Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan't be forgotten.

We are less than two weeks away from "Gay Xmas" aka Gay Pride in London, and our outfits are all done and sorted. We can only hope that this new heatwave has subsided by then, otherwise we'll look less-than-glamorous, bathed in sweat...

Speaking of all things gay, we're well overdue another faboo classic film review by the lovely "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" Mr Steve Hayes - and when I saw his latest was one of the great British gay films of the 1980s [cf. Maurice, My Beautiful Laundrette], that coincided with my own coming-out, I whooped with joy! Some of the quotes alone are timeless:

Guy Bennett: "But you couldn't help it, could you? Because in your heart of hearts, like Barclay and Delahay and Fowler and Menzies, you still believe, in spite of your talk of equality and fraternity, you still believe some people are better than others because of the way they make love. Now, think of that for a lifetime. Think of the names: pansy, nancy, fairy, fruit, brown-nose."

Menzies: "You'd better take a pull on yourself, Guy!"
Guy Bennett: "I'd rather do it with you."

Fowler: "I have half a mind to ask Barclay for permission to beat you!"
Tommy Judd: "Well, you've half a mind. We can all agree on that."

Guy Bennett: "Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan't be forgotten."

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Another Country 1984 Review

Wonderful...

Another Country is currently available to watch on YouTube - catch it while you can!

Get me a bromide - and put some gin in it

It's International Women's Day today, dear reader.

What better way to celebrate than with the faboo Steve Hayes aka "Tired Old Queen at the Movies", and his review of an all-time (camp) classic movie, that features an all-female cast..?

Steve Hayes: Tired Old Queen at the Movies - The Women

Now there's a film that is an eternal source of quotable quotes:

• "You simply must see my hairdresser, I DETEST whoever does yours."
• "She’s got those eyes that run up and down a man like a searchlight."
• "Get me a bromide - and put some gin in it."
• "He almost stood me up for his wife!"
• "Isn’t that (nail polish) divine? Jungle red!" "Looks like you’ve been tearing at somebody's throat!"
• "Oh, poor creatures. They’ve lost their equilibrium because they’ve lost their faith in love. Oh l’amour, l’amour."
• "Where I spit no grass grows ever!"
• "Oh, she can’t help it. It’s just her tough luck that she wasn’t born deaf and dumb."
• "When anything I wear doesn’t please Stephen, I take it off."
• "There is a name for you, ladies, but it isn’t used in high society... outside of a kennel!"

Love it!

Come down to the boathouse, dear Sir

It is LGBT+ History Month here in the UK!

I'm on the hunt for interesting events to attend this month - but in the meantime, here's the irrepressible Steve Hayes aka "Tired Old Queen at the Movies", with an all-time gay classic (and favourite of mine):

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Maurice

One of the sexiest films ever made...

More Maurice

Giving thanks for Fred and Ginger

Having a very quiet, laid-back day today, as a Sunday should be. [I was going to tackle the leaf-strewn garden, but it's been drizzling and miserable, and threatening rain all day...]

With that in mind - how about an old tradition? An ironing film!

Who better to introduce it, but the irrepressible Steve Hayes aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies?

Tired Old Queen at the Movies: Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway

Superb.

We are NOT going up that staircase together!

Fuck "mortal sin". Let's go to the movies - with a Tired Old Queen!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Bette Davis in Dark Victory

Oh, how we love a bit of melodrama - especially with our Patron Saint Miss Bette Davis chewing the scenery!

Something happens to a woman when she isn't wanted... something dreadful!

After the promise of a nice weekend - with the brilliant sunshine yesterday while I was in the office - today it's grey and humid and drizzly out there. Of course.

Never mind, eh? A little visit from Steve Hayes, aka the Tired Old Queen at the Movies, is always a great pick-me up - especially when he's getting his teeth into a camp old Joan Crawford movie...

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Joan Crawford in Possessed

Faboo!

Fact: Miss Crawford departed, to cause mayhem no doubt, for Fabulon 45 years ago on Tuesday.

Madam!

It is the season when just about all the main channels start to trot out all the feature fims to fill their schedules - some blockbusters, and loads of classics.

