Sunday, September 21, 2014

Torch Song

Holy Joan Crawford in blackface!
In the immortal words of Eric Idle, say no more! Well, actually, i will: Torch Song is one of the purest examples of camp ever filmed. Aging movie queen? Check. A nonsensical plot? Check. Ridiculous dialogue? Check. Garish sets and costumes? Check. Jaw-droppingly bad musical numbers? Bonus!
 
This movie was Crawford's follow-up to Sudden Fear -- i believe that one was her fourth comeback -- and was a return to the MGM lot where she had been under contract for two decades. Crawford was 49 and she'd had her face lifted, boobs boosted and hair dyed Carrot Top-crimson. It is any wonder that drag queens from RuPaul to Tallulah Vale love Torch Song?
So, Joan Crawford plays musical comedy star Jenny Stewart. She's... well, she's kind of like Joan Crawford in demeanor and attitude...



"Always be kind to your fans." And a total raging cunt to everyone else. Including your younger, drunken boyfriend who runs around behind your back and always makes you pick up the tab at El Morocco. Interestingly, even though Gig Young died of alcoholism, he cannot play a convincing drunk scene. You'll notice that she's redoing all her costume sketches. Earlier she redid her arrangements and changed the choreography. Jenny Stewart is like Kanye that way: Better at everything than everyone else.

Also, enough of a SeeYouNextTuesday that your accompanist quits and is replaced by Michael Wilding, aka Mr. Elizabeth Taylor No. 2. We learn that he's not only British but he's blind. We also learn that watching people stand around and lip-synch is boring. I mean, Britney Spears is barely interesting doing that and she's jumping up and down in a sparkly bathingsuit. Also, watching people rehearse the same dance routine over and over again is boring. Even if it's shot with a sense of impending doom because if this guy fucks up one more time, Joan Crawford is going to tear off his balls and gouge out his eyes and put his eyes where his balls should be and his balls where his eyes should be.
However, Crawford's pad is pretty mid-century marvelous, with everything powder blue and built in.


That's Maidie Norman as Joan's loyal retainer -- secretary, housekeeper, cook, dresser and personal assistant all rolled into one. I hope she is very well compensated because it seems like a bitch of a job to do for a bitch.
Anyway, Crawford fires Blindy becase, well, blind. She figures she will go visit him in his squalid garret so that she can be the first to view his corpse, as anyone who is rejected by Joan Crawford -- i mean, Jenny Stewart -- will immediately go hang himself in grief and shame. So she is pretty pissed to find, rather than the wretched remains of a destroyed man hanging from the ceiling, a dude living in a groovy penthouse with modern art and a Chinese butler, having a few pals over for some bourbon and a jam session. Pals who can see! The nerve! She is so disgusted she gives him his job back.

More lip-synching, more bitchery. Joan Crawford has parties to which no women are invited. (Make of that what you will....) However, Blindy doesn't come. Blindy seems totally disinterested in her. And there's this blonde with a sweet hollowbody guitar and a nice rack who's gotta be under 35 hanging around....
Character actress Marjorie Rambeau pops up as Crawford's tippling, money-grubbing mama in the best Mama Jean/Ethel Gumm tradition.
 And now we get to the moment you've been waiting for. The ghastly "Two-Faced Woman" musical number, in which Joan Crawford dons blackface for no discernable reason.

The song is bad, the dancing is lousy, the whole thing is wack beyond wackness... and, of course, the crowd goes wild with applause. I hope somewhere Miss Norman is signing her letter of resignation with a flourish. Note that Two-Faced Woman was also the title of the film that made Greta Garbo walk out on her career. It seems to bode ill....
But Joan Crawford seems to be utterly unaware of how foolish she looks. Because she's in love! With Blindy! Now, at no point do they say what we're all thinking: Bitch, you love him because he thinks you still look like you did ten years ago!

Still, Joan Crawford does realize that Blindy's indifference and her jealousy have stirred something in her heart that may or may not be love but, hell, the disillusioned are sometimes easily fooled and any kind of movement feels like progress to the emotionally crippled. So, Joan Crawford stalks over to Blindy's penthouse to tell him this. But, oh oh, Blonde is there...

She and blonde leave the room as Blindy plays on, oblivious. Count five and Blonde scuttles top-speed toward the door, coat clutched around her. Whatever Joan Crawford did to her in those five offscreen seconds must've been horrible. And you know Joan Crawford can do horrible things. It was probably like all five Saw movies at once. With wire hangers.
Torch Song is weirdly beloved by Crawford fans, who either dig the irony or embrace the dying rays of an imploding star. And, well, Joan Crawford as tyrannical diva bitch who wears blackface and bullies blind people... how can you not?

Friday, September 12, 2014

Death to Smoochy

Shine on, you crazy diamond!
Upon its release, Death to Smoochy was considered a raging failure, an utter piece of crap, unfunny and disgusting. And i can get why people hated it...

... because those are the reasons that i love it. Yes, all the characters are unlikeable. Yes, the set design is cartoonishly lurid. Yes, the dialogue is fast and foul. Yes it's over-over-the top. Yes, it's viewpoint is bitter, misanthropic and vile. And you people keep saying all of this like it's a bad thing! And Death to Smoochy contains what may be the most weird, twisted, stone-cold-crazy performance Robin Williams ever delivered.
Williams plays Rainbow Randolph, host of a children's TV show. Imagine some sort of Captain Kangaroo/Liberace/Doug Henning weirdness with tap dancing and little people. 
 ... we won't even talk about the "toss" and "catch" part of the song.

However, Rainbow Randolph is also a coke-huffing, ass-grabbing, bribe-taking, foul-mouthed asshole. It's that third one that gets him in trouble with the FBI. Jon Stewart (with a Nero haircut) and Catherine Keener (with some really nice outfits) have to find a squeaky-clean replacement. Given that in the sordid backstage world of kiddie TV shows, most stars seem to be heroin mules, wife beaters or recently deported, they're stuck with Smoochy. If you always hated Barney, a fuchsia rhino singing folk songs should be close enough to the purple dinosaur's "I love you, you love me" to deeply irk.
There's Ed Norton in cargo pants and cowrie shell necklace as Sheldon Mopes aka Smoochy. Fucking self-righteous, clean-living hippie. Anyway, Smoochy gets Rainbow Randolph's time slot and Rainbow Randolph requires revenge. First up: Cookie sabotage!
 "He made it from dill-dough!"

... and herein lies the magic of Death to Smoochy. There are a number of times when i'm practically certain that the script just said "Robin goes off." (And, actually, if you look at the DVD outtakes, it's proven -- there's a few different versions of his ranting freakouts.) The best moments of the film are when Williams just lets loose and this moment of shrieking dozens of euphemisms for "cock and balls" at a scandalized rhino furry and dozens of delighted small children is the first.
However, there is not nearly as much Rainbow Fucking Randolph Williams in this film as there should be and too much granola fuckwit Smoochy. Also there's a whole host of subsidiary villains: Jon Stewart's network sleaze, a bunch of Irish gangsters, a criminal charity headed by Harvey Fierstein and director Danny DeVito as an shady agent. But, then again, we get the fun bits, like Williams' bad disguise and accent roulette on the way to the Nazi rally...
 Also, there's an ice show that is a major plot point. Because "No one says no to an ice show."

Death to Smoochy is a flawed film -- and not in a bad taste/foul humor way. But it bogs down in those plot twists and somehow manages to push out an ending where suddenly we have good guys and bad guys and conventional conclusions. Still, for those moments that allow Robin Williams to roll loose and wild like an id set loose on mescaline with its hair on fire, Death to Smoochy is definitely worthwhile.