Reflections on ... The Silent Scream (1979)

Recently watched: The Silent Scream (1979). Tagline: “Terror so sudden there’s no time to scream”. (Interestingly, this film is also sometimes called simply Silent Scream with no “The”). 

It’s a pulpy, no-frills and enjoyably old-fashioned proto-slasher with a “madwoman-in-the-attic” twist straight out of Jane Eyre. Basic premise: perky college student Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) missed out on campus accommodation, so seeks to rent a spare room – and of course, winds up lodging with the freaky Engels family: unnerving oddball teenage son Mason (Brad Rearden) and glowering ashen-faced, black-clad matriarch Mrs Engels (Yvonne De Carlo). Really, everything about them should have set alarm bells ringing, but Scotty isn’t exactly a deep thinker. 

/ Above: Yvonne De Carlo as Mrs Engels /

Anyway, what makes The Silent Scream irresistible is its cast: De Carlo, Cameron Mitchell and none other than iconic wraith-cheekboned scream queen Barbara Steele! I’m always fascinated by the vagaries of fame and the phenomenon of second-tier golden age Hollywood actors who never quite made the big bucks (or made bad investments), still had mortgage payments (or alimony payments), swallowed their pride and gamely made forays into the “disreputable” realm of horror and exploitation cinema in the seventies. (It may have been perceived as “demeaning” at the time, but we know better now). Think of the later careers of De Carlo, Aldo Ray, Ray Milland, Shelley Winters, Veronica Lake and Gloria Grahame. Or indeed the bizarro filmography of Mitchell, which encompasses Italian giallo (Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1963), no less), spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation, biker gang movies, disaster movies, martial arts movies, science fiction, no end of low-budget horror and even pornography (something called Dixie Ray Hollywood Star from 1983). As gruff Lieutenant McGiver, Mitchell’s face looks taut as a drum, and he seems to be wearing Tony Curtis’ wavy, grey-steaked pompadour toupée. 

Anyway, I’ve deliberately said almost nothing about Steele (pictured above), but rest assured she is absolutely riveting. The Silent Scream is easy to find online streaming for free. Below is the version I watched.

Reflections on ... Mirror, Mirror (1990)

 

Recently re-visited: teen-focused supernatural horror movie Mirror, Mirror (1990). 

If you’re roughly my age (Gen X), you probably have a vague recollection of catching this one on cable TV. When sulky, sensitive goth misfit Megan (Rainbow Harvest) and her mother Susan (Karen Black) relocate from Los Angeles to the suburbs, the mean girls at her new high school take an immediate dislike to her. (“Doesn’t she know punk is over?” one classmate sneers). But Megan’s new house comes with a demonic cursed mirror in her bedroom, which soon comes in handy … 

Like so many horror movies, Mirror, Mirror is indebted to Carrie (1976). (When the jock boyfriend of one of Megan’s tormentors asks, “What have you got against her?”, she snaps, “Lighten up! It’s just a joke. It’s not like we’re going to throw pig’s blood on her or anything!”). The fact that Mirror, Mirror was directed by a woman (Marina Sargenti) with a largely female cast and crew opens it up to feminist analysis. It boasts a fun supporting cast, including William Sanderson (who I always associate with Blade Runner) as Susan’s boyfriend and Yvonne De Carlo (Lily Munster herself!) as an antique shop proprietress. (De Carlo fully embraces this un-glamorous character part: in a moment worthy of Shelley Winters, we see her slurping take-away Chinese food and picking her teeth in close-up). Black’s eye-crossing, wig-wearing performance as the neurotic Susan anticipates Jennifer Coolidge. (Imagine Coolidge in White Lotus spluttering "That mirror is trying to kill me!"). There’s a fun twist ending. 

