Thursday, 2 October 2025

Reflections on ... Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964)


Recently watched: 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964). (Tagline: “The screwiest comedy of the year!”). 

Renaissance man of vintage smut Tommy Noonan (actor, comedian, screenwriter, director and producer) followed up his witless but profitable 1963 Jayne Mansfield sex farce Promises ... Promises! with this even more witless sex farce a year later. This time, that other Eisenhower-era blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren steps into Mansfield’s Spring-o-lator heels in the lead role of exotic dancer Saxie Symbol. (Note that Noonan had the rare distinction of appearing onscreen with Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Mansfield in Promises … Promises! and Van Doren here). 

3 Nuts is a slapdash and incoherent mess (for example, for some reason it shuttles between black-and-white and colour), Noonan’s mugging is mind-numbingly unfunny, but it exerts a weird fascination for connoisseurs of bad movies. By this point, Van Doren would have been considered "washed-up" (to quote The Simpsons, “show business is a hideous bitch goddess”) but her 1960s look of dark eye make-up and bouffant up-swept bubble hairdos is irresistible. While never a natural anarchic comedienne like Mansfield, the woman possesses a genuine “je ne sais quoi.” (Also: Van Doren doesn't bare quite as much flesh as Mansfield did in Promises). 

3 Nuts’ best moments are Van Doren’s opening and closing burlesque numbers and the bathtub sequence (it’s like a retro Playboy magazine pictorial come to life. We’re meant to believe Saxie is bathing in beer). The cast also features ultra-campy female impersonator and actor Thomas Craig “T C” Jones as the personal secretary of a sexy female psychiatrist (Ziva Rodann) and he’s good fun. (Jones was also a highlight in Promises … Promises! imitating Tallulah Bankhead and Bette Davis). For what it’s worth, Playboy magazine called 3 Nuts “a zany comedy of Freudian tomfoolery!” Perhaps more accurately, The San Francisco Examiner termed it “a strong candidate for the worst picture of this or any other year.”

Full movie below!

Sunday, 28 September 2025

Reflections on ... Who Killed Mary What's 'Er Name? (1971)

 

Recently watched: Who Killed Mary What's 'Er Name? (1971) aka Death of a Hooker (tagline: “Somebody just murdered your friendly neighborhood hooker. Start asking questions, and before you know it, you’re in trouble.”). 

Directed by Ernest Pintoff and soundtracked by mournful jazz music, Mary is a low-budget, gritty and offbeat crime thriller set in derelict early seventies New York. Red Buttons stars as Mickey Isador, a plucky diabetic former boxer who takes it upon himself to investigate the murder of a local sex worker, when he feels the NYPD are indifferent. The emphasis on Mickey’s diabetes feels odd (his daughter is constantly pestering him to take his insulin), but this detail becomes important at the genuinely tense finale. 

Mary has the grungy, seedy look and vibe of an exploitation movie, but the violence is tame and there’s no explicit sex or nudity (in fact, Who Killed Mary was rated PG). We get frequent evocative glimpses of bag ladies, elderly women leaning out their windows and haggard gin-blossomed drinkers at dive bars, all resembling escapees from the street photography of Weegee or Diane Arbus. The lead cast is predominantly middle-aged and worn-out looking (which for someone of my vintage is reassuring and relatable) and is surprisingly comprised of 1970s television stalwarts like David Doyle (Bosley from Charlie’s Angels) and Conrad Bain (Arthur Harman on Maude, Phillip Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes). One exception: a very young, lanky and adorable shaggy-haired Sam Waterston in his Timothée Chalamet era! Best of all, wild, fiercely abrasive and utterly distinctive character actress Sylvia Miles (pictured) crops up in the supporting role of Christine, a chain-smoking, nasal-voiced and bewigged tough cookie prostitute – and she absolutely slays! The print on YouTube is a faded and scratchy “raw scan”, but in a beautiful and atmospheric way.

