Wonderland Burlesque's Down The Rabbit Hole: Book of Love

Wonderland Burlesque's

 Down The Rabbit Hole:

Book of Love

Down The Rabbit Hole merely places a spotlight on something slightly unusual that's caught my interest. With the help of Wikipedia, YouTube, and other sites, I gather information and learn something new about something classic.

Today, we take a look at the musical legacy of gender-identity dance pioneers, Book of Love.

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From Wikipedia:

Book of Love was an American synth-pop and electronic band, formed in 1983 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and later based in New York City. Led by vocalist Susan Ottaviano, the band also includes keyboardists Ted Ottaviano, Lauren Roselli and Jade Lee. The band gained its first exposure as the opening act for two Depeche Mode tours in 1985 and 1986. The group has been described by the Houston Press as "forward thinking" for lyrics dealing with sexual orientation and gender roles.

The Book of Love discography consists of four studio albums, three compilation album, fourteen singles, and one promo only single released on Sire Records, or Reprise Records, as well as nine music videos.

Their biggest success came on the US dance charts, placing seven singles in the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart between 1985 and 1993. The group's largest exposure on pop radio was with the song Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls, one of the first songs to openly address the AIDS epidemic. The song, from the album Lullaby, was originally the second half of a medley with the group's version of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, the 1973 instrumental that served as the eerie theme music of the classic horror film The Exorcist. Edited down to single length, Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls became Book of Love's only Hot 100 entry, peaking at no. 90 in 1988.

The band's music has been featured in various films and television over the years. Their song Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes) was featured in the 1987 John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles as well as in the Miami Vice episode, God's Work. In 1991, the song Sunny Day was featured in the movie The Silence of the Lambs, in a scene in which band member Lauren Roselli had a cameo with Jodie Foster. Also, the song Enchanted, from the band's Lovebubble album, appeared on the soundtrack to the 1993 film Naked in New York, and the song I Touch Roses, was featured in the 2000 movie American Psycho.

Since their active years, Book of Love's songs Boy and I Touch Roses have been rediscovered by new audiences and remixers. Both songs, in their original versions and subsequent remixes, are heard in dance clubs and on alternative radio stations.

In February, 2001, sixteen years after its first dance chart entry, Book of Love had its first #1 hit on the US dance chart when Boy, a track originally from its debut album, was remixed and re-released as the lead single from their greatest hits collection, I Touch Roses: The Best of Book of Love.

In 2013, the band reunited for a string of club tour dates and has since that time been working on new material, frequently without the input of Jade Lee.

The world waits...

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Boy - Book of Love

(Original Mix)

I Touch Roses - Book of Love

You Make Me Feel So Good - Book of Love

Modigliani  (Lost In Your Eyes) - Book Of Love

Live - 1989

Pretty Boys, Pretty Girls - Book of Love

Alice Everyday - Book of Love

Boy Pop - Book of Love

Hunny Hunny - Book of Love

Boy - Book of Love

(Big Red Mix)

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Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: It's In His Kiss, Part IV

Wonderland Burlesque's 

Let's All Go To The Movies: 

It's In His Kiss

Part IV

It's in his kiss.

Isn't that where it all begins?

A caress of the lips. A deep longing. Sharing a single breath?

On the silver screen such a kiss can be captured forever, frozen in time.

Or so these films would have us believe.

So, let's kiss and tell and spill the beans on these everlasting smacks, smooches, and snogs.

Yes, things can get pretty heated.

Chapstick exists for a reason, you know!

Grab a seat on the aisle.

Popcorn at the ready.

Pucker up and roll film!

- uptonking from Wonderland Burlesque

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I Kiss Your Hand Madame

(1929)

AKA: Ich Küsse Ihre Hand, Madame

Madame Gerard is a divorcee living the high life in Paris. Her current lover is the overweight Percy Talandier but then she meets Count Lerski and sets her sights on him. Then she hears from her ex-husband Adolphe that Lerski is not a count, but works as a waiter.

This silent German drama with sound was directed by Robert Land and stars Harry Liedtke, Marlene Dietrich, Pierre de Guingand, Charles Puffy, and Richard Tauber.

While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. In the film, Liedtke lip syncs to the popular song title song. The theme song was entitled Ich Küsse Ihre Hand Madame - with music by Ralph Erwin and lyrics by Fritz Rotter. Tenor Richard Tauber is heard on the soundtrack singing the song. It became a world-wide hit for that year and was translated and recorded in dozens of languages. The English version was known as I Kiss Your Hand, Madame.

Before Herr Josef von Sternberg re-invented Marlene Dietrich for sound films and created her iconic persona, she'd already had a short silent film career. This is one of her final silent films before making the transition. Dietrich was very popular and highly recognized during her years as a German silent picture star.

You can watch this film in its entirety for free on Youtube.

Marlene Dietrich

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A Kiss for Corliss

(1949)

AKA: Almost A Bride

After a brief encounter with the romantic and thrice divorced Kenneth Marquis, Corliss Archer decides to write in her diary that they are together in the hopes to make her boyfriend Dexter jealous. Corliss' father, who served as the attorney representing Kenneth Marquis' ex-wife during his most recent divorce trial, is well acquainted with Marquis - and they loathe one another. When Corliss and Dexter don't come home one evening until five in the morning, Corliss pretends to have amnesia to avoid the inevitable punishment awaiting her. The Archers then read Corliss' diary to help her remember the things. After reading that she was dating Kenneth Marquis, they send for Marquis, who, in order to irritate Mr. Archer, says that it's all true, and even gives the newspapers the story that they're engaged. Corliss tries to tell everyone what really happened, but by that time, no one will believe her. The matter is further complicated when Corliss' uncle, a navy chaplain, comes to visit and offers to perform the ceremony!