And the luminous Rainbow Harvest - painstakingly styled to evoke Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice two years earlier - makes a compelling black leather-jacketed anti-heroine (and I deliberately say “anti-heroine”: part of what makes Mirror, Mirror interesting is that Megan becomes more complicated and less sympathetic as the film progresses). It’s a shame Harvest didn’t have a bigger career after this. Watch for a moment of foreshadowing when Black discards a cigarette butt in the kitchen garbage disposal – an omen for something horrific that happens later! Maybe it’s just me, but I yearned for a moment of Megan cranking up her ghetto blaster or Sony Walkman to find out what music she listens to. And there are no posters on her bedroom wall to indicate the bands she likes! What’s she into? The Cure? Siouxsie and the Banshees? Sisters of Mercy? Considering this was 1990 and she’s a California girl, maybe Jane’s Addiction? I demand to know!

Mirror, Mirror is easy to find streaming for free (I watched it on Prime. I bet it's on Tubi too).

The fabulous screencaps of Rainbow Harvest in Mirror, Mirror are via. 

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. 

Reflections on ... Blood Ceremony (1973) aka The Legend of Blood Castle

Recently watched: Blood Ceremony (1973) aka Ceremonia sangrienta aka The Legend of Blood Castle. Tagline: “A Nightmare Tale of Depravity!” 

This lush Spanish / Italian co-production features the following Gothic horror staples: vampires. Castles. A gypsy woman making ominous prophesies. Superstitious peasants. A procession of townspeople wielding torches through the forest at night (led by a naked boy on horseback). Tavern wenches. Nature, red in tooth and claw (we see falcons tearing apart their prey in grisly close-up). A coffin lined in sumptuous purple silk. Close-ups of knives and forks digging into blood-oozing raw steaks. Guttering black candles. Pentagrams. Candelabras. A cursed medallion. Heaving bosoms. Girls in sheer nightgowns. The sound of a rooster crowing on the soundtrack to indicate daybreak. 

The narrative is loosely inspired by the legend of Hungary’s Countess Elizabeth Báthory (also the basis of Hammer’s more famous Countess Dracula (1971) starring Ingrid Pitt). But director Jorge Grau surprises by draining the action of sensationalism, opting for an art-y, deliberately slow and meditative pace, exquisitely composed shots and an emphasis on ceremonies, rituals and superstitions. (Blood Ceremony clearly boasted a decent budget: the costumes, locations and cinematography are spectacular). At the centre is the haughty Marqués and Marquesa. (Think of them as a gloomy, corrupt and dysfunctional Gomez and Morticia). Handsome bearded Karl Ziemmer (Espartaco Santoni) loves his murderous pet falcons and banging out a tune on the clavichord (sometimes with bloody hands). Countess Erzsebeth Bathory (Lucia Bosè) is his icily self-contained black-clad Lady Macbeth-like wife. Italian actress Bosè – with her alabaster complexion, raven hair and drained, anemic beauty – is particularly striking. Bosè, of course, made two notable films (Story of a Love Affair (1950) and The Lady without Camelias (1953)) with her then-lover, Michelangelo Antonioni early in her career. Interestingly, her presence, the lingering, austere pacing and the focus on rich peoples’ elegant ennui suggest a horror movie by Antonioni. Blood Ceremony is currently streaming on YouTube. Jump on it in case it gets deleted!

Reflections on ... Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

 

Recently watched: the flawed, fascinating Sylvia Scarlett (1935) by the dream trio of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and director George Cukor. (Hepburn and Grant, of course, would subsequently re-team in the more celebrated Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940)).

Sylvia Scarlett remains one of the strangest films to emerge from 1930s Golden Age Hollywood and was a notorious mega-flop. (Its commercial failure would contribute to Hepburn being labelled “box office poison”). “A cult film now, and true delight for the adventurous, it set a new precedent for bomb in its day,” Ethan Mordden concludes in his 1983 book Movie Star: A Look at the Women Who Made Hollywood. Is Sylvia Scarlett a cult film? In an ideal world it would be!

