THE FAG NOIR IMAGINATION

__________________

Baby Jane

Twisted Sisters

Touch of Evil

Night of the Demon

Tourneur Touché

Passing the Parchment

Cat People

Stonehenge

Fallen Angel

British Museum

Tourneur’s Cinema

Fag Noir Adieu

____________________  

BABY JANE? 

"Did you ever wonder

what would it be like if

you could program your

dreams before you went

to sleep each night?”

— John Lehman, “Dreams

Within Dreams,” Lit Noir

It was one of those —

Dreams within a dream

When you wake up from

A movie within a movie

It’s still a dream but —

You’re thinking you’re

Really awake while

Actually it’s Fag Noir

It’s like that Grande —

Dame Guignol “What Ever

Happened to Baby Jane”

Masterpiece of the Macabre

That campy drag version —

Directed by Billy Clift that

Tweaks the original just

Right such Fag Noir trash!!!
__________________

TWISTED SISTERS

These two twisted sisters —

Living in a run-down mansion

“What a fuckin dump!” honey

But you ain’t seen nothing yet

This drag version of Bette Davis —

& wheelchair-bound Joan Crawford

Makes a sensitive girl ask herself

“Christ! Who’s coming for din din?”

Doing Bette Davis Fag Noir drag —

Is like Marlene Dietrich doing aging

Blue Angel cabaret in a rundown

Tijuana “Touch of Evil” whorehouse

It’s like an aging Zsa Zsa Gabor —

Doing Mexican Madame burlesque

One last time before Weimar folds

And the Strip Show gets outta town

Whatever happened to Baby Jane —

Is the story of how a fag noir Diva

Survives the Touch of Evil & makes

Her Norma Desmond comeback!
________________________

Touch of Evil (1957) 

Just ask Akim Tamiroff —

Seedy underworld Queen Bee

Flipping his wig down there

In tacky ersatz Tijuana

Orson Welles’ revenge —

After RKO’s “Citizen Kane”

Almost going bankrupt by

The Boy Genius Imagination

Hauling in Val Lewton —

And Jacques Tourneur for

A long string of Fag Noir

Supernatural thrillers
______________________

Tourneur Touché

“Every thing came to me

 all by itself, I think

 no effort to make

 things come to me”

— Jacques Tourneur

Like the hand —

Oh the banister in

“Night of the Demon”

That simply disappears

The source of —

One of Tourneur’s

Obsessions: Suddenly

Something inexplicable

Like Dana Andrews —

Exploring the creepy

Black Magician’s mansion

Playing psychic detective

Julian Karswell —

Is it his hand there

On the dark banister

In the Fag noir night?
____________________

Passing the Parchment 

Ancient runic symbols —

Scribbled on a strip of paper

What does the demonic

Writings of darkness mean?

The same with the noir —

The indecipherable text of

 “True Discoveries of

 Witches and Demons”

The master key (noir) —

From which the parchment

Is generated that terrorizes

The professorial nincompoops
____________________

Cat People

What could be more —

Starkly goth fag noir

Than the beginning of

“Night of The Demon”?

Poor Professor Harrington’s  —

Drive through the Night to

Plead with Karswell to call

Off the Demon’s curse?

The shadowy night reflections —

Like the swimming pool at night

The panther pacing in “Cat People”

Stalking its frightened victim?
__________________

Stonehenge

Dana Andrews stands there —

Amidst the old stone ruins

Surrounded by stone slabs

Scribbled with runic curses

Fragmentary texts like —

Filmic distorted scenes in

The British Museum corridor

The Savoy Hotel warped walls

Weird images interpenetrate —

Clairvoyante soirées into

Parallel worlds perplexing

Even hardcore Dana Andrews
____________________

Fallen Angel  

By the time of 1957 —

William Holden is a tired

Burnt-out alcoholic in this

Tourneur Fag noir film

Which only adds to the —

Bird attitude of Holden’s

Cynical, skeptical role

As a debunking scientist

Fake Mediumship goes —

Back to “Fallen Angel” (1945)

With John Carradine as the

Fake but consummate Medium

Holden back then plays the —

Same supernatural ersatz role

With Linda Darnell playing the

Fag noir slutty femme fatale
_________________

Night of the Demon 

Holden's problem is to try —

Not believing in the Devil as

The audience struggles to

Accept belief in the cinema

Parallel worlds penetrate —

The screen, distorting scenes

Like meeting the Black Magician

Karswell in the British Museum

Corridors are blurred and —

Figures are silhouetted as if

Holden had an attack of vertigo

Disturbing the reality of space

Inexplicable moments stain —

The Hobart farmhouse, Karswell’s

Mansion and the distorted hallways

Of the Savoy Hotel with weird

Disorienting camera shots
_______________

Tourneur’s Cinema

Tourneur’s cinema —

Film noir shadows and

Ghostly chiaroscuro shades

Depicting a world of darkness

The scary pool scene —

In “Cat People,” the dark

Cemetery scene in “Leopard

Man,” a cinema of fear

Carrefour’s shadow —

Across the bedroom wall

The voodoo zombie drums

In the dead of night

The car driving frantically —

In “Night of the Demon”

The stabbing Fearful headlights

Thru the Karswell Forest
_______________

The Train Station

Fear rather than horror —

Haunting hallucinations

Worse than the real thing

A parallel world of evil

The hand on the banister —

As Holden explores the

Karswell haunted mansion

Who’s gnarled hand is it?

The stones of Stonehenge —

Carnal parchment curses

Visiting cards, daily calendars

With missing, torn-out pages

The ambiguous connection —

Between knowledge & death

Ending at the train station

“Perhaps it’s better not to know”