The Apple

If you are gay and of a certain age (as I am), you may remember a certain glossy "magazine of entertainment." This was AFTER DARK, which was the gayest non-porn magazine ever, and it was most popular during the 70's and 80's. People like Liza and Bette appeared on the cover, and lots of tasteful male nude and nearly-nude photos abounded. It was glitzy, heavily-mascared, skimpy underwear-clad, pre-AIDS fun.

That brings me to THE APPLE. Beyond the title number, set in Hell, which has to be one of my favorite bad rock movie free-for-alls (with horrid lyrics and extremely hard-working dancers), the "sex" number, with multiple beds full of women in slips and men in gold briefs, absolutely proves my point that this movie was merely a film transcription of the late, lamented AD.

If XANADU and GREASE 2 can be issued on DVD, why not a remastered and remixed wide-screen edition of THE APPLE? Call your local congressman or gay cult-film fan TODAY!

I was stationed with the USAF in West Berlin when this was filmed. (There are W. Berlin landmarks in the film, even though it's supposed to be New York.) My husband was an aspiring actor and always showed up at auditions when something was being filmed. He got a part as a newspaper reporter and general all-round extra, and I got a part as an extra, too. In fact, many of the extras in this movie are service members stationed in Berlin (this was before the Wall fell, so there were Brit soldiers stationed there as well, thus explaining many of the Brit accents). We had an apartment, so some of the dancers came over to hang out and chat, to escape the hotel rooms, Finola Hughes being one of them, as well as Catherine Mary Stuart (my husband REALLY enjoyed escorting her around the base!). One of the dancers, named Dave, said the filming of the hell scene was just "magical." The costumes were pretty cheesey and poorly made; my husband probably still has the silver baseball cap he wore as a reporter and the silver epaulets... It was a lot of fun to be a part of and I'd love to have a copy of it (when I saw it on TV several years ago, I couldn't find myself in the crowd scenes!). It was great reading other comments about this movie -- I didn't think anyone else in the world knew about it!

Vapid (largely due to the male lead's inability to act - not surprisingly, this was his only film), bizarre fantasy-musical-allegory. It gets points for its sheer audacity and the effort that was put into it - it was probably made on a relatively low budget, yet it manages to create a world of its own; apparently it was filmed in Germany, but it seems to be taking place on another universe altogether. For some reason, it reminded me of "Zardoz" (yes, and "Logan's Run" too): these movies are so bizarre that they belong in a league of their own, beyond "good" and "bad". Best song: "If you know how to be a ma-ster". (**)

I was channel surfing a few weeks ago when this...this...this..THING showed up on Flix. I was mesmerized. I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's and this felt like I was zapped back in time to movies like "Little Darlings", "Over the Edge", and "Xanadu". The whole look was scary. It looked like it was shot in a shopping mall. When I checked out the title, I thought "Where has this GREAT BAD movie been all my life! How come I've never heard of it before?" This is one camp classic that truly deserves a full resurrection. VH-1 should do a whole "Where Are They Now" on this movie. I'd love to know what the "actors" in this movie think of it now. Truly bad in a classicly bad/great way.

If hippiedom had taken root in the 1980s, this musical shows how things might have worked out in the 1990s. Of course you have to use your imagination here. The story describes a nightmarish society wherein everyone must eat, breathe, and sleep for something called "Bim", as promulgated by a capitalistic music mogul named Mr. Boogalow. This Mr. Boogalow rather conspicuously resembles the devil; he tempts the lead male and female singers with an apple, because their love song is a threat to his disco empire. I'm not quite sure what "Bim" refers to, except maybe the perpetuation of disco dollars, along with big bucks for bizarre costumes and garish makeup, of which the film has tons.

The entire production is so overdone, so excessive, so lacking in subtlety it's laughable. But there is a worthwhile message here. And that's the idea that people are easily manipulated to become slaves to greed and superficial images; that part of the future the film got right.

As for performances, George Gilmour, the lead male, can sing but can't act; Catherine Mary Stewart, the lead female, can act but can't sing; they make a dandy duo. Songs tend to be uninspired and repetitious; the first musical number is awful. But I did like "Cry For Me", toward the end.

Others have described "The Apple" as the worst musical of all time. I wouldn't know, since there are many musicals I have not seen. But what is certain is that this film is quaint, to say the least. It's a historical film curio, a cinematic time warp back to another era when disco was king, and Reagan was just an American actor trying to be a President with capitalistic ideas.