Saturday, 27 September 2025

Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) on 16 October 2025

 


Attention, sensationalism freaks! This October the FREE monthly Lobotomy Room cinema club (devoted to Bad Movies for Bad People) ushers you into the Halloween season (or as we call it, “gay Christmas”) with a screening of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die! (Tagline: “Alive … without a body … fed by an unspeakable horror from hell!”). Thursday 16 October at Fontaine’s inDalston! 

Look, this insane 1962 horror b-movie has a terrible reputation and is routinely listed as one of the worst films ever made (and it was completed in 1959 but sat in a vault until 1962, which admittedly doesn’t bode well!). But in his essential 1996 book Slimetime: a Guide to Sleazy, Mindless Movies, Steven Puchalski calls Brain “a crisp little chuckle fest … dim-witted, sleazy and (unlike lots of fifties passion pitters) true to the silliness of its ad campaign.” To its credit, Brain features … a deranged scientist dabbling in God’s domain! A hideous misshapen mutant (played by 9-foot-tall carnival sideshow performer Eddie Carmel, who’d later be immortalised by Diane Arbus in the portrait “The Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in the Bronx, N Y 1970”)! Burlesque scenes in a tawdry strip club (including two women rolling on the floor in a catfight)! And an unforgettable performance from Virginia Leith as the severed head of the title! Rest assured, consuming Fontaine’s excellent range of special offer £6 cocktails will improve the quality of Brain immeasurably! 


/ Virginia Leith in The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) /

Reserve your seat by emailing bookings@fontaines.bar. More details on event page. 

ALSO: Fontaine’s is holding its first Halloween party for five years on Friday 31 October – and I am DJ’ing! Full putrid details to follow soon!

Lobotomy Room is the FREE monthly film club committed to cinematic perversity. Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s cocktail lounge in Dalston. Numbers are limited, so reserve your seat via Fontaine’s site. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar. 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.

Saturday, 20 September 2025

Outrageous! (1977) at The Nickel Cinema on 7 October 2025

KLAXON! Boy, am I excited to make my debut at London’s red-hot new grindhouse cinema, The Nickel [117-119 Clerkenwell Road EC1R 5BY]! I’m squealing like a hungry, grasping starlet! Join me on Tuesday 7 October when I introduce 1977 Canadian cult classic Outrageous! 

Set in snowy Toronto, Outrageous! is a wistful slice-of-life character study about the friendship between Liza Connors (Hollis McLaren), a schizophrenic woman fresh out of a mental institution and Robin Turner (Craig Russell), a gay hairdresser with showbiz aspirations. Seen today, Outrageous! is a gritty and invaluable social document of LGBTQ life in the seventies, capturing the period of gay liberation between the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the advent of AIDS. The gay bars are frumpy, cluttered and populated mostly by leather daddies and mustached clones – and look like a blast! And rest assured, the drag scene depicted here is rough and ready, done on a tight budget and bears little resemblance to RuPaul’s Drag Race. Outrageous! also preserves the late Craig Russell’s nightclub act: in a tsunami of old-school diva worship, he impersonates the likes of Mae West, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. (Pictured above: Russell as Tallulah Bankhead). And its messages about embracing nonconformity, celebrating small victories and taking a compassionate tone towards societal outsiders feel more relevant than ever. Buy your ticket here NOW!

Friday, 12 September 2025

Reflections on ... Dead Beat (1994)

/ Bruce Ramsay in Dead Beat (1994). Tagline: "A tale of deep love ... and shallow graves" /

“Famed not so much for his mid-sixties killings of three teenage girls as for his mind-boggling fashion statements, he was sentenced to death, one suspects, for his atrocious taste. “Smitty”, as he was called, pompadoured his dyed jet-black hair and wore a thick coat of pancake over his dirty unshaven handsome face. His Casanova lips were covered in white lipstick, and he designed a quarter-size beauty mark made of putty that resembled a hideous cartoon witch’s mole. His ultimate accessory was the large filthy bandage he wore on his nose for no apparent reason. Like all models, he wished he were taller, so he stuffed his boots with a three-inch layer of tin cans and rags …” 

