Salome's Last Dance

Description

A cult favorite from director Ken Russell. In a candle-lit Victorian brothel, playwright Oscar Wilde sips champage as pretty prositutes enact his latest play, "Salome," about the temptress responsible for the death of John the Baptist. As Salome performs her Dance of the Seven Veils, life begins to imitate art and the story becomes a mirror of the life of its author. Features: Audio commentary with director Ken Russell, Theatrical Trailer, Scene Access

Customer Reviews:

The Original Camp Classic!.......2007-09-01

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!

A Word for Word Interpretation of Wilde's Salome.......2006-12-30

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

Oh please, someone re-release this film on DVD!.......2006-11-16

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.

May it indeed be the last.......2005-12-01

It's interesting to see this movie getting so many good reviews, because among my friends, it's known as the film that's only bearable to watch on fast-forward.

This film is sensationalist, yet boring--it attempts to follow in the steps of Jarmann, but is not nearly so inventive.

The person playing Salome was horrible, reducing her wonderfully paradoxical character in Wilde's play to nothing more than a Lolita knock-off with an oral fixation, with only one tone of voice for all of her lines.

Most of the sequences actually relating to Oscar Wilde were historically wrong--which could be borne easily enough--but also unimaginatively vulgar, and demeaning--which cannot. I wouldn't be surprised if the take on Wilde and his circle portrayed here was based in large part on "Teleny"--an "erotic novel" (I use both terms loosely) that has popularly been attributed to him, but which was most likely a simple (and poor) imitation of his style.

This film might be interesting as a curiousity, but it does Wilde's beautiful play no justice.

Please re-release this movie on DVD!!!!.......2005-07-18

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

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