Hopelessly Devoted To: Joan Woodbury

Published December 21, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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With cheekbones that could have cut you like a quick blade, the striking Joan Woodbury actually brought a truly cozy energy to her many screen roles. Whether adopting a slight accent (King of the Zombies) or blonde locks (The Chinese Cat), she always radiated with warmth and easy humor.

The Living Ghost, an old dark house style murder mystery, especially gave her a chance to shine with a screwball wit. Paired against the wisecracking James Dunn, Woodbury truly steals the show here with her glamorous fashions and good natured bantering. Joan Woodbury the-living-ghost-2

Proceeding Brooke Shields by decades, Woodbury was also the first actress to bring famed comic strip reporter Brenda Starr to life. Although, she is perhaps more significantly known for her multiple roles in the Charlie Chan programmers, including Charlie Chan on Broadway.

Joan charlie-chan-on-broadway-1937 But with credits in everything from Bride of Frankenstein to popular musicals (Bring on the Girls, Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies), Woodbury is truly deserving of appreciation from old school film lovers of every imaginable genre in glorious perpetuity.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Review: BETTE Xmas at the Continental Baths

Published December 15, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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Bette Midler is many things. Her repertoire of songs alone includes rock and roll, MOR pop ballads, girl group classics and new wave energizers. Her role as the hysterically vengeful Winifred in Hocus Pocus also imbues her with a strong horror pedigree, allowing generations of outsiders to delightfully engage in their inner wicked witches.

In BETTE Xmas at the Continental Baths, Chicago theater goddess Caitlin Jackson invokes many of those Midler personalities while also remaining uniquely herself. Based upon the Divine One’s ‘70s showcase at a NYC men’s club, this production is full of goofy energy and go-for-broke silliness, making it not only a seasonal delight, but one of the year’s best stage offerings as a whole, as well.

Jackson’s desire to make this a sort of performing arts fever dream is perfectly realized. For example, the corny jokes in Jackson and David Cerda’s fun script are often so obvious that they don’t land with the audience…at first. But the performer’s skilled reactions to the theater’s radio silence are truly hysterical, making the presentation as a whole an unmitigated delight from start to finish.

Of course, Jackson’s softly anguished takes on songs such as Superstar, River and I Shall Be Released are the evening’s master points. This go-for-broke yet subtle emotionality is her forte as a performer, making one pity those who will never experience this kind of brilliance in their lifetimes.

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Nicely, Jackson is ably assisted here by Terry McCarthy as Mr. Gerard, Midler’s game hairdresser, and Sydney Genco and Allison Petrillo as Laverne and Trixie, Midler’s backup singers. Genco and Petrillo get a chance to shine on their own during the show’s intermission/costume change. Their pert energy and spot on timing ultimately prove that they deserve a show of their own one of these days. Hmm…maybe next season!!!

But until then… give proper kudos to Jackson and co-director Marc Lewallen, by checking out this year’s festivities before closing night on December 31^st.

https://www.facebook.com/events/570448403729627/

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Atanas Ilitch

Published December 15, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

As the Driller Killer in Slumber Party Massacre 2, Atanas Ilitch made a definitive impression on slasher movie lovers worldwide. Radiating with hip James Dean swerve and a sense of New Wave cool, Ilitch made killing seem as quick and easy as a cheesy pop song here.

But Ilitch’s personal history is even more colorful than his best known onscreen role. The scion of a powerful Detroit based business dynasty, he was also reportedly considered for the role of James Bond in the ‘80s. His musicality was a prime consideration to the producers and, in preparation for playing the iconic spy, he recorded a number of songs with espionage style theatrics. Upon losing the role to Timothy Dalton, he took such imaginings as Dark Night, Crazy in the Dark and Shoot the Gun and put them on an album called Shadows. Let’s Live Together was one of the more romantic offerings on display there.

Surviving a battle with cancer in his early 40s, Ilitch is, assumedly, still providing the citizens of Michigan with interesting musical avenues via his various corporate undertakings.

