Cheap Salome's Last Dance (Video) (Glenda Jackson, Stratford Johns) (Ken Russell) Price

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Customer Reviews of Salome's Last Dance

To say the least this is an excellent version of Oscar Wilde's Salome. If you want to understand Wilde and his plays, you should pick this film up. Not many people realize but Wilde and his friends would write plays and then act them out for fun. So when you see this movie you are getting a pretty good view of what a Friday night was for Wilde and his friends.
I mean to say, wouldn't it be fun to write a porn and have your friends act it out with you as the star? That was what Wilde did, that was why he was so controversial.
But like I said, if you are a theatre major or even a fan of literature and history. Watch this film and be amazed.

Senuous version of Wilde's exotic play
Rather than film Oscar Wilde's play, Salome, as a stand-alone piece, Ken Russell uses the time-honored technique of a play within a play, to present a fictional British premier of the play considered so decadent, the Lord Chamberlain banned it from the stage. Wilde did not see a production of Salome in his lifetime. In Mr. Russell's film, the guests and employees of Alfred Taylor's brothel present a fully staged performance of Salome for Wilde as a birthday present.

Within this concept, Russell has each actor, except Wilde, play two parts in the film, one in the brothel, one in the play. Most remarkable of these is Imogen Millais-Scott who, the first time we see her, is a very timid, slightly stuttering maid, but who, in the play within the play, is none other than the seductive princess Salome. Besides having an intriguing face that can look thirteen one minute and sixty the next, she has a melodious, slightly odd speaking voice and intense line delivery.

Nicholas Grace is the sensuous, slightly debauched Oscar Wilde, Glenda Jackson commands the stage as a dissipated, but regal queen Herodias/Lady Alice, and Stratford Johns gives a detailed characterization as Herod/Alfred Taylor (the owner of the brothel). Russell himself appears with a fairly sizeable spoken role.

There are only two extra features on this DVD: the inevitable trailers (not particularly interesting) and a commentary by the director Ken Russell which is both fascinating and enlightening. Mr. Russell readily describes his creative process, explains some of the choices he made in the film, and relates a few interesting anecdotes about the actors, all the while dropping bits of information about the music he chose for the film and why.

This is not an appropriate film for children. It contains nudity, some crude gestures, and sexual situations.

Unique Vortex of Oddity!
Much is made of risque film director's, loathe them or love them they are the ones mainstream Hollywood hacks very often "borrow" heavily from. And in doing so receive undo praise for innovention. Ken Russell is innovention personified! Like Cronenberg, Lynch and Alan Parker, he isn't afraid to takes the risks nessessary to make a highly provacative and compelling film. Salome's Last Dance is innovative, provacative, literate and well acted; brilliantly lensed on a miniscule budget (probably the budget of Spielberg's hair products durring one of his productions). Much praise to the lead actress, who's performance is nothing short of amazing! Grace as Wilde is particularly underappreciated in a subtle, yet alarmingly perverse performance that gives Stephen Fry's (in a different film) a run for his Wilde money. Odd, but sincere; bizarre, yet unique; I highly recommend t his rarely seen little gem!!!