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”

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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

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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…

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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

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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”

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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“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.”