Story of Mankind

This is a movie of legendary, legendary awfulness. And, jeez, it is bad. But it does have some amusing moments...

Wow, wotta cast, huh? Hedy Lamarr, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, Cesar Romero, Ronald Colman, the Marx Brothers...

Indeed, we have Groucho Marx as Peter Minuit, hustling the Indians out of Manhattan. ("Robbery!" "That's true, but is it a deal?") This is but one of many dubious cameos strewn throughout Story of Mankind and it is these weird dollops of miscasting and miscomprehension that provide whatever questionable value this movie has. As in...

Why yes, that is Dennis Hopper as Napoleon!

With the added bonus of noir femme fatale Marie Windsor as Josephine. Mercifully, neither of them attempt a French accent.

The principle of the story is that when the "celestial clock strikes eleven," mankind will detonate the hydrogen bomb and "The Council" must decide whether to let them do it. And so we are subjected to an hour-and-a-half of said weird celebrity cameos, interspersed with big, flashy, Technicolor footage of the Crusades or the voyage of Columbus or the French Revolution -- all of which is cut in from other movies.

The is said celestial clock. Which would look great in my living room. To aid in the decision-making process, Mr. Scratch (played by Vincent Price) and "The Spirit of Mankind" (played by Ronald Coleman) must use examples from history to convince the Council (played by a bunch of extras in whatever random period costumes were on discount at Western Costume) to save or doom humanity. And so they journey vaguely through plastic sets and stock footage, spouting platitudes...

We have Cleopatra, not the brilliant strategist and wise ruler of history, but a weirdly perverse sex kitten, portrayed in ultra-coy style by Virginia Mayo, giggling as she poisons and pickpockets. Yes, really, they have her stealing wallets. I'm tempted to Google the writers and see whether any of them got Mummy-cursed...

This is far from the only place where the movie flies in the face of recorded fact, but it does seem to be the longest flight. The Womens, they is evil will be a recurring motif in The Story of Mankind. We also meet a nasty, airheaded Marie Antoinette (well, the second adjective is accurate, actually) solely so she can gurgle about letting 'em eat cake. Nice pink wig, though...

The only non-evil female is Joan of Arc, here played by Hedy Lamarr, who listens to the voice of St. Michael exhorting her to lead France with an expression more appropriate to hearing oneself paged at the Polo Lounge. Hedy was a brilliant woman and could be an adequate actress, but none of that is in evidence here...

I really like that sign, though. Hang it over the bed....

This is the part where Price makes a snarky aside about "not being an art aficianado" -- snarky, since he majored in art history at Yale and i happen to have a copy of his Treasury of American Art on my coffee table. But, when it comes down to it, Price's suave, witty devil has the better argument, better delivered: Mankind sucks and should be allowed to off itself.

Hey! It's Peter Lorre as Nero, fiddling as Rome burns...

The Story of Mankind is heavy on the religion, with Ronald Colman using the fact that men believe in god as a counterpoint to evidence of violence, hatred, thievery, murder, prejudice, slavery, genocide, wrath, envy, greed, pride, gluttony, lust and everybody's favorite, sloth!

Oh, and Harpo Marx as Sir Isaac Newton because...

... because apples? Harps? Bad wigs? Gambling debts? Dead hooker or live boy? I don't know what got all of these big names into The Story of Mankind, but it must have involved video footage of the actor in question committing at least two felonies and three deadly sins. Each.

The Devil Is a Woman

Marlene Dietrich has always been a great hero of mine. If there is some sort of illuminati pyramid of cool in my personal pantheon, Dietrich is its apotheosis.

She worked with Hitchcock, Welles and Wilder, but the films she made with Josef Von Sternberg were both the bedrock and zenith of her legend. He didn't exactly discover her (she had made a number of German films) but he saw Dietrich in Marlene before even she did. They made masterpieces like The Blue Angel, Morocco and Shanghai Express, but also some films that didn't quite meet that mark. Their last two projects were The Scarlet Empress and The Devil Is a Woman, both beacons of high glamour, echt-exotica and design taken so far over the top it becomes both substance and surrealism.

