BijouBlog

Die, Die My Darling aka Fanatic, 1965, directed by Silvio Narrizano,Hammer Films. (Hammer produced a plethora of famous horror movies; check out the link.) 
 

Patricia Carroll (Stefanie Powers) is an American woman who travels to London to marry her boyfriend, Alan Glentower (Maurice Kaufmann). While there, Patricia stops by to visit Mrs. Trefoile (Tallulah Bankhead), the mother of her deceased ex-fiancé, who had been killed in a car accident, intending to pay her respects. Upon arriving, however, Patricia discovers that Mrs. Trefoile's grief for her son has transformed her already fanatical religious zealotry into sociopathic violence. When Mrs. Trefoile begins holding Patricia prisoner, starving and abusing her in order to convert her into “pure virgin” for her son in the afterlife, she must find a way to escape. Her attempts to break free prove futile until a surprise intervention at the end. 

Oh, Tallulah! You turned down the Joan Crawford role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and now in your dotage you wanted to take advantage of the 1960s “psychobiddy” or “grande dame guignol” trend that the Crawford/Davis vehicle started. It was actually kind of odd, as she was actually more of a stage actress (Die, Die My Darling actually makes reference to this fact when Patricia asks Mrs. Trefoile is she was an actress after seeing a scrapbook of actually Tallulah stage photos) than a movie star. In fact, her last big movie role was in Hitchock's Lifeboat in 1944. 

She needed the money at that point in her life, and it was interesting that her flamboyant personality in real life actually worked well in this role about a woman who actually gives up flamboyance to become a dour religious fanatic who subjects her household staff to lengthy (think, let's read an entire book of the Bible before we eat) Bible readings and a vegetarian diet of “God's plain food.” No condiments of any kind! And how dare Stefanie Powers wear lipstick or a red blouse, the “devil's color.” Well, Tallulah herself in her indomitable way said that she looked in this movie like she was old enough to be “God's wet nurse.” 

Now, what I found interesting about this movie was not just the fabulously demented performance by Miss Bankhead, who actually seems to be channeling Bette Davis (whom she always accused of imitating her in All About Eve, because everything in the universe somehow converged on Tallulah), especially in scenes where she speaks in a creepy infantilized voice to a teddy bear that belonged to her dead son. She even whines, like Jane Hudson, who also commits a murder, “What am I going to do?” after she kills the husband of her housekeeper Anna. 
 

Yes, Tallulah gives us some marvelous campy, lurid moments as was her wont, but there's another element I noted upon repeated viewings. The housekeeper Anna (played by Yootha Joyce, actually a comic actress of some repute in England) seems to be a person of abnormal strength. Think female wrestler. 

Much of the movie is the Patricia character being subjected to physical violence, and Anna (her motivation is unclear for going along with Tallulah's insane scheme, perhaps a promise of inherited money) is the heavy. She seems to specialize in something like pro wrestling arm pinning or armlock maneuvers, but overall, she seems to be endowed with, as I said above, superhuman strength. Patricia doesn't stand a chance. She at once point resorts to biting Anna's hand, getting quite a visceral reaction from her tormentor. To no avail. “Lightweight” Patricia doesn't have the chops against this uneven match. 
 

Yep, for those possible audience members who might get off on this type of scene with its potential eroticism, there's plenty of it here. And the violence in this movie usually ends up exposing more and more of Ms. Powers' breasts. (Was she even possibly not wearing a bra earlier on? I'm sure that would rank very high on Mrs. Trefoile's catalog of sins.) At one point, during one of the fights with Anna, Stefanie gets stabbed with in the shoulder with scissors, and there's plenty of skin show there. I was thinking of some of those images of early Christian virgin martyrs subjected to all kinds of torments (St. Cecilia stabbed in the steamy bath, and St. Agatha losing, yes losing her breasts, yikes). 

Leading up to the final scene of the almost successful virgin sacrifice (no spoiler here, watch the movie), one sees a bound and gagged Patricia pushing herself down the stairs in an usual for her futile escape attempt (the boyfriend has to rescue her, of course). But once again, I kept thinking how a potential straight male audience (or any others who might be interested) might get excited by seeing the struggling “damsel in bondage.” 

The movie is finally available in a no-frills DVD (no menu, no subtitles) for your hot summer of grande dame guignol. 

“The first 200 years, have seen us grow, and we're still growing … “ 

1976 was the bicentennial year. If you are “older” like me, you might remember The Bicentennial Minute, red, white and blue kitchens, and massively frightening fireworks displays. 
 

I also remember Sister Judy, forcing, as was her wont, the upper grades to teach the younger grades about events in American history. We were put in teams with people from other classes we did not know and expected to “put on a show in a barn;” less than stellar results usually occurred. She also forced, as was her wont, the eighth grade class to participate in various bicentennial-related projects. I chose the mural project. I could not paint or draw. Well, at least it wasn't sports. 

