Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Hollywood in Crises



TO HOLLYWOOD IN CRISIS 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSvMmi8GXww 

“Not you, lean quarterlies and 
swarthy periodicals with your 
studious incursions toward 
the pomposity of ants”
—Frank O'Hara, “To the Film 
Industry in Crisis”
_________________

Glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor—
amorous Cinemascope campy faggotry

Bringing back vivacious Queens new again—
startling Screams in Stereophonic Sound
_______________

Bring on your heavenly dimensions, dears—
your faggy reverberations & gay iconoclasms! 

Like Claire Trevor the ultimate fag noir queen—
singing her Swan Song in KEY LARGO
__________

The QT Film Queens disappoint me—
with their tacky POMO theatrics

Their erudite Emotive Fruitions—
mincing around Filmic Insight perpetually
_______________

Promenading like Grand Opera divas—
obviously they have a Hidden Talent for it

After all they’ve even stooped to conquer—
Joan Crawford in MILDRED PIERCE
_____________________

But they’ve missed the point, surely—
the Motion Picture Industry is now in Crisis

In times of crisis, we must all decide—
again and again whom we love
_______________

Redoing in drag our film noir divas—
like WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE

And giving credit where it's due now—
this new drag version of BABY JANE (2010)
__________________

No longer just Grande Dame Guignol, honey—
Bette Davis & Joan Crawford dishing each other

Now they’re TRASHING each other in DRAG—
as only Drag Queens can exquisitely do
___________________

What was once over-solemn deification of—
a couple of aging has-been Queen Bees

Has been Resurrected from the LA Dead—
as an Introduction to Drag Entertainment
_______________

To butchy haughty dyke Barbara Stanwyck—
always ending up with the wrong fuckin Number!!!

To Jeanette MacDonald of the flaming lips—
and Sue Carroll as she sits bored on that fender 
_____________

To Ginger Rogers with her pageboy bob like a—
sausage on her shuffling shoulders

To tres gay, peach-melba-voiced Fred Astaire—
so fleet of foot & swirling dazzling Style
________________

To Eric von Stroheim, La Grande Illusion genius—
as well as jilted former love of SUNSET BLVD

Johnny Weissmuller the jungle chicken in love—
with Tommy Cook in THE LEOPARD WOMAN
_____________

How can I forget handsome built Lex Barker—
in bed with Lana Turner’s pretty young daughter

Mae West her constant drag routine one-liners—
her bordello radiance & divine wise-cracks
___________________

Rudolph Valentino of the desert moonlight—
putting the make on innocent Norma Shearer

Clark Gable telling Vivien Leigh none other—
Than the fabulous vivacious Scarlett O’Hara
_______________

“Honey, like I don’t give a good goddamn”—
sweeping her up the giant spiral Staircase

Cornel Wilde the flatfoot in THE BIG COMBO—
Putting the make on Conte’s Jean Wallace
________________

Fonte and Mingo the two hoodlum lovers—
Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman doin drag

Earl Holliman in SUMMER AND SMOKE—
the dumb country Salesman who suddenly
_____________

Makes Geraldine Page feel alive again—
no longer closeted Alma Winemiller 

Marilyn Monroe in her little spike heels—
reeling in the Clock Tower of Niagara Falls
____________

Strangled to death by jealous Joseph Cotton—
Ending up like in SHADOW OF A DOUBT

Done in like the failed dystopian exec in—
SOLVENT GREEN with a crushing crowbar
_____________

Or better yet Joseph Cotten puzzling over—
failed boyhood romance with Orson Welles

What could be more cynically fag noir then—
Cotton as jilted lover in THE THIRD MAN?
______________

Him & Alida Valli mooning over Harry Slime—
a drug-dealer in ruined postwar Vienna?

Especially the sewer scenes beneath the city—
former lovers finally confronting each other
_____________

Gloria Swanson reclining, sucking off cute—
William Holden her kept man in SUNSET BLVD

Jean Harlow reclining & wiggling like a whore—
Alice Faye reclining, wiggling and fucking
_______________

William Powell with his stunning urbanity—
getting seduced by femme fatale Claire Trevor

Letting Velma call the shots except for the—
very last one after Moose Malloy gets had 
___________

To Elizabeth Taylor such a bitch queen kunt—
in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLFE

Blossoming as the real Bitch she really is—
Miss Burton playing the queer spouse
_______________

Going after young Professor George Segal—
with Sandy Denise playing the usual hysteric

Talk about early drag queen melodrama, honey—
reading the beads of the Str8t Scene
__________________

Creating quite a tiff amongst the film critics—
the drama critics saying “Told you so, dears”

So many others, the great, the near-great—
the extras who pass quickly & return in dreams 
______________

Saving their one liners for cocktail parties—
illuminating the Screen with campy repartee

Dilettantes we movie queens are, honey—
Hollywood with its various campy incarnations
______________

Let the money of Hollywood Babylon—
continue to glitter & amaze us in new ways

May the Divas shine under the Klieg lights—
in never-ending Packs for our Edification
___________

Roll on, reels of celluloid, may you roll on—
like this Grand Old Earth rolls on! 





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