Strangler of the Swamp starring Blake Edwards

Strangler of the Swamp is a sweet ghost story with great atmosphere. It was written and directed in 1946 by Frank Wisbar as an English language remake of his earlier German film. Blake Edwards does nicely as the handsome chap. I didn't recognize any of the other actors although, as it turns out, the female romantic lead was a Miss California. The movie is a bit creaky and this print not the best but it all adds up to a fun hour...so much fun I put its poster on a tee shirt! (crew d'tees / crewdtees.com). Enjoy!

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High Society with Jean Smart & Mary McDonnell

I've always depended on the kindness of strangers and watching High Society, the 1995 television series starring Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell that was fashioned after Absolutely Fabulous, has been no different.

My first stranger allowed me to watch a version of the 13 episode series in which each episode was split into three files and uploaded to YouTube. This visual puzzle was fine when the internet was new but the feeling stalled a few years back - probably like Faith Prince's feeling when she was written off the show at episode six without explanation.

Step up, our second stranger who, it seems, uploaded full episodes of the series to a High Society page on archive.org sometime in 2018.

And that is the stranger (uploader Desmond Pfeiffer) I thank for the episodes below. The uploader also edited out the commercials and added them to the end of each episode! One of them has Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in a hair color commercial from the era.

Although I love archive.org, their mobile app is crap; it's easier to watch the antics of Elle and Dot on YouTube. (And I do think they will get a bigger viewing audience.) You'll still want to head over to the High Society page on archive.org though as there are recorded promos and a script in addition to the 13 episodes posted below on YouTube. Enjoy!

01 Family Val's 10-30-1995

02 Whose Son Is It Anyway 11-06-1995

03 Sleeping With The Enemy 11-13-1995

04 Dolce & G'bye Now 11-20-1995

05 Tomb With A View 11-27-1995

06 The Naked And The Deadline 12-04-1995

07 Finnigan's Rainbow 12-11-1995

08 We Oughta Be IN Pictures 12-18-1995

09 Nip And Tuck 1-16-1996

10 Alice Doesn't Pump Here Anymore 01-22-1996

11 Touching Up Your Roots 02-05-1996

12 I Found My Thrill On Nancy Garver Hill 02-12-1996

13 The Family Jewels 02-26-1996

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Bob Clark's She Man with Dorian Wayne

She Man: A Story of Fixation is a 1967 American film directed by Bob Clark. It's the tale of a soldier (Leslie Marlowe) forced to take estrogen and wear lingerie when he's blackmailed by a violent transvestite (Dorian Wayne). It's very much in the vein of early John Waters; in that I mean it's perfectly lovely.

Director Clark is most famous for the slasher Black Christmas (1974), comedy Porky's and holiday A Christmas Story so I guess he swung all ways. Here is She Man in all it's glory! Featuring drag performer Dorian Wayne in one of several film roles she had.


Dorian Wayne is a drag artist from the 1950s-1960s. In 2008, Rick Colantino created Dorian: A Picture about his years performing as Dorian Wayne; it's available here.

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The Great Victor Herbert starring Mary Martin & Allan Jones

The Great Victor Herbert was directed in 1939 by Andrew L. Stone and is one of the few Hollywood films starring Mary Martin. It's not a Herbert biography (as is made clear by the disclaimer displayed at the END of the film) but an account of the romance of his (fictional) star singers, Martin and Allan Jones. In the film, Walter Connolly (as Herbert) witnesses their life experiences as their friend and creator of their greatest theatrical triumphs.

The movie is a curio. By 1939, operettas had lost their luster to the more accessible musical comedies so audiences weren't clammering for Herbert music. (The composer died in 1924.) And, it seems, Paramount Pictures was trying to make Mary Martin into the next Jeanette McDonald. Martin is fine and the movie watchable but it's kind of a Show Boat knock-off without the latter's complex storyline and diverse musical styles. (Jones is aged to look exactly like Gaylord Ravenal in the later scenes.) Despite all this, I noticed The Great Victor Herbert was not online so now it is. I do not own the copyright to this and have 'placed it here in memory of something that has died'. Enjoy!

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The French Line starring Jane Russell

The year after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Jane Russell starred in a musical that received the CONDEMNED rating from the Catholic National Legion of Decency. The reason? Her almost-there outfits (especially THAT one in Looking for Trouble) were designed by the film's producer Howard Hughes (and the craftsmen at RKO) to display Russell's physique in the best manner. The film was first released in 3D which offered eye-poping views of Jane's assets and added to its reputation as scandalous.

Jane is a charmer: singing, dancing, and dripping the monotone sarcasm she used to her advantage in the previous musical. Also appearing are silent film's Gilbert Roland, future Tony nominee Mary McCarty and Theresa Harris who performs Well, I'll Be Switched with Jane and disappears. If you blink, you'll miss Kim Novak's first film appearance as a show girl in the Poor Andre number. Unfortunately, this is the censored (United States) version of the film.

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Ladies of the Burlesque Dance

Sunny Knight, Mickey 'Ginger' Jones and Shirley Heart are not names that are remembered today but there are filmed records of these burly Q queens dances in the 1949 public domain film Midnight Frolics. Granted by the time this film was made, burlesque had already died and been buried but it is nice to have this record (albeit modified according to the film's title card). For this WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE, I've extracted Sunny's dance (the star spot at the end of the show), Mickey's dance (an act one closer) and Shirley's dance (strip opener starts like a lamb and ends like a lion). Check out these ladies and their energetic, gymnastic and naively salacious dances.

