Mr. Crabbin

“You’re literary style

does not do your

namesake justice”

—Graham Greene

The Third Man

Then there’s Mr. Crabbin—

Ditzy representative of the

British Cultural Relations

Society and Lectures

Holly was to give a lecture—

“Techniques of the Contemporary

Novel” for the Innsbruck and

Salzburg Literary Program

Holly Martin the famous—

Western pulp fiction writer

Giving Greene the chance

To dish writers and writing

Holly’s brand of fiction—

Kitchy, full of schmaltzy

Plots in a vague, sloppy

Sentimental way like sex

Strictly amateur compared—

With Benjamin Dexter or

Henry James a stylist so

Subtle, complex, old-maidish

Calloway the Investigator—

Shook his head amazed

Sometimes, the amateur much

Better than the professional!!!

Two Viennese Queens

The two Viennese queens—

Baron Kurtz and Doktor Winkler

Live together in an elegant

Apartment next to the Wheel

The Oklahoma Kid—

Baron Kurtz clutches to his

Breast in the outdoor café

Where Holly & he have a date

The little chihuahua—

Baron Kurtz has tucked

Under his topcoat peeks

Its ratty little head out

The same ratty dog—

Lives there in the apartment

With both Kurtz and Winkler

A nice fag married couple

Doktor Winkler is cryptic—

Surrounded by religious

Antiques, crucifixes and

Assorted Jansenist junk

Baron Kurtz and Dr. Winkler—

Hide the fact they’re a couple

Of decadent Euro-Queen Bees

Holly Martin isn’t dumb—

Not when it comes to certain

Things like closet-case fags

He smells a big fat rat

WHO IS THE REAL THIRD MAN?

“He was the Harry Lime

of the literary racket”

—Michael Shelden,

Graham Greene: The

Enemy Within

_________________

The world according to Graham Greene—

Is a world full of tragedy and it can’t be

Taken entirely by trusting anybody

Part of the film noir mystery game—

Of reading a Graham Greene novel or

Seeing a film adaptation is following leads

Taking the time to be naïve and letting—

The false leads take one down various

Detours that every detective travels

________________

Holly Martin played by Joseph Cotton—

Is especially vulnerable since he’s a

Pulp fiction writer who lives his fiction

Holly ends up in Vienna at the invitation—

Of his boyhood buddy Harry Slime who he

Venerates and worshipped back in school

At first Holly seems to see postwar Vienna—

And the supposed death of Harry more along

The lines of a naïve “The Oklahoma Kid”

_____________________

Himself as “The Lone Rider of Santa Fe”—

In a small Western town shoot-em-up kind

Of pulp fiction novel like he writes back home

But Vienna is much more old and decadent—

Much more evil and sophisticated even though

Bombed-out and in ruins than he thinks at first

It’s like a Henry James scenario with the naïve—

Young Americans abroad taking the European tour

And ending up getting had by the Living Dead

______________________

The penicillin racket of Harry Lime and Company—

Is just the tip of the tacky rotten evil iceberg tho

But pretty soon Holly wises up fast thanks to events

The endless camera shots of ruined Vienna—

End up revealing how much more evil the wages

Of war can be, taking whole cities into the gutter

No wonder Harry hangs out and ends up dead—

Down there in the twisting, labyrinthine sewers of

Once elegant and cloyingly beautiful great Vienna

__________________________

The real Third Man is more than just Harry Lime—

The slime-bag of the black market dope racket

That the plot of the novella revolves around

The real Third Man is the refined auteur and—

Catty author Graham Greene himself: the coy

Slime-bag of the literary racket his “sewer”

There’s a reason why “The Third Man” won—

First prize at the Cannes Film Festival and

Enjoyed such success at the movie box office

_______________________

Greene plays with our film noir imagination—

Seduces us into the mind of Alida Valli who

Loves Harry no matter what he’s done

Greene is the Third Man who sucks us down—

Into the stinking sewers not only of bombed-out

Vienna but even deeper down into ourselves

The Third Man has qualities of being a pulp-fiction—

Naïve hack Western writer like we all are actually

No different than “The Lone Rider of Santa Fe”

______________________

The Third Man is a parody of old-fashioned—

Westerns like “The Oklahoma Kid” so cherished

By the fag Herr Kurtz who simply adores it

But it’s all just a fake act to seduce and divert—

Holly Martin off the detective trail of investigating

What really happened to his buddy Harry Slime

The Third Man is a satire on naïve Americans—

The same as Pinky or Rowe in Ministry of Fear

All “The Ugly Americans” taking over the world

____________________

Knowing that is to know who the real—

Third Man actually is: it’s us, of course, but

Then film noir’s message is rather tawdry now

When a film genre dies, whether its dark—

Film noir like “The Third Man” or Grande Dame Guignol like “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane” 

Another Third Man will soon materialize—

Someone or something that we won’t recognize

Until it’s too late and then it’s Fag Noir, honey

The Oklahoma Kid

“Kurtz fascinated him —

characters who shared

the name in The Third Man

and Heart of Darkness”

— Michael Shelden,

Graham Green, The

Enemy Within

What better place—

Than ruined bombed-out

Vienna to play the old

Heart of Darkness game?

