Welcome to the social design: loose lessons from the stylized representation of the social in cinema and print. A blog very often about the interior design, fashion, social manners, and music created for and reflected in vintage cinema and print. Especially from the Sixties and Seventies, especially Italian, and especially from swingin' party scenes. We're awfully big on disco hippies and the OpArt accent here. Guaranteed, of course, to wander off on the occasional tangent into (maybe?) related subject matter, with plenty of tongue-in-cheek commentary for your consideration along the way. Comments are welcome, so please consider yourself invited...
Seems like we are long overdue for a little disco hippyism here at The Social Design. A friend of mine brought this clip to my attention the other day and we had to have a laugh at what is perhaps one of the "squarest" psychedelic swinger scenes known to film. Well, it is a Doris Day film after all - "With Six You Get Eggroll" of 1968. And if you look closely, everyone is drinking ...um...coffee. Well, it's seldom about social realities on The Social Design, only their stylized representation...
It's pretty apparent Doris Day and the production company are far removed from the psychedelic experience: their idea of a trippy reference effect (and my favorite) is a close up on a stained glass light fixture. The house band actually is a real band, though - The Grassroots - probably best known for the hit "Midnight Confessions" of the same year. Granted, not as keen as The Strawberry Alarm Clock's appearance in "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", of course, but given this level of vanilla be appreciative as the band could just as easily turned out to be The Lettermen in fringed suede vests and ponchos.
What is interesting though is that as this is being filmed, Doris Day's son, the musician and record producer Terry Melcher, is hanging out with Charles Manson and his hippie family, who, though pre-murderous, are most definitely not drinking coffee in a discotheque and tripping on a stained glass light fixture. Otherwise some great swinging beads, minis, and Sassoon bubble cuts. Enjoy!
Now here's a clip that really takes us back to the heart of the social design: disco hippies. (Yes!) This film, 1968's Le Pacha, really does as much so very literally it even features a highly improbable nightclub titled "Les Hippies"...
Part of this vignette anyway is fabulous. And another part, well, a piece of shit. I haven't actually seen the entire film. Apparently from what I can detect it was never released in an English dub and my command of French doesn't carry me so very far beyond dining, shopping, and insulting. Maybe there's something sub-titled out there, though it probably doesn't matter since few of these films are even being considered for their plot.
Plot (or lack of) excused, there's some great vintage style here. Unfortunately it's a bit polluted, as clearly the "scene" has been rendered to serve as a fairly foolish counterpoint to the old detective. Note how almost every guy on the dance floor is basically an effeminate, spaced-out gypsy with a pashmina. (And though I rather like that in a club, it's as its own end, and here it is decidedly not.) A sort of dancing floral arrangement as Monsieur L'Inspecteur makes his way through the psychedelic clubscape. Pity since this blog is not about old detectives.
Well, if you can overlook the obvious bias, there still much to love. The kaleidoscopic intro with the strobe flash on the dancing girl scantily clad in what appears to be Mylar fringe: hello, terrific! A great segue into the dancers ornamenting a club which otherwise seems to be populated with little more than highly-visual ornaments. Of course that bar maid could not look more out of place if they had cast Doris Day in the role, and frankly it looks like they tried and settle for second best (or, as the case may be, worst). Hilarious! In that pink suit with the jeweled necktie. Oh dear. I am definitely not buying it!
Well, speaking of dancing floral arrangements. We actually encounter one, literally, by which I mean the creature in the blue peek-a-boo caftan with a head of posies. Shades of the notorious Atlanta drag queen Octavia L'Ampshade, circa 1996, really. In the film, too silly to be true, of course. Clearly the stylists went a little overboard. But otherwise some great fashions and body paint. Really what I like best in this scene is the controlled use of color and metallics against a black background. It's a rich effect.
The music is Serge Gainsbourg's Psychasténie. Of course we've considered this terrific sort of disco-raga mish-mash before...
Gainsbourg, from Le Pacha (1968)
and again from Manon 70 (1968)
1968 was a great year for electric bass and sitar, which Gainsbourg also married (with Michel Colombier) for the Catherine Deneuve vehicle Manon 70. Well, it really does set a tone, you cannot deny.
Gainsbourg actually appears in Le Pacha. Specifically performing the song Requiem pour un con, or Requiem for a Jerk. Very groovy percussion, I think you will agree. A rough translation of the lyrics follows. Says one viewer on YouTube: "Gainsbourg à l'apogée de sa coolitude..."
#20: YOU CAN'T TURN A GAY MAN STRAIGHT (NOT IN THOSE SHOES ANYWAY).
So here's a clip that always makes me lose it. I hope you lose it, too. It's Cheri Caffaro in the 1971 sexploitation film Ginger. In this scene, Cheri is in some sort of oddly, aggressively heterosexual bar where the chicks lay claim on the guys with a freaky exhibitionsitic dance ritual. Guess I don't make a good straight man, 'cause when Cheri starts thrusting that pelvis and making her (ummm...) "sexy-crazy" moves, I just bust out laughing. Sorry, lady. And those facial expressions don't help much, either. And for that matter, neither do those gigantic white go-go boots. Man, if you really want to make big tugboat feet look even bigger and more tugboat-y, try encasing them in white vinyl...
If the all-too-smiley reaction of her dance partner seems unconvincing, it's probably because he's gayer than those lavender bell bottoms she's sporting. That's Calvin Culver, who will go on to star in Radley Metzger's incredibly fabulous Score of 1973 before achieving perhaps more lasting fame as Casey Donovan, one of the great 1970's gay porn stars, appearing in such films as Wakefield Poole's Boys in the Sand, Joe Gage's L.A. Tool & Die, and Falcon Studios classic The Other Side of Aspen. Sadly, Culver passed away from AIDS in 1987. Cheri Caffaro is alive and, according to IMDB, "abruptly quit show business and now lives in some undisclosed area of California."
Calvin Culver in Score : interesting.
Casey Donovan of Boys in the Sand : very interesting.
#11: THERE IS SELDOM ANYTHING GREAT ABOUT YOUR NATURAL HAIR COLOR.
From Luciano Ercoli's 1972 giallo thriller "Death Walks at Midnight" ( La morte accarezza a mezzanotte). Actress Nieves Navarro (then working under the name Susan Scott) plays beautiful model Valentina, who takes some experimental psychedelics and psychically witnesses a brutal murder. In this scene she's laying low from the killer in a swingin' discotheque. And really, I ask you, what better way is there than in a highly, highly conspicuous silver wig? Well, Valentina is smart, 'cause with all these disco hippies and the groovy organ music, the only thing gettin' killed in here is conventionality.
# 5: THE GROOVY SCENE IS ACTUALLY QUITE MATHEMATICAL .
In film as in reality, a good disco scene brings together different atmospheric components to create a whole far more happening than the sum of its parts. Let's do the math for 1968's "Manon 70" :