While I was growing up in the white suburban Catholic ghetto, groundbreaking events in the advancement of LGBTQ rights were occurring in cities (downtown Chicago was very far away from me socially and psychologically) and states that might as well have been foreign countries or even alien planets to me: 

January, 1976: Iowa repeals its "sexual psychopath" law. Passed in the wake of a moral panic following the 1954 rape and murder of a young boy, the law had been used to detain dozens of gay men in mental institutions in the 1950s. 

May, 1976: City council of Los Angeles prohibits employment discrimination by the city based on sexual orientation. 

July, 1976: U.S. state of Indiana decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts. 

September, 1976: Start of the three-day "Fourth Annual Gay Conference for Canada and Quebec," held in Toronto, including a rally and march. 
 

Forty years later, Sister Judy now works at her religious order's print shop (an appropriate job for her, for she can still yell at people, this time for screwing up print runs and not making deadlines), and I live in the “big, bad” city as an openly gay leatherman who can now get married. Hint: looking for husband. Taking applications now. 
 

I don't want to end this blog with the cliched “you've come a long way, baby,” because we're always on the path to something. It's when we think we are finished or just give up along the way that we are really in trouble, because we won't embrace further change, or take refuge in a nostalgic fantasy golden age. 

Remember, as Esther wisely reflected in the movie Ben-Hur, “The world is more than we know.” 

“Let's eat outside. It's such a nice day.”
“Wanna go to a cookout? I am putting meat on the grill.”
“This place has a great rooftop garden.” 

Al fresco for me is literally for the birds. (In fact, I often imagine swarms of birds “doing their business” over unaware outside diners who suddenly realize a topping from the sky has been added to their burgers. Ick.) 

Eating outside is overrated. I just don't get the appeal. 
 

The reasons? Perhaps more personal than objective, but in this case, it's a matter of taste (and ambience) or maybe even some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Insect invasion: My brother was stung by a bee twice, yes twice, when we were eating outside in the backyard. In one case, he sat on the bee. Yes, who wants to eat out and suffer from bees circling around, attracted by whatever you are eating? And not just bees, but other insects, flies, of course. A fly on a paper plate sums up for me the joy of eating outside. And note that these were the days before many homeowners built elaborate decks (all this trouble to build something to eat outside on; seems odd to me). We ate outside on decaying wooden picnic tables placed directly on grass, grass which harbored ants, grasshoppers, and other swarming, creeping things. 
 

Destructive winds: One time at a family barbeque event the wind was so strong it actually lifted an umbrella out of the center of a table and carried it across the yard. Mary Poppins, eat your heart out. Yes, winds can blow paper plates, rip off those temporary tablecloths, knock over paper and plastic cups filled with liquids. Rather than focusing on the food, one ends up focusing on preventing the trappings you have created to hold the food from blowing into your face or falling onto the insect-infested grass. 

Heat-related disasters: I date from the times of charcoal grills. Either the coals would not light, or one time a raging inferno occurred because I put an excessive amount of lighter fluid on the coals (I was impatient; for corn's sake, let's just turn on the stove). And then there's the ice cream issue. Yes, ice cream is suitable for summer, but guess what? It melts. All over. And then there's always the possibility of the melting ice cream falling off the cone, especially if a small child is holding the cone. Oh, the humanity. Especially for children whose faces end up looking like they fell into a mud pit. 
 

Voyeurs: You are sitting outside in your yard or deck or whatever. The neighbors next door are outside, perhaps not eating. Yet they can watch every chew, hear every slurp, every burp. They might ben be able to record it and put it on Facebook. Status: My neighbors are eating outside. I don't want people, especially people you don't know very well, watching my eating habits. Not that I necessarily eat sloppily, but have you ever looked at films of yourself eating? It's not a pretty site. I don't want to be remembered as someone whose mouth is filled with hamburger and potato chips. So much for going back to nature by eating out. 
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We've developed complex dwellings replete with all kinds of amenities, such as stainless steel kitchens and elegant formal dining rooms. Let's eat inside them. And don't ask me to eat out. Just don't. I'm still recovering from too many eating out events that resembled the plagues of Egypt. I'll take a pass over (pun intended) any invites. I would rather invite you in for dessert! 

Yes, the book, Valley of the Dolls, on which the camp classic movie was based, is 50 years old! Hard to believe!

