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”
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Glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor—
amorous Cinemascope campy faggotry

Bringing back vivacious Queens new again—
startling Screams in Stereophonic Sound
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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
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The QT Film Queens disappoint me—
with their tacky POMO theatrics

Their erudite Emotive Fruitions—
mincing around Filmic Insight perpetually
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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
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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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 
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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
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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
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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
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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
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“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
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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 
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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
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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
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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 
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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
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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
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Roll on, reels of celluloid, may you roll on—
like this Grand Old Earth rolls on!