Sunday, July 19 at 5:00 PM – Gene Siskel Film Center – 164 N State St
Tickets: $14 at the door or purchase in advance
THE QUEEN
Directed by Frank Simon • 1968
“Bathing suit competition is the toughest. It’s right down to the nitty-gritty. No feather, nothin’, just them.” Shot over five days in the lead-up to the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant of 1967, The Queen eavesdrops on a cadre of female impersonators as they primp, preen, sing showtunes, and turn New York upside down in search of the right wig. The pageant was promoted as a “satirical happening” and “psychedelic rewrite of Hellzapoppin’” mounted and hosted by Jack Doroshow, who held court as Flawless Sabrina. (“I’m 24 years old, but in drag I come across like 110, and I do this whole bar mitzvah mother thing.”) A priceless snapshot of a pre-Stonewall underground of drag queens, gay men, trans women, and performers (including Mario Montez, muse to Jack Smith and Andy Warhol) coming together and kvetching and kvelling for the camera as if their lives depended on it, The Queen remains an endlessly quotable documentary and wellspring of fashion advice. (KW)
66 min • Evergreen Films • 35mm from Elizabeth Purchell, permission Kino Lorber
Screening with…
MEET … BRADLEY HARRISON PICKLESIMER
Directed by Heather McAdams • 1988
Bradley Harrison Picklesimer is your favorite “redneck in sheep’s clothing,” proprietor of Club LMNOP, Lexington’s neighborhood drag bar with the best jukebox in town. This offbeat portrait film offers Bradley a platform to share his hairdo tips, his tragic family history, and his unfiltered opinions about everything from queer youth (“a social embarrassment on every level”) to Mommie Dearest herself Joan Crawford (innocent!) Initially conceived by Heather McAdams as a short documentary on Kentucky’s under-the-radar drag scene, Meet … Bradley Harrison Picklesimer grew until it became as expansive and unpredictable as its subject, an experimental collage festooned with Flintstones clips, hair cream commercials, and all the junkshop connoisseur’s details that make McAdams an irreplaceable filmmaker. “I used a variety of film stocks because I thought they looked cool and I didn’t plan very much out beforehand because I felt it would force me to be more inventive during the editing process,” recalled McAdams. “As a result, cutting this film was sort of like a bad LSD trip with Bradley as my guide, but one I really enjoyed.”(KW)
32 min • Dizaster Produckshuns • 16mm from the Chicago Film Society
Preserved by Chicago Film Society through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters program and the Film Foundation. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.
NEXT UP: Two Films by Germaine Dulac on Thursday, July 23 at Constellation