The film was based on the novel Le Femme et Le Pantin by French poet and literary stylist Pierre Louys and a painting by Goya (yeah, this was back before we based movies on video games) but any storyline is simply an excuse for visual audacity. We open with a Spanish Carnival scene, plenty of costumed extras and streamers and confetti and elaborate pan shots and there, in the middle of it all is -- Dietrich! Wearing the most fabulous lace mask and net mantilla. There is not an outfit in this film that is not fully gay-gasp worthy. Cesar Romero is entranced, follows her home and is turned away at the door but learns the lovely lady with the exquisite millinery is one Concha Perez.

He's supposed to hook up with her later, but first he meets his old army buddy Pasquale. Cesar Romero explains that "For the last five years I've known nothing but jail, exile and manifestoes." Yes, certainly a lifestyle that leaves one in tight pants, patent-leather hair, gleaming teeth and a mustache that must have its own personal groomer. But even stranger is Pasquale, played by Lionel Atwill done up to look exactly like Josef Von Sternberg. Naturally,  he and Concha have a past.

"She is the most dangerous woman you'll ever meet." Thus comes about a lengthy flashback in which Pasquale Von Sternberg recounts his own run-ins with Concha La Dietrich, a peasant girl with two-inch beaded false eyelashes, a cigarette factory worker in a 15-inch high handcarved tortoiseshell hair comb. She and her ogre of a mother literally reel off a list of bills he is expected to pay. Concha jumps into his lap and kisses him, then jumps off screaming "Don't touch me!" She screeches at him about being unfaithful, throws him out and then is enraged that he has gone away. If none of this sounds like the cynical ice queen Dietrich we know and love, it's because it's not. She looks like Marlene Dietrich, but she acts like Marion Davies.

"How did you earn that money?"

"I? Earn anything?"

Concha -- or, to follow the pretense, Concha's mother ('cause i totally see the family resemblance between them) cleans out their benefactor several times, while Dietrich puckers, pouts and tilts her head back and forth like a flirtatious parrot. But, still, the outfits. Girl lives in the ghetto but rocks nonstop couture: It's okay for your blouse to be torn, if your have fifty bucks worth of flowers in your hair.

 

 

Not only that, but she clearly has a hair and makeup staff, as well as at least two wardrobe assistants -- the woman does change outfits from spitcurls to stockings, panties to pumps three times in one day. As always, Dietrich herself was as responsible for her "look" as director Von Sternberg or costume designer Travis Banton. The film can perhaps be best appreciated as one spectacular ensemble after another. (Devil is especially beloved by fashionistas.) Dig this "Queen of Hearts" styling...

Oh, yeah, since this is a Marlene Dietrich film, she winds up headlining a flashy cabaret act. In her run-down Spanish village.

She sings a number called "Three Sweethearts Have I" about all of the gifts she gets from her many suitors. They give her flowers and cakes and vegetables "and other things that aren't so nice." We are left to guess what those things are. A snuggie? Meth? The clap? The unwashed dildo that guy on the right is wearing on his nose? They cut a number entitled "If It Isn't Pain, It Isn't Love." Alas, we will never know what manner of elaborate, haute-chic domme drag Marlene would have come up with for that one...

Pasquale shells out even more cash, which she passes on to the bullfighter she keeps on the side. Pasquale is angry, Concha La Dietrich is disdainful of his rage: "What right have you to tell me what to do?  Are you my father? No! Are you my husband? No! Are you my lover? No! Well, I must say, you're content with very little!" And, with that, she saunters off into the rain and out of his life. In a sequined gown, of course.

Then, of course we're out of flashback -- most of the film is flashback -- and all that is left is for Cesar Romero de Tightpants to have a last meeting with Concha La Dietrich, which is crashed by Pasquale Von Sternberg. Words are exchanged, we have the talk of honor, the slapping of the glove and the duel. That's the men: Concha throws in two more costume changes and twirls her parasol.

This is her "I've come to visit you in prison" outfit. To be fair, it is also her "I'm going to see the governor and flutter my three-inch eyelashes at him until he sets you free" outfit. Eventually, she chooses one of the two men, although the decision seems pretty arbitrary and definitely not permanent.

Dietrich herself claimed that The Devil Is a Woman was her favorite of her films, "because I was most beautiful." She would have done better to claim Shanghai Express in which she is equally breathtaking and actually called upon her to act -- and in something with an actual story, no less! Von Sternberg was notorious for retakes -- in this film, Dietrich demanded her own when an eyelid twitched, a hair fluttered, taking his dictatorial attitude toward her and turning it on herself. As she later said, "The emphasis on the way I looked became a burden to bear, almost to great to enjoy."

