Salome’s Last Dance *** (1988, Glenda Jackson, Stratford Johns, Nickolas Grace, Douglas Hodge, Imogen Millais-Scott) – Classic Movie Review 7127

‘NOTORIOUS, SCANDALOUS, WILDE!’ Writer-director Ken Russell takes a walk on the Wilde side and again challenges our good will and his actors’ stamina in his provocative and colourful, sometimes amusing and inventive, sometimes silly and repellent, 1988 biographical extravaganza Salome’s Last Dance.

Nickolas Grace stars as Oscar Wilde, who reclines in a kitsch high-class house of ill repute while its owner Alfred Taylor (Stratford Johns) puts on his play Salome on Guy Fawkes Day 1892 with parts played by prostitutes, Wilde’s lover Bosey, Alfred Taylor and Lady Alice.

Johns also plays Herod in the play, Glenda Jackson plays Lady Alice and Herodias in the play, Douglas Hodge plays Lord Alfred ‘Bosey’ Douglas and John the Baptist in the play, Imogen Millais-Scott plays Rose and Salome in the play, and Denis Lill plays and Tigellenus in the play.

Salome’s Last Dance is exuberant, amateurish, tacky, weird and vulgar, but everybody tries hard to please in a spirited, appropriately decadent kind of way. Russell gets in on the act as the brothel photographer Kenneth and a Cappadocian in the play. Why didn’t Russell film a straight version of this wonderful Wilde play?

Salome’s Last Dance is directed by Ken Russell, runs 90 minutes, is made by Jolly Russell Productions, is released by Vestron, is written by Ken Russell, based on the play by Oscar Wilde, translated by Vivian Russell, is shot in Technicolor by Harvey Harrison, is produced by Penny Corke and Robert Littman, with Production Design by Michael Buchanan, Costume Design by Michael Arrals and choreography by Arlene Phillips.

It was shot in September 1987 at Cannon Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, also with filming at Royal College of Physicians, Regent’s Park, London.

Millais-Scott was blind because of a degenerative eye disease. She also appeared in Little Dorrit (1987) and Theatre Night: Miss Julie (1987).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7127

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

The Peacock Skirt, one of Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations for the first English edition of Wilde’s play Salome (1894).