I actually saw the movie before I read the book. A former friend of mine seemed to think I needed to see it as part of Gay 101. I showed it to another friend, who knew nothing of the movie's gay cult status, and he said, “This is a bad movie.” Yes, it is. I could go on and on about why it is bad, but like other cult movies, it oddly suck the viewer in, perhaps because it's consistently bad (Neely, Neely, Neely O'Hara!), except for the touching performance of Sharon Tate as Jennifer. Even more touching, as we know of Sharon's horrible death.

When I finally got around to reading the book, I was actually shocked that the Jennifer character played by Sharon Tate in the movie enjoys a lesbian tryst while in college This tryst is not the movie, of course, and even though Jacqueline Susann is relatively explicit here, girl-on-girl sex in school wasn't as shocking socially at that time, because the hetero man finds it titillating, and it reaffirms the stereotype that a woman can easily experiment with lesbianism before finding the man of her dreams.

And as the recent article on this book in Slate points out, the word “fag” shows up quite often in the book, emphasizing the stereotype of the bitchy queen hairdresser or clothes designer prevalent in the 1960s and before.

Yes, much seems dated, but the the trials and tribulations of the fame- and fortune-seeking “dolls” who pop dolls parallel the hyperkinetic, hyperreal, hypertweet celebrity culture of today.

One could even say that Jennifer, Neely, and Anne are the infinitely more talented grandmothers of Real Housewives, the Bachelorette, and the Kardashians. Jennifer was beautiful and also kind, Neely, according to her nemesis Helen Lawson “has really got it” (referring to talent) and Anne was both smart and beautiful. One feels for them as they fall into their own respective valleys of the dolls.  

Could one say the same about their 21^st century granddaughters? I wonder.

The lowdown from the Chicago Gay Pride Parade this year was “subdued” but “still colorful” or “festive” but “respectful.” 

The subdued and respectful adjectives fit, because the LGBTQ community is in mourning because of the horrific events at Orlando, and in tandem with many pride parades around the globe, the victims were honored. In Chicago, the first entry was a memorial to the victims, with participants holding photos of them. A woman standing next to me wept. 
 

After this profoundly moving start, the action began to pick up a bit, but I noticed less people standing by the beginning of the parade (where my friend and I were hanging about). It seemed at times the people marching and on floats had to do more to get the crowds cheering. As usual, PFLAG and the schools elicited enthusiastic cheers. 

I did find it rather unfortunate that the Chicago PrimeTimers (a gay male senior citizens club), which entry consisted of three elders holding a banner, was followed immediately by a bevy of young hot gay hockey players. At least the PrimeTimers got a mention on the special ABC local news coverage! 

This juxtaposition of older and younger might be interpreted as a show of unity in diversity, and several parade organizers claimed that the mood this year, rather than jubilation over marriage equality for all, was respect and unity. Everyone was showing unity based on a broader definition of love in the face of hate. 

Yet here's the rub. Something controversial happened in Chicago that shows we have a long way to go to remedy serious structural social and economic inequalities in the LGBTQ community, in many ways a microcosm of our society as a whole. An event called Pride at Montrose was abruptly cancelled by the police. The reason was ostensibly the height of a security fence. 
 

Note that this event is sponsored by the Chicago Gay Black Men's Caucus, which in the past had used this event to perform valuable health services, (now in danger because of the state budget problems in Illinois), such as HIV testing, and this year, an emphasis on Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). 

Last year #BlackLivesMatter performed a die-in at the parade. 

See the connection here? It's pretty much a stereotype that many of the advances in the gay rights movement were often orchestrated by white men with power and money (and still are). The thrust to be able to join the army and get married could be interpreted as even conservative, as the army and marriage are traditional structures. In other words, was the goal really assimilation, thus marginalizing groups the large society also marginalizes? 
 

The victims of Orlando were mostly young Latinx persons, many struggling to make ends meet in low-paying service jobs. Some were still going to school, mostly community colleges. I doubt any of them would be considered “upper middle class” or even “middle class.” They wouldn't be living in expensive condos (built because greedy developers force out the working class families in those area), walking designer dogs, or attending fancy benefits in beaded gowns (like many of the gay men in the area I live in, I must say). 

Marriage equality is beautiful, but how many persons on the lower end of the income scale can even afford to reap the economic benefits of marriage? And let's not forget that many lesbians, because women still make less money to the dollar than men, are struggling to maintain lives of dignity and peace because their earning power is reduced. And, shamefully, the poverty rate among transgender individuals is quite high as well. 
 

If we are to really show unity, I think we need to start seriously addressing the fundamental inequities in the LGBTQ community that reflect those present in the society as a whole. We ask others not to judge us because of who we are; let's stop judging others based on income, appearance, age, or even personality. I'm hoping the younger members of our community, many of whom stand the most to lose in an dismal economic future (perhaps why many of them voted for Bernie Sanders), can prove to be an example of unity in diversity for their elders.