▼
Film >>
January 26-February 1, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25
Erotic submission writ large
pills to queers and heteros alike. Here, his Man 2 takes Sleeping Beauty’s chilly parable right over the cliff in a long take that’s possibly too hard to handle for delicate sensibilities, but which certainly rams home the author’s message. It’s perhaps in the delivery system for her message that Leigh may lose some potential followers. Lucy’s world is populated by a pretty mangy crop of male critters, including a pathos-soaked addict boyfriend, the Birdmann (Ewen Leslie). Sleeping Beauty can be fairly
compared to an equally diabolical Aussie queer classic, 1988’s The Everlasting Secret Family. That film’s director Frank Moorhouse and writer Michael Thornhill gave us a ravishingly gorgeous hero eager for attention and equal to our Lucy, performed to the nines by Gallipoli star Mark Lee. Lee becomes the ballsy human lab rat for a cunning queer clan’s desire to rule by outliving the bastards. Fans of the film will relish memories of the scene where Lee demands to “try on” the silk underwear demanded by his Aussie senator patron. Sleeping Beauty and Everlasting Secret Family share the DNA of hungry-bottom protagonists who fight for the joystick/steering wheel in a brutal S/M universe where they could easily become roadkill. In her audition chat, Clara stresses the extreme if unspecified penalties for breaking the house rules. Family has suffered almost complete neglect as a queer fable ahead of its time. Neither of its main guys appears ever to have made another film. Leigh is due a longer turn in the saddle. While Mark Lee’s “Lover” seems somewhat gender-privileged in having an inside track to eternal youth and perpetual power, Leigh’s path for Lucy is decidedly riskier and hauntingly open-ended, a true Pandora’s Box. No more spoilers, but Sleeping Beauty is a great example of the quirky film you may have to catch twice before deciding if once was too much. With a whiff of the Orwellian video style of early Atom Egoyan, this is the best example I’ve seen since Neal Jordan’s Mona Lisa of a rent-girl film that pushes the limits of vulnerability to a level well beyond anything you’re used to in a date-night flick.▼
woman he loves. She, Sydney Greenstreet flawless as Kaspar Gutman, and Peter Lorre superb as the effete Joel Cairo, are searching for the fabled jeweled bird. With Gladys George as Miles Archer’s widow Iva, looking for consolation, a smart, tough Lee Patrick as Effie, Ward Bond as a cop, and Elisha Cook,
Jr. as Wilmer. There are hints that Wilmer is more than Gutman’s gofer. John Huston’s celebrated directorial debut. He also wrote the screenplay. Three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Greenstreet) and Best Adapted Screenplay. (Sun., 1/29, beginning at Noon)▼
by David Lamble
D
irector and novelist Julia Leigh’s extremely chilly, Australian-set erotic fable Sleeping Beauty prompts the question, should I hazard parking around the SF Film Society’s new high-tech screening room (1746 Post St., SF) before this unusual treat’s one-week stand runs out? Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty (not to be confused with Disney’s or any revisionist fairy tale) is a carefully crafted, brazen account of one young woman’s “walkabout” to sexual and emotional maturity with pit stops as curious and creatures as quietly outlandish as any Alice discovered in Wonderland. As Lucy, actress Emily Browning deserves an erotic purple heart as much as an Oscar for what amounts to simulated sex combat. Lucy is a human guinea pig, submitting herself to a medical experiment at the hands of a seeming sweetheart of a student doctor (the comely Jamie Timony). In three minutes photographed against a harsh white backdrop, this Doogie Howser sticks a clear plastic tube down Lucy’s throat, as if to test her gag reflex, or as if the good doc could somehow intuit what other extracurricular activities this sassy temp would soon be engaging in. “Thanks for this. I’m pushing the air in now, just a little so the pressure on your chest will change. You’re doing a great job.” (Phone rings.) “Sorry, it’s a really important call, I have to take it, I’ll be back, Dr. Frankenstein.” “Okay, bad monster.”
Wendy McDougall, courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
Emily Browning stars in Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty, opening Jan. 27 at SF Film Society Cinema.