Here to guide us through one of the latter (that's bound to crop up somewhere over the Xmas/New Year period) is our favourite camp film enthusiast Steve Hayes, aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies - so Go! On! With! The! Showwww!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Ethel Merman in CALL ME MADAM

Love it...

Season of the Old Queen?

Winter is officially on our doorstep...

'Tis the season of witches, bitches, werewolves and zombies again. Hallowe'en, Samhain, Calan Gaeaf, Dziady - the only time of the year anyone gives a stuff about pumpkins or toffee-apples...

It's also the season for horror B-movies - and here's Steve Hayes aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies with one of his favourites!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - The Deadly Mantis

Happy haunting, peeps!

---

Footnote:

For my sister...

The Return of Count Yorga

...it's traditional...

She could always throw her legs up in the air higher than any of us... and wider

What better way to spend an intermittently-sunny-but-mainly-overcast Sunday than in the company of the faboo Steve Hayes, reviewing in his own inimitable way one of our all-time favourite films here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the uber-camp Evil Under the Sun?

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun

Perfection.

Of fuchsias, film reviews and family

Our hardiest-of-hardy fuchsias, "CJ Howlett" merely shrugs off the grey, drizzly weather (as it did our miserable Spring)...

It's been a lovely (if somewhat draining) weekend as The Mother ventured to London, the first time we'd seen her in more than eighteen months! I think she enjoyed it - she loved the company, the hugs, the chit-chat, the pub lunch, the visit to Zandra Rhodes' Fashion and Textile Museum, the cakes and scones, and our garden.

After all that, I think we need to just mong out on the the sofa and wallow in some tacky old movie or other. Who better to be our guide in such matters than Steve Hayes aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies?!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Dorothy Lamour in Hurricane

Campness abounds!

"This crocodile has lost its Croc!"

I despair of this bloody "new improved" Blogger system. Having steadfastly and regularly reported it as a fault, the "Reading List" feed is still bollocksed-up - make one small retrospective tweak to a previously published post [in today's case my "250th birthday wishes to Beethoven" one from last Wednesday], and boom! It's at the top of the list, as if it were a new post. I have no idea where these error reports actually go when one sends them, but it would appear no-one treats them with any sort of urgency, otherwise this might have been fixed months ago...

Sigh. Rant (#754 in a series) over.

Let's escape for a moment with a long-overdue visit to the faboo "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" Mr Steve Hayes, as he gives us his inimitable overview of one of our favourite films here at Dolores Delargo Towers [which will more than likely turn up in the TV schedules over the Festering Season, as it usually does]...

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Death On The Nile

Such a joy...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again

The beginning of December is depressing in so many ways - World AIDS Day, the meteorological advent of Winter proper and, inevitably, the time when despondent shoppers and radio listeners start being "treated" to the endless dross that is Xmas music from now until doomsday. It's dark and gloomy, and eminently suitable for an appearance by one of the most sinister of Alfred Hitchcock movies, the adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca - and who better to give us a faboo introduction to that film than Steve Hayes, aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies?!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Rebecca

Just think - "The Second Mrs DeWinter" might have been a whole lot different had she been played by another actress who auditioned, in a list that included Vivien Leigh, Margaret Sullavan, Loretta Young, Anne Baxter ...or Nova Pilbeam (who?!)

She had to shut her eyes to shame

Ten years? Can it be that long since we first stumbled across the genius that is Steve Hayes - Tired Old Queen at the Movies, and his quirkily camp movie reviews?

As we sing a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday to You", let us settle down and wallow in his take on a true classic romantic melodrama...

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Back Street

Oh, Sweet Youth

Totty of the Day. This day, or any day.

"He had such sweet nipples!" Yes, our beloved "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" Steve Hayes is at it again - taking on Tennessee Williams's often overlooked 1957 movie adaptation Sweet Bird of Youth [starring the gorgeous Paul Newman, Miss Geraldine Page, Miss Shirley Knight, and the gruff Ed Begley] in his own indomitable way...

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Sweet Bird of Youth

"Well, this much I do remember: That I like bodies...

...to be silky-smooth, hard gold."

