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. 

Reflections on ... Third Girl from the Left (1973)

 

I haven’t seen the movie The Last Showgirl yet, but I intend to! (It just recently opened in the UK). Alongside Demi Moore in The Substance, Pamela Anderson’s is the comeback story de nos jours. 

But what I did revisit in preparation is the ABC 1973 made-for-TV Third Girl from the Left, which shares a virtually identical theme. Written by singer-songwriter Dory Previn, it’s a downbeat, wistful character study starring Kim Novak (in her television debut) as Gloria Joyce, a veteran showgirl (in New York this time rather than Vegas) hitting a crisis point in her life. At 36, after years of being centre stage in the line-up, she’s been asked to “move to the back” to make space for a new girl. Has Gloria “aged out” of her showbiz career? (Isn’t it wild to reflect that 36 was considered “past it” in 1973? Novak herself is 40 years-old here). In addition, Gloria’s 13-year relationship with lounge crooner Joey Jordan (Tony Curtis, clearly having a blast luxuriating in this sleazebag role) is fizzling out. Bruised and uncertain, she embarks on a tentative romance with a younger man (Michael Brandon). 

Misty, ethereal and vulnerable, Novak seems to be deliberately evoking her earlier performance as Polly the Pistol in Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). There are introspective songs via Previn (the genius who wrote the anguished lyrics to the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls theme, composed by her then-husband Andre Previn). In the striking opening credits, we watch Gloria in close-up applying her stage make-up as Previn sings about her on the soundtrack (“Gloria / Remember her? A flowered blouse, a ribbon bow, the night you had a year ago … Her eyes were sad … you asked if you could see her place / A pale perfume, a paler face / You stayed a while / She liked your smile …”). You’ll notice the credit “Executive Producer: Hugh M Hefner”: Third Girl from the Left is a Playboy Production (perhaps inevitably, his then-mistress Barbi Benton has a supporting role. So does Anne Ramsay from Throw Mama from the Train!). Curtis and Novak would reunite seven years later in The Mirror Crack'd (1980).

You can watch Third Girl from the Left on YouTube:

Reflections on ... Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition

 

/ Portrait of Leigh Bowery at home (note the Star Trek wallpaper) / 

Finally getting around to posting a few shots I snapped from when I visited the Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textiles Museum a few weeks ago. The exhibit documents the wildly vivid, creative and fertile post-punk, post-New Romantic period when edgy nightlife bled into and informed street fashion and youth subcultures (and the emerging style press like i-D magazine) and ultimately high fashion. Outlaws locates the epicentre of this scene as Taboo, the hedonistic and anarchic anything-goes club night organised by freaky and inspired drag terrorist / performance artist Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994) in London’s Leicester Square from 1985. (Bowery is definitely enjoying a cultural moment: a major retrospective exhibit devoted to him opens on 27 February at Tate Modern). Anyway, some of the names and reference points you’ll encounter at the exhibit include Bad boy of dance Michael Clark. Judy Blame. Princess Julia. Pam Hogg. Boy George. Mark Moore of S’Express. Scarlett Cannon. John Galliano. Neneh Cherry. Sue Tilley. Susanne Bartsch. Lana Pellay. Kinky Gerlinky. Lloyd Johnson. Kensington Market. The show closes on 9 March 2025 so don’t delay!

/ Mannequins representing Scarlett Cannon and Leigh Bowery /

/ Mannequin representing Pete Burns of Dead or Alive /

/ Ensemble by Pam Hogg /

/ Polaroid of adorable young Princess Julia - the queen of my heart! /

/ Can't vouch for everything the mannequin is wearing, but I know that the gold leather fringed biker jacket and matching jeans are definitely by Lloyd Johnson and that Lux Interior of The Cramps wore this outfit in the 1980s /

My First Article for Interview Magazine: “I’m a Woman, Darling”: The Life and Times of Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn

 

/ Pic: portrait of young Holly Woodlawn by Jack Mitchell, 1970 /

What a trip to be published in Interview (as in, the esteemed Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, which celebrated its fifty-fifth anniversary last year). Believe me, as a teenager, I used to hungrily devour issues of Interview and the original incarnations of Details and Paper magazines every month! Read my ultra- juicy interview with author Jeff Copeland about his new book Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn: A Walk on the Wild Side with Andy Warhol’s Most Fabulous Superstar (published this month by Feral House!). Copeland first met Woodlawn in 1989, co-wrote her rollicking 1991 memoirs A Low Life in High Heels and now – almost a decade after her death in 2015 – reflects on their stormy friendship in Love You Madly. Read the article to find out why Copeland calls Woodlawn his “auntie Mame”! 

To whet your appetite, a snippet from my introduction .. 

“Holly Woodlawn was Andy Warhol’s spiciest superstar, the Factory’s own Anna Magnani. Following her volcanic breakthrough performance in the Warhol-produced, Paul Morrissey-directed Trash (1970), the Puerto Rico-born transgender trailblazer would be immortalized by Lou Reed in the lyrics to his 1972 hit “Walk on the Wild Side,” dressed by Halston, photographed by Richard Avedon and feted by Truman Capote as “the face of the seventies” (although rumour has it the writer may have said those exact words to Woodlawn’s peer, Candy Darling, too). By the time the naïve aspiring screenwriter Jeff Copeland encountered Woodlawn in Los Angeles in 1989, the diva’s fortunes had taken a downturn. The odd couple would collaborate on Woodlawn’s 1991 autobiography A Low Life in High Heels and now, almost a decade after Woodlawn’s death, Copeland reflects on their friendship with exasperated affection in his juicy new book Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn: A Walk on the Wild Side with Andy Warhol’s Most Fabulous Superstar …”

Read my article here. 

