The Quick and the Dead

You gotta hand it to Sharon Stone. Right after Basic Instinct, she could have done any movie she wanted. And so she said, "Make a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western starring me as The Man With No Name and  directed by the guy who did Evil Dead." Ballsy. A flop, but ballsy. And that's why i have a soft spot for The Quick and the Dead: It's what i would have done if i were in her position.

Another thing we gotta hand to La Stone and this is something the money men could have believed in if they could have forseen it: For The Quick and the Dead, Stone insisted on Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe as her co-stars. Both were on the verge of megastardom: Leo two years from Titanic and Unca Russ five out from Gladiator. Of course, Stone's choices of leading man weren't always so ace: See Billy Baldwin and Sylvester Stallone....

So, it's the classic western setup: Small town terrorized by evil town-running dude and his gang of henchmen. Said evil town-running dude is played by Gene Hackman in a shocking piece of stunt casting. I mean, he never plays roles like that...

Anyway, HackMan -- in what i assume is an attempt to increase the local tourist trade -- hosts an annual gun battle. They've got brackets and everything. La Stone aka "The Lady" signs up, along with the usual western movie suspects: Hired gun, tubercular pistolero,Texas braggart, angry Native American, several drunks and the unwashed rapist. And here we also have DiCaprio as cocky sharpshooter "The Kid," aka HackMan's son, as well as Crowe aka "The Preacher," a former gunslinger who has seen the error of his ways.

Stone appears and immediately steals someone's gold, knocks down a saloon manager who says the only place she can get a room is at the whorehouse, tells a gambler to play with himself, tells the convict he needs a bath and is nice to the blind shoeshine boy. It is a world of ridiculous machismo and the men seem less disturbed by the fact that Stone might shoot them than that she is utterly unimpressed with their bullshit. Just stands there, mutely appraising your sorry ass and finding you seriously wanting.

When they won't let her in the contest, she manages to simultaneously show off her pistol skills and save Crowe from a barroom lynching, earning them both a place in the brackets. Did i mention that at one point, she smacks an obnoxious and abusive little boy in the face? Love. Huh.

Yet it's also clear  that Stone isn't quite the heartless killer she pretends to be and is, indeed, slightly overwhelmed by these cold-blooded faceoffs. There's some heavy-handed childhood flashback sequences but they only spell out what she intelligently hints at -- that her silent bravado often hides the fact that she is confused and somewhat frightened by what's going on. For example: In her first faceoff, she is initially nervous, then resolute, then shocked and then covers it all by sticking her tongue down DiCaprio's throat and running off to get shitfaced on cheap whiskey. This is actually pretty much how i lived my life in NYC in the 90s, actually...

More gunfights, more deaths, more threats greeted by mute disdain. Stone gets dressed up in ladydrag to have dinner with HackMan but inexplicably doesn't whack him when she has the chance. And she does a bit much moaning and crying and doubting, although at least she does it in private. In public, she follows the wise edict that when you don't know what to say or do, do and say nothing and let others ascribe profundity to it. (Again: What i would have done in her position.)  You can bet that unwashed rapist is gonna get his though....

As far as our co-stars, Crowe manages to carry of pacifist badass and you can imagine his agent's phone ringing off the damn hook afterward -- hey, this was the 90s, phones still had hooks and Russel Crowe was still hot. Interestingly, there apparently was a scene where he gets in on with Stone that didn't make the final cut. (I can see Stone knowing damn well that it wouldn't, but insisting on shooting it anyway. I'm surprised she even had them put film in the camera.) DiCaprio is annoying but, well, he's supposed to be.

(I have contemplated how much less DiCaprio we'd have to deal with if River Phoenix hadn't died. Both were Oscar-nominated at an early age, but Phoenix was the better actor. And i think of his Gatsby and it makes me sad: Few actors have had the gift for evoking the longing of the outsider that River Phoenix did and i believe his Gatsby would have been the rare filmic portrayal that actually adds something to the literary character. Especially if they'd gotten it fully right and had Charlize Theron as Daisy. But i digress...)