Amen, sister!

It's nobody's god damned business but my own

So the countdown to the weekend's Gay Xmas continues...

Who better to join in our celebrations in advance of the Big Day than the fantabulosa Steve Hayes aka "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" - here paying his estimable tribute to one of our favourites, the groundbreaking gay movie The Boys In The Band?

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - The Boys In The Band

Superb!

More Boys in the Band here and here.

Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still, but he told us where we stand

Yesterday's weird weather over London and much of the UK - the skies turned an eerie yellow early afternoon, it went quite dark for several hours, and the sun was fetching shade of vermilion - was apparently due to a load of dirt, smoke and Saharan sand being sucked up into the atmosphere by the actions of Hurricane Ophelia.



Of course, that isn't quite how some people wanted to interpret it, and the inevitable "social meejah frenzy" was whipped up by the press - phrases such as "apocalypse", "the end of the world" and "Nibiru" were being bandied about, just about overtaking the words "me", "Taylor Swift in a kebab shop" and "Trump" as topics of conversation by teatime.

Well, if you want an apocalyptic vision, what could be better than that 1950s Cold War-Sci-Fi mastwerwork of paranoia The Day The Earth Stood Still? And who better to present this classic than the "Tired Old Queen" himself, Steve Hayes?

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - The Day The Earth Stood Still

Red skies over London

There ain't a thing that's wrong with any man here

It is Sunday, a day when I traditionally indulge in BBC Radio 2's all-day "Our Kind of Music"-fest - which, of course, includes songs from the musicals...

And, as Steve Hayes aka "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" is here to explain, they don't get much gayer than South Pacific!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - South Pacific

Mitzi Gaynor, lurid Technicolour, timeless songs, hunky boys and Bali Ha'i - what more could you want?

South Pacific on IMDB

Our kind of scheduling

Time for a bit of classic cinema, methinks.

I haven't checked the TV schedules over the Festering Season, as I fear I will be sorely disappointed - with the combined resources of the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, Sky and more cable channels than you can shake a stick at, what's the betting that whenever we switch the telly on, there'll be a murder, wedding, shocking revelation or tragic accident in all the soaps, repeats of Only Fools and Horses, makeover shows, festive parties with non-entities from The Only Way is Essex, or a Christmas special of Freaky Eaters - and I very much doubt there'll be much room for "our kind of movie"...

So let's allow the effervescent Steve Hayes, the "Tired Old Queen at the Movies", to show us a little of what we'll be missing - as he features Holiday with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Lew Ayres!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Holiday

Nostalgic, moi?

No monster, he

It is the 105th anniversary today of the birth of British director James Whale, most famous for his seminal early horror movies such as Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein.

Mr Whale scandalised Hollywood in the "Hay's Code"-era by refusing to compromise or cover up the fact he was gay, and, perhaps because of this (and political interference in films he produced) his mainstream movie opportunities largely dried up by the 1940s. He retired from film-making and concentrated on his other loves: men, theatre and art. Sadly, in pain and debilitated, he later committed suicide in his pool.

Many decades later the biographical (and Oscar-winning) movie Gods and Monsters, with the sublime Serena (Sir Ian) McKellen as Mr Whale, focused on those latter days - and became a gay classic.





Inevitably, of course, this has a lot to do with gorgeous co-star Brendan Fraser - effortlessly sexy as the young gardener who grabs the eye of the old man in his lonely isolation - as much as the Oscar-nominated performances of Serena and Miss Lynn Redgrave.

Let us turn (as we regularly do) to Steve Hayes - "Tired Old Queen At The Movies" - to provide us with a most a fitting tribute to this fabulous film:

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Gods and Monsters

James Whale (22nd July 1889 – 29th May 1957)

Gods and Monsters (1998)

Very Important Person

It is, sadly, three years since the death of the eternally radiant Dame Elizabeth Taylor. Such a loss.

Here, by way of a tribute, is another enthusiastically camp panegyric by Steve Hayes (Tired Old Queen at the Movies) on one of her classic films - The VIPs!

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - The V.I.P.s

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (27th February 1932 – 23rd March 2011)