Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Third Man


THE THIRD MAN


What happens when —
A film genre dies off and
Finally kicks the Proverbial
Hollywood Bucket?

Pick a Hollywood —
Classic outta the Forties
By 1949 the Film Noir
Genre gets rather tawdry

Tawdry, worn-out —
Ripe for a Revisionist
Remake along the lines
Of campy “Sunset Blvd”

________________ 

When one queen 
Reads the beads of another
It’s called comeuppance, honey
Such a dishy denouement!

When one queers —
An already quite queer
Movie like “Whatever Happened
To Baby Jane” then what?

You get a drag version —
Of an already campy
Film noir flick like
Faggy “Baby Jane”

Like Billy Cliff’s version —
Of Robert Aldrich’s
Classic thriller of
Grande Dame Guignol
____________

Instead of Bette Davis —
Joan Crawford, Victor Bruno
Eating up the old scenery
We get drag queens instead

Same two twisted sisters —
In their own self-made hell
But with some unexpected
Faggy twists & turns, my dear

The audience ends up —
Asking “Who’s coming for
Din din?” in a rather new
Fag noir genre way…
_____________________

Instead of Bette Davis —
It’s time for Mathew Martin
To do a new tres trashy
Version of “Baby Jane!”

Instead of dreary-dearie —
Poor Joan Crawford up
There in the Attic in her
Tacky old wheelchair

We end up with a new —
Cabaret burlesque show
Swansong to an aging
Geriatric Guignol Genre
_____________

When a film genre dies —
It’s swansong time, honey
Like Marlene Dietrich in
“Blue Angel,” my dears

When a film genre dies —
Like Marlene’s “Blonde Venus”
Her cabaret Weimar goodbye
“I just can’t help it, honey”

The same with Orson Welles —
His swan song to film noir
The end of a genre and era
His  louche “Touch of Evil”
_________________

Redoing “Citizen Kane” —
Like Billy Clift transmogrifying
And subverting “Baby Jane”
Down in the sewers of Vienna

Instead of Bette Davis —
It’s Faggy Miss Joseph Cotton
Caught up in a gay postwar
Aging decrepit film noir flick

What happens when Welles—
Exiled by RKO to Europe makes
Plans for her big come-back
Like Norma Desmond did?
________________

You end up with a loser —
Like “Touch of Evil,” honey
Miss Welles just simply couldn’t
Help it, she loved Swan Songs

There’s Zsa Zsa Gabor —
As well as Marlene Dietrich
There’s even Mexican Queen Bee
Decadent Miss Akim Tamiroff

Faux Tijuana mise-en-scene—
A hoodlum spic gang led by that
Motorcycle bull dyke lesbian
Butchy Mercedes McCambridge

Nervous nelly Dennis Weaver—
As the No Tell Motel night clerk
Gimpy out there in the sticks
Crazy with icky facial ticks
_________________

It’s Goodbye Film Noir, baby—
Welcome campy new Fag Noir
Orson Welles just like Dietrich
She just couldn’t help it, dearies

Those same high overhead —
Camera takes of “Citizen Cane”
Zooming over the dingy streets
Border towns so cheap & tacky

Those garish flashing neon lights—
No escape for bug-eyed Tamiroff
Orson Welles is out to get her
To cover-up his Mexican tracks

Gets strangled to death, honey —
With one of Janet Leigh‘s nylons
While trying to claw his way out……
Losing his droopy toupee instead
__________________

When a film genre dies —
There’s always a classic flick
Commemorating the DEMISE
With one last gay Swansong

There’s always one last —
Gasp remake of a dying Genre
Like silly “Bud Abbott and Lou
Costello Meeting Guess Who?”

Whether it’s Miss Dracula —
Frankenstein or Wolf Man
Lon Chaney or Bela Lugosi
Or that stuffy Basil Rathbone

There’s still this Death-Rattle —
Sickening Swan Song to a once
Great-filmic Hollywood genre…
A dead Matinee Bijou Oeuvre
_________________

“The Third Man” (1949) ends —
With the melodramatic demise
Of slime-bag Harry Lime down
There in the stinking Sewers

That’s where all of us —
Are gonna end up, honey
Whether we like it or not
We simply just can’t help it...

There’s no happy ending —
Cornell Woolwich said it all:
“At first you dream, honey,
And then you die.”



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