Reflections on ... Solomon and Sheba (1959)

 

Recently watched: wildly historically inaccurate 1959 Technicolor Biblical epic Solomon and Sheba. (Tagline: “The mightiest motion picture ever created!”). 

Directed by King Vidor and filmed on location in Spain, the movie is lavish but inert and talky. Anticipate 141 minutes of pageantry, high falutin’ speeches, battle scenes, double-crossing scheming, pagan rituals and - of course - swords and sandals. It mainly concerns the political alliance – and smoldering love affair – between the titular characters, Solomon (a toupeed and bearded Yul Brynner) and the Queen of Sheba (Gina Lollobrigida). The cast also features the reliably sardonic George Sanders (as Solomon’s brother Adonijah) and Marisa Pavan (as devout handmaiden Abishag. At first glance I assumed, Ah! That’s Pier Angeli – but in fact, Pavan was Angeli’s twin sister). 

Anyway, Solomon and Sheba is probably best remembered today for the tragic circumstances of its production: dashing matinee idol Tyrone Power was originally cast as Solomon but died (aged just 44) of a heart attack following a dueling scene, and Brynner stepped into his sandals. Needless to say, the kitschiest moments are the most entertaining, like Sheba’s arrival (as The Guardian’s Alex von Tunzelmann puts it: “The queen arrives in Israel in a wicker travelling basket, complete with a massive wardrobe of 1950s vixenwear, heaps of jeweled knick-knacks, a stable of Arabian horses, a troupe of acrobats, some wrestlers and a fire-eater”). And the undisputed highlight is the orgiastic “Sheban love festival”. (From Wikipedia: “The orgy scene cost approximately $100,000, and was choreographed by Jaroslav Berger, the ballet chief of the Berne State Theatre in Switzerland. Gina Lollobrigida rehearsed her dance for over a month”). 

In retrospect, Solomon and Sheba feels like a rehearsal for the even more ambitious Cleopatra (1963). Some of Lollo’s wasp-waisted, cleavage-focused costume changes (heavy on tiaras, lamé and chiffon) even anticipate Elizabeth Taylor’s as Cleopatra. For what it’s worth, Solomon and Sheba is included in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way).

Grace Jones' Nightclubbing (1981) album turns 45

 

“Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing album was the hippest record of 1981 … a reinvention of Roxy Music’s too-much-too-soon ennui, with sublime reggae and funk rhythms from the rhythm section of the era, Jamaica’s Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare … Grace Jones, an intimidatingly androgynous and Amazonian New York model – born in Jamaica … looked like a sleek, purpose-built alien, and spoke-sang her lyrics with a  dominatrix-like authority, developing and transcending her early career as a gay-scene disco diva …”

/ From the 2002 book This is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco by Gary Mulholland /

Released 45 years ago today (11 May 1981) by Island Records: Nightclubbing, the fifth studio album by everyone’s favourite post-punk freak diva / Afro-Dietrich / futuristic dominatrix from outer space Miss Grace Jones! Nightclubbing is the second (and most commercially successful) entry in the fierce fashion model-turned-New Wave chanteuse’s timeless bleeding-edge trilogy of albums recorded at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point Studios in The Bahamas (the other two are Warm Leatherette (1980) and Living My Life (1982). All three are essential!). 

The title track of course is courtesy of Iggy Pop’s 1977 The Idiot album. “Jones’ skill as a facilitator as well as pop cultural icon is exposed in the way the original song is converted from Krautrock-damaged, Suicide-aping sleaze fest into sophisticated, lightly-dub inflected, disco reggae,” criticJohn Doran argues. “The conceptual joke of the song is clear: Grace doesn’t hang around in the same horrible dives as Mr James Osterberg, but you can be sure that the experience is just as existential and soul-draining. She has just applied Pop’s lyrics to the cocaine-and-champagne instead of amphetamine-and-vodka lifestyle.” 

I love the dramatic accordion-laced “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”, “Walking in the Rain” and “Demolition Man” but understandably most people remember Nightclubbing as the album featuring eternal dancefloor favourite “Pull Up to the Bumper”! I’d also argue that the confrontational cover image (a “painted photograph” entitled “Blue-Black in Black on Brown” by Jean-Paul Goude, Jones’ then-lover and artistic collaborator) is as impactful as Robert Mapplethorpe’s shot of Patti Smith on the cover of Horses.

/ Grace Jones photographed by Rob Verhorst onstage at the Carre Theatre in Amsterdam, September 1981 / 

Further reading:

Read my notes on Grace Jones’ concert at Royal Albert Hall in 2010 here. 

Read about Grace Jones' memorable book signing in London in 2015 here. 

Read my reflections on Grace Jones' Warm Leatherette (1980) album here.