kitt), plus other oddities and curiousities.

Our next Christmas Dr Sketchy will be at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern on 22 December – I’ll inevitably play the same tracks, but in a different order!

Christmas Song - Chet Baker
That's What I Want for Christms - Nancy Wilson
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus / Jingle Bells Bossa Nova - Eddie Dunstedter
Santa Claus is Comin' to Town - Lena Horne
The First Snowfall - The Coctails
Candles Glowing - Marlene Dietrich
Exotic Night - Martin Denny
Let Christmas Ring - The Coolbreezers
Santa! Don't Pass Me By - Jimmy Donley
Christmas Island - Bob Atcher & The Dinning Sisters
Silent Night - Dinah Washington
My Christmas Prayer - Billy Fury
Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me - Elvis Presley
Merry Christmas Baby - Mae West
Sleighbells, Reindeer and Snow - Rita Faye Wilson
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Mambo - Billy May
Brown Christmas - El Vez
Jingle Bells - The Vel Mares
Jingle Bell Rock - Wayne Newton
I'm Gettin' Nothin' for Christmas - Eartha Kitt
Christmas Wish - El Vez
Far Away Christmas Blues - Little Esther
Warm December - Julie London
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Billie Holiday
Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
Ole Santa - Dinah Washington
There's Trouble Brewin' - Jack Scott
Santa Baby - Mae West
Christmas Time Is Coming - Stormy Weather
What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? Nancy Wilson
Happy Holidays - Peggy Lee
Fat Daddy - Fat Daddy
All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth - Nat King Cole
Have a Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas - Ruby Wright
Sleigh Ride / Jingle Bells - Al Caiola & Riz Ortolani / Jimmy McGriff
Jingle Bells - Gene Autrey
Little Drummer Boy - Marlene Dietrich
Snowfall / Snowfall Cha Cha Cha - George Shearing / Billy May
I'd Like You for Christmas - Julie London
Christmas in Jail - The Youngsters
The Christmas Waltz - Nancy Wilson
Blues for Christmas - John Lee Hooker
Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me - Mae West
Christmas Time Is Here - El Vez
Christmas Kisses - Ray Anthony
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Julie London
Baby It's Cold Outside - Dean Martin
Everybody's Waitin' for the Man with the Bag - Kay Starr
Frosty the Snowman - The Ventures
Jingle Bells / Jingle Bell Rock - Hollyridge Strings
Here Comes Santa Claus - Elvis Presley
I Wish You a Merry Christmas - Big Dee Irwin & Little Eva
Let It Snow - Wayne Newton
This Year's Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt

/ Essential Christmas viewing ... John Waters' 1974 classick "Female Trouble" /



"I hate you, I hate this house and I hate Christmas!"

/ Below: Mae West's 1966 Christmas album /

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