Film Mauve 1
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This week on Turner Classic Transgender Movies....
...winner of the Golden Chemise at the 2007 TransDance Film Festival, this documentary series celebrates Film Mauve, movies not as dark as Film Noir and includes portrayals of crossdresseers, post-op, pre-op, and non-op transsexuals, transvestites, transmen, transwomen, transcendental meditation, National Transportation Safety Board agents, and a whole lot of folks not mentioned here, which is certainly a lot more fun...
Some of the works you'll see...
Detective Philli Marley calls on new client, Mrs. Isabella Sternwood, who has summoned her to help pay off her daughter Louisa’s overdue Flemington Furs account. Louisa’s older sister Maddie, played by Betty Jean Perskie, has learned that her mother’s intent is actually to have Philli arrange a loan for their little brother Tim’s sex-change operation.
Film Mauve directed by Cuddles Gordon and starring Missy Lupino as the title character, a husband who finds himself ostensibly on the run from his murderous wife. He finds refuge while working as a Cigarette Girl in Cleveland,Ohio. The end of the film reveals that his wife wasn’t chasing him at all and that he just liked very pretty clothes. Missy reportedly had trouble filming the climactic scene, as he repeatedly slid off the satin-covered divan in the nightclub lounge
A film by Lady Carole Reid, this entry into the genre’ stars Andrea DiMaggio as Mitzy Goldblum, an out of work female impersonator in post-war Vienna who has signed up with an employment service run by her brother-in-law, Harry Lemon. She gains a job after being passed over twice, but her victory is bitter-sweet as Harry is imprisoned for dealing in black-market brassieres. Andrea said in her memoir, “Never Quite a Girl,” that the hardest part of filming the movie was listening to the incessant playing of zithers in the background.
Another addition to the genre’, Dark Kitty starred Marnie Scott as a bored cat-loving secretary for a talent agency in Hollywood. Art imitated life for Marnie as he kept looking for his big break, but his sultry voice was deemed too deep for girl roles. This rare poster was taken candidly as he pondered his fate as an actress in Hollywood, wondering why his sultry looks didn’t make up for his baritone.
One of the earliest entries into the genre, They Drive by Midnight starred Mary Sheridan as a crossdressing truck driver for Maidenform. As barter for product mention, the cast was able to get a lifetime supply of brassieres.
Maggie Warren, played superbly by Kristine Roland, is a treasury agent assigned to put an end to the activities of a powerful mob crime boss wanted for selling counterfeit mattresses. The "undercover" agent poses as a mattress tester at Macys’ to seek out information but is frustrated when all she finds are terrified witnesses and corrupt Mall Cops. Although most informants end up losing their jobs and forced to seek employment at the Willowbrook Mall food court, Agent Warren gets critical information; that the mattresses are actually Serta ‘seconds’ being foisted off on unsuspecting customers.
Sandra Sternberg portrayed Melba Greer in this mystery Film Mauve, a true story which chronicled the illegal kickbacks paid to overbearing flour suppliers in West Caldwell, New Jersey.
Maura Graham plays Martha Pinciotti, the post-operative wife of a UPS driver who is being blackmailed for stealing hair dressing supplies in Islip, Long Island. Maura was disappointed that most of her films were shot in black and white, the preferred medium of the genre’, complaining that she had such good color.
These and other films from the genre will be featured nightly on Turner Classic Transgender Movies at 8 PM and again at 11 PM. Don't miss them! This is Bobbie Cabot for TCTM.
Film Mauve 2
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...Runner-Up Silver Cami at the 2008 TransDance Film Festival, this documentary series celebrates Film Mauve, movies not as dark or nearly as Noir-ish and includes portrayals of crossdressers, post-op, pre-op, and non-op transsexuals, transvestites, transmen, transwomen, transubstantiation, Trans Siberian Railways, Google Translator, and a whole lot of folks not mentioned here, which is certainly a lot more fun...
Some of the works you'll see...
This movie stars Ida Lupinski as Miraslav Satan (Shay-TAN), a down and out former soviet hockey player who takes a job as a barmaid at the restaurant of the Hotel Sovietksy in downtown Moscow. The movie played well in the west, but the Russians just didn't appreciate American humor. Apparently puns about tips don't translate well into the mother-tongue (which was another story entirely).
Jean Hagestrom stars as a batik and silk screen artist who is having a torrid affair with a sculptor’s wife. They have fun drinking wine and talking all things art, including how Jean’s girlfriend’s slip is always showing.
Gloria Graymere stars as a crossdressing geometry teacher at a high school in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Her struggles grow as the handsome young man student teaching biology across the hall tells her she’s acute.
Andrea DiMaggio takes on the role of a lifetime; portraying a woman obsessed with finding out who keeps stealing her copy of True Romance.
Anne Sherwin stars as a frustrated secretary in a run-down DeSoto Dealership in Boulder, Colorado. She finds herself frequently reminding the sales guys to keep their hands off her headlights.
Jane Green stars as a female impersonator who struggles with her feelings for a gangster, only to find, much to her pleasant surprise, that the guy in the sharkskin suit is really a gal in a cami.
Alma Gardener stars in a duel role as twin drag artists in the same night club. A patron falls in love with both women and marries them, leaving two very wealthy and very relieved widows as their husband drops dead after eating too much Chicken Cordon Bleu at the reception.
Veronica Lake-Huron stars as a boy who is forced by his brothers to pose as his heiress twin sister who leaves a loveless marriage to the octogenarian paterfamilias of the Parker Brothers fortune by running away to the circus. She is delivered from a terrible fate when her erstwhile husband assumes room temperature after a very strenuous game of Pachisi. (British Title: Sorry; Wrong Board Game)
Deanna Derby stars as a young man hired as a decoy for the daughter of a mob boss. She gets kidnapped and talks the kidnapper into returning her and talks the lead detective into taking out a subscription to Look Magazine. He falls for her and she rakes in the commission and the kisses.
Kristine Roland stars as an agent of the Treasury Department tasked with taking down a counterfeiting gang’s Mr. Big. She’s shocked and pleased to learn that Mr. Big isn’t a mister at all, but a miss, and a very pretty one at that. Watch for the climactic scene where Kristine asks Miss Big if she has two tens for a five just before putting the cuffs on her. The Hays Office forced the studio to end the movie just before the two walked into an adjoining bedroom.
Elisha Scotti stars as a young transwoman who works as a sales girl at the furniture department at Gimbels. She seeks help; desperate because she is plagued with dreams of a twin she never knew; only to recall that she has been working two other part-time jobs and had been falling asleep on a mirrored coffee table. She stops falling asleep at work and falls for the company doctor.
These and other films from the genre will be featured nightly on Turner Classic Transgender Movies at 10 PM and again at 4 AM. Don't miss them! This is Bobbie Cabot for TCTM.