Later in life she became one of those legendary beauties like the Comtesse de Castigilone who, once aged beyond the help of cosmetics or lighting or artifice or attitude, never leave the house again. So Marlene Dietrich spent the last years of her life seen by no one. The admiring eyes of all brings privilege but it's also a prison. It's great when you're proud of what they see and what you are (at that point, what they see so overwhelms that it is what you are, by default), but when that fades, when you no longer enter a room to admiring eyes but shocked whispers -- or complete indifference -- it's easier to close the door on the world for good.

Part of the problem in this movie is that you don't like anybody. Now, don't get me wrong, i love an antihero as much as anyone and probably more than most. But basically the characters of The Devil Is a Woman can be summed up as Concha is a bitch and everyone else is pathetic. Even when Dietrich's characters were heartless or amoral or simply ice-cold (and they often were), there was a core of nobility to her, a reason for her actions. Concha's only motivation seems to be "I do whatever I want." All well and good, except the only thing she seems to want is to take advantage of the suckers all around her. She is the femme fatale at its most one-dimensional -- a tragic thing in an actress who could convey emotional odysseys with a curl of her lip and entire philosophies with a raised eyebrow.

But perhaps Dietrich was too dazzled by beauty and Von Sternberg was too wracked by the fact that that beauty, the woman who had inspired his greatest art, was about to walk out of his life. One wants to write her off as a narcissist and him as an obsessive but, really, what more perfect relationship could there be? And so The Devil Is a Woman lacks depth but oh, what a glorious surface it is...

Valley of the Dolls

I know, i know, this one is shooting fish in a barrel. But such pretty, brightly colored, completely fucking ridiculous fish!

Valley of the Dolls is based on the novel by Jacqueline Susann which, 57 years after publication still remains the best trashy beach/airplane/hospital read of all time. I have given away many copies of this book. Valley of the Dolls the movie manages to be even more trashy and absurd than the novel. No mean feat. This movie is completely terrible and absorbingly watchable -- silly plotlines, ludicrous dialogue, bad casting -- but fabulous outfits and funny as shit. Valley of the Dolls is the tale of three special ladies and their lives in this biz we call show.

Our main character, theoretically, is Anne Welles. At the opening of our story, Anne is a boring, small-town girl in Connecticut. She moves to New York City where she becomes a boring secretary and then to L.A. where she becomes a boring supermodel. Whether she's got some sort of brown suede turd on her head or a four-foot, thirty-pound ponytail, she remains expressionless and monotone. Anne is played by Barbara Parkins, who was also in Peyton Place. That she was in two of the most overblown hokey sleazefests of the decade should tell you what kind of actress she is.

Next up, the lovely and fairly untalented Jennifer North, played by future Polanski wife and Manson victim Sharon Tate. Sharon is about as good an actress as Barbara, but she's beautiful enough that you don't mind. Also, Jennifer is supposed to be a lousy actress.

Finally, Neely O'Hara, singer, dancer, actress, trainwreck. Neely's crazy, "booze and dope," endless diva-fit lifestyle should clue you in that she's based on Judy Garland, although she is played by Miss "A hot dog makes her lose control!" herself, Patty Duke. Neely is an awe-inspiring disaster of a character, going from perky Broadway ingenue to jaded, washed-up addict who spends a lot of time shouting "I'm Neely O'Hara" at husbands, friends, bosses, flunkies, mirrors, empty rooms, glasses of bourbon, bumpy rocks, throw pillows, small lizards...

Interestingly, Judy herself was originally cast as slightly faded Broadway diva Helen Lawson but, being Judy Garland, got into the vodka and the pills and the drama and wound up being replaced by Susan Hayward.

 Jackie and Judy at a press conference. No further comment necessary.

So, Anne comes to New York, where she office-jobs for an entertainment lawyer and meets some beefy schlub in an undersized suit named Lyon Burke. She immediately and inexplicably falls hopelessly in love with him. At Helen Lawson's new Broadway show, she meets singer Neely and showgirl Jennifer. Neely gets fired because she lip-synchs so damn well -- Susan Hayward is stressed enough having to mouth someone else's voice while wearing one of those damn ponytail wigs and trying not to get knocked on her ass by some damn oversized Calder mobile knockoff. Next time tell the damn grips to wipe their fingerprints off the acrylic before we shoot! And get that mouthy little bitch out of here!