If you want a Burlesque or Bust vintage-style tee shirt I created for my crew d'tees tee shirt collection, check it out here.

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Julian Eltinge in Madame Behave

Eltinge as groom and bride

Julian Eltinge was internationally renown as a female impersonator in the aughts and teens of the 20th century. He made his name on vaudeville stages and in Broadway theatres - even as he christened the Julian Eltinge Theatre on Broadway, September 11, 1910. In the 1920s as Prohibition was changing the country and vaudeville was dying, Eltinge went to Hollywood and made several films. One of these films is called Madame Behave and I've just posted the film to YouTube with a score made of jazz tunes from the 1920s. (See song titles and artists at the bottom of this post.)

Madame Behave • 1925

I had never seen Eltinge perform on film and by the contemporaneous reviews I'd read of his live performances, I imagine he had a lovely singing voice and his female mimcry was legitimately spot on (and not what we would consider campy). In fact, Eltinge was so popular with the female population for his raiment and makeup that he started a cottage industry with Julian Eltinge's Magazine of Beauty Hints and Tips which promoted his own line of cosmetics, corsets and shoes. One ad has a picture of Eltinge as a woman with the copy "See What the Julian Eltinge Cold Cream Does for a Man. Imagine What It Will Do For a Woman".

No one pronounces Eltinge's name correctly.
Here are instructions from the horse's mouth.

My guess is that Madame Behave was made to capitalize on Eltinge's fame because it doesn't hold up to the imagination after reading reviews of Eltinge's live performances. We (obviously) don't hear a singing voice and we certainly don't see a high standard of female mimicry on screen so it does nothing to capture what Eltinge did on stage. In Madame Behave, Eltinge jokes around and gets in his gowns quickly and without care. There are some scenes in which he is well put together but by 1925 Eltinge was in his forties and more overweight than in his youth so it's difficult to compare the time periods in that respect. Madame Behave is also not funny despite its best attempts. The film co-stars Ann Pennington as Eltinge's girlfriend and there is a minute or so of Pennington dancing the Charleston; she was a very famous dancer of the day known for her Black Bottom and others so this is something of a see.

Cast of Madame Behave: Jack Duffy, Evelyn Francisco, Lionel Belmore
Ann Pennington kissing Eltinge (in drag) and David Jones

Other than Pennington and the fact that it is a surviving Eltinge film, Madame Behave is similar to movies like Charley's Aunt, Tootsie and Some Like It Hot in its use of drag is a pretext that a straight man must do to get out of whatever situation he finds himself. Unfortunately, it's just not as good as the aforementioned titles but it is 95 years old! Music used to score Madame Behave includes the following tracks in order of aural appearance.

• Chant of the Weed Don Redman and his Orchestra
• Four O’Clock Blues The Original Memphis Five
• The Minor Drag Fats Waller
• Viper’s Dream Django Reinhardt
• Bull Frog Blues Six Brown Brothers
• Do-Doodle-Om Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Forgetful Blues The Original Memphis Five
• New Orleans Wiggle Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Pianoflage Fate Marable’s Society Syncopators
• Red Man Blues Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Red Onion Drag Louis Dumaine’s Jazzola Eight
• Sad New Blues The Original Memphis Five
• Pillow Fight SFX
• All Muggled Up Blue Steele And his Orchestra
• Astoria Strut Jones and Collins Astoria Hot Eight
• Dear Almanzoer Celestin’s Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra
• Henpecked Blues The Original Memphis Five
• Mobile Stomp Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band
• New Orleans Blues Johnny de Droit and His New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
• West Indies Blues Piron's New Orleans Orchestra

More pictures from (and an article or two regarding) Julian Eltinge's life and career are available on my Julian Eltinge Pinterest board.

Follow my board Julian Eltinge on Pinterest.

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Grease: A New ’50’s Rock ’N’ Roll Musical

In 1972, Pocket Books published Grease: A New ’50’s Rock ’N’ Roll Musical as a mass market paperback with the tag The Book of the Newest Broadway Hit. The tie-in contains the 1972 libretto of the musical, 12 black and white photographs from the production (Barry Bostwick, Adrienne Barbeau, etc.) and one color cover photo. You can download a PDF of this out-of-print paperback from here.

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Blithe Spirit 1956 TV Production

Blithe Spirit is a play by Noël Coward about novelist Charles Condomine who invites eccentric medium/clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his home to conduct a séance which brings to life the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira. In 1956, Coward directed a LIVE ON AIR American television adaptation for Ford Star Jubilee.

Coward stars with Claudette Colbert as his second wife Ruth, Lauren Bacall as Elvira and Emmy nominee for Best Supporting Performance by an Actress, Mildred Natwick as Madame Arcati. The endlessly-rushing maid is played by Marion Ross who most viewers will remember as the mother on the television series Happy Days. Fred de Cordova, longtime producer of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, is listed as having staged the production for television. Based on the thumbnail image there seems to have been a tour and record associated with this production as well although a quick search garnered no other information. Originally broadcast in color, only black and white kinescopes survive. I believe this is also a WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE! Enjoy!

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