Salome's Last Dance (1988)

Currently selling for over $100 on eBay, copies of Salome's Last Dance are not easy of cheap to come by. Truly a cult classic. A few years ago it was available from Netflix, but no more.For those lucky enough to see the film (which I will not discuss) what awaits is a series of set pieces and costumes that manage to merge the magic of theater with that of Cinema. If you are in the right state of mind, few movies are as enjoyable to watch as this one... truly captivating.If you do choose to see Salome, please do others the favor of re-selling the DVD when you are done with it - think of it as a security deposit. The sound and picture quality of the DVD version is quite good. If you liked the Giger scenes in Alien, this movie is likely for you.

This film is actually an Oscar Wilde's stage play adaptation on film, so it won't appeal easily to ordinary film-buffs. This plus its controversial subject matter (commentary on religions, naughty humour, study of seducing, nudity), the old-fashioned style & dialogues will propably turn down many. Their loss. Ken Russel is for once more intelligent and even though a bit unreasonably obsessive with some key-phrases of Salome, his trademark visual style are still evident in this one as well. So, this ain't only for Ken Russel's fans, but also to any lover of true cinema. In these years of Hollywood films, it's not violence or nudity itself that offends. It's the way they are presented. In a typical Hollywood flick nudity (female, of course) as well as violence is shown to make the viewer feel better. In 'Salome's last dance', this is not the case, because its way is not something you're used to.

Oscar Wilde, who wrote the stage play "Salome", was one of the greatest wits of his time, but lived a lifestyle that created continuous controversy in the society in which he lived. Today he is perhaps best known for authorship of "The Ballard of Reading Jail", which was written during one of the times when he was in prison following a direct confrontation with the government of the time. When he wrote "Salome" it was banned for a time by the English stage censorship and, even though it can be a most rewarding performance to watch, stage productions of it are still relatively infrequent. Consequently many people today are more familiar with the bowdlerised opera which was based on the play and was composed by Richard Strauss. The opera has been filmed by at least two major directors, but for the cinematographic enthusiast there is also this very noteworthy film, directed by Ken Russell, which is much more closely based on Wilde's play. In my opinion this film is dramatically far superior to the rather pathetic opera, and is very worth while seeking out by anyone interested. Basically it exploits the psychological tensions which may have existed in King Herod's court, and which could have accounted for the demand by Salome for the head of John the Baptist on a platter; the story that is so baldly reported in the Bible. The scenario of this film is set in a brothel where Oscar Wilde is treated to an illegal birthday performance of his play, acted by friends who include some of the employees of the host establishment. This choice of venue has upset many critics but it is totally irrelevant to the play - it is helpful for a modern viewer to remember that, at the time in which this film is set, Oscar Wilde and his literary friends would meet regularly to present impromptu performances of works they had written, basically as a quality control procedure for the final product they eventually published; and this film simply exploits the practice. It is essentially a film of a play, with the story associated with the presentation of the play added to maintain cinematographic interest. Ken Russell is a controversial director but although the film is not without faults, the overall quality is outstanding, the cast is superb, and there are particularly memorable performances by Glenda Jackson as Queen Herodias and by Imogen Millais-Scott (who shows the capability of looking any age between thirteen and thirty) as Princess Salome. Both the play and the film effectively capture the decadence, which was characteristic of the royal courts of petty despots at this point in history, better than any other works I have seen. It should be a must for anyone who has the opportunity to see it.

This tiresome movie is a gutless snuff film wannabe. Its prancing, simpering misogyny would never have succeeded if it weren't gauzed up with fashionable "sexual preferences."Russell manages neatly to solarize Wilde's Salome, capturing and exaggerating everything in it that is opposite to the elements that make Strauss' Salome one of the great operas. Glib, arch decadence is a steamy, mechanical dead end, and this movie is the deadest. It has all the wit of poop jokes and pornographic caricatures of the Mona Lisa.D. H. Lawrence was contemptuous of decadence. The "marriage" of Lawrence and Russell was a rape, folks. And Lawrence was dead.