That’s John Waters describing Charles Schmid Jr (aka the “Pied Piper of Tucson”) in his 1983 volume of essays Crackpot. Schmid’s story is loosely adapted for the screen in deadpan black comedy Dead Beat (1994) by first-time director Adam Dubov. “Smitty” is reimagined as Elvis-worshiping small-town Lothario Kit (Bruce Ramsay) (pictured. As you can see, they dispensed with the nose bandage!). For cult cinema aficionados, Dead Beat overlaps with the cinema of Waters and David Lynch in terms of style, content and casting. Its pastel-hued kitschy retro art direction evokes Waters’ Hairspray (1988), complete with neon signs, cars with fins and bouffant hairstyles. (And Deborah Harry appears in both films). Surf rock instrumentals by Link Wray and Dick Dale rumble on the soundtrack. (So do some rockabilly tunes by James Intveld – who provided the singing voice of Johnny Depp in Waters’ Cry-baby (1990)). Balthazar Getty and Natasha Gregson Wagner would go on to feature in Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997). And of course, the presence of Gregson Wagner recalls her mother Natalie Wood, who starred in the Rolls Royce of juvenile delinquent movies, Rebel without a Cause (1955).  


/ Above: the real Charles Schmid Jr /

Ramsay attacks the role of Kit with wolfish lip-smacking elan. (Watching him makes me wish Waters had cast HIM in Cry-baby instead of Depp). But my favourite performance is by a virtually silent Sara Gilbert (Darlene from Roseanne). Also noteworthy: Meredith Salenger, who I remember with affection from schlocky 1988 horror movie The Kiss. And cult director Alex Cox (of Repo Man (1984) and Sid and Nancy fame (1986)) also makes a memorable cameo appearance. 

Not all of Dead Beat works by any means, but it’s stylish (Dubov does wonders with a shoestring budget), provocative and worthy of investigation. You can find it on YouTube. 

Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Reflections on ... Nico in Strip-tease (1963)

 

/ Pic above via /

In June 2025, I screened Strip-tease at my monthly Lobotomy Room film club. As I put it on the event page:  

"Join us on Thursday 19 June, when the FREE monthly Lobotomy Room film club at Fontaine’s (committed to cinematic perversity!) whisks you away to early 1960s Paris with Strip-tease (1963)! Note that this film is in French (ooh la la!) and will be subtitled (so bring your reading glasses!). This one (directed by Jacques Poitrenaud) should be catnip for cult cinema connoisseurs. For one thing, it stars Nico. Yes, that Nico! Strip-tease follows the German diva’s earlier vivid appearance in Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960), but it captures her a good few years before she became a Warhol superstar and the Velvet Underground’s chanteuse. (For some reason lost in the mists of time, she’s billed as “Krista Nico” – which seems to partially acknowledge her real name, Christa Paffgen. Strip-tease would be Nico’s sole starring role in a relatively mainstream film: her destiny lay in the underground cinema of Andy Warhol and her lover Philippe Garrel). And the moody finger-snappin’ cool jazz soundtrack is by Serge Gainsbourg (and he even appears in the film! The theme tune is huskily warbled by beatnik chanteuse Juliette Greco). Not without justification Strip-tease was promoted as a sexploitation flick (it was released in the US as The Sweet Skin in 1965 with the tagline “Fills the screen with more adult entertainment than you dare to expect! The intimate story of a striptease goddess!”), but more accurately it’s a stylish, melancholy melodrama. Nico plays Ariane, an idealistic ballet-trained German dancer in Paris with high-minded artistic ambitions. Out of economic necessity, Ariane reluctantly accepts a job at Le Crazy burlesque club – and soon captures the attention of a rich, louche playboy (John Sobieski). If you’ve seen Lobotomy Room’s presentations of other burlesque-themed movies like Too Hot to Handle (1960), Beat Girl (1960) and Satan in High Heels (1962), you won’t want to miss this obscure French gem!"

/ Italian movie poster for Strip-tease

Strip-tease is a criminally unsung and fascinating movie and boy, do I have notes. So, I had to write a blog post about it! 

In brief: Strip-tease shows Nico like you’ve never seen her before! So why have you probably never heard of this movie? Neither director Jacques Poitrenaud nor Nico herself took a lot of pride in Strip-tease. For Poitrenaud (1922 - 2005), this was probably just another assignment and he’s also seemingly not well known outside of France. (He’s certainly not a filmmaker I’m otherwise au fait with). 