A sequel to the 1945 film Kiss and Tell, which was also directed by Wallace and starred Temple, this American comedy was directed by Richard Wallace and stars David Niven and Shirley Temple.

David Niven was borrowed from Samuel Goldwyn for this picture.

Shirley Temple's final film role. It was also director Richard Wallace's final film.

At the time she made this, Temple was still under exclusive contract with producer David O. Selznick. For Temple's services in this film, the production company would have had to pay her salary directly to Selznick, who'd loaned her out at a higher pay rate than he himself was paying Temple, and would legally have had the right to pocket the difference and keep it for himself.

The basic plot of this film (teenaged girl with a crush on an older, more sophisticated man) bears a striking resemblance to a film Temple had made just the year before, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947). While that film, which co-starred Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, was one of 1948's box office hits, this one turned out to be a dud, so much so that it essentially ended Temple's film career. According to an article in the October 17, 1949 edition of The Hollywood Reporter, there were plans for a third Corliss Archer film, to be titled Corliss Abroad which was never made.

This is a movie version of the popular CBS radio sitcom, Meet Corliss Archer starring Janet Waldo, voice of Judy Jetson, Penelope Pitstop and Hanna-Barbera's Alice in Wonderland. It was later adapted into a TV series and a comic book.

Due to legal complications and rights issues the original title A Kiss for Corliss has since been changed to Almost a Bride.

You can view this film in its entirety for free on YouTube.

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Kisses for My President

(1964)

When the women of America join together on election day and elect a Leslie McCloud as the US President, things get a little awkward. Especially for her husband Thad McCloud. He, as First Husband, must take over the job of The First Lady, in the women's groups and garden parties.

This American comedy was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and stars Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen, Eli Wallach, Arlene Dahl, Edward Andrews, and Donald May.

This was the last American studio film of Arlene Dahl. But the first American film depicting a female U.S. President in a featured role. Ernestine Barrier played Madame President in Project Moon Base (1953), which is believed to be the first Hollywood movie to portray a woman president.

British film distributors were so uncertain of the film that they put it out on general release without a London West End showing.

The fictional McClouds are clearly modeled on the Kennedys, which made sense when production began in the summer of 1963. JFK's subsequent assassination postponed the release of this film for several months. Also, according to early publicity announced prior to JFK assassination, Polly Bergen's wardrobe for the role as first female president of the US was to have been designed by Oleg Cassini, favorite couturier of then-First Lady Jackie Kennedy. However, costumes were ultimately designed by Howard Shoup, who received an Oscar nomination for his work.

MacMurray conducting a televised tour of the White House is clearly a parody of Jackie Kennedy doing likewise in her historic TV special of 1962.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times panned the movie, commenting, "All that one can say is that we hope the first woman to become President brings along a more amusing husband than Mr. MacMurray and a more imaginative team of writers than Mr. Binyon and Mr. Kane." He also criticized Bernhardt for taking "a dim view of the prospect of a woman as President. It wouldn't be funny! That's what his picture says."

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Kiss the Other Sheik

(1965)

AKA: Oggi, domani, dopodomani, The Man, the Woman and the Money

Three paradoxical episodes about couples in crisis in Italy in the 1960s. A young industrialist has everything a man could want, but he is obsessed with a question: to what extent can you inflate a balloon? While the professor Profili is invited to the Rossi's house, he quickly sees that the husband is constantly shooting at his wife with a pistol loaded with blanks. And, tired of his spendthrift wife, a bank employee decides to sell her to a rich sheikh.

This Italian comedy in three segments was directed by Eduardo De Filippo, Marco Ferreri, and Luciano Salce, and stars Marcello Mastroianni, Virna Lisi, Catherine Spaak, Pamela Tiffin, and Luciano Salce.

The Marco Ferreri episode was originally filmed as a full length movie, but producer Carlo Ponti wasn't happy with the finished product, so it was edited down and incorporated it into this film.

Pamela Tiffin's voice was dubbed into Italian by another actress.

The literal English translation of the Italian title, Oggi, domani, dopodomani, is Today, Tomorrow and the Day After Tomorrow.

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Kiss My Grits

(1982)

AKA: Summer Heat, Texas Burns At Night

A man  and his son head for Mexico with a mobster's girlfriend in a stolen Rolls Royce. Everybody's on his tail - the Sheriff, the Mafia, and some very foxy ladies!

This American action comedy was directed by Jack Starrett and stars Bruce Davison, Susan George, Bruno Kirby, Anthony Franciosa, Robin O'Conner and Pat Corley

Susan George and director Jack Starrett previously worked together in the hicksploitation action film, A Small Town in Texas (1976).

According to an interview with Bruno Kirby, the original title of the movie was Texas Legend. The movie has absolutely nothing to do with Polly Holliday, her character on the television show Alice or the creators of that iconic show. It was simply slapped on this movie in order to make a few bucks off the phrase's notoriety. 

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And that's all for now, folks!

Tune in next times...

 Same place, same channel.

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Kiss The Sheik (Oggi, domani, dopodomani) - Movie Trailer

(1965)

Kiss My Grits - Movie Trailer

(1982)

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