LUMINOUS PROCURESS
Dir. Steven Arnold, 1971
USA, 73 min.
THURSDAY, JULY 3 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 25 – 10:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30 – 10:00 PM
Two young men wander into a building on the shore, where they have heard they can see the most elaborate sexual fantasies performed, like a smutty Locus Solus, in Steven Arnold’s definitely West Coast take on the psychedelic film as practiced by Jack Smith, Ira Cohen and Kenneth Anger. Meandering among a series of decadent tableaux, deeper and deeper into a world where identities and sexualities merge and split, well performed by none other than the Cockettes and scored by synth guru Warner Jepson, until the two young men finally realize they’re not just spectators, they’re to become the new additions. Trying to sum it up as a plot, however, misses the point of a film like this: it’s a phantasmagorical vision, a Symbolist paean, taking inspiration from butoh theater to Erich Von Stroheim to form a shabbily glamorous vision.
ELEVATOR GIRLS IN BONDAGE
Dir. Michael Kalmen, 1972
USA, 56 min.
THURSDAY, JULY 3 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 16 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30 – 7:30 PM
Cockettes fans will find many similarities between Elevator Girls In Bondage and the live Cockettes shows of the late 60s and early seventies, combining psychedelia, slapstick and political critique into a film both of its time and unlike anything else.
Starring Spectacle favorite Rumi Missabu along with fellow Cockettes Pristine Condition, Hibiscus and Miss Harlow, the film gleefully subverts and exploits genre tropes, Marxist rhetoric and folks songs as the employees of a hotel decide to get revenge against poor wages and mistreatment as led by elevator girl Maxine (Missabu).
Fans of 70s underground cinema, queer cinema in general, and goofy satire mixed with sharp critique will definitely want to come out and see it for themselves.