Strip-tease is Nico’s sole starring role in a relatively mainstream film, but for the rest of her life, Nico never discussed it in interviews. It most definitely didn’t align with the deeply serious, austere and gloomy “Moon Goddess” image she embraced later in the sixties. BUT: within a few years after its continental debut Strip-tease was belatedly released in the US under the title The Sweet Skin (which makes it sound like a movie aimed at cannibals). In the 1995 book The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965-67 by photographer Stephen Shore, there’s a great shot of Nico standing outside The World Theatre in New York where The Sweet Skin is showing on a double bill (“2 Daring Adult Films!”) accompanied by a group of her Warhol Factory friends, so clearly she assembled them to “come see this film I made in France in the early 60s!” (See below. Left to right: John Cale, Dutch author Jan Cramer, Paul Morrissey, Nico and Gerard Malanga). The other “daring adult film” on the double bill is called The Love Statue (1965), which I’ve Googled and it sounds interesting. 

Similarly, in her lifetime Nico seemingly never mentioned that singing the bossa nova-tinged theme tune to Strip-tease (by none other than Serge Gainsbourg) was her true recording debut. (It’s always been widely assumed that the 1965 folk single “I’m Not Sayin’” was Nico’s debut). For whatever reason, Nico’s rendition was ultimately scrapped (we hear the sublime Juliette Greco huskily crooning it over the opening credits instead) and went unreleased for many decades. (It’s easy to hear online now, and Nico’s hushed, whispery singing is alluring in the tradition of The Velvet’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Femme Fatale”). 

Anyway, Strip-tease beautifully captures Nico (née Christa Päffgen, 1938 - 1988) at 24 years old. By this point, she had been modelling since the mid-1950s (by today’s standards, she’d be described as an international supermodel). Nico had already appeared (essentially playing herself, and beguilingly so) in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita in 1960. Yet to come: being discovered and adopted by Andy Warhol, joining the Velvet Underground as their resident chanteuse and then her own long, erratic musical career as a solo artist. 

We do know that Nico was serious about pursuing acting: when in New York on modeling assignments, she studied Method acting at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio (and used to claim Marilyn Monroe was in her class – something we’ll never be able to verify).   

/ Above: Nico - like you've never seen her before! /

What is relevant for Strip-tease: Nico gave birth to her only child, a son called Ari, in August 1962. (Ari Boulogne - who died in 2023 - was her son by the French mega-star Alain Delon. Delon never accepted or acknowledged paternity). Filming began in November ’62. According to Nico’s definitive biographer Richard Witts, she was sensitive about her post-natal body (and Ari was delivered by Cesarean so there was a scar to conceal). In any case, Nico looks impressively svelte in various degrees of undress in Strip-tease – almost certainly via diet pills. (Nico always claimed her introduction to drug-taking was diet pills – which in the 1950s were essentially amphetamines). Interestingly, Witts also suggests that the reason she’s billed as “Krista Nico” in the credits might be for tax reasons! 

Strip-tease was promoted – not without reason – as a sexploitation flick, but I’d argue it’s more of a romantic melodrama – and a deeply moody and stylish one. Nico portrays Ariane, a gloomily earnest German ballet dancer barely scratching out a living in Paris. (As a bonus, we see glimpses of what Paris looked like in winter 1962, especially around Pigalle. Later we see the Seine and Notre Dame at dawn in misty grey light). Just when it appears the struggling Ariane’s dreams have come true (“I had the lead in a ballet!”), they are abruptly snatched away. Due to some bad luck, Ariane is dropped from a big production – and is flat broke! 


