31 Day Film Challenge: Day 8

Day 8 of the 31 Day Film Challenge: A film you can quote a line from. There are many films that Eric and I quote lines from like "9 to 5", "Evil Under the Sun", and "Clue", but the one we quote probably more than any other is "Murder by Death".

After Dark January 1973

Bette Midler graces the cover of her second issue of After Dark. According to the issue, 1973 may witness the emergence of a new superstar in the person of Miss Bette Midler. Her New Year's Eve concert at Philharmonic Hall sold out immediately and Atlantic Records' "The Divine Miss M" was a top seller. Her appearance in this issue was in a fashion layout featuring her in a variety of furs.

She may have been raised in Hawaii, but she looks right at home in this Blackgama floor-length ranch mink.

Here's Bette in a flared black beaver short coat with silver fox trim.

Joining Bette in the fashion layout were friends Wayne Clark, who was the producer of the off-off-Broadway musical Twanger, and model-about-town, Tom Moulton. Wayne is dressed in a black and white Rolls Royce sweater with flared flannel cuffed trousers and Tom is in a black and orange short-sleeved wool pullover worn over a black knit shirt with patterned trousers.

Glamorous Bette is in a white shadow fox fur from Norway.

Here is Bette in a natural blue fox and leather circular design coat, while Tom is in a wool navy blue and white check walking suit and Wayne is in a brown suede cloth coat.

Here are the boys in body-hugging wool knit pullovers.

Tom is wearing a bold-checked amber and navy suit with navy cashmere turtleneck while Bette is in a Summer Ermine with lynx collar and border.


Henry Edwards did an article on the softer side of Alice Cooper.

Glenn Loney's article recognized up and coming star Jason Miller who won rave reviews for his stage presence in That Championship Season.

Interestingly, his co-star in That Championship Season was Paul Sorvino. Paul, who is also a sculptor, was commissioned by the city of Scranton to create a bust of Jason. The bronze statue was unveiled in December 2008. The article mentioned that he was about to appear in a new horror film called The Exorcist. He would eventually be nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in that.

Susan Hayward, star of I'll Cry Tomorrow, got a spotlight in an article from Don Lee Keith.

Susan appeared in many films with some of the top leading men, including Clark Gable in Soldier of Fortune...

...and John Wayne in The Conqueror.

Susan tried the stage in a Las Vegas production of Mame. She grew tired of the same old lines, the same old songs every night that she eventually left the production and was replaced by Celeste Holm.

Susan found she loved TV movies, because she worked like a slave for the thirteen weeks of filming and then could take some time off. One of those TV movies was Heat of Anger in which she played a lawyer. It was supposed to be a pilot for a series, but it wasn't picked up.

Up and coming stars making names for themselves in 1973 were Robin Lane, who was appearing in The Chronicle of Nine at the Mercer Arts Center,

Mark Lambert, who Hal Prince signed for a leading role in his new musical A Little Night Music,

and David Huffman who recently appeared in the Philadelphia Drama Guild's production of Moliere's Tartuffe.

Regular After Dark writer and editor Norma McLain Stoop featured two young men in her article. The first was Donn Whyte who was appearing in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at New York's Mercer Arts Center.

Donn also played the dead father of a ten-year old boy in the semi-horror film Killers of the Dream.

The other young man was Kurt Dawson who found his first New York play after studying at England's Royal Academy was the controversial off-Broadway play Futz!.

He then got a job as Keith Baxter's understudy in Sleuth and began appearing on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns.

Some other highlights this issue were the debut of Irene starring Debbie Reynolds and Monte Markham,

Deborah Kerr in The Day after the Fair with Julia Foster,

and a dramatic reading of Don Juan in Hell with Edward Mulhare, Ricardo Montalban, Agnes Moorehead and Paul Henried.

William Como's semi-regular feature "Editor's Out-Takes" featured dancer/model Wesley Kone,

swimmer George Krasowski,

and dancer Brian Destazio.