 

 The main problem with The Quick and the Dead is that it's kind of hard for the movie to go anywhere. We're stuck with a series of high-noon gunfights building up to the inevitable faceoff between HackMan and La Stone. In the meanwhile, DiCaprio is arrogant, Crowe is noble, HackMan is a fucking dick and all the other archtypes do as is expected of them.

Sam Raimi's light-yet-violent touch shows up in the propensity for people having sunlight or smoke or small shadowbox-like views seen through the bullet holes just put in them. But The Quick and the Dead could stand a bit more of his trademark goofiness. (Although Crowe does throw down some rather Ash in Evil Dead moves in the climactic gunfight.)

 Still, it's an entertaining film with a bit of humor, a few good performances and a nice twist on the genre. Johnny Guitar, Cat Ballou and Westward the Women were all feminine takes on the western, but they significantly change western conventions to accommodate the ladies: With Freudian catfighting,with the delicate-female-turned-tough plotline, with a sisterhood road movie. But in The Quick and the Dead, it's straight up classic western tropes except for the fact that it changes the gender of the mysterious stranger set on vengeance. Sometimes the small changes are the most radical of all...

Theatre of Blood

Oh, the ham of it all!

Theatre of Blood was apparently one of Vincent Price's favorites of his (over 100) movies and i can see why. It's got everything that an actor enjoys: Multiple roles, varied accents, death scenes, murders, vengeance and the opportunity to play eight Shakespearean characters, down to the makeup and the monologues. This literary twist is another factor that sets Theatre of Blood from other hack horror flicks: The use of Shakespeare adds both substance and style and the Bard is handled with wit and dignity, albeit an off-kilter variety.

Theatre of Blood is a tale of murder (and revenge) most foul. Its murders may be based on Shakespeare, but its real theatrical roots are in the Jacobean Revenge Tragedy and the Grand Guignol (Sorry, my time at NYU art school popping up there...). Like the British theatre genre of the 1500s, Theatre of Blood has a taste for bloody violence, complicated Rube Goldberg-like vengeance plots that involve family members and no one left alive onstage. With the French Guignol of the 1900s, it shares a taste for black humor, cultural references, elaborately staged deaths and no one left alive onstage. Highbrow art in a lowbrown format, mixed with comedy, horror and camp: How can we not be entertained?

Price plays Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart, a pompous actor who refuses to do anything but Shakespeare.  When he fails to win the Critics' Circle Award for Best Actor of the Season 1970, he commits suicide... or does he?

Lionheart is survived by his daughter, played by Diana Rigg. At the time, she was between The Avengers & On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Hedda Gabler & The Orestia. Why is she slumming here? Well the same reason as Vincent Price: Fun for an actor, disguises, Shakespeare. And, i'm sure it was also an asset to be working with Mr. Price, whom she described as "an absolutely adorable man." He was also known for making his co-stars delicious gourmet meals for on-set lunch. And then they'd go back to hamming it up...

But Edward Lionheart is not dead! He's just crazy! And he decides to inflict his revenge upon those that hath scorned him. One by one, he kills each theatre critic in the manner of  a death from a Shakespeare play: The strangling from Othello, the mass stabbing from Julius Caesar, the cook-your-children-in-a-pie-and-eat-them of Titus Andronicus, and many, many more!

Of course, being an actor, Lionheart cannot function in solitude. So he recruits about a dozen way-far-gone winos -- actually, they seem to be drinking a mixture of grape Faygo and Everclear -- who serve as cheering audience, supporting cast and production assistants, as well as the occasional henchman, factotum or Doppleganger.

He also has a less-incoherent helper, a young man tricked out in Roger Daltrey hair, Robert Redford mustache and Peter Fonda sunglasses. It's still unclear how Lionheart manages to arrange his elaborate plots, which require not only undisturbed use of an abandoned theatre, but the bankroll and connections to arrange for complete film shoots, entire fencing schools, bone-cutting saws, police vehicles and suchlike.