At this low ebb, by sheer coincidence Arianne reunites with Berthe (Dany Saval), an old friend from dance school.  Under the “stripper name” Dodo Voluptuous, Berthe has been raking it in as an exotic dancer at a high-end burlesque joint called Le Crazy – and she urges Ariane to consider it. “I could never be a stripper,” the idealistic Ariane protests. “It’s not the money; I just couldn’t do it!” If not an actual beatnik, Ariane is “beatnik-adjacent” and is a habitué of the smoke-filled Blue Note jazz cellar, where she seeks the counsel of her confidant and adopted father figure, African American jazz musician Sam (played by Joe Turner, but NOT “Big Joe Turner” as sometimes implied online – that’s someone else entirely). The worldly-wise and protective Sam is wary of her taking the job at Le Crazy. (As mentioned earlier, Strip-tease’s stunning cool jazz and Latin exotica soundtrack is by the young Serge Gainsbourg – and we even get a fleeting glimpse of him smoking and playing piano at the Blue Note). 

Nonetheless, needs must and soon Ariane is auditioning at Le Crazy. She may be a trained ballerina, but as an exotic dancer she is stiff, self-conscious and uncertain. (Nico was many things, but she was not a dancer and it’s fun to see how Poitrenaud attempts to conceal this). Interestingly, throughout Strip-tease other characters offer meta-critiques of Nico’s performance: “You walk like a marble statue!” “You’re hard to read …” and most significantly, “She’s wooden!” The latter comment leads to a unique gimmick for Ariane’s stage act – she’s partnered with a lookalike wooden marionette. (Strip-tease has a weird emphasis on marionettes). 


/ Pic above via /

/ Pic above via /

Le Crazy has a packed house for the big unveiling of its new starlet, but Ariane is a reluctant, conflicted “strip-teaseuse” who hates being stared at and at the climax, she stops short of baring all. (There’s an eerie moment where her lookalike marionette seemingly makes eye contact with Ariane and silently judges her). Rather than being disappointed, Le Crazy’s clientele finds her shyness adorable, declaring “Very charming!” “What style!” and “Post-modern striptease!” Le Crazy’s owner Paul (played by Thierry Thibault) is thrilled by Ariane’s reception: “Do the same thing every night!” 


/ Pic above via /

(One fascinating aspect to note here: we see ample burlesque sequences of Le Crazy’s performers onstage with copious boobage and buttage on display, but these scenes are deliberately designed to be easily deleted or censored if required depending on the local market without disrupting the narrative). 

Within no time, Ariane is a nightlife sensation in Paris. Pierre (Italian actor Umberto Orsini), an associate from the ballet troupe, discovers Ariane’s current workplace, assumes she’s “easy” now and turns ugly, sneering, “Can’t be too choosy in the work you do. I’m as good as all the others …” More happily, one night Ariane encounters impossibly pretty playboy Jean-Loup (played by Jean Sobieski, who I also know from the bizarre 1968 Italian giallo Death Laid an Egg and who possesses sapphire blue eyes Paul Newman himself would envy) and they embark on a love affair. 

/ Pic above via 

“You’re a very complicated girl,” manipulative Jean-Loup sweet-talks Ariane. “Et alors?” (So what?) she shrugs. “There’s a sadness about you. That’s what attracted me,” Jean-Loup continues. But alarmingly, he also confesses, “I’m naturally cowardly. A bit of a liar.” “Poor little rich boy,” Ariane chides. Later, Jean-Loup – who’s never worked a day in his life - patronizes Ariane by saying, “It’s good that you work. Work is ennobling. Even if it’s stripping.”  The sight of Jean-Loup and his jaded idle rich entourage of chic nightclubbing friends smoking and drinking cocktails, in formal evening wear can’t help but help but overlap with Fellini’s La dolce vita. (As Poitrenaud summarized in the 8 December 1962 issue of La Cinematographie Francaise, Strip-tease is “a film with two main themes: the solitude of a beautiful girl, one is who vulnerable and foreign, but also the life of Paris between midnight and morning, the life of those that fritter their existence away”). 

