Customer Reviews

Salome's Last Dance [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rather than film Oscar Wilde's play, Salome, as a stand-alone piece, Ken Russell uses the time-honored technique of a play within a play, to present a fictional British premier of the play considered so decadent, the Lord Chamberlain banned it from the stage. Wilde did not see a production of Salome in his lifetime. In Mr. Russell's film, the guests and employees of Alfred Taylor's brothel present a fully staged performance of Salome for Wilde as a birthday present.

Within this concept, Russell has each actor, except Wilde, play two parts in the film, one in the brothel, one in the play. Most remarkable of these is Imogen Millais-Scott who, the first time we see her, is a very timid, slightly stuttering maid, but who, in the play within the play, is none other than the seductive princess Salome. Besides having an intriguing face that can look thirteen one minute and sixty the next, she has a melodious, slightly odd speaking voice and intense line delivery.

Nicholas Grace is the sensuous, slightly debauched Oscar Wilde, Glenda Jackson commands the stage as a dissipated, but regal queen Herodias/Lady Alice, and Stratford Johns gives a detailed characterization as Herod/Alfred Taylor (the owner of the brothel). Russell himself appears with a fairly sizeable spoken role.

There are only two extra features on this DVD: the inevitable trailers (not particularly interesting) and a commentary by the director Ken Russell which is both fascinating and enlightening. Mr. Russell readily describes his creative process, explains some of the choices he made in the film, and relates a few interesting anecdotes about the actors, all the while dropping bits of information about the music he chose for the film and why.

This is not an appropriate film for children. It contains nudity, some crude gestures, and sexual situations.

Please re-release this great movie on DVD so that humble people such as myself can afford it. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ken Russell is kind of like stinky blue cheese: you either like him or you don't. If you like him, Salome is an essential work to add to your collection.

Russell tends to hit you over the head with his hidden meanings, and this is one of the few films where he decides to let the images do the work for him, mostly by sticking close to the text of Wilde's original play. This is to his credit. The production design is lush, the photography surprisingly brisk, although his camera movements (as always) are just plain amateurish.

Imogen Millais-Scott turns in an astonishing and bracing performance as Salome (interestingly, she never worked in film again) and Nicholas Grace (Brideshead Revisited) turns in a somewhat boring Oscar Wilde.

I don't think I would buy this if I wasn't a big Ken Russell fan, but if you're learning more about this, er, interesting director, this is a good film with which to start.

Much is made of risque film director's, loathe them or love them they are the ones mainstream Hollywood hacks very often "borrow" heavily from. And in doing so receive undo praise for innovention. Ken Russell is innovention personified! Like Cronenberg, Lynch and Alan Parker, he isn't afraid to takes the risks nessessary to make a highly provacative and compelling film. Salome's Last Dance is innovative, provacative, literate and well acted; brilliantly lensed on a miniscule budget (probably the budget of Spielberg's hair products durring one of his productions). Much praise to the lead actress, who's performance is nothing short of amazing! Grace as Wilde is particularly underappreciated in a subtle, yet alarmingly perverse performance that gives Stephen Fry's (in a different film) a run for his Wilde money. Odd, but sincere; bizarre, yet unique; I highly recommend t his rarely seen little gem!!!

Salome's Last Dance is a bizarre, yet well-acted film that mixes a campy performance of Oscar Wilde's French-decadent play, witty in-joke quotes, and a nose-tweaking of history, to eventually create a film that while may turn off many with its strangeness, is an interesting homage to the play's author and the period. The performances are wonderful, especially Glenda Jackson's Herodias and Imogen Millais-Scott as Salome. I was a little disappointed in Nickolas Grace's Oscar Wilde, though. He tries, but he's just no Stephen Fry, and his performance lacks a certain spark. The other actors seem equally at home in the forums of period piece and camp drama, and although seemingly done on a low-budget, the film looks great. I would recommend this to any Oscar Wilde fan, as well as anyone who enjoys just plain strange movies.

This film is an exquisite study in camp. Susan Sontag's NOTES ON CAMP should be amended to include this movie. I ADORE this movie. Glenda Jackson vamps it up as Herodias, and Stratford Johns is hilarious as Herod. It is fun, it is ribald, it is scandalous and witty, it is Ken Russell at his best (and that's saying quite a bit, because he can be a very uneven director-- you've got the man who on one hand created WOMEN IN LOVE, and then recently crapped out THE FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER). Well darlings, enjoy this film, watch it with a glass of champagne and a clove cigarette.

Nicely done version of the Oscar Wilde play. Unlike Russell's film of THE BOY FRIEND, which drowned straightforward source material in an ocean of pastiche and camp, the framing device here (a private performance of Wilde's play in a brothel on the night of his arrest) actually illumines, rather than obscures, the text. Nickolas Grace as Oscar himself is something of a nonstarter, but most of the cast rise (or sink) to the occasion; pleasant to see flashes of wit again from the usually sullen Glenda Jackson. Good design, and a marvelous performance from Imogen Millais-Scott, looking like the love child of Joan Greenwood and Quentin Crisp in the title role. Would make an interesting double-feature with Nazimova's notorious silent film.

I have been wating for close to 5 years to have this movie come ut on a medium that is affordable. For the longest of time the VHS version was close to $80.00. Now that it is on DVD we can apreciate this film for less ...

To say the least this is an excellent version of Oscar Wilde's Salome. If you want to understand Wilde and his plays, you should pick this film up. Not many people realize but Wilde and his friends would write plays and then act them out for fun. So when you see this movie you are getting a pretty good view of what a Friday night was for Wilde and his friends.
I mean to say, wouldn't it be fun to write a porn and have your friends act it out with you as the star? That was what Wilde did, that was why he was so controversial.
But like I said, if you are a theatre major or even a fan of literature and history. Watch this film and be amazed.

This is easily the best version of Oscar Wilde's play out there, if only because it's a comedy. All other versions of Salome act as though the overly loquacious protestations of love and ridiculous tragedy are meant to be taken seriously and not tongue-in-cheek. Wilde wrote the play not as the supposed love poem that some "scholars" suggest, but instead as a parody of the melodrama popular at the time. Salome was the first camp classic and now Ken Russel allows us to experience as it was meant to be seen.

Later Richard Strauss would turn Wilde's work into the odd sort of psychological drama of his opera. And if that's what you want to see buy a version of the opera, don't try to force the play to become it. Allow for the play to be what it is.

Please Re-Release!

I bought this film (VHS) from my local video store years ago & still have it. I'm stunned that the DVD is in such a prohibative price range!!!!!!!!!!

This film is a word for word read of Wilde's play Salome, but what a "wild", filmatic modern interpretation. A very fun movie and campy isn't the only thing this movie is, its very irreverent in the best sense of the word, a most cheesy morsel of goods. I love the words in this play and frankly think the director was a genius with the physical counterpoint to the language of the play. I'm sure Wilde wrote the play

"straight". As a matter of fact he even acted in Salome & he played Salome, so maybe I'm wrong & he didn't write it "straight". The movie is faithful to the "fin de siecle" philosophy pervading Wilde's Salome & as such I believe the director of the movie did a bang up job. KYA