Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Fag Noir


STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1949)



A double-whammy of fag noir—
starring two male femme fatales
of the early film noir cinema days

the oneiristic blurring of dreams—
and reality herald the b-movie
fag noir hollywood genre cycle
just before citizen cane showing
the influence of german expressionism
on american crime films through the
highly artificial mise-en-scene of
studio settings

peter lorre’s heavily gestural—
performances along with rko’s
art head albert s. d’agostino
begins the seminal noir cycle
exploiting baroque photography
of nicko musuraca whose style
influenced the films of orson
welles and val lewton


HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1958)




And then there’s, of course—
the way fag noir blended into
the campy grade-b horror schlock
of william castle’s cult classic
house on haunted hill with the
gothic melodrama queen bee
miss vincent price herself

staging a haunted mansion party—
for his greedy guests enticed to
spend a night and survive there
in the ghostly dump enduring the
demise of his fickle scheming and
murderous tacky wife

elisha cook gets to play the—
meek scared faggy as usual gay
weak sister in the fag noir plot
as the real estate agent insuring
that any survivors get $1000 to
get through the tacky, tiring,
supposedly scary ghostly night
full of laughable gimmicks and
funny so-so halloween gags

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