Neely is consoled with a telethon appearance. Then she gets some kind of cabaret gig, unleashing the first of Valley of the Dolls' incredible montage sequences, a parade of weird contrasting colors, wacky wipes and absurd outfits. Oh, and she marries her boyfriend.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, everyone goes to a tacky nightclub, where they watch some clown with too much hair and a tight red suit croon about shacking up. He focuses his song on Jennifer. She immediately and inexplicably falls hopelessly in love with him. The two lack chemistry but, well, Jennifer is supposed to be a lousy actress and Tony is supposed to be an idiot. No, really, like he's an official, medically-designated idiot. Maybe i should have spoilered that, but it comes as no surprise and all of this happened fifty years ago. In a movie, two books and three TV shows. Deal.

Lyon bangs Anne and ditches her. Tony bangs Jennifer and marries her. (Odd, as boring marries boring more easily than idiot marries beautiful.) All three women eventually wind up out in L.A. in glorious mid-century homes, reclining on the Hollywood Regency decor or sitting by the giant-sized pool. They're overworked or underemployed and griping about it either way.

Tony isn't working enough and his sister is a total uptight buzzkill bitch. Neely is working too much and is a total, raging, pill-gobbling, booze-huffing, screaming like a maniac, loads o' fun bitch. She swaps one husband for another, get fired from a few movies, wins a Grammy, gets fired again...

None of this is nearly as trashy as it is in the book: They took out the homosexuality and the anal sex. Which, for the record, were two separate storylines. Also some more adultery was left out. And the whole "lesbians in Europe" sequence...

Tony has some kind of retard-related seizure, gets put away and Jennifer makes softcore porn in France to pay the tab at the nuthouse. Anne becomes a supermodel as "the Gillian Girl." Oh, and she marries her boyfriend. Who is the head of Gillian Cosmetics, not that tedious sad-sack Lyon Burke. For whom Anne still holds a torch. Until he comes back and bangs her again. Regardless, Anne's cosmetics commercials are things of beauty and hilarity...

Ah, fashion! The outfit inspirations one can take from this film are endless and even if you aren't up to a mod shift or chiffon gown, you can at least stick on some false eyelashes. However, those fucking hairdos are beyond anyone's reckoning. Valley of the Dolls must have deployed hundreds of thousands of dollars in wigs and falls and hairspray.

Speaking of wigs, Valley of the Dolls has one of the most legendary wig scenes in all of cinema, even beating out Debbie Harry's exploding beehive at the end of Hairspray. I speak of the ladies' room catfight between Helen Lawson and Neely O'Hara. Cruel things are said about husbands and children, faces slapped and, yes, wigs torn off!

Woo hoo! Too much fun. Yeah, time to take that down a notch. So, Jennifer gets her own montage (finally) when she -- What else? -- od's on pills. Because she gets the boob cancer. And, well, as she herself explains it....

In the meantime, Neely hits a delightfully stereotyped bottom, plenty of staggering around spotless Tenderloin streets, swilling cheap drinks and waking up next to rough trade.

This leads to a stint in some kind of mental hospital/rehab which leads to our most ridiculous scene yet. For this is the same hospital in which 'Tarded Tony has been stashed and, on in-patient talent show night, the subnorm in the wheelchair and the sociopathic junkie lip-synch a touching duet.

Lyon bangs Neely. Neely makes a comeback. Neely is still a total psychotic, raging bitch.

... and to prove it, on the opening night of the huge Broadway show in which I am starring,
I am going to chug down a bottle of quaaludes and a dozen whiskeys.
And then I am going out into the alley to shout at a dumpster.

And Anne goes back to her hometown. Like anyone gives a shit.

Valley of the Dolls was scorned upon its release but has since become a shining light of demented inspiration. There was Russ Meyer's amazing un-sequel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Then there was a 1981 TV miniseries remake and a 1994 TV series. And several theatrical versions, both musical and not, females biological and not. It's been used as fashion inspiration many times, but also for interior design ideas, party ideas, cupcake recipes...

And, remember, if anyone asks: “Who’s stoned? I am merely traveling incognito.”