From this droll moment (Lucy will never encounter another catch as good as Dr. Jamie) our heroine’s life proceeds down a path of satire, kinkiness and creepiness comparable to Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, or A Clockwork Orange. Lucy becomes a scantily clad dinner waitress for tuxedoed dirty-minded old men. Passing her audition, our petite lass graduates to the title role, that of a naked sex toy drugged into deep sleep. Clara (Rachel Blake), Lucy’s oddly conscience-stricken supervisor, lays out the deal for one of the dirtiest
minded of the randy geezers, Man 2 (Chris Haywood). “We have only one rule: no penetration.” “Yeah, well the only way I can get a hard-on these days is if I swallow a truckload of Viagra, and some beautiful thing jams fingers up my ass. I’m the one that needs the penetration!” Aussie film fans will spot Chris Haywood as the land Down Under’s Gerard Depardieu; veterans of SF’s LGBT Festival may recall 1982’s The Clinic, where his VD doc dispensed
Watch your back again ‘Noir City X’ film festival concludes at the Castro Theatre by Tavo Amador
E
ddie Muller’s terrific Noir City X finishes this week at the Castro Theatre with a mix of rarities and welcome favorites. Although a vengeful Gene Barry (before becoming a major TV star) offers a Naked Alibi (1951) when a cop who manhandled him is murdered, the flatfoot’s partner, Sterling Hayden, is determined to prove his guilt. The great Gloria Grahame, at her kinky sexiest, is the femme fatale they meet at a Mexican border town. Directed by Jerry Hopper. Hugo Haas wrote, directed and starred in Pickup (51). He’s a sleazy older man enthralled by the thrilling, dangerous, and cheap Beverly Michaels, who’ll do anything for his money. Neither film is on DVD. (Thurs., 1/26, eve.) WWII vet Nick Garcia (Richard Conte) drives along the Thieves’ Highway (1949) to San Francisco, ostensibly to H really ll sell a carload of apples. He wants to brutalize thug Lee J. Cobb, who crippled his father years earlier. With Valentina Cortese. Sensational location scenes. The magnetic and powerful John Garfield reaches The Breaking Point (50), adapted from Ernest Hemingway’s To Have And Have Not. A very blonde, smokyvoiced Patricia Neal comforts him. Screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, directed by Michael Curtiz, the pair who collaborated on Mildred Pierce. An unjustly neglected gem. (Fri., 1/27, eve.) Perfectly cast, poker-faced and pretty, Alan Ladd is The Great Gatsby (1949), a rarely seen version
of F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. With Betty Field as Daisy Buchanan, Ruth Hussey as Jordan Baker, and Shelley Winters memorable as the tragic Myrtle Wilson. With noir veterans Ed Begley, Elisha Cook, Jr., Barry Sullivan, Howard da Silva, and MacDonald Carey. Smoothly directed by Elliott Nugent. Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Geraldine Fitzgerald, all compelling
performers, are Three Strangers (46) who swear before a mysterious Chinese idol to share a winning lottery ticket. Be careful what you wish for. Written by John Huston and Howard Koch; directed by Jean Negulesco. Neither film is on DVD. (Sat., 1/28, matinees & eve.) The festival concludes with an all-day tribute to Dashiell Hammett. Hammett’s original Red Harvest was too violent for the screen, so it was loosely adapted as Roadhouse Nights (1930) and became an action/ comedy showcase for legendary singer/actress Helen Morgan (Show Boat), Jimmy Durante, his vaudeville
partners Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, and veteran comic Charlie Ruggles. Adapted by Ben Hecht. Directed by Hobart Henley. Not on DVD. Roy Del Ruth helmed the first version of The Maltese Falcon (31), with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as treacherous Ruth Wonderly. Steamer than the more famous remake. With Thelma Todd as the not-so-grief-stricken widow Iva, and Una Merkel as Effie. Gorgeous carny sharpshooter Gary Cooper t takes a crooked turn along The City Streets (1931) to f free girlfriend Silvia Sidney f from prison. With Paul Lukas a and the hard-boiled Wynne G Gibson. Based on the only s story Hammett wrote directly f the screen. Directed by the for b brilliant Rouben Mamoulian, m masterfully photographed b Lee Garmes. Hammett by o originally planned Mr. D Dynamite (35) as a second S Sam Spade novel. Instead, it’s th story of a sleazy private the e eye (real-life gay leading m Edmund Lowe) hired to man so solve a casino murder. Alan l Crosland directed. Neither movie is on DVD. The Glass Key (1942) was the second pairing of noir blonde beauties Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. This tense look at sleazy big-city politics also stars dapper Brian Donlevy and dangerous lout William Bendix, who’s nothing like the lovable dimwit of TV’s Life of Riley. Rapid direction by Stuart Heisler. The most famous version of The Maltese Falcon (41) ends the program. Humphrey Bogart, in his star-making role, is the homophobic, quixotic Sam Spade. Mary Astor, utterly sincere no matter what lie she is telling, is superb as the treacherous