Jobriath A.D.: Remembering the Out and Proud Glam-Rock Star Who "Out-Queened Queen"

This is a revived version of a Line Out post about Kieran Turner's 2014 Jobriath documentary (these posts were purged from the internet some time after The Stranger pulled the plug on their music blog).

Film/TV Jan 29, 2014 at 3:15 pm

Jobriath: The Man Who Out-Queened Queen

Kathy Fennessy

 

Jobriath, née Bruce Wayne Campbell

JOBRIATH A.D.
(Kieran Turner, 2014, USA, 102 minutes)

I'm a true fairy.
—Jobriath

He out-Queened Queen.
—Eddie Kramer

At a time when the leading lights of glam and glitter rock exemplified androgyny, Jobriath was openly gay--and not bisexual as David Bowie and Lou Reed would sometimes describe themselves.*

It wasn't an act—not that theatricality wasn't part of that world, but walking it like you talked it in the 1970s was a whole 'nother thing than it is now; one fraught with greater personal danger and commercial risk.

Director Kieran Turner (24 Nights) begins his portrait of the classically-trained musician with the debut of the countercultural musical Hair in 1968, in which Jobriath, leader of the now-forgotten rock band Pidgeon, made up part of the Los Angeles cast alongside Gloria Jones, who appears in the film (and in 20 Feet from Stardom). Friends, like GTO member Miss Mercy, remember his talent, his charisma, and his manic drive.

*Or as others would describe them. Reed was cagier than Bowie on this score.

  

The Midnight Special wouldn't let Jobriath perform S&M number "Take Me I'm Yours."

If Hair became a hit, Pidgeon didn't follow suit, so Jobriath moved to New York to pursue a solo career. In short order, he found a manager in Jerry Brandt, a dead ringer for Peter Gallagher circa The Idolmaker. 

Says Brandt, "He could write, he could sing, and he could dance," and so Brandt hyped the hell out of him. The billboard-and-bus approach backfired, though it's not hard to admire the way they made no attempt to hide Jobriath's sexual orientation. Said the artist at the time, "Asking me if I’m homosexual is like asking James Brown if he's Black."

Only after establishing his public persona does Turner reveal details about his subject's childhood. If it comes as little surprise to find that Jobriath wasn't his given name, he had a strong sense of self from the start. In that respect—shaking off the past in order to become his authentic self—he recalls transgender Warhol superstars Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn, who inspired Reed's immortal "Walk on the Wild Side." 

As Turner depicts the photogenic performer recording his self-titled debut, it doesn't take much of a leap to understand his appeal to men, to women, and to the musicians of today. The record buyers and music critics of 1973, however, were a different story, and his records didn't sell. If I had heard his songs on the radio around the time I first discovered Bowie, Queen, and Elton John, I might have picked up his albums, too, but I didn't.

 

 

Jobriath in his Hair days (he played Woof, the singer of "Sodomy"). 

Had Jobriath stuck it out, the times might have caught up with him, but Elektra gave up on him after his second LP, 1975's Creatures of the Street, he and Brandt went their separate ways, and a few years later, he reemerged as a cabaret performer, his final musical configuration. 

Turner doesn't push the allusions too hard, but I caught traces of Icarus (Brandt as the master craftsman), Frankenstein (Jobriath as the monster), and Svengali (Jobriath as the artist's model) in their relationship.

I expected a parade of stars to sing his praises during the film, and Turner has delivered a few, but they aren’t necessarily the ones I would've predicted. The Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears and Jayne County? Sure, but I didn't know that Breaking Away star Dennis Christopher was a friend or that Def Leppard's Joe Elliot and Okkervil River's Will Sheff were fans—and yes, that's Richard Gere singing backup on his debut. But Morrissey is notable by his absence; I'll assume he was busy working on his memoir.

I also have mixed feelings about the animation, which feels extraneous, and Henry Rollins seems like an odd choice for narrator, but Turner otherwise does right by his subject, who died in 1983 just as Britain's New Romantics were taking his looks, his moves, and even his ideas to the top of the charts.

Jobriath A.D. trailer (hi-res video) from Eight Track Tape Productions on Vimeo.

Jobriath A.D. opens at the Grand Illusion Friday, Jan 31. David Schmader recommended the film when it played the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Images from The New York Times / Factory 25, the IMDb, and The Chicago Tribune / Factory 25.

Shanghai Triad: Zhang Yimou's 1995 Literary Adaptation as Not-So-Veiled Autobiography

SHANGHAI TRIAD

(Zhang Yimou, 1995, France/China, Mandarin with English subtitles, 108 minutes)

After making six films together, Shanghai Triad famously represented the seventh and final film director Zhang Yimou would make with actress Gong Li while the two still maintained a personal relationship (years later, they would reunite, in a strictly professional sense, for two more films). 

Though novelist Bi Feiyu adapted the screenplay from Li Xiao's 1994 novel Rules of a Clan, author Grady Hendrix, in Film Movement's Blu-ray video essay, believes that it plays better as autobiography than as a gangster movie or political allegory about the corrupting nature of capitalism. 

