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Mondo

Mondo Hollywood: Hollywood Laid Bare! [Mondo Hollywood] (Robert Carl Cohen, 1967)

Nov

1

World Vegan Day

Mondo Hollywood: Hollywood Laid Bare! (1967)

Lobby card. Proto-hippie Gypsy Boots (Robert Bootzin), here going ape over a banana, outshocks polite society with his vegan (or is this vegetarian?) mindset In the background what appears to be a bed of nails. DP: Robert Carl Cohen.

Opens with Nature Boy and #garlic propagandist Gypsy Boots.

Hu-Man [Pleurs] (Jérôme Laperrousaz, 1975)

Apr

7

Public Television Day

Hu-Man (1975)

Terence (Terence Stamp) projected on multiple large screens with television executives watching. DP: Jimmy Glasberg.

The global audience of #Mondo-Vision, a live broadcast #TimeTravel experiment, determines through their emotional investment in the lead's screened experience what the man's destination will be. Even so, the spectators' collective energy should serve as a powerhouse, enabling a televised leap into the future. The man whose faith determines it all is Terence Stamp – played by the actor with the same name. He agrees to partake in the hope that enough emotional energy can be harvested for him to travel back in time so he can reunite with his lost love.

 

While definitely taking a cue or two from Alain Resnais' Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968), Hu-Man has a much grimmer feel to it. The seventies were not a time of or even for optimism, including Stamp's career and personal life. Noun Serra's dizzying editing and the real-world danger both the in-movie actor and real-world actor are exposed to makes Hu-Man a much more self-referential and personal experience for this future's reality-fatigued viewer.

She-Man: A Story of Fixation (Bob Clark, 1967)

Mar

10

International Wig Day

She-Man: A Story of Fixation (1967)

Lt. Albert Rose is about to be transformed into Rose Albert (Leslie Marlowe). DP: Gerhard Maser.

Real-world female impersonator Leslie Marlowe plays Lt. Albert Rose, a military man forced into wearing lingerie and said wig and eventually embracing it as “Rose Albert”.

“IS HE? or ISN'T SHE?”

– tagline

Re-released by Something Weird you're forgiven to think that She-Man: A Story of Fixation will be a schlockfest. Instead it's a versatile as Bob Clark's filmography. She-Man – and do please forgive the wording – is part #fetish fest, part #mondo movie, part #queer liberation.

 

A lovely film that, reminiscent to Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda (1953), was made by people who lived the lifestyle and therefore forfeits the unnecessary, exploitative angle.

 

Read more about Marlowe and his/her peers in Avery Willard's wonderful Female Impersonation from 1971.