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Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Unsung Heroines of Horror: Cecil Cunningham

Published December 12, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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A product of the Broadway and vaudeville stages, the distinguished Cecil Cunningham was a character actress who, for decades, supported such cinema queens as Hedy LaMarr, Greta Garbo, Mary Astor, Carole Lombard (pictured below) and Barbara Stanwyck. Of course, smart cinema enthusiasts know that she was a presence in her own right, making a strong impression in smaller roles that often weren’t even credited onscreen.

Thankfully for horror fans, Cunningham was given one of her most prestigious undertakings in the fun Warner Brothers’ genre fest The Hidden Hand. Released in 1942, this gem found this regal celluloid queen in fine form as Lorinda Channing, the head of a family of greedy, mentally unbalanced socialites. Pretending to be near her death, Channing invites her nearest and dearest to her estate. Surmising that they all want her cold for her cash, this devious diva enlists the help of her brother, a deranged killer who has just escaped an asylum, to assist her in her plotting against her avaricious kinfolk.

Filled with weird humor and old dark house theatrics, this project also gave Cunningham plenty of room to utilize many of her acting tools. She brings a proud and strange presence to Channing, reveling in a role that would have normally been filled by a Boris Karloff or Laird Cregar type. Her work here is definitely the precursor to contemporary artists like Deanna Dunagan and Lin Shaye, fine actresses, who have embellished and empowered such films as The Visit and Insidious with their distinguished essences.

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Cunningham, who also appeared in 1934’s hard to find Return of The Terror and Ladies They Talk About, an early WIP effort, died at the age of 70 in 1959. Sixty years later, her filmography (and her genre credits, in particular) seems truly ripe for rediscovery.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Dusty Springfield

Published December 8, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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She is the essence of smooth British soul, making her the perfect soundtrack vocalist. Indeed, Dusty Springfield, one of the essential goddesses of sixties pop, has decorated the background of many a celluloid landscape. Nicely, her smoky version of Spooky highlights the first kiss between childhood sweethearts in 2017’s fun horror comedy The Babysitter. Countered by exploding bodies and cranial blood bursts, this tender moment could not have a more perfect aural illustration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhWUzLizzAo

Springfield is also of special interest to the LGBTQIA community. Romantically linked with a number of women, including Rough Trade’s magnetic Carole Pope, she is one of the many exceptionally talented performers that we can claim as family. Her immaculate voice and silvery presence grandly live on despite her death in 1999, due to cancer, at the far too young age of 59. Emily-Alyn-Lind-and-Judah-Lewis-in-The-Babysitter-2017

http://www.dustyspringfield.co.uk/

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Va Va Villainess: Helene Millard

Published December 7, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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The grand Helene Millard perfected the art of being a distinguished featured player in ‘30s and ‘40s cinema. Portraying characters with names like Mrs. Vincent Cantillon, June Deering and Sylvia DeWitt, she was always memorable even when her screen time was uncredited and seemingly insignificant.

She is perhaps best known for backing up Norma Shearer in a number of her most famous films, including The Divorcee and The Women. It was in 1929’s Their Own Desire that she made the most impact, though. As the scheming Beth Chevers, she steals the heart of Lewis Stone’s Henry Marlett, causing much trauma for his ex-wife and daughter, played rambunctiously by Shearer.

Helene 2 Nicely, Millard is given scenes in the latter half of the film that show her character to have a modicum of heart and a significant conscience, making her a more full bodied presence than the usual femme fatale stereotype. While books like They Had Faces Then, a study of ‘30s actresses, and The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Character Actors, have (practically or completely) ignored Millard’s contributions, it is amazing to think that 90 years after her performance here, that she is still gaining new fans and being recognized as a true force of celluloid nature.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Chaka Khan

Published December 1, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

There is probably one scene in 1981’s The Fan that queer horror freaks remember even more than all those glorious Lauren Bacall production numbers. Of course, that is the moment when Michael Biehn’s twisted Douglas Breen picks up a similar looking man (Terrence Marinan) in a gay bar. While problematic, showing another instance of society’s perception of the homosexual male as a victim, it also truly resonated with a generation who wasn’t used to representation of any sort on the silver screen.