Fourteen-year-old Shuisheng (Wang Xiaoxiao, acquitting himself nicely in his sole leading role) provides perspective on seven pivotal days in the life of a gangster's moll in 1930s China. Because Boss (Li Baotian, Zhang's Ju Dou) prefers to surround himself with members of the Tang clan, Uncle Liu (Li Xuejian, The Blue Kite) enlists his provincial nephew to join the staff. 

Shuisheng dreams of opening up a tofu shop, but in the meantime, Liu trains him to serve at the whims of showgirl Xiao Jingbao, aka Bijou (Gong Li, reuniting with Li Baotian after Ju Dou), Boss's tempestuous mistress. At first, she treats Shuisheng with contempt, making fun of his naïvete, but cataclysmic events will conspire to bring her down to his diminutive size. 

After Boss's rival eliminates his men in a scene that plays more elliptically than explicitly, he decides to hide out on a remote island to recover from his injuries and to plot his next move, bringing Bijou and Shuisheng with him. In cinematographer Lü Yue's hands, it's a misty, isolated place, characterized by soft, warm colors and tall, feathery fronds (the three-time Zhang DP would receive an Academy Award nomination for his painterly efforts). 

Though she's in the middle of nowhere, Bijou swans about in jewels, furs, and lipstick, looking bored beyond belief until she encounters basket-weaving widow Cuihua (Jiang Baoying) and her pretty daughter, Ajiao (Yang Qianquan). In the nine-year-old, Bijou sees a younger version of herself. 

She confesses to Shuisheng that she grew up in the country, too. As a character, she instantly becomes more sympathetic, though it's clear that she's doomed once Boss gets a look at the girl for himself and realizes he has met her potential replacement. 

At 30, Gong was hardly old--at the time, she was frequently cited as one of the world's most beautiful woman--but as a showgirl-turned-gangster's moll, Bijou is hurtling towards retirement age, and once Boss has groomed the unsuspecting child for the job, there will be no room for an older mistress.  

Compared to the city sequences, the film's rural remainder moves more slowly, but with a greater sense of menace, particularly when Boss's top lieutenants, including Bijou's lover Song (Sun Chun, Red Cliff), arrive to conduct some business, after which most everyone--even the island's natives--will suffer as long-held secrets come to light. The film ends as it began with Shuisheng literally in over his head, this time possibly forever. 

As Grady Hendrix notes, Boss's relationship with Bijou echoes Zhang's relationship with Gong. 

She was a 22-year-old drama student when she met the married director--and an internationally-acclaimed actress when they parted. He would soon find a subsequent muse in 18-year-old drama student Zhang Ziyi with whom he would enjoy an equally productive partnership, though he wouldn't marry or father any of his reported seven children with either actress (he would remarry another woman, a dancer with whom he had three children, in 2011).

Though autobiography may not have been Zhang Yimou's intention with Shanghai Triad, it's hard not to see the film as a form of self-critique, not least because Boss may be ruthless, but he's also clever, charismatic, and perceptive--characteristics that can be just as beneficial to a filmmaker.

Shanghai Triad is out on Blu-ray and digital through Film Movement. Images from Empire Online (Gong Li), Nicks Flick Picks (Wang Xiaoxiao), Geek Vibes Nation (Gong and friends), and Why So Blu? (Gong and Jiang).

Years Before His Shift to Horror: Tod Browning's Proto-Noir Outside the Law

OUTSIDE THE LAW

(Tod Browning, USA, 

1920, 76 minutes)

Three years before she played a jewel thief in Tod Browning's 1923 White Tiger (which I reviewed here), Priscilla Dean played another burglar in his San Francisco proto-noir Outside the Law. 

Leo McCarey, future director of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup and other cinema classics, served as assistant director. The results proved so successful that it spawned two remakes, including a 1930 version with Edward G. Robinson. 

Wearing a succession of eye-catching outfits, from a checked dress with chiffon trim to a sleek, black-sequined sheath, Dean plays Molly Madden, aka "Silky Moll," who grew up among the criminal element in Chinatown. 

As the film begins, Chang Lo (E. Alyn Warren, a white actor who frequently played Asian roles), a Confucian-quoting family friend, has convinced her father, "Silent" Madden (Ralph Lewis), to go straight. Unfortunately, local hooligan "Black" Mike Silva (Lon Chaney, star of 10 Browning pictures, including 1927's The Unknown) frames him for a crime in order to persuade Molly, who was also considering the straight life, to participate in a jewel theft. As an intertitle aptly states, Blackie is "a rat, a vulture, and a snake." 

To no discernible aesthetic purpose, Chaney also plays Lo's servant, Ah Wing, an excitable character who merely confirms the actor's reputation as "The Man of a Thousand Faces." 