Not that it’s a misunderstood classic: the factors critics and audiences disliked at the time - its whimsical, farcical and freewheeling lurches in tone - are still evident (as the Variety critic in 1935 complained “It is puzzling in its tangents and sudden jumps”). But this quality is also part of its quirky charm. Hepburn is the titular Sylvia. Fleeing her father’s gambling debts, she’s forced to crop her hair (today we’d call it “a Tilda Swinton cut”) and masquerade as a boy (“Sylvester”). In this screwball comedy about gender fluidity, androgynous Sylvester is irresistible to women and men alike, including a cockney con artist (Grant), a housemaid, a French socialite and a bohemian artist (Brian Aherne). The women overtly flirt with and try to kiss him; the men seem unusually keen to share beds with and undress in front of him. “I don’t know if you’re a boy dressed as a girl or a girl dressed as a boy!” one character exclaims to Sylvia / Sylvester and the thing is, Hepburn is so strikingly attractive in male drag the distinction hardly matters. (When Sylvia’s gender is eventually revealed, everyone is completely nonchalant). On a superficial level, both Grant and Hepburn are peerlessly elegant and wear clothes beautifully. And when we’re first introduced to Grant on the ferry to London, Cukor lights and photographs him as ravishingly as Sternberg did for Dietrich.

Reflections on ... Sins of Jezebel (1953)

Recently watched: Sins of Jezebel (1953). Tagline: “Delilah. Cleopatra. Salome. Bathsheba … they learned their wiles, wickedness and evil from the woman called Jezebel.”

Sometimes nothing hits the spot like a kitschy 1950s sword-and-sandals Biblical epic. This one feels directly inspired by Cecil B DeMille’s earlier Samson and Delilah (1949) – you can certainly imagine Jezebel’s veteran leading lady Paulette Goddard (playing “The Most Wicked Woman Who Ever Lived!”) wanting to replicate the success of her 1930s contemporary Hedy Lamarr. But while Samson was a lush spectacle via a major studio (Paramount), by comparison, Sins is independent and low budget (as the critic from The Toledo Blade concluded, "The desire was strong, but the cash was weak”). The setting is visibly Californian (exteriors were shot at the Corriganville Movie Ranch in Ventura County, normally used for Westerns). At points, Sins suggests a campy and exotic Maria Montez movie with Goddard wearing the yashmak instead, or even the underground cinema of Jack Smith or Kenneth Anger.

I didn’t think I was familiar with Sins’ poverty row journeyman director Reginald Le Borg, but I Googled him and I have seen his horror movie So Evil, My Sister (aka Psycho Sisters) from 1974. The New York Times review was dismissive: “Most of the time the cast edges in and out of court boudoirs or uneasily holds forth on Jehovah and false, graven images … As the hypnotic heroine, Miss Goddard fans her eyelashes, swings a bare midriff with pendulum precision and weighs crises of religion and state as though a wad of gum were parked behind the royal tiara.” 43-year-old Goddard is juicy and glamorous as the conniving Baal-worshiping bad girl, but in terms of eye candy she’s upstaged by hunky George Nader as Jehu. My favourite line of dialogue: “Captain! There hasn’t been such a gathering here since the Queen of Sheba came to see Solomon!”

There’s a gorgeous HD restoration of Sins of Jezebel on YouTube. The blazing garish “Ansco Color” really pops!

Reflections on ... Nico in The Closet (1966)

 

/ Pictured: Nico and Randy Bourscheidt in The Closet (1966) by Andy Warhol /

For the month of December, author (and cutie pie) Matthew Kinlin is taking over editorship of Burning House Press online, seeking "baroque fantasies, imaginary interviews, dream fragments, incantations, maps, fiction, essays and harlequin nightmares" on the theme My Heart is Empty: Responses to the Life and Work of Nico. And - considering the wraith-cheekboned, heroin-ravaged Moon Goddess is my all-time favourite singer - boy, was I flattered to be invited to contribute! In this short essay, I reflect on Nico’s first-ever appearance in a Warhol film, The Closet (1966) (pictured). Want to contribute to My Heart is Empty? Email guesteditorbhp@gmail.com

Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: Berserk! (1967) on 20 November 2025

 

OK, so Halloween is over but let’s extend the horror vibe this November when the FREE monthly Lobotomy Room cinema club (committed to Bad Movies for Bad People) presents ultra-kitsch, gloriously lurid British-made shocker Berserk (1967)! 

“This absurd suspense melodrama was the next-to-last film of Joan Crawford’s career. She’s cast as Monica Rivers (a typically glamorous Joan Crawford character name), owner and ringmistress of a circus where strange murders occur. In the very first scene, a tightrope walker falls to his death. Joan takes charge immediately, shooing away the paparazzi and sending out a contingent of clowns, who flap their arms to amuse and distract the audience. “We’re running a circus, not a charm school!” she points out, “and, most importantly, people have to be entertained!””

