THESE CRAZY BOOTS WERE MADE FOR DANCING: "SOLLA SOLLA ENNA PERUMAI" (1981)

 


 

Perhaps you've noticed that I sometimes tag posts for a category called "please stop dancing like that".  Videos that feature silly or strange or oddly groovy dancing receive the distinction -  but of course the title is really quite ironic since mostly I just want to see more dancing like that!  Maybe it's time for a change to "oh god, please keep dancing like that"?  Well either way, I'm pleased to say today that I have a fine new addition to the club, and is it groovy!

My friend Eddie shared this video not too long ago - after hearing the music on the radio and then spending considerable time first trying to figure out exactly how it all might be spelled and then where it might be found.  The beautiful, more-than-asked-for reward for such tenacious dedication to the absurd is this YouTube video : "Solla Solla Enna Perumai".  I haven't the faintest idea what that means or what it's about, but I do know it's a hoot-and-a-half to watch.  Not only do you get a groovy soundtrack and kooky floor show, but then everything breaks out into slapstick hilarity!

You'll notice there's a little English thrown into the script - mostly ornamental - but the predominant tongue is Tamil.  Apparently akin to the Hindi-based Bollywood film industry, there is also in India a Tamil-based Kollywood, based out of Kodambakkam in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.  The kooky, gold-booted star of the show is Kamal Hassan - who's big business in his native Tamil Nadu - and from what I can detect the film is called "Ellaam Inbayam".  IMDB says it was filmed in 1981, which almost blows my mind as much as that soundtrack since the film is so heavy with the 70s (and even seems to be trailing a bit of 60s) that I would have easily put it six years earlier. Well, there is something to be said for being behind the times...

An animated tonic for your January blahs.  Enjoy!

- a.t.s.

BRITISH PATHÉ: CHRISTIAN DIOR FUR SHOW IN LONDON (1969)

Ordinarily I wouldn't mind the unseasonably warm weather we've been having.  But you know, I'm "between sizes" right now (which is too say a little too chunky for the slim-tailored shirts that make up the better part of my closet), and I was really counting on hiding under sweaters and coats until at least April.  Guess I'd truly be distraught if I had a new coat from this (unbelievably groovy) Christian Dior fur show from 1969, as reported in a wonderful vintage British Pathé newsreel.  Swoon! 

There is so much here to celebrate:  that Sixties sense of chic, the use of white to enhance the stage presence of the coats, the groovy electric organ music ("if the coats didn't send the customers, the music certainly did..."), and of course all that odd, playful period modeling that seems (sadly) almost unfathomable today.  Frankly, I am living for all the synchronized "jigging about," especially in a chinchilla cape! 

I've written a little bit about Sixties style modeling before on The Social Design -specifically I think on a scene from a '68 Ungaro show used in the Catherine Denueve film Manon 70.  I wish I had a better grasp of the vocabulary of choreography, dance, and movement -  but to me there really is something paradoxical about the dominant modeling expressions of the time that both bewilders and entrances me.  It seems they sought to simultaneously exaggerate both the lines of the clothes and also the terrific sense of movement and freedom of the age.  The result is a recurrence of stiff, stylized postures that work quite well for print editorials (and here I definitely have Peggy Moffitt on the brain) but when applied to the movement of runway come off, well, a little bit bizarre...

It sort of calls to mind some observations I once read in a feature on the Audubon-inspired painter Walton Ford and how there is something distinctly unnatural in the naturalist Audubon's work,  because he was in fact not working from live models but rather from "freshly shot birds pinned into macabre dioramas."   Well, Dior isn't using dead birds but rather ballet dancers - and to great effect in my esteem.  And in my amateur musings on the Sixties modeling milieu I am probably discounting the influence of popular dance anyway. I will also add that Geoffrey Beene, a designer of great intellect, often cast dancers for models in his shows as well.

I wholeheartedly invite anyone with an opinion on Sixties modeling to chime in, or Sixties fashion for that matter (but really, I'm not so interested in the anti-fur sentiments)...

Enjoy!

THIS IS THE BLOGGING OF THE FRIDGE OF AQUARIUS...

Sometimes don't you just think you'll fall asleep if you see another stainless steel kitchen appliance?  Of course the greatest threat of such an acute and décor-triggered case of narcolepsy is hitting one's head on an equally ubiquitous granite counter top.  Last month I had to replace my old refrigerator and found the choices wanting: black or white (which apparently in any other form I love) and of course good old stainless steel.  It brought to mind the Eighties when I thought it was beyond stylish to have commercial grade stainless in the kitchen, especially glass-doored refrigeration units.  Clearly a far cry from the dulled-silver hell that constitutes the American middle class kitchen of today.