Another photo featured was one by Curtis Brown that appeared in an exhibit called "Four Phases Plus One".

Only a couple of ads to feature from this issue. The first is for the film Travels with My Aunt starring Maggie Smith. I have been wanting to see this film, but have not been able to find it on DVD. I just love this drawing of Maggie Smith. Interesting tattoo possiblility.

The next is for Leather 'N' Things. It seems that in order to order them, taking the measurements are quite complicated so you have to write for details. At least you get to choose which side you want your key loop on.

Last, but not least for this issue, is a photo by Kenn Duncan to spotlight four jewelers. Actor Douglas Reynolds on the left is wearing bracelets from Whitt Goldsmith's on his left arm and from Frank's Jewelers on his right. Actor/model James Hand on the right is wearing a selection from Uptight Ltd. on his right arm and Boutique St. Tropez on his left.

Only one more Bette Midler issue to go. Stay tuned.

After Dark May 1971

Bette Midler, Robert Redford, Cal Culver and Ann-Margret have appeared on covers of After Dark multiple times. Bette Midler appeared on the cover of three issues beginning with this one. It was May 1971 and Bette was one of the most talked about song stylists in New York. Whatever became of her? Almost 40 years later, Bette is still working and making music.

Bette has always celebrated her gay fans and eventhough she was no longer a regular performer at the Continental Baths, she would still appear there once in awhile. Sometimes those appearances were announced, but the best times were when she appeared unannounced.

Maggie Smith had appeared in the previous season at England's National Theater in Hedda Gabler.

That season Claire Bloom was appearing at the off-Broadway Playhouse Theatre in two productions. Ibsen's Hedda Gabler is one, while the other is Ibsen's A Doll's House. Each production was played by the repertory company with actors like Donald Madden.
And each production was presented on alternating weeks with both directed by her husband Hillard Elkins.

Miss Bloom is also known on the film screen. Here she is with Rod Steiger in the film version of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man.

In Richard III, Claire Bloom played Lady Anne to Sir Laurence Olivier.

Her first major screen role was in Limelight with Charlie Chaplin.

Fortune and Men's Eyes was in production as a film. The first time the play had been presented, it barely stayed afloat. Sal Mineo revived the play and it was a success. MGM decided to gamble in making the film and Michael Greer repeated his stage role as Queenie.

The cast of the film included Zooey Hall and Wendell Burton with Micheal Greer in this prison mess hall scene.

The film did not shy away from the gang rapes and other forms of homosexual brutality of prison routine that was described by John Herbert in his play.

Wendell Burton as Smitty finally asserts himself with cell bully Rocky played by Zooey Hall.



Another film hitting the theaters was Taking Off directed by Milos Forman. Here is a scene where the parents join in an experiment to close the generation gap by trying pot. Stars Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin, Audra Lindley and Paul Benedict appear.

On March 22, 1971, After Dark celebrated its third anniversary and presented its First Annual Starry Night Award. Keith Baxter, star of the Tony Award winning Sleuth presented it to Ruby Keeler for her triumphant return to Broadway in the hit musical No, No Nanette.

The Starry Night Award would change its name immediately and for hereafter be known as the Ruby Award. Each year that the Ruby Award was given, there would be a star-studded party and I'll present each of those times as separate posts. The award is in recognition of remarkable achievements in theater, films, and music. Future winners would include Mae West, Peter Allen, Ann-Margret, Lucille Ball, Barry Manilow and, of course, Bette Midler!

Part 2 of After Dark May 1971 will feature some fashion, ads, and artists.

After Dark September 1972

When I saw this cover of After Dark, I was excited to think that there would be a whole article on Candy Darling. Candy was a Warhol celebrity who started life by the name of Jim Slattery. Sad to say, this issue was a let-down. It turns out that Editor-In-Chief William Como had a bunch of photographs that were unused in previous issues, so he created a section for this issue called "Editor's Out-Takes".

There is no running theme to the photographs...just that they were great photos that needed to be used. So in addition to the cover photo of Candy Darling by Jack Mitchell, he used a Kenn Duncan shot of Rudolf Nureyev. Nureyev had a film that premiered that summer called I Am a Dancer.