Kurtz goes crazy—

Deep in rotting Africa but

Vienna also is one of the

Dark places of earth

Herr Kurtz meets Holly—

In the outdoor café with

His copy of Holly’s pulp

Fiction “The Oklahoma Kid”

Herr Kurtz’s toupee—

It makes Holly dislike

Him at first sight right

Away at their rendezvous

It keeps slipping off—

Like Akim Tamiroff’s

Greasy little tacky wig

In “Touch of Evil”

There’s something —

Phony about a man

Who just can’t accept

His baldness gracefully

It’s flat and yellow—

Cheap and ill-fitting

Clinging to his bald

Head like a ratty rug

The Casanova Nightclub

Casanova Nightclub

Later on Holly meets—

Some other nefarious

Characters of Harry’s

Little Racketeer club

Kurt plays a weepy—

Violin serenading a fat

Lovely Brünnhilde there

In the Casanova Nightclub

She slurps her soup—

Loudly, her plump jowls

Oblivious to Kurt’s violin

Yet she tips him generously

Meanwhile Cooler chats—

The usual cover-up of

What really happened to

Harry that tragic day

The tight little club—

Of Viennese racketeers

Circle their wagons just like

“The Lone Rider of Santa Fe”

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.”

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”

LITERARY THREE-WAYS

“The Third Man” three-way—

Between Harry Lime, Holly

Martin & Alida Valli is a typical

Graham Greene plot-device

Like in the 1963 short story —

“May We Borrow Your Husband?”

A rather mixed-bag comedy

That Greene wrote in Antibes

Two flamboyant homosexuals —

Plot to seduce a honeymoon

Bridegroom with the help of

Greene diverting the bride

The bored bride actually —

Puts the make on Greene but

Being the gentleman he demurs

From making love to her

Meanwhile the two fags —

Go to town with the young

Naïve handsome husband

Who lavishes all the attention

Of course, Graham Greene —

Keeps up a brave front as

The detached novelist who’s

Interested only in sex comedy

Fag Noir Literati

Other filmic book-scripts —

By Graham Greene including

“The Comedians” (1967) with

Richard Burton and Liz Taylor

Like “The Third Man” —

The devil’s in the noir details

Greene’s characters defined

By sexual comedy camping

The drag act routine —

Getting a wanted passenger

To the safety of the American

Consulate simply a gay romp

The same with Herr Kurtz —

Viennese nightclub chanteuse

With his tacky cheap toupee

Who wants to meet Holly Martin

Allegedly to get an autograph —

Of “The Lone Rider of Santa Fe”

But really to check out this gay

American friend of Harry’s

Naïve Joseph Cotton plays —

Holly Martin, faggy boyfriend

Lover of Harry Slime who died

Supposedly recently in Vienna

But not really, my dear —

Dr. Winkle winks knowingly

His face elongated in fake

El Greco-esque agony

Both Kurtz and Winkler —

Covering up the noir secret

His supposed death rather

A sneaky Jansenist cover-up

Dying fictitiously for the —

Benefit of the drug ring

Elect whose underground

Business is quite lucrative

GRAHAM GREENE

"He was the Harry Lime

of the literary racket.”

— Michael Sheldon,

Graham Greene: The Enemy Within

One of the more seminal —

Book discussions from back

In the NYTimes days was

“The Third Man” soiree

Orson Welles played noir —

Cold War Harry Lime

A black-market drug dealer

Extraordinaire character

A screenplay collaboration —

Between Greene & Carol Reed

About depressing postwar

Viennese Weltschmerz

Joseph Colton played the —

Pulp fiction western writer

With Alida Valli as the sad

Tragedienne actress Lover

Filmed in 1949 —

Halfway between infamous

Bankrupt RKO Studio

“Citizen Kane” (1941)

And “Touch of Evil” (1958) —

Greene’s novel flowing like

Expensive slow gin down the

Back of your thirsty throat

Accompanied by maddening —

Irritating nervous Zither music by

Anton Karas constantly there

Slithering in the background

The ironic thing was that —

During our book discussion

Led by erudite Whiskey Priest

Lovely Alida Valli passed away