Playing, perhaps ironically, in the background as this deadly seduction occurs is the Junior Walker & the All Stars’ version of How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You). H-m-m…maybe not, Michael! But there is one thing we can all probably agree on. Chaka Khan’s version of the song, famously performed by everyone from Marvin Gaye to James Taylor, is truly killer – in the best possible way!

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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The Fan - Gay

Sharkbait Retro Village: Road Rage

Published November 29, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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Seemingly made as a knockoff of Joy Ride, which reached audiences in the fall of 2001, Road Rage was actually a television film, released theatrically in South Korea and direct-to-DVD elsewhere in 2000. Thus, this Sidney J. Furie helmed action-terror hybrid was actually filmed a good year or two before Paul Walker and Steve Zahn ever contemplated that very revealing walk into a roadside diner.

Road Rage cover.jpg Fortunately for fans of grilled cheese, as action orientated as this piece tries to be (with vigorous chase scenes occurring both on major thoroughfares and dusty country lanes), what may be most notable about this stalk and crash epic is the truly inappropriate casting. Lead Casper Van Dien was at least 30 years old at the time of filming – thus way, way too old to play the endangered college student that he portrays here. But he attacks his role with professional enthusiasm and, faint praise resonating, is actually probably the youngest looking of his co-stars. This includes heroine Danielle Brett, whose film career would only last another year or so. Van Dien also does a heroic, if losing, battle with the neon crayola dye job someone gave his professionally pompadoured hair.

Nicely, Catherine Oxenberg, famously the star’s wife at the time, shows up as a noticeably glamorous forest ranger who, unsurprisingly, meets a violent end at the wheels of the characters that are vengefully pursuing Van Dien’s Jim Travis.

Lest one thinks these are damning points, these often ridiculous circumstances are actually the reasons why films like this are so enjoyable, making them worth a look or two on those nights of relentless sleeplessness and morbidly existential despair.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Pearl Bailey

Published November 24, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

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From The Mummy to Thinner to Drag Me to Hell, gypsies have been colorful characters in the world of horror. While their predictions and curses have long generated trauma and ruin for the people they encounter in these films, the divine Pearl Bailey gave us a more jovial approach to their abilities with the amusing The Gypsy Goofed.

A powerful icon in her own right, Bailey commanded the worlds of film, stage and television. Famously replacing the (seemingly) irreplaceable Carol Channing in the Broadway production of Hello, Dolly, this undefeatable songstress is rightfully remembered, in perpetuity, as one of the giants of the entertainment industry.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pearl-Bailey

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Va-Va-Villainess: Lilyan Tashman

Published November 22, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Recognized as one of the most stylish women of her era, the truly distinctive Lilyan Tashman provided conflict of the romantic and-or deadly mercurial variety with her often vampish, self centered characters.

In 1932’s Those We Love, one of her more popular efforts, her predatory Valerie Parker lays claim upon Kenneth MacKenna’s Freddie, a happily married author. Naturally, this ultimately causes much heartache for his wife May, who is played with sweet determination by the Oscar winning Mary Astor. Thankfully, Tashman gives Parker a comic edge, providing her potential homewrecker with a truly quirky presence, as well.

Tashman is decidedly deadlier in 1931’s Murder By the Clock (above). Manipulating those around her to commit acts of homicide, her Laura Endicott charms and beguiles with determined finesse. Often regulated to supporting roles, here this one of a kind personality takes her leading lady status and runs with it. It is a mischievous and captivating performance.

Rumored to be a prominent member of The Sewing Circle, Hollywood’s lesbian network, Tashman was actually married to actor Edmund Lowe, a known homosexual. Though this was by all accounts a lavender marriage, the two were truly darlings of the worldwide press until her unfortunate death of cancer, at the age of 37, in 1934. One can only imagine what other work this striking, husky voiced goddess would have produced had she not been cut down in her prime.

Even more regrettable, one wonders what levels of security and acceptance she might have established for the queer community if she had been able to use her compelling nature towards causes of activism and visibility in later decades.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

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