Of course what I really wanted was a mustard yellow fridge: please do think sunny Provence and please do not think Harvest Gold - although we did just watch Super 8 and were charmed to see its inclusion in the period kitchen sets. (Still, I am short
a macramé owl hanging to really pull it off...)  What I actually did end up getting was yet another stainless steel model - because, simply, neither black nor white worked with the existent scheme and the last thing I wanted to do was initiate a domino chain of kitchen redecorating.  Stainless steel really is nothing if not neutral. Yawn...

I guess I just didn't know that what I really ought to have done was this: travel back in time and pick myself up a "Match Your Mood" number from Westinghouse! 

I hope you enjoy this most compelling promotional film, one that vividly illustrates the decorative benefits of the company's "Complete Refrigerator," circa the late Sixties.  You'll see it starts off slow and moody as Young Mrs. Homemaker contemplates the winter landscape.  But then, like all groovy things, the electric organ kicks in.  And although it's not documented in the film, perhaps she's paid a call to her M.D. on the way home, since from the looks of her abrupt bout of uncontrolled shake dancing and home decorating, I myself am led to believe she's just gotten a needle of B12 and speed in her butt.  And then soon enough everyone's joining the party.  You will have, too, before all is said and (re)done...

Well, it's a terrific blast from the past - great visual and musical fun.  But on a realistic note, it's a good reminder of what Interior Design can and should be: a world of stimulating customization, a world of expression and license.  Face it, no one gets into the trade for the thrill of spec'ing one of three standardized finishes.  And I think this is one of the reasons I am so often keen on Sixties design - it really oozes optimism, possibility, and a certain kind of freshness and freedom - virtues which are always in style, if you ask me.  And there's something that's definitely out for 2012, and that's neutrality.

And as a matter of fact, I really do want a Mrs. Robinson zebra-striped fridge to match my Mrs. Robinson zebra-striped shift.  More than you know...

Enjoy! xo

Westinghouse ... "The Complete Refrigerator"

CLUB "LES HIPPIES" FROM "LE PACHA" (1968)

WARNING: FABULOUS NUDITY

 
 

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..." 



Listen to the organs, they are playing for you

This tune is dreadful

I hope you like it, good enough, isn't it?

It's the Requiem for a Jerk

Yeah

I composed it specially for you

In memory of you, scoundrel

On your pale face, on the prisons' walls

I'll inscribe myself: "silly jerk"

DAGMAR LASSANDER IN WHITE IN "PECCATI DI GIOVENTU" (1975)

  
 
 

#22: WHITE IS OUTTA SIGHT...

So Babydoll brought this very rich clip to my attention some time ago, from the 1975 Italian film Peccati di gioventu.  Then late one night we eventually ended up watching the full English-dubbed version of the film, set in an Italian beach community.  It's about a girl that can't handle her new (sexy) stepmother, and if I recall correctly, resolves the matter by sleeping with her. Well, why not...  

I think technically Gloria Guida is the top-billed star of Peccati di gioventu, but frankly Dagmar Lassander is the bomb (and bombshell).  Aside from Dagmar's other fabulous films, like Femina ridens (The Frightened Woman) of 1969, it's pretty clear from this clip where she takes all the attention simply by descending the stairs in a high-slit white dress. It's a great look, of course, a classic really.

But what I also love (and kind of hate) about this scene is - quite obviously - the cheesy Casio dance party that breaks out! Of course I love it because it's basically tragic and completely unbelievable to witness in 2011. But of course I hate it, too, because if this film were made just a year or two earlier, there'd have been some groovy electric organ music they'd be getting down to. So I guess 1975 marks the death of the electric organ and the ascendancy of the synthesizer, the end of an era, and that makes me sad. I won't dismiss the synthesizer, I will just say it's not nearly as groovy...

Otherwise summer is here and I'm feeling the cool, collected look of white.  Indeed, it can be a pretty powerful social signifier wearing something as high-maintenance and essentially disposable as white, especially with as much aplomb as Dagmar above. It says: Hello there, I'm no stranger to leisure and ease, I have a fair disposable income, and I'm pretty conscientious, too, to be successfully wearing this stain-magnetizing get-up. So do consider white, when you are feeling (or needing to feel) outta sight. ( And if you're interested in (I think anyway) some pretty fascinating insights into consumer choice and its subliminal meaning - beyond white - I highly recommend Geoffrey Miller's Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (2009, Viking). It's contents are even more interesting than it's witty (and yes, white) cover, posted below...)





THE VERY LARGE WHITE GO-GO BOOTS OF "GINGER" (1971)

 

#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.

 

Enjoy!