Young actor Nicola Caturano had made his film debut in The Godfather and was going to be seen in Across 110th Street. He posed with gun-in-hand for this portrait by Jack Mitchell.

Jack also photographed artist Jack Brusca who specialized in air-brushed canvasses.

Kim Milford had left Hair for the touring company of Jesus Christ Superstar. In later years, Kim would tour as Rocky in The Rocky Horror Show, but I'm getting ahead of this issue. Kenn Duncan took this photograph of the long-haired singer as well as...

...6'2" Kris Johnson who played Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar while designing his own costumes for the production.

Candy was also photographed by Roy Blakely. Candy, at the time of this issue, was performing off-Broadway in Tennessee Williams' Small Craft Warnings.

The last photograph that I'm highlighting is another Warhol superstar, Pat Ast (here photographed by Michael Childers). She appeared in Heat with Joe Dallesandro and Sylvia Miles.


One of the other featured articles this issue was "Evening Out the Odd Couple" by David Johnson and this photo by Jack Mitchell. Tony Randall talks about a lot of things and for a man who played gay characters, somewhat gay characters, and latent gay characters, he sure had a surprising and shocking thing to say about homosexuality. It seems he went to a skin-flick house next door to his hotel and the story goes from there, "The first moment is so shocking. But, you can't stay shocked--so then you're bored. I went to an all-homosexual one, too. That's nothing. That is nothing. They have a number of all-male houses in Los Angeles. A group of went to that one night recently. Oh, that was really bad. Just terrible. Just disgusting. But also not good. Oh, guys sucking each other's cocks. There's nothing to watch in that. It confirms what something I've always suspected about homosexuality--they don't like it. These guys never got aroused. Whereas in the other, in today's modern porno, these kids really go at it, yeah. Oh, it's awful to see great big guys...definitely not my bag." It also seems he complained about the attitude of these hordes of homosexuals who come to the opera and scream and squeal over and support these broken-down sopranos. Even with all of this, he came off funny and now that I'd read that TV's Felix Unger had said the word "Cocks", I thought I'd try to sit through some episodes of The Odd Couple and put them in my Netflix queue. Nah, I'll just watch Pillow Talk again.

Even though she was working with Nick Ashford at the time, there was still a couple of years to go through before Valerie Simpson and he formed the singing duo of Ashford & Simpson.

Luis Botto wrote about The Mercer Arts Center, described as a cultural honeycomb in Greenwich Village. One of the theaters in the complex was featuring One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Lane Smith.

Jack Blackton was performing in the musical revue called Hark! where the high point of the show was a ballad titled "Coffee Morning".

Producer Robert Fryers is spotlighted in an article by Harr Clein. He produced Travels with My Aunt starring Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith...

,,,as well as Myra Breckinridge with Mae West and Roger Herren.

Kenn Duncan took this photo of interior designer Joseph Braswell painting his friend, model Tony Milano.

Tom Eyen's See Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down was playing at San Francisco's Theatre of the Eye with David Baker Jr. and Mink Stole.

Edward Albert was photographed by Berry Berenson.

Actor/model Andy Ordon would be featured in an upcoming issue of After Dark. Here he is modeling a beige cotton suit from Belgium.

Stand-up comedian and actor Sandy Baron had a cute ad for his comedy album.

"The Most Lavish Bathhouse Ever Built" for the discriminating male was called The Club. Their ad stated they had Club Baths throughout the USA including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Hammond, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Miami, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, St. Louis, Tampa, Toledo & Washington. I wonder if they were really all that lavish in Hammond.

Kaftans were the order of the month for the Lew Magram catalog. Of course the Turtlesuit just looks funny modeled without pants. Of course, I guess if the model wore pants you wouldn't get the idea.

Next issue I'm going to do an issue from the early 80's. Maybe I'll do After Dark September 1982 so we can see the changes in the magazine a decade made.