Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: Christmas Eve She Lit the Candles....

Well, not technically a holiday number, I suppose, but it's candy-colored enough to pass for one, and it does remind us of the importance of fire safety whilst celebrating...

And Now, a Word from Our Sponsor

Building on the response to Monday's post, and just in case you were looking for a reason not to sleep for a week or so...

Carnaval of Souls

I'm not sure which of these is worst: bro-clown there top left, with his evilly confiding gaze; the snidely condescending Boy George impersonator, bottom center; or the hell-creature bottom row right, whom I've come to think of simply as MeatMouth.

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: That's Entertainment?

"The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure..."

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Oh, yes, that's entertainment all right.  Very, very disturbing entertainment.  Ladies and gentlemen, the Florida Trio!

It turns out that there are some very good reasons Vaudeville breathed its last...

Baby Take a Bow

It's been ages since we've had a look at one of the wonders of Egyptian cinema, hasn't it?  Today, we revisit the glory days of 1950, when King Farouk looked serenely solid on his post-war throne, and Hollywood on Nile was addressing its longstanding moppet shortage by starring the remarkable tot seen to great advantage in this number from a musical called Yasmin.

Her name was Fayrouz Arteen, and she occupies more or less the exact place in Egyptian movielovers' hearts that Miss Shirley Temple does for fans in the West.  She made only a handful of films, but remains even today, sixty years and more later, much beloved, living quietly in retirement in Cairo.  She's part of an extended performing family; two of her more famous cousins are the great stars Nelly and Lebleba, for what that's worth.

Here she's paired with veteran star Anwar Wagdi (more or less the Clark Gable of the East).  It's a long number, and Fayrouz doesn't get to strut her stuff 'til 4:30, but the whole thing is worth sitting through. 

It's a lavish production by Cairo standards, reaching, if one needs an equivalent, up from Monogram standards to reach, if only through the number of costumes and more-or-less dancing extras, the level of a middling Columbia second feature.  Still, Fayrouz does her considerable best, and it's all really rather charming, I think. 

Which must be worth something, since you know I loathe children.

Mystery Clowns

Clowns: even when it's only a group of Johnson-era tots dressing up, they give me the creeps. I'm especially put off by Miss Thing there, dead center, not to mention the little leg show that Bozette's giving over on the right. The sad harlequin in between, though, looks just about ready for Miss Quinn's kindergarten pageant version of Les Enfants du Paradis; him we like.

To Sleep; Perchance to Dream...

One of the reasons I've been less than productive these past few days is that I've been sleeping oddly. Not badly, mind you; as happens occasionally, I've actually been sleeping rather too deeply. Mr. Muscato discovered this when a couple of nights ago I was unmoved and unwakened by a series of loudly slamming doors (wind; the downside of having the house opened up during these precious cooler months) and subsequently furiously barking dog.

When I go through these bouts of sleep-to-the-point-of-unconsciousness, I often wake more tired than after a similar amount of the usual dozing. Moreover, I'm more prone than usual to remembering dreams - usually long, complicated, and repetitive dreams. This week's featured, in a starring role, Miss Bonham Carter, albeit not in a lilac fur-trimmed peignoir as seen here.

We were walking together, for a very long time, doing the usual dream-state pointless searching for things, talking about other things, and generally not making much sense.

I woke suddenly yesterday morning at one such dream's end, just as she turned to me and said, "you know what the real problem is, don't you? Don't you?"

"Tell me," said I.

She turned away; looking gravely over her shoulder as she walked off, she said, simply: "Mystery clown."

And so I woke up. And this is what I Googled from that phrase:

Amazingly, despite the horror of that image, last night I slept the dreamless, refreshing sleep of the innocent and feel much restored.

But what could it mean?

Bing

Crosby. Hope you weren't planning to sleep this week...

Carnival (of Fear)

Proof positive that Christian music does not, in fact, have a total monopoly on disastrous record covers. Classical can get into the act quite effectively, too.

I am, Connie, I am

In what seems to me one of the creepiest moments ever captured on kinescope, Connie Francis sings "Who's Sorry Now?" to a sad lady clown. I may not sleep for a week.

Cinderella

Egyptians are mad about movies, and the big stars of the Egyptian cinema are revered by the general public in the way that more rarefied circles in the West feel about Garbo, Davis, Gable, and Bogart.

They love the triumphs, and almost as much they revel masochistically in the tragedies. Just about the saddest of all of these is the story of Souad Hosni, remembered as "The Cinderella of Arabic Cinema."

Throught the 60s and into the 70s, she was the darling of moviegoers, a lively, gamine sort of girl given the Egyptian versions of the kinds of movies then going to Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn.

She made dozens of movies, some good and some pretty lamentable. One, Khali Balek min Zouzou (Beware of Zouzou) from the early 70s is credited with rescuing Egyptian movies from a rut of politicized, Soviet-style pictures (brawny peasants, noble workers, and not much fun - very not Egyptian).

By the early 80s, the movie industry in Egypt more or less fell apart, and the kinds of sweet, light films audiences loved her for gave way to low-budget action/comedy/romance/dirty joke movies. In 2001, half-forgotten, impoverished, and long ill and a recluse, Souad Hosni fell from the balcony of the London apartment building to which she had retreated.

Some say she jumped; others that mysterious Powers That Be pushed her (and stole the manuscript of her reputedly sensational memoirs). Her funeral was a day of mass public mourning in Cairo, and Egyptians still bitterly berate themselves for having let her down.

Years before all that, though, in 1979, Souad Hosni made a movie called El-Mutawahisha (The Wild Child). At 37, she's a little mature for the kind of romping about that the script calls for, but she's game.

Here, with the dubious help of some disturbing chorus boys, she leads a number called, as you'll soon see, Sheeka-Beeka.

It's fairly appalling. I suppose you could consider it the real-life Egyptian Shumba (it's almost that unnerving). Or maybe an Arabesque Sissy Clown Slap Party. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Unfortunate Public Art

The powers-that-be in these parts can maintain all they want that this in fact a portrait of 17th Century poet and all around aestheste Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.

I know a bust of a Scary Dead Clown Shakespeare when I see it.

Seriously: there is some mighty bad street art in Amsterdam. This particular one just especially gave me the heebie jeebies.

Image du Jour: Drag Beyond Drag

The Telegraph recently carried this photo of a reveller at San Francisco Pride.

Drag, I sometimes think, has moved beyond mere female impersonation to become something else entirely. This creation, for example, appears to be impersonating an entire ecosphere. I don't know, frankly, whether that's entirely a good thing (I'm a little scared), but it's certainly vivid.

Image du Jour: A Gabor Moment

I'm not sure which one looks more mortified. But I do know that finding out anything about the backstory for this would only be a let down.

I think it's Eva. Any guesses?