Salome's Last Dance

This film WAS created in 1988 by a small group of professionals on a shoe-string budget. However, it is as beautiful and uproarious as the Oscar Wilde original. In fact, nearly all of the dialog is Oscar Wilde's 'Salome', and is executed as deftly as possible. While none of the actors are A-list Hollywood types, they add the spice of life to the dark, sardonic wit of Wilde with skill and saleability. For those of us who have loved this movie for ten years+, the great news is that this film is now available in DVD format. If you are not shy about subtle humor, social anarchy, and a touch of good-natured sodomy, give this film a view.

I love this film! But, it seems to evoke strong reactions from people. I've recommended it to friends who absolutely hated it. Oh well. Look for the scene where Salome tries to convince John the Baptist to kiss her. "Kiss me with your lips, John the Baptist." It's a beautiful poem and so perfectly done.

There's too much to say about this film. I'll just highly recommend it and leave it at that.

Late on Guy Fawkes Day, 1892, Oscar Wilde arrives at a high-class brothel where a surprise awaits: a staging of his play "Salome," with parts played by prostitutes, Wilde's host, his lover Bosey, and Lady Alice.

The film was shot for $800,000 over a four-week period in London. Director Ken Russell had been signed by Vestron to a three picture deal after the success of "Gothic", of which this was the first. Imogen Millais-Scott went blind three weeks before filming after contracting glandular fever, but Russell insisted on still using her. This was the right choice.

This film met with modest critical acclaim. The review in the New York Times called it "a perfumed, comic stunt," but noted that "Russell forces one to attend to (and to discover the odd glory in) the Wilde language, which, on the printed page, works faster than Valium." And seriously, how can you go wrong with Jewish midgets, flatulence and Biblical sexuality?

Salome's Last Dance is one of those films that will fascinate people or repulse them very like director Ken Russell's directorial style. First viewing I disliked it, seeing it again in a better mood just recently it was much better than remembered, though for me one of Russell's weaker films. A few things stop it from being a masterpiece. Russell does go overboard with the excess at times- not unusual for Russell- and some of those excessive images are disgustingly ugly, especially with Salome licking saliva off her face. Russell also writes himself in an acting role as a photographer and is rather embarrassingly bad and in a somewhat creepy way. Imogen Millais-Scott I had mixed feelings on, she is gorgeous, seductive and age-appropriate, though with a tendency to mug. Even with the excess, Salome's Last Dance does maintain the spirit of Oscar Wilde's play Salome with its beauty and ability to shock. The film is expertly filmed and the production values are a mix of the hypnotisingly beautiful and the decadent, which is hardly inappropriate(Strauss' opera Salome, which I personally love, has those qualities too). The music is a hodgepodge of classical music, and a wonderful hodgepodge at that, Rimsky-Korsakov and especially Debussy the prime composers and they further add to the beautiful yet shocking atmosphere. They are performed very well and mostly fit within the film. The script is witty and uproarious, Herodias has some truly hilarious lines, and the story is interestingly structured with a good touch of the theatrical and the cinematic. You cannot take your eyes away from the dance scene either. Most of the acting is better than its given credit, Glenda Jackson and Stratford Johns especially. Jackson is a little bizarre but also very regal and authoritative and Johns is suitably wry and mischievous, making a potentially tiresome character interesting. Nickolas Grace is a witty Oscar Wilde and Douglas Hodge a mostly effectively warning John the Baptist though he does over-compensate a bit. Overall, easy to see why people will dislike it, it's far from perfect but has interest points and entertainment value. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox

Oscar Wilde, who wrote the stage play "Salome", was one of the greatest wits of his time, but lived a lifestyle that created continuous controversy in the society in which he lived. Today he is perhaps best known for authorship of "The Ballard of Reading Jail", which was written during one of the times when he was in prison following a direct confrontation with the government of the time. When he wrote "Salome" it was banned for a time by the English stage censorship and, even though it can be a most rewarding performance to watch, stage productions of it are still relatively infrequent. Consequently many people today are more familiar with the bowdlerised opera which was based on the play and was composed by Richard Strauss. The opera has been filmed by at least two major directors, but for the cinematographic enthusiast there is also this very noteworthy film, directed by Ken Russell, which is much more closely based on Wilde's play. In my opinion this film is dramatically far superior to the rather pathetic opera, and is very worth while seeking out by anyone interested. Basically it exploits the psychological tensions which may have existed in King Herod's court, and which could have accounted for the demand by Salome for the head of John the Baptist on a platter; the story that is so baldly reported in the Bible.

The scenario of this film is set in a brothel where Oscar Wilde is treated to an illegal birthday performance of his play, acted by friends who include some of the employees of the host establishment. This choice of venue has upset many critics but it is totally irrelevant to the play - it is helpful for a modern viewer to remember that, at the time in which this film is set, Oscar Wilde and his literary friends would meet regularly to present impromptu performances of works they had written, basically as a quality control procedure for the final product they eventually published; and this film simply exploits the practice. It is essentially a film of a play, with the story associated with the presentation of the play added to maintain cinematographic interest.

Ken Russell is a controversial director but although the film is not without faults, the overall quality is outstanding, the cast is superb, and there are particularly memorable performances by Glenda Jackson as Queen Herodias and by Imogen Millais-Scott (who shows the capability of looking any age between thirteen and thirty) as Princess Salome. Both the play and the film effectively capture the decadence, which was characteristic of the royal courts of petty despots at this point in history, better than any other works I have seen. It should be a must for anyone who has the opportunity to see it.