Drag In Cinema: More From the ’70s
Our Drag in Cinema series written by Laurie Sheril left off with in the 1970s with serious drag. She covered George Sander’s scene as a drag queen in a gay bar in The Kremlin Letter, and Helmut Berger in Marlene Dietrich drag for The Damned. Then there was The Christine Jorgensen Story, Fortune in Men’s Eyes, and I Want What I Want. Today we look at the films she missed in her ‘70s review that featured characters in drag.
Hello, I’m Your Aunt! was a made-for-TV movie from 1975 that was produced by Soviet television and was only seen in the USSR. Based loosely on the play Charlie’s Aunt it featured Soviet actor Alexander Kalyagin as Babbs Baberley. Trying to hide from police who are after him for vagrancy Babbs hides in a upscale house, and then tries to disguise himself as a woman so he can leave without being noticed by the police. He is caught by the residents of the house, Charlie and Jackie, and they use Babbs in a plot to get a judge to let them marry his nieces. They tell Babbs they will turn him over to the police unless he dresses once again as a woman and passes himself off as Donna Rosa d’Alvadorez, Charlie’s millionaire aunt who is expected to arrive for a visit from Brazil. Pretty funny stuff for the Soviet Union. Apparently the film was a big hit there.
The hapless Babbs in his aunt disguise surrounded by the other cast members.
The big drag film of 1975 was The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tim Curry was lascivious as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. What more can we say about Richard O’Brian’s greatest creation? It gave thousands of young men the opportunity to learn how it feels to wear a corset and high heels. For some it was a phase but for others….
The Rocky Horror cast.
1977 brought Outrageous! starring female impersonator Craig Russell as an inept makeup artist/hairdresser named Robin who does the faces and wigs of local drag queens while wanting to be the one up one the stage. He has a pregnant schizophrenic roommate. The film is based on Making It, a short story by writer Margaret Gibson from her 1976 collection The Butterfly Ward. While trying to help his roommate deal with her mental health issues he starts performing and does several numbers during the course of the film. He ends up going to New York City where he thrives in the female impersonation biz. In one scene before he goes to New York his friends come by to pick him up so they can go to a party. Through the bathroom door he tells them he’s shaving. When they tell him to hurry up he opens the door revealing that he is covered all over his upper body with shave cream. The film is a comedy and there are plenty of laughs but it also deals with mental health issues.
Craig Russell onstage in Outrageous!
The French film La Cage aux Folles came out in 1978. The title translates as The Cage of Madwomen and the movie is based on a 1973 French farce by Jean Poiret[2] centering on confusion that ensues when Laurent, the son of a Saint Tropez night club owner and his gay lover, brings his fiancée’s ultraconservative parents for dinner. The original French production premièred at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal on February 1, 1973 and ran for almost 1,800 performances. In the film Michel Serrault plays Albin, the lover of Renato Baldi, the owner of a nightclub that features drag performers. Albin is the star of the show. When Renato’s son from a heterosexual relationship tells Renato that he is going to marry the daughter of an ultra conservative family and they are coning to dinner Albin, who was deemed too swishy to attend, shows up at the meal in middle age matron disguise. Comedy ensues. Along with some dramatic moments and a happy ending. The film was followed by two sequels: La Cage aux Folles II (1980), also directed by Molinaro, and La Cage aux folles 3 – ‘Elles’ se marient (1985), directed by Georges Lautner.
More films will be covered in the next edition of the new Drag In Cinema column! Do you have a favorite movie that featured drag? Let us know.
Category: Media
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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