/ From High Camp: A Gay Guide to Camp and Cult Films Volume 2 (1997) by Paul Roen /

Never was a film more aptly titled – and boy, does it earn that exclamation point. Highlights to anticipate: 1) 62-year-old leading lady Joan Crawford (in her second last film) is on fearsome scary diva form as hard-as-nails circus ringmistress Monica Rivers (a serial killer is gruesomely picking-off her circus’ performers one by one). Crawford’s portrayal can be summarized as “lipstick over concrete.” And don’t even get me started on the insane auburn wiglet Her Serene Crawfordship wears, or the special “glamour lighting” that ensures a flattering dark shadow is cast under her chin at all times. 2) Anytime impossibly hunky Ty Hardin (Crawford’s love interest) takes his shirt off. (Hardin is so devilishly handsome he’s like a homoerotic Tom of Finland illustration came to life). Note also that Hardin’s death-defying tightrope act involves him wearing a face-obscuring hood, which enables a body double to do it all on his behalf! 3) Zaftig British sex goddess Diana Dors’ juicily bitchy performance (and her straw-like bouffant hairstyle) in a supporting role. 4) The plot is considerably padded out with circus performance footage (which you see in all its plodding entirety), but Phyllis Allan and her Intelligent Poodles are delightful! 5) Not a spoiler, but the abrupt, lunatic ending (just after the murderer exclaims, “I killed them ALL! I HAD to! Now I’m going to kill YOU!”) ensures the scriptwriters are freed from explaining how any of this could have been feasible! 

“Berserk! was a lurid tale of murder in the circus and while it offered little to challenge Crawford’s dramatic talent, she was still able to display here commendable figure in a leotard as ringmistress. “What about these?” she said, exhibiting her breasts to her producer Herman Cohen. “And no operations on ‘em, either.” She wore her own clothes in the film - “Save your money, Herm; I’ve been hustling clothes all my life” – but asked that Edith Head design the leotard.”

/ From Joan Crawford: A Biography by Bob Thomas (1978) / 

Join us at Fontaine’s on 20 November to embrace the full lunacy of Berserk! (over cocktails!). Reserve your seat by emailing bookings@fontaines.bar. Full details here. 

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.

I am DJ'ing THIS Halloween -- and a Lobotomy Room Festive Halloween Playlist!

 

/ Pictured: I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) / 

For the first time in FIVE years, I’m DJ’ing on Halloween! Downstairs in the Bamboo Room of Fontaine’s cocktail lounge in Dalston THIS Friday (as in: 31 October. Tickets available on the door. Just rock up at the venue from about 8 or 9 pm until late; it will be fine!). After a LONG hiatus from DJ’ing, I am nervous but excited. Campy and abrasive vintage Halloween novelty songs are genuinely a favourite musical genre of mine at any time of year! 

BUT if you’re not London-based, you can still do the Monster Mash, Transylvanian Twist and Werewolf Watusi from the comfort of your own home to my sprawling, putrid festive Lobotomy Room Halloween playlist on Spotify! It’s filled with (mostly) kitschy spook-tacular Halloween novelty songs from the fifties and sixties! (Ensure you put it on "shuffle" for maximum listening pleasure!). 

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!

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.

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.

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!

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. 

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 /

Reflections on ... The Only Game in Town (1970)

 

Recently watched: The Only Game in Town (1970). Tagline: “Dice was his vice. Men hers.” 

/ Pictured: George Stevens and Elizabeth Taylor during production of The Only Game in Town /

Director George Stevens and leading lady Elizabeth Taylor triumphed collaborating on A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956). Far less well-remembered is this downbeat Las Vegas-set character study about two losers tentatively embarking on a love affair. I say “losers” – the two main characters are portrayed by ultra-glamorous and photogenic international movie stars Taylor and Warren Beatty. Joe Grady (Beatty) is a jaded lounge pianist saddled with crippling gambling debts. (The role was originally intended for Frank Sinatra). Fran Walker (Taylor) is a chorus girl who’s been waiting for her wealthy married business executive lover to leave his wife for the past five years. (To establish that Fran is a showgirl, Stevens clumsily splices fleeting close-ups of Taylor in sequins “dancing” into long shots of a huge lavish production number. It is unintentionally hilarious). Both yearn to leave Vegas and start over. 