Considering the authentic Chinese-American performers in the film, like White Tiger actress Anna May Wong (uncredited) as a Lo disciple, the taped-eyelid performances from Warren and Chaney feel more unnecessary than ever, though Browning was simply conforming to the standards of a less enlightened time.

Ironically, future leading lady Wong (Picadilly) is now better known than Dean, in part because she brought more of an edge to her characterizations; Dean is consistently good value, though she has more of an everywoman quality, even when playing fashionable lawbreakers, like Silky Moll.

While Silent serves time, Molly and safecracker "Dapper" Bill Ballard (Dean's then-husband Wheeler Oakman) wangle an invitation to a fancy-dress party where they knock out the host, open his safe, and abscond with the glittering goods. Afterward, they return to their respective apartments to hide out until things cool down. 

In the meantime, they get to know their four-year-old neighbor (Stanley Goethals), a detective's son with an unflattering bowl cut, who seems eager for companionship, possibly because his father is always on a case. He charms them with his dog and her cute puppies before convincing Dapper to help him build a cross-shaped kite (a portentous harbinger of Molly's moral resurrection to come). 

The more the couple eases into a life of tranquil domesticity, the more Dapper comes to think they should return the jewels, get married, and leave the criminal life behind, but then the perspiration-dappled Blackie darkens their doorstep, and this dreamy plan seems more remote than ever. 

The Library of Congress produced this 4K restoration, which lacks the original tinting, but looks good, other than some bubbly, cloudy nitrate deterioration towards the end. 

As Blackie, Chaney is sufficiently menacing, and Dean and Oatman make for a likeable pair. The mystery doesn't revolve so much around whether they'll go straight, but how they'll get around their deranged ex-partner to do it. 

Kino's release features an alternate, toned-down ending from the 16mm Show-at-Home print, a side-by-side look at the 16mm and 35mm restorations, and a highly informative commentary track from British film historian and frequent contributor Anthony Slide (Nitrate Won't Wait).

 

Trailer for the Masters of Cinema edition (with different special features)

Outside the Law is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber (it's also available to stream for free via YouTube). Images from the IMDb.  

Frederic Goode Celebrates the British Invasion in 1965's Go Go Mania AKA Pop Gear

GO GO MANIA aka POP GEAR

(Frederick Goode, UK, 1965, unrated, 70 minutes) 

In England, Frederic Goode's celebration of the British Invasion played in theaters as Pop Gear. That title appears throughout the film, though the term "go go" never does. Clocking in at a little over an hour, it's a fun, variety show-style feature for fans of the UK pop scene, circa 1965. 

Looking like a cross between Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman with his long, wavy hair and Black Watch plaid suit, Jimmy Savile, the host of Top of the Pops, provides snappy introductions for all of the acts, but not all of the songs. Some perform only one selection, while others perform more. 

The film begins and ends with footage of the Beatles from their famous Royal Command Performance at London's Prince of Wales Theatre in 1964. This iteration of the quartet had graduated from the leather-clad Liverpudlians who made their mark at the Cavern Club to well-scrubbed London lads well on their way to world domination. Throughout energetic performances of "She Loves You" and "Twist and Shout," the mostly-female audience screams, cries, and doesn't let up for a second. It's not hard to understand why the Beatles would retire from touring just two years later. 

With the aid of two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth (Cabaret, Tess), Goode shot the rest of the performances pop-video style with acts miming to their singles on sets designed to reflect the lyrics, like a dirt road for the Nashville Teens' stomping cover of John D. Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road." 

At three intervals, dancers burst on to the scene to provide some fast-paced movement. While the men are clad primarily in fitted suits and skinny ties, the women are clad in colorful dresses or ballet-like ensembles comprised of leotard tops and gold lamé stretch pants. It's dated in the best of ways.  

As music journalist Brian Reesman and songwriter Jeff Slate note in their entertainingly chatty commentary track, Brian Epstein managed many of these acts, notably the Beatles, so there was a lot of synergy at work. 

Highlights include the Animals with "The House of the Rising Sun," Peter and Gordon with "A World without Love,” and Herman's Hermits with "I'm into Something Good." Notable performers include the Honeycombs' swinging female drummer, Honey Lantree, the only woman instrumentalist in the entire  program, and the members of Sounds Incorporated, an Epstein-managed act, who hop up and down during their zippy rendition of the William Tell Overture. 

In this sort of Hullaballoo context, the ballads--"Walk Away," "For Mama," and "Pop Gear"--from the likes of Matt Monro (best known for his themes to From Russia with Love and Born Free) don't fare as well, since they slow down the pace, not least because he's lip-syncing rather than singing. 

Sadly, Jimmy Savile's presence casts a shadow over the entire enterprise due to long-term allegations of sexual abuse that became public after his passing in 2011. Though it has no bearing on the musicians, some of whom are still performing in 2022, it's impossible to completely overlook.  

Go Go Mania aka Pop Gear is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital through Kino Lorber and Kino Now. Images from Cinema Crazed (vintage poster), Kino Lorber (the Beatles), and Mubi (the Animals).