Strip-tease adopts an almost soap opera tone as their romance deepens. There’s a misunderstanding when Ariane insists that she can’t be “bought” with a diamond brooch that Jean-Loup attempts to gift her. “You’ve got it all and yet you’re as lost and lonely as me,” she consoles him after they reconcile. We see a campy whirlwind “date montage” representing their sojourns together: hunting weekend. Racecourse. Nightclubbing. Ariane’s birthday party scene feels overtly autobiographical for Nico. Like Nico, Ariane is from Cologne. They are both German women living in Paris and were children during World War II. Talk of fireworks makes Ariane reflect on the dropping of bombs (“Cologne in flames … I lost my parents that night …”). Jean-Loup gives her a mink coat: “Take this as reparations …” Later, we see Jean-Loup and Ariane in his car. She is swathed in her new mink and lighting a cigarette with hands gloved in black leather. It’s an impossibly chic image, sleek, fetishistic and almost kinky, worthy of Helmut Newton. 


/ Pic above via /


/ Pic above via /


/ Pic above via

Ariane continues her ascent to stardom. (Watch for her very strange new burlesque routine wearing a harsh jet-black bouffant wig). Sam is concerned Ariane is being corrupted and has forgotten her ballet aspirations. Ominously, Jean-Loup takes Ariane home to meet his aristocratic old money family ... Will Ariane come to her senses and swap the mink for the modest old cloth trench coat she was wearing at the beginning? No spoilers, but in the finale of Strip-tease, Ariane’s number is like Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” routine in reverse … I’ll say no more! 


/ Doesn’t Nico resemble Italian actress Silvana Mangano here with the black wig? (In fact, Nico and Mangano were friends; Nico credits Mangano for Federico Fellini casting her in his 1960 masterpiece La dolce vita. But that’s just one of many theories – others have claimed it was via Nico’s friendship with Anouk Aimee! There are MANY myths surrounding the eternally enigmatic Nico) /

/ Pic above and below via /

And what of Nico’s acting? “Her acting is only fair – she moves stiffly, a simple wave goodbye seems difficult, as if she’s never done it before,” Don Stradley – not inaccurately - assesses in his This Dazzling Time blog in 2016. I’d argue her approach is hesitant, remote, ethereal and inscrutable in the tradition of Kim Novak. At some points, Nico is so detached she suggests a gorgeous sleepwalker. Maybe she’s more of a presence than a conventional actress. Unsurprisingly, Nico communicates best in spectacular close-ups. Crying perfect crystal tear drops, she suggests an idealized illustration of a woman, like “Crying Girl” by Roy Lichtenstein. (Nico was already pop art even before Warhol!). Revealingly, her finest acting moment is entirely wordless. For a laugh, Jean-Loup and his parasitic friends go slumming at a low-down dive, very different from Le Crazy. The resident stripper gyrating onstage is older, rougher, raunchier, fleshier. “It takes genius to be so disgusting …” Jean-Loup sneers, almost admiringly. Ariane silently listens and absorbs his contempt in a giant hypnotic close-up that moves ever closer until Nico’s features fill the screen. The moment is akin to the famous close-ups of Nico’s spiritual godmothers Greta Garbo (especially at the end of Queen Christina (1933)) and Marlene Dietrich (especially at the end of Morocco (1930)), in which the viewer is invited to contemplate their exquisite faces and attempt to unravel their mystery. 

In cinematic terms, Nico’s contribution was to bridge the gap between the glamour of classic Hollywood and the avant-garde. She casts a melancholy spell over Strip-tease.  



Wednesday, 6 August 2025

Reflections on ... My Mom Jayne (2025) for Filthy Dreams

“Jayne Mansfield was the ultimate sex kitten-gone-berserk, the eternal starlet grasping for fame with both hands, Kenneth Anger’s cooing, squealing Hollywood Babylon made flesh. What, one might justifiably wonder, must it have been like having this outrageous creature for a mother?” 


/ Jayne Mansfield and daughter Mariska Hargitay, 1964 /

Yes! Read my new article Bow Down Before Jayne Mansfield, the Queen of Low-Brow Trash Culture which features my reflections on Mariska Hargitay’s 2025 HBO documentary My Mom Jayne on FilthyDreams – the provocative blog (for minorities who don't even fit into our own minorities) that analyses art, politics, and culture with a touch of camp! 




/ Pictured: a glamour shot of Jayne Mansfield promoting the 1963 film Homesick for St Pauli /