/ Above: the leading man and leading lady of The Only Game in Town / 

(An aside: if you do any researching on Game, you’ll frequently see Fran described as an “ageing showgirl”. Taylor would be only 36 years old here! Thank God the parameters of “ageing” have changed over the years. But in this regard, Game has thematic parallels with the 1973 made-for-TV Kim Novak movie Third Girl from the Left and, more recently, The Last Showgirl (2024) starring Pamela Anderson). 

Fascinatingly, the budget for this small-scale and intimate comedy-drama promptly spiraled to $11 million. Game was made when Taylor and then-husband Burton – as author Lee Server wrote – were at “their jet-setting, conspicuously consuming, bad-movie-making height.” Taylor was still able to command her mega-star $1.125 million salary and demanded Game be filmed in Paris where Burton was currently making his own flop movie (Staircase (1969)), necessitating the construction of an “ersatz Vegas” on a French sound stage. (I’m hypnotized by the fake rear projection view of the Sahara casino from Fran’s living room window). As Wikipedia concludes: “The Only Game in Town was the second-worst financial failure for Fox, behind Cleopatra, also starring Taylor. Stevens did not direct another film.” 

/ Miss Taylor's wigs by Alexandre of Paris! / 

Anyway, Game is inconsequential and wispy but suffused with retro charm (the décor of Fran’s apartment, her groovy wardrobe of ponchos, muumuus and mini dresses. Taylor’s wild coiffures and wigs are via Alexandre of Paris). The contrasting acting styles of Taylor and Beatty is fascinating (he’s only five years younger, but Beatty embodies “New Hollywood” whereas she’s old-school). The melancholy opening montage of Fran walking through a seedy neon-lit and deserted (actual) Vegas by night is gorgeous.

Watch The Only Game in Town here:

/ Further listening: the reliably excellent Karina Longworth devotes an installment of her You Must Remember This podcast to the late-period career of George Stevens here. 

Reflections on ... Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern

 

/ Portrait of Leigh Bowery by Nick Knight, 1992 /

“In his brief life Bowery was described as many things. Among them: fashion designer, club monster, human sculpture, nude model, vaudeville drunkard, anarchic auteur, pop surrealist, clown without a circus, piece of moving furniture, modern art on legs. However, he declared if you label me, you negate me and always refused classification, commodification and conformity. Bowery was fascinated by the human form and interested in the tension between contradictions. He used makeup as a form of painting, clothing and flesh as sculpture and every environment as ready-made stage for his artistry. Bridging the gap between art and life, he took on different roles and then discarded them, presenting an understanding of identity that was never stable but always memorable. Bowery embraced difference, often using embarrassment as a tool both to release his own inhibitions and those of people around him. He wanted to shock with his looks and performances. At a time of increasing conservative values in Britain, Bowery refashioned ideas around identity, morality and culture. At times, this caused offence ...” 

This is the introductory text at the exhibit Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern. (Boy, is that exclamation point warranted!), which probes the life and times of debauched post-punk drag monster, performance artist, nightclub promoter, fashion designer, artist’s model, muse, musician, Australia’s twisted gift to the world and all-round visionary Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994). I visited it on Sunday, and it scrambled my brains in the best possible way. I’m still processing it! The images Bowery created remain freaky, nightmarish and beautiful, un-mellowed by the passage of time. (Even “off-duty”, Bowery sought to freak out the squares, wanting to resemble “the weirdo on the street that you tell your mum about”). I was particularly struck by his collaborations with bad boy of dance Michael Clark and ferocious post-punk band The Fall and a video clip by Charles Atlas of Bowery miming to an old Aretha Franklin song, a pair of novelty red lips from a joke shop affixed to his face with safety pins. The exhibit is on until 31 August 2025. Here are my pics!