All of the "He's not dead!" and revenge-death-as-literary-tribute in Theatre of Blood may seem reminiscent of Price's The Abominable Dr. Phibes (made two years earlier) and indeed it is. Although this movie kills critics instead of doctors with Shakespeare plays rather than Biblical plagues. Said critics are played by nine British character actors who naturally also fall into the film's spirit of scenery-chewing. (One of them, Coral Browne, married Price after filming ended.)

 

While considered a bit of schlock in its time, Theatre of Blood has become more appreciated over the years as a great piece of camp and a tour de force for a beloved star.. The movie has been the subject of book and articles, had screenings at the British Film Institute, a stage version and, of course, action figures and coffee mugs. Always with the action figures and coffee mugs...

Romeo Is Bleeding

Another film that was ahead of its day, Romeo Is Bleeding was a violent noir homage with a charismatic antihero and sociopathic villainess.

 Don't worry: She's all fucked up and bloody because she just killed a couple dudes.

Romeo Is Bleeding got bad reviews and was something of a flop in its time, but i think that's just because no one got it. I'm not sure everyone would get it now, but hopefully at least the odds are better. If anything, some of the tropes that seemed weird at the time have become a bit overused by now...

So, Gary Oldman plays Sgt. Jack Grimaldi, a corrupt New York City cop who's in bed with the mafia and sleeps around. Don't worry, he'll get his. Everyone does.

Smoking is not sexy.

Lena Olin's Mona Demarkov is both femme fatale and evil mastermind combined--imagine Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past rolled into one or Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin in The Big Heat being the same person. Like Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction, she is not just a heartless monster, but a heartless monster that derives genuine, visceral enjoyment from watching her victims squirm. And die.

Nope. Not at all.

While the title is taken from a Tom Waits song, the film has nothing to do with it. Oldman-as-Grimaldi is a bored policeman who wants a taste of the good life he sees all the criminals around him devouring. He's got a beautiful brunette wife and a sexy blonde mistress and a bungalow in Queens. He's making a little extra cash selling out informants to the mob. He tells us all of this in third-person voiceover in case we don't get the noir thing (Actually at one point he gets so involved in the monologue that another character has to lean over and interrupt him.) but it's obvious that this a pawn who only has delusions of being a king.

So, Grimaldi sets up one informant, only to get tangled up with the mob's toughest assassin, Mona Demarkov. She's not just bad, she's a psycho killer. Literally: A lunatic who murders people while laughing hysterically. Usually dressed in lingerie, always in stiletto heels. She is smarter, tougher and meaner than any man around. Some crooked cop criminal wannabe self-styled ladies' man? She can eat him for lunch and still ask to look at the dessert menu.

Grimaldi tries to play Mona against the mob, the NYPD against the Feds and is not nearly smart enough to do so. The dipsy mistress starts hassling about marriage, the compliant wife has been wised up all along and he's still got Mona to deal with. She may be crazy, but he's an idiot who can't think further ahead than the tip of his dick. Grimaldi and Mona spend the whole film trying to kill each other or fuck each other or fucking kill each other. And you know who's going to be on top....

Romeo Is Bleeding also has some fabulous New York City location shooting in the last days before Giuliani wrecked everything (Or began: Bloomberg finished the job.) everything from a nightmare dream sequence on the Wonder Wheel to a backyard overlooking Cavalry Cemetery to a Greenpoint car crash to shallow graves in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Actually all the cinematography is beautifully done. The soundtrack is also atmospheric and evocative of classic noir films (brushed drums, wailing saxophone).

Gary Oldman is compelling and sympathetic while being an in-over-his-head jerk and pulls of a damned convincing New York accent; Olin is over-the-top as the voracious Mona Demarkov, but that's the way the role is written and she plays it to the hilt, a woman who takes no bullshit from or for anyone. Romeo Is Bleeding is certainly not a great film, but it's a fun watch...

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?