Reflections on ... The Mafu Cage (1978)

 

/ Above: Carol Kane (as Cissy) and Lee Grant (as Ellen) in The Mafu Cage directed by Karen Arthur /

Recently watched: The Mafu Cage (1978). Tagline: “A terrifying love story.”  

Basically, nothing I say can prepare you for this truly disturbing and hypnotic oddity. Ellen (Lee Grant) and Cissy (Carol Kane) are two adult sisters leading an isolated, codependent existence in a palatial mansion somewhere in Los Angeles. We gradually learn that both their parents are dead; they grew up in the jungles of Africa, there’s a vague sense of unspecified trauma in their past, and that their father was an anthropologist who studied simians. Cissy still yearns for Africa and has seemingly never adjusted to life in the US. Level-headed, responsible and maternal Ellen combines her career as an astronomer at Griffith Observatory with caring for mentally fragile Cissy, who is childlike, ethereal – but also capable of shocking brutality. When Ellen develops romantic feelings for a male colleague, the sisters’ delicate equilibrium swiftly unravels with horrific consequences ... (Note that while Kane has the showier role, Grant is equally remarkable. Both actresses are exemplary). 

/ Carol Kane in The Mafu Cage /

The Mafu Cage is “horror adjacent” without being remotely kitsch, camp or exploitative: it's a deeply cerebral psychological meditation on insanity and claustrophobic, dysfunctional family dynamics. I’d argue relevant reference points would include What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) by Robert Aldrich, Secret Ceremony (1968) by Joseph Losey, That Cold Day in the Park (1969) and 3 Women (1977) by Robert Altman and the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens. Unsurprisingly, the distributors were flummoxed about how to promote this curiosity: it was marketed as a horror flick under various titles including Don’t Ring the Doorbell (“Chop, chop … Slice, slice … Another man would be so nice!”), My Sister, My Love and Deviation. The Mafu Cage was little seen at the time but has gradually been embraced as a cult film. Warning: some of the images in The Mafu Cage will haunt your subconscious forever! A bonus: the supporting cast includes Will Geer (Grandpa Walton)!

Watch The Mafu Cage on YouTube. 

Reflections on ... Nina Hagen in Ekstasy (1985)

 

“Nina Hagen is at once the most outlandish of rock clowns and the most intensely committed and flaked-out female pop visionary since Patti Smith herself.” From Tim Holmes’ review of the album Nina Hagen in Ekstasy (1985) in Rolling Stone. 

Released forty years ago this month (February 1985) by CBS records: Nina Hagen in Ekstasy, the berserk German punk diva’s third solo studio album. Don’t compare it to Hagen’s earlier futuristic avant-garde science fiction tour de force Nunsexmonkrock (1982) and Ekstasy is a blast on its own terms (and it’s been a perennial favourite of mine since I was a teenager). 

/ Nina Hagen photographed by Paul Natkin in 1985 / 

The cover depicts Hagen as a punk rock Jayne Mansfield complete with shocking fuchsia hair extensions. The music inside more than lives up to this persona (aptly described by The Village Voice’s Evelyn McDonnell as “extraterrestrial demon-child”): it’s an anything goes explosion of lurid maximalist bad taste, gleefully throwing heavy metal, punk, psychedelia (she covers “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum), hip hop, reggae and dance music into the mix. As ever, Hagen’s lyrics offer her crackpot ruminations on religion ("Gott im Himmel”), spirituality, UFOs and politics (especially Russian politics). Never one for false modesty, on “Prima Nina in Ekstasy" Hagen declares, “I love myself and I know who I am / Don't you be afraid, doc / I'm the queen of punk rock …” “Universal Radio” is one of the catchiest things she ever did. Her version of “My Way” matches Sid Vicious’ rendition for ferocity. Growling “Go down on your knees and pray for peace …” on “The Lord’s Prayer”, Hagen seemingly channels Linda Blair in The Exorcist. The freaky “Atomic Flash Deluxe” (which ends with her chanting / warning “Babylon will fall”) could be an off-cut from Nunsexmonkrock. And her repeated references to “ekstasy” perhaps hint at what she was dabbling in at the time. 

To be fair, CBS gave the album a major promotional push: did they think Hagen could be their equivalent to Cyndi Lauper or Madonna? But of course, she was never destined for that kind of pop stardom. As Trouser Press’ critic concluded, “Hagen’s rampant individuality almost precludes mass comprehension, let alone full-scale popularity.” And in retrospect, Ekstasy represents Hagen’s artistic last gasp. After this, aside from a fun, trashy heavy metal cover of Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” in ’89, she well and truly abandoned quality control and pretty much never recorded a decent note of music again!

Listen to Nina Hagen in Ekstasy below.